America Needs a Radical Revolution

The Democratic Socialists are right: This is no time for half measures. If the United States is to thrive for another 250 years, we must commit ourselves to a profoundly radical vision of the future.

Our present divisions, strains, and discontents are so severe, they demand nothing less than a revolutionary response – one that reimagines our relationship to each other and our government.

This is a daunting task. Fortunately, there is a simple principle that can guide us:  

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

Though proclaimed in Philadelphia in 1776, those stirring words from the Declaration of Independence remain the most revolutionary platform ever endorsed by a political body. Their radicalism is unmatched because they negate the basic tendency of all governments to extend dominion over the people they rule. Their message represents such a thorough break from historic norms that other ideologies claiming the mantle of radicalism – especially Marxists and the woke ideology embraced by the Democrat Socialists – are exposed as reactionary efforts to restore top-down systems.

For almost all of history – from the epochs of pharaohs, emperors, and kings to the modern bureaucratic states – governments have been potently hierarchical. A small coterie of leaders held strict control over their people, whom they directed as they saw fit. Citizens were not individuals with agency but members of a collective whose ultimate purpose was to serve the group at the discretion of rulers who knew best.

As American schoolchildren were once taught, the Declaration – and later, the Constitution – upended all of that. Rather than focus on the authority of government, our founding documents established the rights of the people. The idea that each of us is endowed by a creator with “unalienable” rights was a political rather than a religious statement: It set sharp lines – later codified in the Bill of Rights – that our government could not cross. Human rights, dignity, and freedom were not granted by rulers, who could take them away; they were birthrights.

A nation whose people are free to define life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness as they see fit proved to be a far more radical proposition than mere democracy. Citizens were not simply empowered every once in a while to decide how they would be ruled; they were allowed broad space to direct themselves, and hence the country, through their choices.

The success of the Revolution, already in full swing by the summer of 1776, is self-evident. America became a beacon to the world’s huddled masses precisely because it afforded freedoms available nowhere else. We became the most innovative nation on earth – one whose can-do know-how has lifted up almost everyone on the planet – by allowing people the opportunity, if they seized it, to become the best versions of themselves. Our founding vision advanced the truly radical proposition that millions of self-directed people – thinking and acting with freedom – were more likely to create a just and prosperous society than a handful of powerful rulers. Wisdom inheres in the crowd.

It is hard to think of a more optimistic view of humanity than the idea that all people are created equal, because it suggests that all of us, no matter our birth or station, might have the capacity for greatness. The fact that few of us turn out to be Benjamin Franklin, Harriet Tubman, or Thomas Edison only underscores our belief that we should all have the opportunity to see if we might be and, at the very least, be allowed to lead lives of dignity and respect.

The genius of America is its abiding paradox: We are the most forward-thinking nation because we are so backward-looking to our radical roots.

America has never completely lived up to these ideals. But that only underscores the radical nature of our founding. The problems that have bedeviled us – especially slavery and the frequent uses of state power against free citizens – have beset all people. The difference is the Declaration and Constitution gave us a set of soaring ideals to strive for. (Or toward.)

James Madison was correct when he observed that, “If men were angels, no government would be necessary.” A free people will often make bad choices – they will exercise their own authority for good and ill. But the Founders also recognized that a system based on the selfish decisions of millions of people is far more self-correcting than one directed by a small number of leaders.

Nevertheless, especially since the rise of progressivism in the early 20^th century,  government has become ever more powerful in our nation. In our complex world, the promise that learned experts can solve our problems is attractive. The politician who has a plan for everything can seem more compelling than one who tells us it will all work out if we just trust in one another.

This helps explain why both socialism and President Trump’s strongman politics dominate our country today. More and more people want government to fix seemingly intractable problems – never mind that many of them were created by government overreach. History teaches that when people allow the authorities to take more power, they will.