My mentor Lawrence A. Cremin, a great historian, attributed this saying to Charles Beard, but apparently it predates him. It is always darkest just before the dawn. Just when things seem utterly intolerable, remember that there will be another turn of the wheel. For those who were plunged into depression by the election, here is an article by Richard Kirsch of the Roosevelt Institute, that offers hope that the worst eras in American history were followed by bursts of progressivism. (Here is more about the author.)
He begins:
When we look at American history, the great progressive eras follow the darkest, most conservative times. As deeply painful as a Trump presidency will be, if we continue to build the emerging progressive movements of our day, we will accelerate the coming of the next powerful burst of progressive change in our country.
The Dred Scott decision was laid down three years before Lincoln’s election. The gilded age of the robber barons created the conditions for the Progressive era of the early 1900s. The Great Depression preceded the New Deal. The multiple progressive advances of the 60s through early 70s came on the heels of McCarthyism.
The ground for every one of these progressive eras was laid by decades of organizing leading to the emergence of movements. From the abolitionists, to the suffragettes, the Populists, the labor movement, the civil rights movement and environmental consciousness, we saw organizing in what seemed fallow ground, followed by vibrant movements and then — when all seemed lost — enormous progress towards justice.
To be sure, the excesses and contradictions of the dominant regime of the time — whether it be slavery, patriarchy or capitalism — created the conditions in people’s lives for them to demand major change. Today the excesses of capitalism and the continuing forces of racism and patriarch drive our movements: the fight for $15 and a union; Black Lives Matter; climate justice; LGBTQ equality; welcoming immigrants.
What must we do now to assure that Trump and the next four years of Republican control of government becomes the doormat to the next great progressive era? The short answer is to continue to build movement and to connect those movements to resisting Trumpism, championing bold ideas nationally and moving those ideas in states.
I have met many young people who expressed sorrow that they were not alive during the 1960s, when vibrant social movements encouraged youth to change the world. Well, their chance is now.
It is time to rebuild movements to revive unions, which are at a low ebb and which assure a reliable path to rise from poverty into the middle class. It is time to rebuild a movement to protect public education against privatization. It is time to rebuild a movement for gun control. It is time to rebuild a movement to protect the environment. It is time to rebuild a movement to fight income inequality. It is time to rebuild a movement to protect our civil liberties.
These–and many more–are issues that will not go away. In many cases, sturdy organizations exist and they should be strengthened. Join the ACLU, join People for the American Way, join the NAACP. Add the names of your own favorite organization. Be part of the change you want to see. Don’t agonize, organize.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Republicans will overreach, they always do. When buyer’s remorse sets in, Democrats must be ready to offer an alternative to Trumpism and alt-right ideology. Democrats have a history of capitulation and an admirable tendency towards collaboration. Now is not the time.
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Well said
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Absotively, posilutely.
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I agree with Kirsch’s analysis. The hard part is living through the dark times.
The great German historian Sebastian Haffner observed in Anmerkungen zu Hitler (mistranslated as The Meaning of Hitler, it should be Footnotes on Hitler) that after his fall, the opposite of all of his goals were realized. Without Hitler, there would not have been an Israel, the attempt to annihilate the Soviet Union led to it becoming a super power, West Germany became arguably the most socially liberal, pluralistic society in Europe, and the United Nations was created. Basically, his failures gave birth to the modern world, especially its most progressive ideals.
There are other lessons Haffner drew from which we should learn. Despite the totalitarian nature of his regime, there were small victories due to public opinion, the most important being the curtailing and end of the T4 program to exterminate persons with disabilities. And much like the transition we see with Trump today, Hitler never planned for the aftermath of either victory or defeat. Instead he projected his failures on the German people and even the Battle of Bulge, far from being an offensive to reverse the course of the war, was a conscious first step to have Germany commit suicide with him.
I don’t think Trump is a fascist in the mold of Hitler; Mussolini, whose gestures he seems to have studied, is more appropriate. But the prospects of the short term will be destructive nonetheless.
