Democracy is under strain, and the right question to ask is whether anyone cares enough to make a difference, former Gov. Jay Nixon told a crowd Wednesday afternoon at Westminster College in Fulton.
“Do we care enough about the principles of our democracy to preserve it? And what can each of us do to rekindle that necessary spark?” Nixon asked during the John Findley Green Foundation Lecture in Champ Auditorium.
Since 1937, the John Findley Green lecture has been delivered by Winston Churchill, Harry Truman, William Fulbright, Hubert Humphrey, George H.W. Bush and Ralph Nader, among other esteemed speakers.
On Wednesday, Nixon spoke with urgency about the state of democracy, calling on all Americans to “resist apathy with action.” He also listed decisive actions people can take to effect change.
Join a faith community, he said. Volunteer. Become part of a civic organization. Seek out someone who disagrees with you and just listen.
“Find a life affirming activity that reminds you that all people are deserving of respect and compassion, and finally, vote,” he said.
Nixon was the most recent Democrat to serve as governor of Missouri before leaving office in 2017. Before that, he served as Missouri’s attorney general and as state senator representing Jefferson County. He is now a partner with the Dowd Bennett law firm in St. Louis.
During the speech, Nixon repeatedly abstained from engaging in partisan criticism, opting instead to emphasize issues that bring people together. But he did not shy away from pointing to the threats
“In Washington and across the country, we see … abuses of power and self-dealing demands for unquestioned loyalty, suppression of dissent, the use of fear and force to compel obedience rampant lies and disinformation,” he said.
He reminded the audience that the source of power in our democracy lies not in politicians or violent actors, but with the public.
“We need leaders who understand that the purpose of our government is to help make people’s lives better,” Nixon said, “but more important than the action of our leaders are the actions each of us must take at the ballot box on election day and each day in between — in church pews, around kitchen tables, and in college classrooms.”
When the former governor spoke about topics fueled by mean-spirited rhetoric, he chose to do so in a balanced manner.
“This administration’s threats to target people for being critical of Charlie Kirk’s ideology is an insult to his memory and an affront to our values,” he said. “That also means no more cancel culture.
“We need to stop treating political correctness as a substitute for political progress. We need leaders of radical honesty and integrity.”
Nixon brought attention to a coincidence he has seen between the erosion of public trust in American institutions with decades of hyperpartisan politics intended to divide us against ourselves, rather than unite us for the common good.
“Misinformation, disinformation and bald-faced lies now spread faster than the measles,” he said. “Untethered from actual reality, we are now free to create and foster our own. The more time spent there, any solidarity we once felt for our neighbors has been effectively atomized.”
He called courage the most important asset to achieve. It is telling the truth, admitting mistakes and rejecting violence and hatred in it all its forms.
“Courage is not silencing your critics. That’s cowardice,” he said. “Courage is not bullying the vulnerable, that’s cruelty … Courage is telling the truth even when it’s hard standing up to bullies, behaving ethically, even when it demands personal sacrifice.”
Like the Americans who came before us, Nixon said, we control the means to become more divided or to mend the rift if we so choose.
“We are the great, great-great grandchildren of slaves and those who enslaved them,” he said.
“The first families who inhabited these lands, and those who drove them from it,” he added. “A nation of scrappy strivers stitched together by our ideals, marked by our original sins, but redeemed by the courage and sacrifice that saved us from fascism and unleashed freedom and prosperity — the envy of the world.
“This is the true story. We need to tell the promise we made to each other — that we are still working to keep.”
This story originally appeared in the Columbia Missourian. It can be republished in print or online.
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