Sixty years ago, after several women were attacked while walking alone after dark, Americans launched the “Take Back the Night” movement, drawing attention to the fact that rapists and thieves had stolen women’s right to feel safe in the simple act of walking home.
Today, we need a broader “Take Back America” movement because thieves have stolen our ideals, standards, symbols and words.
The far right cloaked itself in the American flag and made it a symbol of hatred, intolerance, racism and insurrection. We need to take it back.
Seditionists and militant groups also rewrote the very concept of patriotism, despite trying to overthrow the Constitution and wanting America to become a far different country than the one described in the Declaration of Independence. We need to take back the title of “patriot.”
Thugs wearing masks and badges have stolen the tranquility of life in American cities and neighborhoods. God bless the people of Minneapolis for showing us how to take it back.
The MAGA movement and Donald Trump have stolen one of the nation’s two great political parties. Honorable and loyal Republicans need to take it back.
Trump has stolen and defaced America’s reputation in the world. We are no longer proof that a free people can be trusted to govern themselves. We need to take back democracy and restore the nation’s mission as a global beacon of hope.
Trump has stolen the prestige and honor of the presidency. Past presidents have been far from perfect, but we expected them to obey the law, remain faithful to the Constitution, and have high standards for the moral use of power. Trump serves himself rather than the country. He is conducting the most blatant, outrageous, and corrupt presidency in the nation’s history.
The White House is, and has always been, the people’s house. Trump has stolen it, remodeled it, paved over its garden, and gilded it like a sheik’s palace. We need to take it back.
Trump is presently trying to steal the most basic and necessary right in a democracy — the right to vote and trust that it is counted. Republicans in several states are helping him by passing voter-restriction laws and manipulating election districts to favor their party. We need to take back the integrity of the vote.
Trump sold out the government to corporations and special interests that “pay to play.” We need to take it back.
Conservatives are stealing our history. They are removing or rewriting the history of slavery and racism in textbooks and exhibits, arguing that these topics result in “white guilt.” This is like Germany redacting the Holocaust. To paraphrase Santayana, the only way to avoid repeating past travesties is to study them. We need to take back our history, own it and learn from it.
Conservatives have even stolen the concept of manhood.
Trump, who depicts himself as a superhero, has become the titular leader of America’s “manosphere.” One of his key advisers, Stephen Miller, counsels that the use of force and the drive for absolute power are “the iron laws of the world.” But they are the laws of the jungle, not human civilization. They are the laws of totalitarianism, not democracy.
Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth is a parody of male virility, advocating “maximum lethality, not tepid legality” in the military. That standard produced American atrocities such as the Wounded Knee Massacre in 1890, the My Lai massacre during the Vietnam War, the No Gun Ri Massacre during the Korean War, and the Haditha Massacre of Iraqi civilians in 2005.
Trump has ordered military attacks in at least 10 countries, more than any other president in the modern era. He’s signaled the desire to do more in Greenland, Cuba, Canada, Colombia, Mexico, Panama and Oman. He has “threatened, left open the possibility of attacking, or actually attacked … roughly one out of every 13 countries in the world.” We need to take back America’s role as a stabilizing force in the world.
Hypermasculinity has even crept into religion. Many evangelical Christians reportedly feel that Jesus is too liberal. In 2021, the editor of Christianity Today, Russell Moore, told of parishioners who believed that “turn the other cheek” was a weak liberal talking point. “When we get to the point where the teachings of Jesus himself are seen as subversive to us, then we’re in a crisis,” Moore said.
We need to take back the expectations of manhood. Real men find balance between the classic qualities of their gender — strength, bravery, assertiveness, and so on — and soft power like empathy, openness, intuition, nurturing and collaboration.
We have allowed thieves, vandals, ideologues and power brokers to steal our country. It’s time to take it all back.
William S. Becker is co-editor of and a contributor to “Democracy Unchained: How to Rebuild Government for the People,” and a contributor to Democracy in a Hotter Time, named by the journal Nature as one of 2023’s five best science books. He previously served as a senior official in the Wisconsin Department of Justice. He is currently executive director of the Presidential Climate Action Project (PCAP), a nonpartisan climate policy think tank unaffiliated with the White House.
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