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“The hard part is living through the dark times.”
Again I find your comments very helpful, but the above line hit me hardest. Hitler’s madness led to real change, but so many people paid for it. Yes, we fight for change, but we must never forget that not everyone gets to “live” to fight another day. Who gets sacrificed while we plan for that future Shangri-La?
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Don’t agonize, organize.
Yes. YES.
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AMEN! AMEN!!!!
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This is very helpful and I appreciate the focus on acting, which I keep reading across my web world. And to forge coalitions based on shared beliefs and interdependence. It is deeply unsettling, but a call to action and there does seem a strong current of energy and willingness to commit.
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The supreme court is so crucial to all the issues which we hold dear. That’s one of the huge reasons why I voted for HRC. That’s all water under the bridge (gate). Who will be our next FDR?
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The left is not listening to the majority of the citizens. Just as the radical far right does not speak to the vast majority of Americans, neither does the extreme left. In fact, enough with these 2 parties! We need common sense solutions that we can all rally around.
Unions are a good thing up to a point and then they become detrimental to the country. Capitalism is what made our country great—you work hard and you keep the fruits of your labor—but there has to be regulations to stop monopolies,et al, otherwise it is detrimental for the country. Stamping out racism and sexism when we find it is important but calling everyone who is white a racist or every man a sexist is wrong and deeply divides us and is racist in and of itself. Americans must start thinking and researching the issues; the complacency is killing our country. It always shocks me to hear that a fellow American will vote a party line. It is disgraceful. I am pro public school and universal health care, there are some sectors that should not have a profit motive, but I am also pro capitalism and small business and want to see a reduction of regulation and taxes for the small businesses; they are the life blood of our country. You should be thinking for yourself, rationally and deliberately, and you should be no one’s puppet.
If people are really serious about changing our country and getting rid of cronyism there is only one way; campaign finance reform, term limits, and lobbyist reform. If that isn’t your focus, you are putting the same crooks in office regardless of the letter that comes after their name. Hillary is/was completely in bed with big business and Bernie never held a job—he is the ultimate insider and he lied more than Hillary during his campaign! You can no longer afford to pull an entire lever, staying out of the fray, and pretend that you have done something for your country.
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Capitalism did not make this country great, it was the slaves and the exploited workers who made the country great. Without the workers, the robber barons would be nothing. Bernie is one of the most honest politicians around and he did not take corporate money except from Ben & Jerry which was a pittance compared to the typical politician. Bernie never held a job? Really? What does that even mean? Being a mayor is a job, a representative or senator is a job. Just because he didn’t come from the corporate world does not mean he never held a job. I wish we could get the billionaires and the billions out of politics. Sorry, FH33, but you come off as a very sophisticated concern troll.
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I agree and for some reason my post cant post
Well said
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Joel, it is posted. It was in moderation while I went for clam chowder.
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So many misconceptions and delusions, so little time…
First, there is no “extreme left” in the U.S. The spectrum is center-left to far right. Because of a pervasive both-siderism, the center-left is defined as extreme by the right. There is no counter weight on the left of those who espouse “2nd amendment” solutions to political disagreements. There are no left versions of Bundy-, so-called tea party-, and Duke-esque (fascist) militias who would take up arms against governing institutions.
Second, the idea that “unions are a good thing up to a point and then they become detrimental” distills the politics of resentment to its essence. I read that statement this way: once I get mine, to hell with the others, especially if I perceive the “others” as getting ahead of me. Twentieth century history unequivocally proves when unions are strong, non-union workers and business are better off and more productive. A strong middle class cannot exist without unions, which is why oligarchs do everything they can to weaken and intimidate unions.
Third, let’s consider “campaign finance reform, term limits, and lobbyist reform” in order. What do you mean by that? Is it limiting funds, transparency, and/or a limitation on corporate funds. I would suggest that the limitations should be public funding, shortening electioneering times (which paralyze governing), and that transparency includes knowing from whom candidates get support–which includes making tax returns public so that citizens can make informed decisions.
