Rouse the Sleeping Giant
“I fear we have awakened a sleeping giant and filled him with a terrible resolve.”
This is the quote misattributed to Admiral Yamamoto in the wake of the Pearl Harbor attacks, when the Imperial Japanese had wounded the Pacific fleet, but not fundamentally undermined the ability of the United States to wage war. There is no actual source for it, but it is not hard to understand why the quote lives on, undeterred by the impediment of truth: It’s pretty fucking awesome.
The United States — the majorities that have driven her forward and powered her greatest achievements — has always been a terrifying giant, capable of accomplishments beyond the limits of imagination. We have fought a war on two fronts, defeating two of the most relentless and well-equipped armies of history; we have traveled to the moon and back, by bringing together and funding the greatest minds of the modern age, including Black women; we have piloted the internet and invented the smartphone and been the heartbeat of a digital future. And we have also won against the greatest threat to this multifaceted republic: ourselves.
We never curated northern valor, and so it’s no surprise that we forget that with the shelling of Fort Sumter, Lincoln called for 75,000 volunteers and received an answer that beggars imagination. Battle Cry of Freedom notes that Union governors begged the federal government to increase troop quotas, because they were raising regiments way in excess of the request. Indiana received a call for 6 regiments and offered 12; Ohio was asked for 13, and could quickly bring 20 to bear. The Union was ready to tackle the rapacious South, to remind her that victory in a free and fair election does not usurpation make, and to challenge the notion that there is any right that entitles a small minority of political extremists to guide the future of the country at gunpoint.
If that sounds familiar, it’s because we’re doing the time warp again. Neo-confederates are manifesting their final form inside the Republican Party, and we’re sitting on our hands for fear of offending them.
In 1860, the vast majority of Americans did not vote for Lincoln (at least among those who could vote). He won by a plurality, and a pro-slavery split among three candidates meant that the slavery position outweighed the restriction position mightily, let alone the abolitionist position, which was practically a political fringe. The Union was immigrants and settlers, industry tycoons and anti-slavery zealots, Black southerners held in bondage and white southerners priced out of the economy by slavery. It was small homesteads and industrial powerhouses. It was barely a concept, and it could not have agreed upon anything before the war.
But we all believed in the singular principle that the Union must stand. And so we agree now: democracy must do the same.
Joe Biden simply must set a limit, a target that says that we will not accept peace at this cost. We will not continue to allow these violent maneuvers against representative democracy; we will not stand for these machinations to suppress voters, curtail rights, erase history. We will not accept crimes committed by any person holding the public trust, least of all the President of the United States, because we are a nation of laws and not royal whims.
We will not let the sun set on this republic, whose formation was purchased with the greatest cost of blood in our history. Because, while we have been deeply imperfect, we are still so capable of greatness.
If he calls, we will rise. We have been asked before, and we have responded. There is enough left in us, in this fragile experiment, to defend the embers of equality. We simply need someone to make clear that this is the fight we are needed for, and we will put on the gloves and sharpen our left hook.
Because there are very few of us, at our core, who are ok with being disrespected. Who really wants to mortgage the future of the planet, permanently etch hierarchy into a society of equals, and allow autocracy to swallow the world just so we can share some chuckles and glasses of port with people who openly wish for us to die? Is that what peace looks like? A pause in getting hit in the face with a brick?
No, I refuse to accept that. Not simply because I agree with Dr. King that peace is the presence of justice, but because I never deserved the brick to the face in the first place. I am angry that I have not received the dignity and respect due to my citizenship, and I’m betting that there are a lot of people like me who are tired of being called “fake” Americans, who are tired of being told that it’s ok for us to be used and exploited and thrown away, who are really fucking tired of being told that we’re responsible for our own deaths — and we’re damn ready to let our righteous fury do the talking.
All we’re waiting for is a red line and a green light.
So it’s up to Joe Biden to provide it. He’s the only one who can say that he tried in good faith, as hard as he could, to make peace with the insurrectionists, but that reason has failed, and now force must prevail. We will not be intimidated out of our right to representation in a government built atop a Constitution that begins with the words “we, the people.” It is time. The great Union must be roused again, indivisible, to defend the truth: that all people are created equal, and endowed with those inalienable rights to life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness — and a vote.
