Democracy and the Wartime State
Or, what World War I laws tell us about nationalism today
Today we’re going back to World War I and its immediate aftermath—at least, as both pertain to US domestic policy. We’re going to look at the Espionage Act of 1917, Sedition Act of 1918, and 1919 trial of Eugene V. Debs on related charges, which led to one of two times (so far) that a US presidential candidate has campaigned from prison.
It’s an uncanny set of historical precedents, but I think it’s especially important for reflecting on the political character of the US today, and for understanding the complexity of how this country is responding to its war with Israel in Gaza.
And it is very complex, much as some people want you to believe otherwise.
Just this week, we learned that the US withheld shipment of Joint Direct Attack Munitions to Israel, as part of a broader set of Western pressures to discourage Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu’s Rafah invasion. The latter started with a call for evacuation of the city, and the securing of key access points, even as representatives of Hamas claimed that they had accepted the latest ceasefire draft, which Netanyahu does not. (Mind you, Netanyahu has no other political choice, considering the pro-war extremists holding up his fragile government coalition, but we’ll get back to that.)
Wednesday was also supposed to be the publication date for a US report on whether Israel has broken humanitarian law—a finding that would lend serious legal complications to US military aid going forward. The US already considered blocking military aid to IDF units named for human rights abuses, the same way that the US and European allies have been sanctioning individual settlers for violence against Palestinians for months—but this juggling act of moral outrage while still performing unwavering support for Israel has been exceptional in US history. It’s new and very confusing territory for all the officials involved in it.
Not exceptional, though, has been broader response to campus and other local antiwar protests. In May, 88 House Democrats wrote to US President Joe Biden, expressing concern over credible evidence of Israel breaking humanitarian law. Just yesterday, that concern was joined by an open letter signed by 27 members of the current administration about US complicity in violations of international law.
But for the past few weeks, the news cycle was instead dominated by waves of panic, paranoia, and incredulity at the possibility of students also being concerned about this war. This news cycle spiked after University of Columbia president Minouche Shafik, fresh from Congressional interrogation, brought in NYPD to disperse protesters calling for the school to divest from its global program with Tel Aviv, and other investments benefiting from a war incurring high costs in civilian life. This police action prompted a surge in community protests across the country—each campus with its own, institution-specific call for disclosure of investment and divestment.
Outcomes from these protests have since varied, with some colleges agreeing to vote on divestment or outright divesting; others calling in local enforcement to disperse attendees under low-level charges; others dealing with clashes between pro-Israeli and antiwar groups; others ongoing, with similar splits in response in Europe.
But the mere fact of students protesting? When US officials have also expressed concerns during highly public military spending debates to bankroll Israel’s war? When legal teams since the beginning issued express warnings about US actions?
This really should not have been surprising to anyone.
What surprised me, though—and shouldn’t have—was how quickly everyday citizens bolted to their info silos, often following anecdotes from trusted friends and battening down the hatches against dissent; and certainly without looking to test initial impressions by so much as looking for other points of view.
(Empirical thinkers, we are not.)
Even though student newspapers were doing an excellent job reporting on the actual positions held by people protesting, and even though local organizers were also issuing clear statements, mainstream and legacy news was much more interested in elevating the raw fact of conflict, in breathless anticipation of the possibility that it could get worse. This left readers afraid and angry and deeply invested in confirming initial conspiracy theories, instead of well-informed and able to articulate opposing points of view with anything resembling situational accuracy.
This last part, though, is precisely why the panic among everyday civilians shouldn’t have surprised me as much as it did. Hadn’t I just written about similar negligence on the part of mainstream media when it came to hyping up fears of war with Iran? Days before the latest media pivot to amping up paranoia around student protests instead?
One of the great challenges of media literacy, though, is translating the fruits of your broader exposure set to people swept up in any given news cycle. I’ve seen so much selective anecdote used as of late to bolster fears of conspiracy, straw men arguments, and arguments from incredulity, that I’ve had to hit pause on trying to engage with any of it directly—but not out of contempt, despair, or frustration.
Quite the opposite: because, at some point, people’s unwillingness to question their panic and anger is its own story. That overwhelming fear tells you something about underlying values and priorities, and that’s the story I needed to listen to instead.
