Guerrilla Readers: January Discussion

Democracy Awakening, by Heather Cox Richardson

"Well, Doctor,” Elizabeth Willing Powel asked Benjamin Franklin on the last day of the Constitutional Convention on September 18, 1787. “What have we got, a republic or a monarchy?"

“A republic, Madam,” Franklin replied, “if you can keep it.”

This Inauguration Day is not the day that many of us were waiting for, and not a day for celebration. But on this day we can still celebrate our democracy, however flawed and frail and incomplete it may be. We can honor those who have served it faithfully. And we can recommit ourselves to the work of fulfilling its promise.

It will not be a monarchy.

Welcome to the first session of Guerrilla Readers. This month, we are reading a steadying book in a turbulent maelstrom of chaos: the LA fires and the brutal cold, the noisy confirmation hearings; TikTok going dark, plus whatever shoes have dropped since I wrote this late on Inauguration eve. If you’re feeling overwhelmed, move over. I’m right there with you. And I’ve brought our book.

If you’re unsure of what Guerrilla Readers are about, that’s easy to fix. Just click over to this post for an overall map of our intentions. Or to this post for my introduction to our first book, by historian Heather Cox Richardson, who may also drop into your mailbox with her “letters from an American.” Here’s where we are today, she tells us in her daily letters, giving us a recap of an important event in D.C. or elsewhere. Here’s what happened, here’s where and how it started, here’s why. Then she brings us back to today again, but with a wider and deeper understanding of all the issues involved. That’s what she does in Democracy Awakening, our first Guerrilla Read of this year.

A few thoughts on reading Democracy Awakening—for the second time

I’ll begin on a personal note—a bit off-topic but I promise to tie it up. Madame Bovary was my first experience as a conscious rereader. I read that novel three times in college and once in graduate school. Each time, I knew where the story was going and remembered how I’d felt when I read it before. But in the intervals, I had read other books, gone through a painful divorce, had a tumultuous love affair, let my hair grow longer and my skirts shorter and moved from the Midwest to the West Coast. Every time I reread that book, I was a new reader. It was a new book, a different book. Maybe it works that way for you, too.

I’m telling you this because the first time I read Democracy Awakening in late 2023, it felt very much like a retrospective—a showing of an artist’s body of work or a book that explains a completed series of events. We were three-quarters through the Biden presidency by that time. The former president was facing multiple state and federal criminal indictments and a jury had convicted him of sexually abusing and defaming E. Jean Carroll. It had been a chaotic time, dangerous even, but I felt that we were on the other side of it. We were done, and HCR’s book was giving me a map of the terrain we had crossed. The title, Democracy Awakening, felt positive, a confident affirmation of safe passage, shared experiences, lessons learned.

The book didn’t feel that way this time. Now, reading it again in the aftermath of the November election and Trump’s resumption of power, the book feels ominously predictive. It’s not about what’s behind us but what’s ahead—and the outcome of the next four years is very much in doubt. I find myself thinking that the cover should be redesigned and the title followed by a big red question mark. Is our democracy really strong enough to stand up to an authoritarian president’s second term?

I’m not sure. The president who is being sworn in has already had four years to show us who he is and what he values, to hone his skills and learn the territory, plus four more to create his agenda, screen his appointees for loyalty, and plan what he has called “retribution.” There’s no mystery about the agenda for his term: the deconstruction, deregulation, and dismantling of the federal government. It’s all clearly spelled out in Project 2025.

So I’m wondering. How will the next four years answer Mrs. Powel’s question to Dr. Franklin, which is also the question HCR asks in her book: “Is it possible to create a nation in which every person, from all our many backgrounds, is truly equal before the law and entitled to a voice in our government?” By 2028, will we be living in a democratic republic or in . . . something else? As I see the book now, as a predictive book, I’m afraid that it will be something else. And that many of us will be profoundly disturbed by what it is.

Maybe you share my pessimism. Or maybe you’re seeing this from a different angle that gives you a more optimistic view. Let’s stop here and open the conversation so you can share your thoughts on this important book—on this important day. We’ve lived in this democracy for over 200 years. Can we keep it?