Looking Forward, Looking Back

In Ancient Roman religion and mythology, Janus (From where we get the name of our month of January) is the god of beginnings, gates, transitions, time, duality, doorways, passages, frames and endings. He is usually depicted as having two faces, one looking forward and one looking backward. An apt symbol for New Year's as we reflect on the year that was and look ahead to what is to come.

Let us face the facts: In many respects, 2023 was an awful year: Hamas’s massacre in Israel on October 7, followed by devastating war in Gaza; the ongoing war in Ukraine; a deranged Republican House majority; more preventable mass shootings. Yet, we can appreciate three critical developments.

First, slowly the wheels of justice turned. Former president Donald Trump faces 91 criminal counts in four separate cases. Though he has done his best to gum up the works with frivolous motions and appeals, he in all likelihood will face trials in New York and D.C., the latter stemming from his failed coup.

He can play the victim. He can whine that the courts are interfering with his presidential campaign. But inside the courtroom, such complaints are irrelevant. Juries of ordinary Americans returned indictments; juries of ordinary Americans will hear his cases and render their verdicts. The courts remain a bedrock of our democracy, the most effective way to hold accountable those who betrayed our democracy. That tens of millions of Americans still believe Trump is a victim of a grand conspiracy is a tragedy; that justice will be rendered despite their delusions serves as protection against future coups.

Second, Trump has stopped pretending he is anything other than a full-blown fascist. “They’re poisoning the blood of country. … They poison mental institutions and prisons all over the world, not just in South America … but all over the world. They’re coming into our country from Africa, from Asia,” he declared, echoing Adolf Hitler’s fixation with blood purity. It is no slip of the tongue; it is now habitual. Whether labeling his enemies “vermin” or accusing outsiders of “polluting the blood of our country,” he has given up trying to conceal his vile white nationalism and authoritarian schemes. He is now candid about plans to unleash the military on civilians, weaponize the Justice Department, round up and expel immigrants, repeal birthright citizenship, turn the civil service into an army of political cronies and hand Ukraine to Russia. There is no pretending he is an ordinary candidate.

How, then, is this good news? Well, Trump’s candor forces the media to cover the 2024 stakes: nothing short of the survival of democracy. It gives President Biden the opportunity to make the race a referendum on fascism. (“Donald Trump channeled his role models as he parroted Adolf Hitler, praised Kim Jong Un, and quoted Vladimir Putin while running for president on a promise to rule as a dictator and threaten American democracy,” the Biden campaign said in a statement after the latest outburst. “Trump is not shying away from his plan to lock up millions of people into detention camps and continues to lie about that time when Joe Biden obliterated him by over 7 million votes three years ago.”) In forcing the country to reckon with the potential demise of our democracy, Trump has handed Biden the most powerful reason for the latter’s reelection.

Third, the state of the union is strong. Crime is way down. (“The FBI data, which compares crime rates in the third quarter of 2023 to the same period last year, found that violent crime dropped 8%, while property crime fell 6.3% to what would be its lowest level since 1961,” NBC News reported. “Murder plummeted in the United States in 2023 at one of the fastest rates of decline ever recorded … and every category of major crime except auto theft declined.”)

And, to the amazement of Biden’s critics and most of the economic punditocracy, the economy is making a soft landing. Inflation, unemployment and gas prices have come down. Labor participation and productivity are on the rise.

“Real wages have risen since before the pandemic across the income distribution,” the Treasury reports. “In particular, middle-income and lower-income households have seen their real earnings rise especially fast. And in the past 12 months, real wages overall have grown faster than they did in the pre-pandemic expansion.” Put simply, “In 2023, the median American worker can afford the same goods and services as they did in 2019, plus an additional $1,000 to spend or save - because median earnings rose faster than prices."

As Biden says, it is never a good idea to bet against America.

The justice system can be terribly slow, uneven and biased. But thanks to heroic litigants, the courts sometimes move us closer to a just society and a more perfect union.

Let us start with Ruby Freeman and Wandrea ArShaye “Shaye” Moss, who endured unimaginable harassment and threats from Trump and his cronies. After telling their story to the House committee investigating the January 6, 2021, attack on the United States Capitol, they persevered to obtain a $148 million verdict against former Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani for his defamatory accusation of election fraud.

Meanwhile, E. Jean Carroll struck a blow for women and all victims of sexual assault in obtaining a $5 million verdict against Trump for his sexual assault in Bergdorf Goodman. He is now an adjudicated liar (found guilty of defamation) and rapist.

In addition, five women and two doctors and later Kate Cox brought to light the inhumane, irrational and dangerous Texas abortion ban that, in some cases, nearly cost their lives.

