Getting ready for a second American Revolution

How defeat in battle can lead to victory in a war for liberty

Was it only a week ago that I wrote about the PBS “American Revolution?” It is wonderful to learn something new at any age but when you reach a great age it is twice the joy to find yourself learning; making room in the brain for some welcome company. Plainly put knowledge revives us, it awakens us, and we feel more alive when it arrives. And knowledge doesn’t decorate our brains like the ornaments on a Christmas tree – it can make us see life in an altogether new way. Knowledge is the twin sister of hope.

Here’s what I learned from that remarkable deep dive into the revolution. Simply put – you may lose many battles and still win the war. So, when the Dems lost the election in Tennessee with the most attractive candidate – before Ken Burns & Co. I might have felt a buzz of despair – “Sherman, you are letting your hopes run away with your common sense – the America that gave us Trump is not ready to depose the mad King.” But thanks to the American revolution I knew that I was wrong.

I thought about the difference between those who fought in our Continental Army and the Americans of today. The rebels were often men of education – it was not unusual for a farmer to be a scholar – John Adams and his wife Abigail were people who worked the land and the mind; they knew Locke and Hume and Thomas Paine; they were children of the enlightenment. And they had a model for a union of nations in those Native Americans who prior to our revolution had banded together in a community of tribes.

Too many of the young today are content with life in the darkness – a life alone with their tech-toys, as long as they get their light from their phones and friends. They belong to no tribe – other than the tribe of the self. But I have hope – not that they will read Locke – but that they will awaken to the fact that Trump and Co. have cheated them of their birthright – freedom to think – and freedom to live in a nation that honors liberty and the law. A nation that regards refugees as a great resource and not a danger.

The great lesson of the Burns & Co documentary is that one can lose a dozen battles and win a war. Ask any actor who has been turned away by a hundred or more auditions – and then finds that one role that makes him known in a victorious role. Ask any writer who could paper the walls with rejection letters and who finally came up with a best seller – or at least a work of value. I asked AI to set down the major battles lost in the revolution – a remarkable number it was – and after so many defeats - a final victory.

Significant losses included the New York Campaign (which led to the loss of New York City), the Battle of Brandywine, the Siege of Charleston, and the Battle of Camden, which was a particularly devastating defeat. Despite these numerous losses, the Continental Army ultimately won the war by winning strategically important battles, such as Trenton and Yorktown, and using tactics like avoiding major battles they were not prepared for”

Strategic is the word. We shall win against the Prince of Darkness and his flying monkeys – because we are fighting on home ground against an alien force – we can assume that Trump and his GOP would have been the loyalists who joined the King’s army – and that they will lose because one cannot win against an army of volunteers who carry more than a musket - a great idea – liberty – into a final victorious battle.