New Birth of Freedom
All Power to the People, We've been here before
To understand this political climate we are currently experiencing, another inflection point in the American story, we must understand the truth of many of our past inflection points. It’s not surprising that as we celebrate 250 years of the American experiment, this experiment is under attack, and at risk of being dismantled. It seems we, America, undergoes great change every century or half century.
There has been a paralysis of analysis on the election. There are many stats, polls and opinions but what most of them lack is historical context. The white lash that historically follow moments of great progress and gains for black and marginalized people in this nation explains this moment perfectly.
Generations of Americans have grown up without an accurate understanding of the history of racism in the United States. These failures are intentional, and they affect our ability to understand and address racism as it currently exists. We can’t address the problems in our own society until we recognize them as they existed in our past, the root of the problem. Isabel Wilkerson does a great job addressing the origins of our discontent in her book, “Caste.” As we face a national reckoning, as Americans, it requires us to reconcile with our past. We do this best, by viewing it through a truthful lens and changing how we study and remember it.
In this moment of crisis, we are still dealing with the white supremacist dreams of yesteryear. Billionaires crafted an authoritarian playbook (Project 2025) that would blow-up our American experiment, destroying the nation’s 250-year-old bedrock system of checks and balances to create an imperial presidency. Kevin Roberts, The Heritage Foundation’s president, recently said, “We are in the process of the second American Revolution, which will remain bloodless if the left allows it to be.”
In his March 21, 1861, Cornerstone Speech, Confederate Vice President Alexander H. Stephens presents what he believes are the reasons for what he termed was a "revolution." This revolution resulted in the American Civil War. His speech is remembered by many for its defense of slavery, its outlining of the perceived differences between the North and the South, and the racial rhetoric used to show the inferiority of African Americans. A few weeks after the speech, on April 12, 1861, Confederate forces fired on Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor, initiating the American Civil War.
The constitution, it is true, secured every essential guarantee to the institution while it should last…those ideas, however, were fundamentally wrong. They rested upon the assumption of the equality of races. This was an error. It was a sandy foundation, and the government built upon it fell when the "storm came and the wind blew."
Our new government [Confederacy] is founded upon exactly the opposite idea; its foundations are laid, its corner-stone rests, upon the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery subordination to the superior race is his natural and normal condition. This, our new government, is the first, in the history of the world, based upon this great physical, philosophical, and moral truth. This truth has been slow in the process of its development, like all other truths in the various departments of science.
source: https://www.battlefields.org/learn/primary-sources/cornerstone-speech
Two years later on November19, 1863 President Abraham Lincoln would counter these white supremacy percepts with his Gettysburg Address. It began with these unforgettable words…
“Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.
Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure.
[Ending with this resolve]
…that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain -- that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom -- and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”
source: https://www.abrahamlincolnonline.org/lincoln/speeches/gettysburg.htm
Project 2025’s white Christian nationalist agenda and the Confederate States’ intentions share striking similarities in their ideological foundations, resistance to federal oversight, and vision for a hierarchical society. Both movements sought to institutionalize systems of power that privilege specific groups while marginalizing others, using religious or cultural narratives to justify their goals.
Project 2025 is packed with coded Christian Nationalists’ language. Since the Civil War and the Lost Cause Narrative that followed, they have learned how to transform their religious zealotry into benign words and phrases that resonate with voters. Americans would be wise to learn this language and refuse to vote for those who speak it.
The very First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution guarantees several fundamental rights, including freedom of speech, religion, the press, assembly, and the right to petition the government. These freedoms are crucial for a democratic society and protect citizens from government interference in various aspects of their lives and livelihoods.
If they have their way, our First Amendment freedoms would be reserved for only those who agree with their dystopian view. We would no longer be a democracy but a theocracy, religious autocracy, that is intolerant, patriarchal and discriminatory. A country where only white Christian men can thrive. They’ve already moved to dismantle and weaponize Civil Rights Laws and gut the mechanisms of enforcement.
While the Confederacy sought to break from the Union and leaned into states rights, Project 2025 aims to reshape the entire federal government. Let us remember that we are still a democratic republic, a government of, by, and for the people. Now is the time to stand up, speak out –defend your rights, for yet a new birth of freedom. The power is with us –THE PEOPLE!