I Need a Hero and It’s We the People

Why ordinary citizens — not saviors — hold the true power to protect democracy.

Photo credit: Unsplash

By Warren Blumenfeld

I need a hero I’m holding out for a hero till the end of the night

He’s gotta be strong and he’s gotta be fast

And he’s gotta be fresh from the fight

I need a hero…

Bonny Tyler’s now classic pop song, “Holding Out for a Hero,” related the often expressed wish for someone to come into our lives to take away all our cares, to ease our loneliness, to cure all the world’s evils and make us feel secure and completely safe.

Tyler evokes the image of powerful gods and “streetwise” mortals, like the great Hercules and shining Knights of old “upon a fiery steed,” these “larger than life” heroes to save her from her plight.

But most times, no hero will meet our expectations, and those we rise to hero status, ultimately the pedestal on which we have perched them will crack. We then are left with disappointment and a sense of personal betrayal. Our savior couldn’t save us. Our divinity proved to be just like us as mortals after all.

So, is it possible that only mortals can serve as heroes, mortals with human flaws and scars, those whose strength and courage sometimes falters, those who need support and encouragement from others, those who are just like us, and, indeed, are us?

Unfortunately, no Knight, no Hercules, no Joan of Arc or Wonder Woman, no gods, and no lottery ticket will swoop us up and fly us out of your malaise or out of our declining democracy as it speeds toward full-fledged fascist autocracy.

And importantly, we cannot and must not place our trust primarily in members of the Democratic Party in Congress and in state legislatures to protect our democracy from threats of the MAGA movement today or even when Donald Trump departs his overstuffed earthy garments. Either because they lack political power or because their goals are not our goals, or in fact, many of these Democrats march to the same corporate orders as do their Republican counterparts.

We have seen over the course of the past year an ever rising and increasing outcry by everyday people speaking up and acting together in organized protest demonstrations to counteract the evils perpetrated by a government that deploys it’s masked and armed goon squads to terrorize undocumented residents and U.S. citizens alike in our major cities.

A new word has come into our standard vocabulary: “neighboring” whereby the noun “neighbor” has taken on the component of an action verb.

In the city of Minneapolis in the great state of Minnesota, citizens are bringing cooked meals to their undocumented neighbors and bringing them groceries and items they may need. They are monitoring ICE agents and alert their neighbors to their presence by taking the lead of Chicago residents before them by blowing loud whistles as warnings.

Today, we the people — the neighbors of every age, gender, racial background, and, yes, socioeconomic class — are the Herculeses, the Wonder Women, the Knights on fiery steeds, the winning lottery tickets, the emissaries who, if one believes in a compassionate God(s), are doing the work of the divine here on Earth.

Flames usually begin as tiny embers. But with ever increasing amounts of fuel and oxygen, they eventually become all consuming blazes taking all in its path.

So too in social movements: They begin as ideas in the minds of a few, and as these begin to catch the interests of others, they increase sources of oxygen that fuel the growth of larger and larger numbers. Eventually a mass movement emerges to challenge opposing foes and ideologies.

Ezra Levin, leader of the grassroots movement, Indivisible, and an organizer of the “No Kings” protest demonstration outlined the goals for the recent action:

1. To Safeguard Democracy against Authoritarianism
2. To Challenge Specific Administration Policies
3. To Mobilize and Unify a Disillusioned Electorate

Nowhere in this agenda, though, is listed the total dismantling of the authoritarian state as it currently exists in the United States, because a single or even several massive demonstrations cannot typically accomplish this.

Rather, the purpose of these protests is to “demonstrate” to those of us who take part, and even to those who watch from their living room sofas glancing their TV screens, that we have voice, a loud voice, that we have agency, and that we have a vital role in determining our futures.

Ultimately, we are the heroes of our lives. We are the heroes who come to save our country and our democracy from those who would destroy it for their own personal gain of power and riches.

Now that we have reached spring, let the grassroots rise and fill the cities and towns, rural communities and farms in all regions of the United States of America.

In the stirring words of anthropologist Margaret Mead:

“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.”

Read more from The Good Men Project on Medium:

[embed]Finding Yourself After Divorce (and Other Trauma) There’s no shortcut to reclaiming your life.medium.com

[embed]Gun Silencers Mute Actual Causes of Gun Violence: Hypermasculinity & Easy Legal Access When politicians assert a cause of gun violence, they invariably lay blame on people with mental illness.medium.com

[embed]Hobbies for Men in Their 20s, 30s, 40s, and 50s Sometimes we forget about personal development or enjoying life while trying to meet societal expectations, and life…medium.com

The story was previously published on The Good Men Project.

About Warren Blumenfeld

Dr. Warren J. Blumenfeld is author of God, Guns, Capitalism, and Hypermasculinity: Commentaries on the Culture of Firearms in the United States(Peter Lang Publishers), The What, the So What, and the Now What of Social Justice Education (Peter Lang Publishers), Warren’s Words: Smart Commentary on Social Justice (Purple Press); editor of Homophobia: How We All Pay the Price (Beacon Press), and co-editor of Readings for Diversity and Social Justice (Routledge) and Investigating Christian Privilege and Religious Oppression in the United States (Sense), and co-author of Looking at Gay and Lesbian Life (Beacon Press).