'Democracy Dies in Darkness' - Or Does It?
What The Washington Post's catchphrase missed
Photo by Element5 Digital
“Democracy dies in darkness”. This is the bold slogan that the Washington Post adopted in 2017. It was recently brought to my attention the other day, and I haven’t stopped mulling it over.
The implications of this pithy slogan are evident on the surface level. Journalism and freedom of the press are the “light”; when the free press is no longer a part of society, democracy will fall with it. When the truth is hidden, we can no longer be a democratic nation.
That’s a lovely idea and not untrue - I would love to extol the virtues of a free press at another time- except I think it truly fails to capture the complexities of democracy.
Democracy dies on the debate stage where Vivek Ramaswamy feeds anarchist sentiments to Trump-loving supporters. Democracy dies in the unwillingness of the everyday citizen to call their elected senators and representatives and demand change. What’s the point, we ask?
Democracy dies every day our government isn’t actively working in the best interest of its constituents. Democracy dies as restrictive abortion laws and book bans are passed, and the ongoing public health threat of COVID-19 is essentially forgotten about in the name of free speech and freedom of religion.
If democracy ever lived for all people, it would die in the spotlight of a nation too numb to try and stop it.
Democracy died on January 6th, 2021; in November 2016, when this country picked a misogynistic man over a competent woman for president, signaling to girls everywhere that to be a woman is to be less than; in June 2022, when Roe v. Wade was overturned; in May 2020, when Derek Chauvin beat George Floyd to death; with Jim Crow laws and the school-to-prison pipeline; on July 4th, 1776, when a document was signed declaring that any man was entitled to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness as long as he was white, Christian, and heterosexual; what did I miss?
Democracy died when the 3rd-richest man in the world bought a newspaper that would go on to preach that democracy will die in darkness.
The free press plays an essential role in disseminating information, but it would be unwise to forget that the stories that get the most attention are those pushed forward by the people with the most power to control the narratives we hear daily.
I’m grateful that Barbie is something we’re allowed to watch in America, for example. America Ferrara’s monologue made me feel seen.
Gil Scott-Heron put it best, though:
The revolution will not be televised, will not be televised
Will not be televised, will not be televised
The revolution will be no re-run, brothers
The revolution will be live
Real, lasting change will not resemble Barbie Marketing or coverage of the Women’s March on Washington or the 2020 protests.
It won’t look like a catchy marketing tagline or a petition to be signed.
Journalism needs a short attention span. Preserving democracy needs a long one.
I’m not sold on the Washington Post’s tagline.
It takes two sides of a divided nation, each believing their perspective is infallible and unwilling to meet each other in the middle, to kill off the ideal of democracy - a place where everyone’s ideas can thrive.
Democracy dies when we forget how to love one another. How to humanize one another. It dies when we put guns over our children’s lives. It dies when it’s too late to save it, when we realize the symptoms of terminal illness have been there all along - abortion bans, anti-CRT bills, gender wage gap, mass shootings, “just grab ‘em by the p**sy,” Clarence Thomas, immigrants dying at our borders, lack of separation of church and state- and we just refused to do anything about it.
I really appreciate this essay, and there is one point you put forward that for me begs more nuance.
It isn't true that my Grandmother, aunt, or the majority of my in-laws "[signaled] to girls everywhere that to be a woman is to be less than" when "in November 2016, they voted for a misogynistic man over a competent woman for president."
I can say that had the candidate for Republican had been a woman, they would have voted for her without question and without grumbling. Beyond that, I cannot speak for any of my family members as to the reasons they voted for Trump. Many cited the fact that "he was a businessperson" and "a businessperson" is what this country needed.
Just as many voted for him because of their vehement and historied dislike of Hilary Clinton.
I voted for Hilary because I was—like many others near me—afraid of the alternative. But at the next election, I exercised my freedom to protest because America has failed to give us choice. A two party system is breaking us (in my opinion).
Binary thinking is breaking us: It's not "You're either with us or you're against us." Rather it is, scale.
I hope this isn't coming across soap-boxy. It's a subject I've been thinking on quite frequently, and I felt safe to express some of my thoughts publicly here because you have created a dynamic and welcoming atmosphere with your essays.
Keep up the great writing!