Freedom is Tenuous

I recently finished reading Five Days in London, May 1940 by John Lukacs. As the title suggests, Lukacs covers barely a week, but a crucial one, in the struggle against fascism. Winston Churchill has just been elevated to Prime Minister just as Hitler ramps up what had been called up until then “the phony war.”

With France collapsing and Dunkirk playing out, there’s another fight going on in Churchill’s war cabinet. Some members, most notably Lord Halifax, see little hope and want to make peace with Hitler.

Much of the public is unsure. Memories of the murderous trenches of WW I are still fresh and they wonder what their stake is in entering the war because Hitler invaded Poland. Meanwhile, Churchill grasps the reality that, with France out of the war, he needs the United States to come in on England’s side. Franklin Roosevelt sees the same stakes, but as savvy a pol as there ever was, he knows that Americans are isolationists at heart. It will take him almost two years and an attack on Pearl Harbor to get America into the fight.

And even then, Americans did not get behind the war to save liberal democracy. Their anger was aroused by the Japanese attack. They wanted revenge.

The book, published in 1999, is relevant today because it reminds us that now, like then, it is not a given that a public which enjoys liberal democracy will fight for it. The Great Man Theory of history is out of fashion, but Lukacs demonstrates how one great man stood in the breach and saved freedom.

Today we have a President who is appeasing another European expansionist authoritarian. But what Trump is doing vis a vis Putin is far worse than what Neville Chamberlain did to appease Hitler. Chamberlain wanted to avoid another war, but he also wanted to maintain democracy in Britain and Western Europe. Trump is a corrupt authoritarian, just like Putin. He doesn’t just want to bargain away Ukraine. He wants to import Putin’s system of corrupt rule by oligarchs to the United States.

Before 2016 I thought freedom was not only safe but expanding. I thought it was the destination of history. But it turns out that it has always been tenuous. The French didn’t care enough to really fight for their democracy. Britain barely avoided making a one-sided peace with Hitler. And Americans had no taste for joining the fight until they were attacked directly.

Today, for a lot of people — if you go by the November election, it’s about half — the rule of law, freedom of speech and tolerance are just abstracts. What matters is the price of eggs.

There is a core group of Trumpers who really are fascists, but the bulk of Trump voters simply don’t care. It has always been thus.

YSDA stands for:

Free speech.

The rule of law.

Reason.

Tolerance.

Pluralism.