Henningsen: Whose Revolution

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(Host) Since the election, there’s been much discussion of how the
Republican Party must change in order to reach larger sections of the
American public. Teacher, historian and commentator Vic Henningsen
offers his own suggestion.

(Henningsen) There’s been a lot of
talk lately about what Republicans need to do to "improve the brand" as
the saying goes. Like: reach out to Latino and Asian voters; be more
attentive to women; make better use of technology. My suggestion would
be to get a better understanding of history.

A recurring theme
at Republican rallies this year was the American Revolution. Every other
person in attendance seemed armed with a pocket copy of the
Constitution, which they were quick to quote from at length to back up
the policies they believe would return our republic to its founding
principles. But I think there’s a profound misreading of history going
on here. In their commitment to root-and-branch restructuring of
American government, their dismissal of all who oppose them, and their
willingness to engage in scorched earth, take-no-prisoners, political
brinksmanship to achieve their aims, Republican conservatives are indeed
heirs to a major historic  revolution.

But I’m afraid the model here is the French revolution, not the American.

We
often forget that the majority of great American revolutionaries served
their apprenticeships in colonial assemblies, where they learned that
being "right" was only half the battle – and perhaps even less than
that. To get things done, they had to acknowledge, tolerate, and
collaborate with those who held opposing visions of what was right. They
came to the business of revolution as practical politicians.

Leaders
of the French Revolution rejected the give-and-take of political life.
Historian R.R. Palmer observed of the most well-known group of French
revolutionaries, that "Their ideal statesman was no tactician, no
compromiser, no skillful organizer who could keep various factions and
pressure groups together. He was a man of elevated character, who knew
himself to be in the right… who would have no dealing with the
partisans of error, and who," he concluded, "like Brutus, would
sacrifice his own children that a principle might prevail."

We
should remember that American revolutionaries sought to modify and
reform an existing system, while the French sought to overturn one
entirely and replace it with a new ideal. The results, of course, speak
for themselves.

For more than two centuries we’ve maintained a
functioning government, however imperfect and at times exasperating. The
French Revolution, however lofty and inspiring its rhetoric, led to the
Terror, rivers of blood, and eventual empire under Napoleon. In Thomas
Jefferson’s words, it ended in "the subversion of the liberty it was
meant to establish."

Perhaps the recent election will force the
extremists among us, who claim to be the sole interpreters of our
nation’s founding principles, to abandon their bold efforts to
appropriate things that really belong to all of us – the Declaration of
Independence, the flag, the Constitution, the very idea of the American
republic.

Getting right with history would mean once again
making room for all of us, a concept American revolutionaries enshrined
in the words "e pluribus unum."

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