Citizens, Subjects, and Socialists
Before 1776, an American wasn’t a citizen. He was a subject. A subject owes obedience up the chain and gets protection in return. This arrangement asks nothing of his character, only his compliance.
John Adams understood exactly what the Revolution was trading away when it abolished that arrangement. “Our Constitution,” he wrote, “was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”
Hierarchy backed up by force may not be desirable, but it’s stable. A republic of free citizens requires both engagement and restraint to survive. This means that citizenship isn’t just a legal status. It’s an ongoing practice. Whether native-born or immigrant, merely holding a U.S. passport isn’t what keeps this thing going.
But here’s the problem: national pride is at a historic low point, with only 53% of U.S. adults saying they are very or extremely proud to be an American. Along with that inevitably comes widespread disengagement from the American project.
Civic disengagement isn’t a character flaw. Nobody is born knowing what a republic requires of them. If we aren’t taught, few of us will arrive at the right answers on our own. A country that stops explaining what citizenship is for will produce citizens who hold the title and none of the substance, not because they’re bad people, but because the responsibility was never asked of them in the first place.
A distracted, under-formed citizenry is a problem, but it isn’t a crisis until someone decides to exploit it. Unfortunately, that’s exactly what’s happening.
NYC Democratic Socialists of America co-chair Gustavo Gordillo was recently interviewed on Fox News, and when asked whether the DSA supports abolishing the Senate, here’s what he said: “We think that the Senate should be reformed, that we should have a more democratic government system, but that’s a long-term change that we’re seeking, and in the short-term, we’re focused on issues like affordability.”
His answer was vague to the point of saying almost nothing, but it was also a lie. Just look at the DSA platform posted on their website. They say in no uncertain terms that they want to abolish the Senate. While frustrating, his non-answer on Fox was an effective, time-tested PR tactic.
Most Americans are frustrated with how the Senate operates, or fails to. Whether it’s D.C. statehood or the SAVE Act, everyone has a pet issue that’s died in the Senate. Likewise, on the “affordability” point, no one likes unaffordability. So his answer boils down to “I like good things and dislike bad things,” while signalling moderation by separating out short- and long-term priorities.
This is the rhetoric that’s winning over previously disengaged young voters. It’s the playbook that Zohran Mamdani successfully ran to victory last fall. But behind the more tame messaging tailored for a Fox News appearance, there’s the reality of the DSA.
“Our role is ultimately to facilitate our empire’s failure.” - Amy Wilhelm, DSA Seattle
“It has to be overthrown through revolutionary struggle.” - Hazel Williams, DSA San Francisco
“Our goal is liberation. Our goal is communism.” - David Jenkins, DSA National Political Committee
The rhetorical leap from affordability and procedural reform to literal communism may be jarring, but it’s the same people. Their rising popularity is exactly what we should expect when young voters, disengaged from civic life, settle into adulthood, face real problems, and then grasp for the closest “solution.” The DSA was ready and waiting to scoop them up into their ranks.
One of the godfathers of the DSA left, former domestic terrorist and professor of education Bill Ayers, understood this model of “community organizing” quite well. As he put it, “There’s power in the classroom, the college, the neighborhood, the workplace, the factory. And frankly, that’s the only power we have access to.” He’s outlining a twisted version of civic engagement. In his view, the actual levers of power and government institutions are out of reach of “the people,” but at the same time, he isn’t advocating passive disengagement. As a younger man, his preferred form of activism involved bombs. Today, he’s a bit more vague on what methods are best.
The flip from politics to revolution is the real danger of disengagement. The longer citizens disengage, the more the social fabric breaks down, so the more they disengage. Others eventually reengage, this time with hostility towards our constitutional republic. Not everyone gets swept up in the revolution, but few are left knowing how to fight back.
The founders bet the whole experiment on the idea that a republic can survive only as long as its citizens stay formed enough to run it. No constitutional clause can guarantee that will continue automatically, forever, at 250 years and beyond. That was always the part we had to keep doing ourselves.
You're missing the point a bit, I think, at least as it applies to those seeking fundamental changes in the architecture and operation of the American national government.
The Founders feared above all else, the power of the mob which, driven by purposely manipulated emotions, could be used by a few to subjugate the many. They therefore vested all electoral power in "the people" (originally only white men of property) and placed their elected representatives beyond the direct and immediate reach and retribution of the the electorate (House, elected every two years, President every four years, and Senate only fully replaced after 6 years). The States-appointed Senate was to act as the "saucer" in which the boiling hot "tea" of the People's House would cool, losing its power to damage and take down the entire system. The French Revolution, beginning just a few short years after the American Constitution was ratified, showed just how much a full understanding of human nature informed the founding of the United States.
The communists and their "socialist" dupes therefore wish to undo the Founders' brilliant product and place the levers of power DIRECTLY under the control of the electorate. Of course, an educated, politically astute "vanguard" will be necessary to represent and execute the wishes, expressed or implied, of the masses. From there, it's an old, dismal, and deadly story.
The source of the problem lies in allowing leftists to take over academia. Obviously, that's not the only issue -- Hollywood and the MSM make their own contributions to the current revolutionary fervor. And there are certainly things that need fixing economically and politically, which I believe the Trump administration is addressing as best it can (given the knee jerk opposition they receive from the Dems). However, if there's one thing I had to point to as primary cause, it's the lack of an adequate civic education leading up to college. By the time they enter university, their Marxist professors deliver the coup de grace: a lights out kill shot to the head.