Raphael Warnock: Why I Refuse to Give Up on America |
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Raphael Warnock: Why I Refuse to Give Up on America
In an exclusive excerpt from his new book, the Georgia senator writes about why we must keep the faith in the promise of our democracy—and fight for that promise to be realized.
Senator Raphael Warnock (D-GA) attends a rally to speak out against the SAVE America Act outside the US Capitol on March 18, 2026, in Washington, DC.
There is a deep worry and anxiety in the air these days about America and its future. As a United States senator and a voice for the people of Georgia, I feel it and I encounter it as I move around. In various ways, I hear it. Strangers walk up to me and ask, “Are we going to be OK?” Or they say, “Please save us.” “Please fight for us.”
And no wonder. They see the unabashed assault on our democratic institutions, the burning and looting of our government by those at the highest levels of government, the bending of norms and breaking of laws, the corruption and the grift, the widening chasm of wealth inequality, the stumbling into an illegal war of choice with no clear objectives or way out, the unvarnished hatred and bigotry. The President and his enablers are trying to divide us so they can reign over us. The question is, will we keep the faith and fight for a nation as good as its promise? Or will we give in to those who are trying to weaponize despair?
We have wrestled with the trauma of tyranny before. In his journal, James McHenry, a Maryland delegate to the Constitutional Convention in 1787, recounts a story from the last day of the convention. A woman from Philadelphia asked Benjamin Franklin, a convention delegate and the then-governor of Pennsylvania, an important question about the new system of governance. She asked, “Well, Doctor, what have we got, a republic or a monarchy?” “A republic,” he replied, referring to a government in which people elect their leaders. “If you can keep it.”
That is the challenge that confronts us as we approach America’s 250th birthday. Can we keep it? Given the long and arduous journey to freedom and the broken promises along the way, some may well ask another question: Is it worth the fight? In a nation still battling its old demons and divisions, they ask, “Should I just give up on America?” But that’s not possible. At least, not for me. I choose not to leave, physically, mentally, or emotionally. America is my home. My ancestors helped build this country at a time when the Constitution did not even recognize them as fully human. They fought and died in wars against our foreign enemies, even as the powers that be warred against them at home. They endured great suffering for every millimeter of progress. Right here. They kept the faith.
Nowadays, keeping the faith is not easy. Owing to partisan games and gridlock, the outsized voice of big corporate money, and the legalized bribery and lack of integrity in our political and electoral system, we have seen an increasing divide between the basic, everyday needs of ordinary citizens and what a government that claims to be by the people and of the people is able to deliver for the people.
This serious and devastating rupture in the sacred covenant we have with one another allows anger, cynicism, and despair to set in like a cancer in the body politic. In that sense, it is more than a political problem. Rather, it is a spiritual crisis with political implications. It is fertile ground for an authoritarian to emerge, promising that he alone can fix it. In that sense, Donald Trump is both a problem and a symptom of a problem.
It is no wonder many have lost faith. For too long, too many people have been left behind. That is the desperation that I hear in the voices of those who say to me, “Please, fight for us!” Everyday Americans rightly sense the ways in which powerful interests and dark money have poisoned the ecosystem of our electoral politics, squeezing out their voices and making it increasingly difficult for the people to be heard and for their needs to be met in their own house. What is politically possible on issues from housing and healthcare to gun safety has been sharply narrowed, even when ordinary citizens on the left and the right, their disagreements notwithstanding, agree.
For example, according to a Fox News poll, most Americans would support some universal background checks for the owners of firearms. Yet we cannot get even get a vote on the issue because of the power of the gun lobby! Another example: When I came to the Senate, Democrats passed a law that finally........