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Thursday
As we’re currently traveling to Ricker Hill Orchards in Maine for a family reunion—my great grandmother Sarah Ricker built a cottage there—you can expect shorter posts than usual this coming week. In searching for ways to resist the GOP’s creeping fascism—or should I say galloping by now?—I return to something that doctor Thomas Stockmann says in Ibsen’s 1882 play Enemy of the People. (Two weeks ago I wrote about the play here.)
Having detected that dangerous bacteria has infected his town’s famous spa and that the pollution originates from the town’s tannery, Stockmann finds himself battling with the factory owner, the mayor, the local newspaper, and even the townspeople. His cry should inspire the Democratic party and all who are concerned about assaults on democracy. “You should never wear your best trousers when you go out to fight for freedom and truth,” he declares.
In other ways, expect the other side to play dirty—because they will–and be prepared. One could argue that Attorney General Merrick Garland and perhaps Joe Biden were so interested in keeping their trousers clean—in principled behavior—that they underestimated the enemy.
Stockmann’s quote then continues on in a way that blunts its effectiveness, however. “It is not that I care so much about the trousers, you know; you can always sew them up again for me,” he tells his wife. “But that the common herd should dare to make this attack on me, as if they were my equals—that is what I cannot, for the life of me, swallow!”
Democrats are sometimes accused of being self-righteous and elitist, and while I think the charges are overblown, it’s also true that they must be more strategic than Stockmann if they want to win the battle for freedom and truth. One is more likely to build Jerusalem in America’s green and pleasant land if one listens to and finds ways to talk to the opposition.
“Be wise as serpents and gentle as doves,” Jesus counseled his followers. Stockmann is serpent-wise but stumbles on the gentle part. Heaping contempt on possible allies, tempting though it may be, will only get their backs up.