We already have term limits. It called voting. Artificial term limits would only make citizens less engaged in the civic process than they already are. As citizens, we do not participate in government except when we vote. Our job is to monitor and influence individuals and the process. That requires civic engagement built on a foundation of civic virtue. Term limits is the easy way out. The fact that we keep electing people who pervert the process says more about our collective laziness and civic illiteracy than it does about those elected.
Lobbyist reform goes hand in hand with my previous paragraph. While we can’t be experts in all areas of public policy, we should be able to find a balance between policy expertise (which lobbyists have) and policy prioritization (which should be in the hands of citizens). The type of lobbyist reform you seem to be suggesting is can only be achieved with an Athenian, citizen jury-style of governance in which we randomly choose citizens to fulfill time-limited functions of government. But is that how you really want have things like education, health, and defense policy made? If citizens take the time to learn and vote for representatives in government who reflect their wants and needs, then so-called lobbyist reform would necessarily follow.
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Good job my response failed 3 times he is in good hands
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I admit I haven’t looked up the data on this, but it seems to me that most those lost manufacturing jobs Trump has pledged to bring back were union jobs. Am I correct? Just wondering.
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FH33, The NY Times reports today that the energy transition team will be led by lobbyists for the oil and gas industry
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Communist China a centrally planed economy where the government owns the controlling interest in every company is growing in leaps and bounds on pace to become the worlds leading economy . We look at Cuba and make the false equivalence between a tiny resource poor nation and the wealthiest most blessed nation in the world. I assure you given the choice between between Communist Cuba and Honduras, Hatti , Guatemala , Columbia … …. you would chose Cuba . Broad stroke statements about what makes a nation great are absurd . They have to be viewed in the total context of the circumstances of that Nation. Including the living standards of the people . From beautiful scenic high tax long Island America looks pretty pretty great. Not as good in Flint or Newark or ….
What made this country great was the natural resources and temperate climate that made it the wealthiest country the planet Not being decimated by two world wars didn’t hurt at all . Basically having fewer entrenched divisions between ethnic groups (a common language )and the separation of church and state entrenched in the constitution helped ,The wisdom of the founders in many respects . helped quite a bit or we would look more like Eastern Europe.
” Unions are good too a point then they become detrimental ”
Those detrimental Unions have been in steep decline since the system was rigged against them in the 1940s . At 5% of the private sector work force, most of that being focused in a few highly unionized states, it is hard to blame them for any of the failures of Capitalism . If anything as that the states with the lowest unionization rates are typically the states with lowest growth and standards of living. That alone lays witness to the fallacy of your claims America was great when Unions were great ,ensuring a middle class /working class wealth. Those incomes created the Huuuuuuuuge growth rates we had till the 80s. The decline of unions mirrors the decline of the middle class .
What regulations do you seek to eliminate, do our lakes and rivers have to spontaneously ignite as they once did . Is it carcinagines you would prefer in the drinking supply . Are the American people entitled to food,medicine and consumer goods that cause no harm or even death .Is it the regulations that prohibit discrimination at work or housing you object to. . Perhaps you object to those regulations that try to ensure when workers go to work they come home uninjured or alive . Those regulation that protect investors from the thievery of boards of directors and Brokers I have heard this nonsense for 35 years from the fools on the right . I thought it would have ended when we set the Banks and markets free deregulated them to crash the economy. Crush millions of American families and than have the tax payer pick up the bailout and even the tabs for their bonuses
. The crony capitalism you rail about has always functioned to favor Oligarchs like Donald Trump who pays no taxes and gets away with theft that would Jail a common man . It is always the Crony capitalists who bitch the loudest about crony capitalism as the buy off every legislature in the country .
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Good on ya, Joel!
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To FH33:
Please CAREFULLY AND CONSCIOUSLY read your own last UNCONSCIOUS sentence of you post.
