The following is an excerpt from an essay on the Impeachment of Donald Trump and the role of truth and story in authoritarian societies.
Humans need stories. We need something that can give facts meaning. It’s also a way of remembering. I can remember a history teacher that told World History in story form. He made all of these facts come alive and create memories that I still carry with me nearly four decades later.
Americans are a storied people. We have stories about how we came to be a nation and what matters to us as a nation. We remember the stories of the Revolution. We remember what it meant to be independent and to create a land where all were created equal.
The stories are never perfect. America wasn’t a place where all were created equal. For many years, African Americans were slaves. Women couldn’t vote. But the people who fought for equality remembered the story and forced us to remember the story. That made us who we are today.
The American story includes the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. That story shows how later Americans tried to be true to the story. Abraham Lincoln tried to keep the story going even when part of the nation wanted to leave the story behind. Martin Luther King forced the nation to see how we weren’t living up to the story and we decided to be true to the words.
People from all over the world came to our nation, enticed by the story. All came looking for a better life and the story told them America was for them as well.
America is a story. The truth of who we are is embodied in our story.
But there are also counterstories.