Heather’s Reviews > Giving Up Is Unforgivable: A Manual for Keeping a Democracy > Status Update

“In the end, it comes down to a simple kernel of truth:

We cannot give up.”

“Never bet against America. Refuse to believe that government doesn’t work.”

“We can’t let the fight for democracy become drudgery; we have to prepare ourselves for it joyfully without taking it any less seriously.”

“If an American president tried to stop elections entirely, the public outcry would be swift.”

Vance, quoting Orwell’s 1984:

“‘In a way, the world-view of the Oarty imposed itself most successfully on people incapable of understanding it. They could be made to accept the most flagrant violations of reality, because they never fully grasped the enormity of what was demanded of them, and were not sufficiently interested in public events to notice what was happening…’

“Now we see the consequences of preserving the fiction that all the people on both sides of the political divide we’re operating in good faith. You can be polite to everyone, or you can save the Republic. But you cannot do both.”

“Often it’s the people who populate them who are flawed, not the institutional framework itself.”

“When the public perpetuates narratives that the institutions are broken and talks about walking away from them, it plays into his hands and makes his ascension to power that much easier. The path to autocracy is littered with battered and broken institutions. If you want to preserve democracy, fight for the institutions.”

“The time-honored tradition of Americans is to stand together.”

“Though far from perfect, the system that was born with the taint of racism and misogyny has also proven itself capable of improvement, even if it is incremental.”