Ultimately, what I’ve realized from studying the range of media involved in this war is that we’re dealing with a culture far more conservative than it likes to believe, and far more interested right now in preserving national integrity at any cost. Democracy—if it happens—has to come second to the idea of a unified wartime State.
I do not say this with judgment, either. With the spectacle of a contemptible far-right leader always in US news, threatening to launch a more authoritarian republic if elected in November, it’s easy for many people to feel as though they’re progressive enough so long as they’re against that. Meanwhile, other forms of conservatism abide, and thrive. I’m certainly to the left of many, but when I study the world I seek to know it as it is, and if the world is more conservative than it wants to believe it is—well, then that’s an important baseline for understanding how human beings behave within it.
Ever since the start of this latest war, I’ve been following multiple news and war propaganda forums daily, studying human behaviour in the latter and paying attention to narrative trends in the former. There is a huge difference, for instance, between news disseminated by The Jerusalem Post (right-leaning, free-to-read, English), The Times of Israel (right-of-centre, free-to-read, multilingual), YNet (centrist and in-depth, though with its best coverage in Hebrew), and Haaretz (left-leaning, often paywalled, English and Hebrew)—but to a lot of people in the West, it’s all the same, which allows them/us to cherry-pick whatever news report serves gut feelings best.
(And then of course there’s Israel Hayom: a strongly pro-Netanyahu, free-to-read Hebrew-language local daily—but that’s not in my roster, for obvious reasons.)
NB: Actually, one of the worst offenders in this war was a blog gallingly called Honest Reporting, whose owner hailed from the right-wing Jerusalem Post and who, after casting aspersions without evidence against photojournalists, defended his blog’s right to ask such questions without following basic journalistic protocols by stating that “we don’t claim to be a news organization”. The name of the publication did fool a lot of everyday readers for a while, though!
Prior to the war, I’d written explainers on Israel’s 2023 democratic crisis, which involved a fragile far-right coalition for a PM facing corruption charges, and which was protested weekly for months by tens of thousands for Netanyahu’s attacks on the judiciary. And I continue to try to remind people that neither Israel nor the Jewish people are a hivemind, even when the most militant in related spectra are firm and vocal in their belief that anyone who doesn’t see the war their way is “self-hating” and therefore doesn’t count. Protests have continued in Israel throughout this war, and it’s widely understood that Netanyahu will be politically finished after it’s over.
I’ve also said from the outset that, in war, the first casualty is truth (with history a close second), and that one should never expect full honesty from any “side” in a conflict, because the number one priority of any government or military is victory. Everyday citizens will also often see it as their civic duty to disseminate whatever misinformation or disinformation helps to get the job done.
Now, this doesn’t mean “leap to conspiracy theories!” It means that, while you might trust some people and news outlets more than others, you should always verify.
Unless…
Well, that brings us to today’s historical moment.
Because it might just be that doing your own homework is antithetical to wartime politics—in which case, many of us are simply doing our civic duty when we panic at dissent. In the past, after all, it has been flat-out disloyal to disagree, or to otherwise sow doubt about US military missions.
The only difference today—as I noted above—is that the US government is itself very conflicted about its own messaging. This came up in a recent interview between US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken and Senator Mitt Romney, in which they talked about the struggle over wartime messaging, and Romney praised the potential closure of TikTok as a key response to far too many US citizens seeing more Palestinian perspectives on the war. (Watch from 19:35 on, below.)
Where does that leave everyday citizens, though? They might be wrestling across the political spectrum as US citizens always have—but the odds were never in their favour.
Espionage and sedition laws in World War I
In his State of the Union address on December 7, 1915, US President Woodrow Wilson called upon Congress to raise up a more robust standing army, along with plenty of reservists, and to expand the material holdings of the Navy, with a strong focus on a merchant marine to protect US trade. Wilson also had a mind to US missions in the Philippines and Puerto Rico when advancing this military vision, which involved raising income taxes and using treasury bonds to bridge the gap.
To advance both this military mission and its financial lifeline, though, Wilson knew that the government would have to do something about dissent. To this end, he advocated for Congress to combat dangerous forces from within. As he put it,
There are citizens of the United States, I blush to admit, born under other flags but welcomed under our generous naturalization laws to the full freedom and opportunity of America, who have poured the poison of disloyalty into the very arteries of our national life; who have sought to bring the authority and good name of our Government into contempt, to destroy our industries wherever they thought it effective for their vindictive purposes to strike at them, and to debase our politics to the uses of foreign intrigue.
