The Trust-Fund Brats of American Democracy
Stuart Stevens
I thought about my father on Father’s Day.
Like so many men of his generation, he rarely spoke about the war. He was an FBI agent when the war broke out, chasing possible German spies around New York City, going to Broadway theaters at night, and having the time of his life. He resigned from the FBI, joined the Navy, and spent three years fighting in the South Pacific, 28 island landings.
He came home and raised a family, built a career, paid his taxes, coached Little League, and lived his life with the quiet assumption that duty was simply what grown men did. His brother was grievously wounded after D-Day, injuries from which he never fully recovered. He devoted his life to Civil Rights law, believing that the freedoms he had nearly died defending abroad were worth defending at home, as well.
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The dangers of accommodating evil were not an abstraction for the Greatest Generation. It was the demon that killed and maimed so many of their friends and changed their lives forever. The Vichy French and Norwegian Quislings were not monsters, but their collective weakness allowed monsters to torture, rape and murder the innocents betrayed by their fear.
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When I think of today’s Republican Party, the word that most comes to mind is betrayal. They were handed the legacy of the Greatest Generation and squandered it like trust-fund brats with no concept of its value. No one asked them to charge a machine gun nest or take a beach.
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