If Democracy were a Dog

The last time I saw them we were driving from Indiana to California and stopped at the veterinarian’s office to board them.  My sister and I waved as the black and white mutts we’d had for six months were led into the office on their chains.

We vacationed up and down the west coast visiting cousins and friends, and when we came home, my parents did not pick up the dogs. I don’t remember feeling sad or betrayed. Mostly, I think, I was relieved. That was the end of the Campbell family’s attempt to have pets. 

Happy and Snappy weren’t housebroken, didn’t come when called, and were never walked. My parents had little experience and less patience and skill training dogs, so these two were seldom in the house.  They slept in the garage at night, unheated in the winter, hot and muggy in the summer, and spent their days tethered on long chains on the hill beside of our house.

My job was to shovel the dog poop regularly and to get them in and out of the garage daily. More than once they got loose and ran pell mell through the neighborhood with me chasing them in school clothes.

Years later I realized my parents had no plans to collect the dogs are our three weeks away, and neither is alive to tell me if they were adopted into better homes or euthanized.

Today I have a new puppy, Lucky, who we picked up last week from my cousin. As we drove 90 miles home, I cradled his little head and  flashed to a scene years from now when I would hold my beloved companion again as he took his last breath.

Although I don’t have much experience raising a puppy, I’m going to become a skilled dog guardian, someone who sticks during challenges, who is steady and present, consistent and firm. I will have a well-trained, well-loved dog.

I believe the same is true for tending a democracy.  The United States has allowed all kinds of bad habits to develop: racism and genocide are at the foundation of this nation and we’ve never compensated for that in any way. Yet rather than work diligently to weed those traits out and replace them with rules, policies, and practices that reward our better traits, we’ve chosen a set of policies that reward greed, power, and exclusion rather than generosity, love, and inclusion.

So where does that leave us? Can we be vigilant like never before, consistent in calling out racism, sexism, violence against the working poor and those without homes, disdain for those addicted or mentally ill?  Or do we hand over this experiment in democracy to another owner? Or euthanize it?

I want to be a guardian of the basics—one person one vote, easy access to voting for citizens, fair taxation, sovereignty in our home without fear of invasion—some of which the initial revolution was based on, some of which has evolved as our thinking has evolved to embrace equality and equity of ALL.

This dog called democracy, although not perfect, is worth all our energy right now. We can’t stick it in the garage and hope it develops on its own.  And if, as those who have lived through authoritarian rulers tell us, it’s already taking its last breaths, I need to be there, having attended to it every single day.