Are you completely out of mind and out of sight, but glue in with Ginrich’s malicious advice? Yes, it is your “petty” idea that tells me you are who you say you are: “being ignorant” at your best.
Please chide out of your foolishness.
Back2basic
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dianeravitch
Manhattan or New England
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A number of years back a friend lent me his copy of Jack London’s “Iron Heel”
When I was finished reading it, he asked what I thought. . I said I was thoroughly
depressed. ,He said why it had a good ending . Well yeah kind of sort of . I wont spoil the book for those that may not have read it.
Kind of sort of , for those that have , I am not prepared to wait for that ending . The Republicans and Trump must be stopped from achieving their agenda as they stopped the Democrats who had a far greater mandate . 2008 Obama won a massive mandate . 7% higher in the popular vote over two to one in the electoral college . He had the House and a supper majority in the Senate. Republicans were able to obstruct leaving us with an inferior national health care plan and an inadequate stimulus plan. Followed by 8 years of gridlock .
The Republicans hold the Senate by a small majority. The fact that they lost this election can not be emphasized enough. There is no mandate from the American people . By the time the last mail in ballots are counted Clinton will have won the popular vote by well over a half million,perhaps well over a million votes . Add this to the meddling by a foreign power and the bizarre action actions of the FBI, both of which may have been in concert with republican operatives and the Trump campaign. Add a series of actions and statements from the candidate and or his surrogates bordering on sedition and possibly treason.
Trump by the arcane rules of the game, that do not trust the American people to elect their own President, will be the next President. There is nothing we could or should do to prevent the peaceful transition of power. But this is not the time for a Kumbaya moment .
Harry Reid called it right, he has to be obstructed on every !!!!! issue that will hurt the majority that voted for Clinton. I am not a fan of Obama or Clinton but of the majority of the American people who will be hurt by the policies of the right. Kumbaya moments are OK for the political class they aren’t going to suffer the looses that the American people will . A good part of which explains why we are where we are at today.
The only way the Democrats in the Senate will block this agenda, is if there is a massive movement in the streets holding their feet to the fire. Reminding them that they serve at our bequest or they can face early retirement .
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“Kumbaya moments are OK for the political class they aren’t going to suffer the looses that the American people will .”
Yup.
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Mr. Kirsch found an obscure local vote in Ohio, for pre-k, as his example of electoral community success. He did not point out the big win for American progress, against concentration of wealth and racism, which was, the state of Massachusetts’ vote on Question 2.
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The Mass and Georgia votes against charters were huge, to quote Trump
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Mr. Kirscher is reminiscent of the 50 university faculty who signed the public letter identifying the issues of pre-K and student debt, to the exclusion of the privatization of the most important common good, public education. Perhaps, if those faculty and others, close to and supporting Hillary, had expressed the dire importance of not privatizing public education, the Clinton campaign would have had a compelling talking point that distinguished Democrats from Republicans, at the local level, And, then, the campaign might have had similar success to Mass., on Question 2. However, the possibility that that talking point would see the light of day, was severely diminished by the selection of Podesto as campaign manager and CAP’s president as a Clinton advisor. (Gates and his allies win either way- not so, for the Democratic politicians.). When Bloomberg was given time to speak at the convention and, Black, Ohioan, Nina Turner, was denied her scheduled time, it was a harbinger of what was to come. Just a tip for the DNC- rich people don’t have more votes than the middle class and poor.
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With all the social unrest that preceded and coincided with this election, I have always felt a socio-political revolution would be the only way we could move forward in this country. Just read a piece on Trump supporters in rural areas (i.e. the Rust Belt, etc.) that outlines how economically disenfranchised they have become yet how removed from the urban centers they are. Trump went to them promising a better life, and they responded to his snake oil pitch because a lot of them feel forgotten on the national level. The more I think about this, the more I understand it–not that I condone his being elected on any level, mind you.
