“Don’t it always seem to go

That you don’t know what you got ‘til it’s gone?”

–Joni Mitchell, Big Yellow Taxi 

MAGA Republicans have blamed the collapse of our institutions on so-called “elites” who control the arts and sciences and who look down on the average American. In this view, experts are supporting the institutions that oppress Americans through regulations, social engineering, and policing thought and language. Education itself has become a target. 

Wealthy capitalists, along with much of the capitalist workforce, become the victims in this scenario where the elite are the “woke” (people who recognize a history of social injustice), the educated (people who believe that science is the best method for understanding social and natural phenomena) and the deep state (dedicated civil servants with expertise in a wide array of fields). 

In addition to the attack on the educated, there has been a concerted attack on facts, the shared understanding of our current reality. 

The Trump administration has told the world that Ukraine, which was invaded by an aggressively belligerent Russia, started the war, and Vladimir Putin who has had his political opponents murdered or jailed is a good leader. The President has said that the insurrection of January 6, 2021—the violence of which we watched in real time as law enforcement officers were attacked and beaten—was a day of patriotic and peaceful protest. Mr. Trump maintains that the 2020 election was stolen from him despite countless evidence that Biden won fairly, and he claims that he won the 2024 presidential election in a landslide despite it being the closest election in terms of popular vote since the 2000 contest between Bush and Gore. Among hundreds of other dubious claims, President Trump has asserted that the wildfires that devasted California and the mid-air collision of a passenger plane and an Army helicopter were the result of DEI policies. 

It is not coincidental that our democracy is in peril at the same time that what Kellyanne Conway called “alternative facts” are more prevalent in public discourse than at any other time in modern American history. [“Alternative facts” exacerbated the COVID pandemic resulting in more deaths, and led to the January 6th insurrection.]

America’s founders were far from perfect individuals, but they largely shared a foundation in the Enlightenment that believed that science and reason would bring about good public policy and that the purpose of government was to protect individuals’ rights while pursuing the general public good—life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. The Republic that the founders built was an unfinished product, meant to grow and change with the needs of the people—thus Article V of the Constitution providing the means to alter the supreme law. But Article V created a process that required broad support for amendments; the Constitution could not be changed on a whim or in response to momentary passions.   

Our founders built a system that is meant to move slowly; democracy is not efficient by design. An old proverb says, “If you want to go fast, go alone, but if you want to go far, to together.” Democracy is built to go far, not fast. Elon Musk’s belief in “move fast and break things” is not a formula for a democracy; it’s a formula for chaos that in the short term may boost the market value of a tech company but won’t build a long-term, stable institution. The purposes of government and the purposes of tech companies are far too different to apply the same organizational ethos. 

For many Americans, democracy has failed to bring about the conditions that they seek, and for other Americans, we are still striving to make democracy real. Some would have us go back to an earlier point in history for some imagined American greatness, and others would have us move forward into the unknown in search of that “more perfect union.” America is in a perpetual state of becoming, and for many the societal changes that are inherent in having no clear destiny is unsettling. The political tension in America pivots on whether to abandon our systems of democracy or to embrace democracy more fully. 

While I still believe that what Americans share in common far exceeds what divides us, it is critical that we return to a shared foundation for debate, based on empirical facts and an understanding that the scientific method is more often than not the best means for understanding our reality. Just as a modern economy needs an educated workforce, democracy needs an educated citizenry. While education is certainly no measure of an individual’s moral worth, those without the critical thinking skills that are developed through higher education are more susceptible to lies and conspiracy theories and less amenable to reasoned arguments. 

Neither liberals nor conservatives, neither Republicans nor Democrats, neither the MAGA movement nor the resistance, have a lock on reason and truth. But the surest path to reason and truth is through education, and we cannot afford to become a less-educated society if we want to retain our democracy. 

To be clear, democracy is in peril today. To employ the title of Astra Taylor’s book for my purposes: Democracy May Not Exist, but We’ll Miss It When It’s Gone. While we may not have a perfect democracy, the path to a “more perfect union” aspired to in our Constitution is in jeopardy. I still believe, like Churchill, that democracy is the worst form of government, except for every other form.  

There is no silver bullet to solve the problems America faces, but education is the closest thing we have. That’s why successful authoritarians always attack and then control the system of education; it’s the greatest challenge to their power.  And it’s the greatest weapon for democracy.