No Magic Wand for Democracy

Why fairy tale endings don’t apply to America’s political reality—and why that’s okay

Something we all kind of hate to know about fairy tales, is that they aren’t true. The magical love-at-first-sight and happily-ever-after have long been debunked as unrealistic and sometimes wildly misleading. And of course, we all have to suspend belief as we follow along narratives where waving a magic wand is the solution to a problem.

But as much as we recognize fiction when we see it in an animated feature, I think we have a hard time realizing it when it crops up in our national story.

From the moment we declared our independence all those years ago, Americans embraced the notion that we had found our happily ever after with democracy. It was done, sealed with a constitution, and secured by the noblest and wisest men the world has ever seen.

We’ve lived that fantasy for years. We learned it in history books and glittering Coca-Cola commercials. We felt it as we had successes in the world and celebrated those among us who innovated, excelled, and ‘pulled themselves up by their bootstraps’. We trusted it as we voted in (or sat out) elections. And though we knew it wasn’t perfect, we went along with the beautiful idea that the US was a dream come true.

Now with Trump, the fairy dust is gone.

Every day we watch rampant abuses of power, failing checks and balances, crumbling social structures, and muzzled free speech. And it’s a heartbreak.

Last week, when I canceled our Disney+ account, the service notified me that I had a month left of streaming. Mentally scrolling through the list of movies and shows that we might want to watch before they were gone, I was struck with how much of the catalogue consisted of overcoming evil and finding the courage to fight for what’s right. Classics preach the value of reuniting with family, revealing the truth, and defeating all those bad guys with their simultaneously smiling lips and glaring eyes.

Those messages might be valuable right about now.

But Disney-owned ABC succumbed to the Trump administration’s pressure to silence critics. In real life, they joined the side of the villains, and they left the world darker and a little more hopeless as many Americans wrestled with what it meant to have our free speech rights cut off so swiftly. The country shook as it realized how far-reaching the President’s coercion has become.

Then, with the wave of a magic wand, they reinstated Jimmy Kimmel. His show is back on the air tonight. Just like that, it’s fixed, right? Except now, of course, emboldened MAGA believers are pushing back in their entitled way, on their crusade to accumulate power. Now, it’s that much harder to insist that some parts of our democratic society are immovable.

As adults, we know that the magic moments in fairy tales are tantamount to an asterisk, a little space-saving symbol that covers what would in real life be a lot of painstaking work and time.

Love at first sight is actually excitement and infatuation at first sight, followed up by a lot of experience and growing together that can turn into love. Kind of like the founding democratic principles of this country, followed up by centuries of movements and progress to meet those ideals.

Waving a wand to fix a problem in a story is akin to lots of trial, error, mistakes, recoveries, luck, and gradual successes. Like, we had an economy based on slavery and subjugation of women, and then poof! the Emancipation Proclamation, and poof! voting rights for all. In real life, magic is a lot of heavy lifting.

And those aha moments of realization that turn the course of a plotline? They come in waves. They require action and bravery not once, but many times over by many people. They require humility in learning, and accountability in asking for—and earning—forgiveness.

Like when the news media cowed to an authoritarian power, firing reporters and entertainers who challenged an oppressive point of view, and then they made one move to undo it. No apology, no explicit stand, just a statement that the show will go on. There is still much work to be done to ensure that we can trust them to not make the same mistake again.

How fitting that Disney is the reminder that there is no easy way out of this reality we’re living in.

Disney is the penultimate pro at making things that are immensely hard look effortless. They painstakingly polish their films, studios, press releases, and parks to look as if they come from a world where dreams are made. And even though they seem effortlessly wondrous, there’s a lot of sweat and tears behind the scenes.

The same goes for their legendarily sparkly princess movies and hero flicks. The audience has to take some leaps of faith to go along with them on their impossible journeys that end miraculously. Somehow, our protagonists come out unscathed, landing perfectly in a happy ending that will seemingly go on forever. These movies are so popular because, on some level, we all wish the problems in our complicated lives could work out so gratifyingly… and we know it just isn’t possible.

At least not in the same way. But those who know, know.

We can live in a fairy tale, the same way anyone who chases a dream can do it—we can create our own happily ever after. It happens the same way true love happens, with diligent tending and effort.

Day after day, we do things to bring us closer to that beautiful ideal of a perfect union. We address head-on the things that distract from that, and the mistakes we make that take us further away from our goal. We acknowledge that our goal will take time, and we know we won’t get things right all the time.

As a country, we are realizing that there is no magic in this dream of a place that represents and lives out principles of justice and prosperity for all. There is, however, unbelievable power in people coming together to fight for it.

And if we keep fighting for it, we can find a fairy tale ending for America—a country whose citizens are dedicated to its ongoing, never ending journey as a government of the people, by the people, for the people. Forever and always.

With love and hope for the future,

Stephanie

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