MANY POLITICAL FACTIONS ARE FIGHTING FOR OTHER VISIONS OF THE COUNTRY, but none has arisen as champion of a school of civics, being that of the ancient school of liberty and of the republican inheritance fully — to renew our political energies against those who abuse the institutions of government. Modern political science (e.g., studies on social trust, institutional decay, elite overproduction) echoes many of our present-day concerns without needing Marxist framing. Pre-Marx ideas of commonweal, mixed constitution, anti-oligarchy and anti-corruption do not require adaptation through dialectical materialism or class struggle narratives, which often imported their own rigidities and failures.
I want to offer to the Americans a competitor to the modern political right, modern left, the current class of political elite (gatekeepers) of the Democratic Party, and even the ideas of Michael Harrington who believed that Marx’s ideas had to be adapted into democracy. Marx is not needed. Neither do we have to copy China. Contrary to whatever our foreign enemies have stated, in particular, Chinese propagandists and Western Sinophiles, our government model is not a failure. Just like China, we also have an extremely long lineage and array of political wisdom to guide us not being utilized, and ours does not depend on a singular will, hero or a few number of geniuses. We are only conflicted within, and our leaders are pre-occupied and corrupt; and when that inner conflict ceases on the scale required, a greater well of political creativity will open. Our enemies and those competing factions within who await with bated breath for the fall of their own civilization wish to make sure this does not happen.
Attachment to socialist and communist frameworks make it easier to denounce or reject you politically; and because the established political powers will call you socialist or communist no matter what (the commonly used argument) does not mean we ought to psyche ourselves into actually adopting the socialist and democratic socialist framework. Perhaps they are needed, as our political system needs competition, particularly against consolidation of lobby and oligarchic powers. Oligarchic consolidation, authoritarian central planning, militarized policing, surveillance culture, expanded executive authority, concentrated corporate capitalism and state socialism should all be rejected. But no singular faction can defeat or quell these over-reaching powers as a singular will. Only united forces in association or solidarity can overcome this political and financial corruption.
Socialism’s visibility on social media as a response to these structural and capitalist failures makes socialism rhetorically sticky, but it historically correlates with reduced innovation, authoritarian tendencies, and new elite formations — problems that Harrington and other thinkers considered. Harrington for example explicitly rejected the authoritarianism associated with Leninist-style socialism. Harrington believed that socialism should be rooted in democracy, civil liberties, and pluralism, rather than centralized party control or suppression of dissent.
The appeal of Harrington makes peace with the democratic political tradition, but it leaves the decay of civic education untouched. That decay can be reversed only by recovering the republican inheritance, and that recovery must rest on historical and philosophical foundations. The established powers cannot reject those foundations without exposing their opposition to them. An instructed (or informed-enlightened) public would then be in a position to judge those powers, and to dismiss them, by the same standards. The fact that “established powers” cannot disown it without showing their hand is a stronger strategy towards re-controlling the field of political language. Saying this does not reveal our hand. Our hand here is the crushing weight of facts and philosophy.
Powerful surveillance technologies controlled by private billionaires feels like it’s outpacing democratic consent, because it is. However, it is not “the system” rewarding the expansion of surveillance faster than democratic processes can regulate it. It is elected officials and security agencies rewarding this expansion, and specific bureaucratic actors benefit from it, while private companies reward surveillance (popular during crisis), creating a loop. You as young citizens still have control of this, except it ought to be approached strategically through new movements and strategy, not one concentrated political force. Many Americans are currently aware of Mamdani and the democratic socialists. I am not a “Democratic Socialist,” clearly; and refuse to fall in line with ready-made programs.
The DSA members have built their operation and have provided their alternative, and as citizens have evolved into mere voters and spectators increasingly losing their power and voice in the arena of policy instead of seeking to also develop alternatives, citizens will turn to such a ready-made operation that speaks the language of democracy. Historical patterns suggest that once the socialists are in power, they are in it for the advance of socialism as a superior economic model. There are different theorists within the DSA, and which one dominates will determine the basis.
The coming political age (i.e., post-Trump) absolutely necessitates an intentional revival of the republican foundations, which we do not have. Some have been solely fixed on this political age, reporting on Trump every day for a decade and more for others. But I ask that we move on and we must, as we did with past administrations and periods. We have no shortage of factions fighting for their own visions of the country. What we lack is a faction that stands as champion of civics itself: of the ancient school of liberty and of the republican inheritance taken whole. Without that champion, we cannot replenish the civic imagination required to check the abuse of government and the people who practice it.