And, finally, let us not forget the prosecutors - Jack Smith, Alvin Bragg and Fani Willis - who made history in obtaining indictments for a total of 91 counts against Trump. They have endured abuse, threats, criticism and cynicism. Through it all, they have upheld the rule of law, which requires we hold all Americans, including ex-presidents, responsible for their conduct. Their robust cases have laid out a mound of evidence that Trump betrayed his country and unlawfully tried to overthrow the 2020 election, rendering him entirely unfit to serve. But it will be up to the voters to prevent Trump from returning to the office he disgraced.

Other things that made this such a weird year: This year - the 10th anniversary of a Cambridge University scientist saying the Arctic might be ice-free in two years - has been replete with reasons for saying good riddance to 2023. Bud Light heartily agrees.

Some Colorado school officials, with no sense of irony, cracked down on a 12-year-old whose backpack had a “Don’t tread on me” patch. A Florida charter school principal was forced to resign for not notifying parents that she planned to illustrate Renaissance art by showing her sixth-graders Michelangelo’s “David.” A Northern Virginia playground’s 21 rules include “no loitering” at the slide’s bottom.

Progressive criminology blamed cars for being stolen: Several cities sued Kia and Hyundai for making cars that are too easy to steal. In Maryland, the guardian of four teenagers arrested for car theft picked them up at the police station in a stolen car.

California’s third draft of a new K-12 math curriculum toned down the progressivism of the first two, but still urged instructors to “teach toward social justice” and “focus on complex feelings.” Oregon recommends teachers attend a seminar on “ethnomathematics.” Perhaps Oregon is influenced by nearby Seattle’s math framework, which asks, “How important is it to be right?” (Implied: Not very.) A Maryland test found that 40 percent of Baltimore public high schools had no student proficient in math. The authors of Rhode Island’s social studies standards think the Russian Revolution happened before World War I.

In 2023, “citation justice” involved scholarly articles subverting white supremacy by citing research from marginalized voices. According to Pronouns.org, International Pronouns Day (October 18) celebrated “people’s multiple, intersecting identities.”

After being expelled from a Denver production of “Beetlejuice,” Colorado Republican Representative Lauren Boebert said, “I simply fell short of my values,” when she (who says God called her to Congress) continued vaping, taking flash pictures, singing along with the cast and being friskily affectionate with her date. A former (and perhaps future) president, whom Boebert adores, explained in a deposition that he once said “stars” can grope women because “historically, that’s true.”

Provided with 40,000 hours of video from security cameras on January 6, 2021, Tucker Carlson concluded in 2023 that, aside from “a small percentage” of “hooligans,” most of those who smashed their way into the Capitol were actually “sightseers” who were “orderly and meek.” (Approximate number of injured police: 140.)

Discovering something not yet subsidized by government, some planet-protecting communities in 2023 offered tax rebates and vouchers to purchasers of e-bikes.

Kansas City’s “Barbie”-themed pink streetcar was supposed to increase ridership, which is free.

An indispensable 2023 book, The Canceling of the American Mind by Greg Lukianoff and Kikki Schlott, reports that Yale has “one administrator for every four students. That's the same ratio the government recommends for child care of infants under twelve months.”

Northwestern University’s student government offered “mental health support” for students traumatized by news that a conservative speaker was coming to campus.

After the Supreme Court declared race-based college admissions policies unconstitutional, Boston University School of Law student government assured students that BU’s “wellness resources,” a.k.a. therapy, could help them “navigate these times.” Perhaps related: A YouGov survey in June found that more than one-third of American adults under age 45 sleep with stuffed animals.

Finally, in 2023, Howard “Ken” Potts, 102, the oldest known survivor of the Japanese sinking of the USS Arizona on December 7, 1941, died in Utah. Traute Lafrenz, 103, died in South Carolina. She was the last of the small White Rose resistance group whose young members risked, and often lost, everything by distributing anti-Hitler leaflets in Germany. Some resisters were among the estimated 5,000 beheaded after Hitler revived use of the guillotine.

We live in troubled times, but, fortunately, we can also benefit from a golden age of accessible historians who provide insights, context and even hope as we try to make sense of the world and, specifically, threats to democracy. Two historians in particular, Ruth Ben-Ghiat and Heather Cox Richardson have contributed to the public understanding of authoritarianism with their substacks, columns, interviews and books. Ben-Ghiat’s Strongmen: Mussolini to the Present explains Trump’s rise in the context of 20th-century despots. Richardson’s Democracy Awakening: Notes on the State of America tracks how we got to where we are and how to think about the rise of right-wing authoritarianism.

These remarkable historians remind us that Trump is not an anomaly, but we are not powerless to prevent an authoritarian takeover.