I still believe there will be an ugly revolution in our immediate future, but perhaps that is what will push us after all. I just grieve for all the victims in the wake of all the damage we are about to endure. This is why we need to organize and fight the radical agendas that are, no doubt, in the works. Here’s to lighting a fire under our collective butts.
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Yes, yes. yes, the sun will rise after the moon is gone or in the existence of the darkness.
I still hope that American people, all educators, lawyers and politicians will have their soul, mind, heart and being considerate for the welfare of PUBLIC EDUCATION that is in sync with our beloved Dr. Ravitch’s pledge of PUBLIC EDUCATION in a whole child education concept for all.
In other word, we will have the sun to rise and to shine all corners of corruption from our unity in action on behalf of humanity. In God, we trust and pray. Back2basic
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It’s also necessary to avoid falling into the Chicken Little Syndrome. The sky isn’t falling. Look at the situation realistically: The problem now for Trump is how to deliver on his campaign promises when Congress is filled to the brim with Wall Street Republicans and Democrats. Here are some of the big problems facing Trump:
Trump’s transition website says that he wants a solution that “returns the historic role in regulating health insurance to the states.” One thing that insurance companies liked about Obamacare is that it made the rules uniform across the nation; it’s very costly for insurance companies to deal with the rules of 50 different states who change their rules with each two-year election. And Trump’s new Health and Human Services Secretary (HSS) could quickly issue regulation changes in Obamacare, such as eliminating tax subsidies provided to help people afford insurance coverage, a move that would be popular with Trump’s base, but which would anger those 25 million people who use Obamacare and drive them to the polls in 2018 to vote Democratic. The new HSS could also try to tighten up the rules governing special enrollment periods for Obamacare that have allowed some people who initially skipped buying insurance to sign up after becoming ill. The new HHS might also be able to alter the language on “essential benefits” that the law requires insurance plans to cover, which include trips to the emergency room, maternity and newborn care, and mental health services. Again, such changes would anger millions of voters, and Trump and the Republican Party are well aware that they lost the popular vote and that such changes would only guarantee Republican losses in the 2018 elections.
The biggest problem with repealing Obamacare is what to replace it with. The Republican majority in Congress has had six years to come up with a plan that works, and they haven’t been able to create one yet. It’s a very, very, very difficult task to come up with a really workable plan that doesn’t look almost exactly like Obamacare. Not only don’t the Republicans have anything to replace it with, they are aware that many of the rural, unemployed, and underemployed people who voted for Trump and for them in fact use and need the health insurance they get under provisions of Obamacare; there are 25 million Americans who currently use and need Obamacare health insurance — and cutting those millions of people off with nothing to replace Obamacare would create long-lasting anger that would impact the 2018 midterm elections and beyond.
Of course, the Democratic Party has a tremendous job facing it, too: The incestuous, contemptuous “leadership” of the Democratic Party deserves all the blame for their brand losing the election. The behind-the-scenes back-stabbing that they did to Senator Sanders is disgusting and a clear indication of how morally corrupt Democratic Party leadership is. The Party’s taking-for-granted of voters in key states like Wisconsin and Michigan reveals the Party leadership’s contempt for common voters in general. And the Party’s creation of “superdelegates” to assure that average Democrats could never prevail in a rigged system of Party candidate nomination shows the Party’s utter disregard for and betrayal of basic democracy. It’s the UnDemocratic Party, and it needs a complete housecleaning and fumigation, as well as spinning itself off from Wall Street and corporate interests.
From a historical perspective, I see our nation at this moment in much the same position as it was after the 1857 Dred Scott decision by the U.S. Supreme Court that was the match that lit the fuse of the Civil War. The Supreme Court’s 2010 Citizens United decision lit a match, too, allowing Wall Street and billionaires to basically take over our governmental system. This year’s presidential election upheaval was likely only the beginning of what lies ahead.
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Some perspective from Pete Seeger, Sonny Terry, & Brownie McGhee:
🙂
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What is that line in one of Leonard Cohen’s songs: there are always cracks, that’s how the light gets in.
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