Their number is not great as compared with the whole number of those sturdy hosts by which our nation has been enriched in recent generations out of virile foreign stock; but it is great enough to have brought deep disgrace upon us and to have made it necessary that we should promptly make use of processes of law by which we may be purged of their corrupt distempers. America never witnessed anything like this before. It never dreamed it possible that men sworn into its own citizenship, men drawn out of great free stocks such as supplied some of the best and strongest elements of that little, but how heroic, nation that in a high day of old staked its very life to free itself from every entanglement that had darkened the fortunes of the older nations and set up a new standard here, that men of such origins and such free choices of allegiance would ever turn in malign reaction against the Government and people who had welcomed and nurtured them and seek to make this proud country once more a hotbed of European passion.
A little while ago such a thing would have seemed incredible. Because it was incredible we made no preparation for it. We would have been almost ashamed to prepare for it, as if we were suspicious of ourselves, our own comrades and neighbors! But the ugly and incredible thing has actually come about and we are without adequate federal laws to deal with it. I urge you to enact such laws at the earliest possible moment and feel that in doing so I am urging you to do nothing less than save the honor and self-respect of the nation. Such creatures of passion, disloyalty, and anarchy must be crushed out. They are not many, but they are infinitely malignant, and the hand of our power should close over them at once. They have formed plots to destroy property, they have entered into conspiracies against the neutrality of the Government, they have sought to pry into every confidential transaction of the Government in order to serve interests alien to our own. It is possible to deal with these things very effectually. I need not suggest the terms in which they may be dealt with.
… There are some men among us, and many resident abroad who, though born and bred in the United States and calling themselves Americans, have so forgotten themselves and their honor as citizens as to put their passionate sympathy with one or the other side in the great European conflict above their regard for the peace and dignity of the United States. They also preach and practice disloyalty. No laws, I suppose, can reach corruptions of the mind and heart; but I should not speak of others without also speaking of these and expressing the even deeper humiliation and scorn which every self-possessed and thoughtfully patriotic American must feel when lie thinks of them and of the discredit they are daily bringing upon us.
Uncanny, no?
A hundred years on, history doesn’t repeat—but it sure as heck rhymes.
In February 1917, the senate passed a version of the Espionage Act as the US broke diplomatic ties with Germany. In April 1917, when the US entered the war, both the houses were wrestling with Wilson’s desire for a press censorship provision—something he considered vital to government action. However, the senate disagreed by a single vote, 39-38, and Wilson signed a different version into law in June.
That version made it a crime punishable by death or up to 30 years in prison to promote the success of enemies of the US, and to transmit information that would similarly interfere with the operation or viability of a US military campaign.
It also made it a crime punishable by a fine and up to 20 years in prison to disseminate false reports to disrupt US military operations, obstruct recruitment, foment insubordination and other acts of disloyalty among enlisted men, or to otherwise promote the success of the enemy in times of war.
In 1918, a series of amendments then emerged, under the general term Sedition Act, which included a much broader proscription against civic language. On top of all the aforementioned restrictions, grounds for punishment now extended to those who
shall willfully utter, print, write, or publish any disloyal, profane, scurrilous, or abusive language about the form of government of the United States, or the Constitution of the United States, or the military or naval forces of the United States ... or shall willfully display the flag of any foreign enemy, or shall willfully ... urge, incite, or advocate any curtailment of production ... or advocate, teach, defend, or suggest the doing of any of the acts or things in this section enumerated and whoever shall by word or act support or favor the cause of any country with which the United States is at war or by word or act oppose the cause of the United States therein
These elements would stand in law until 1921, when Sedition Act components were removed—although aspects of the Espionage Act would stay in place far longer, and some continue to be entrenched in law today.
The trial of Eugene V. Debs
Eugene V. Debs was a labour leader and a socialist, at a time in US politics when there was actually such a thing as a robust socialist movement. He would run for presidency five times, and gain 6% of the vote in 1912. The last time he ran for office, he did so from prison, where he was serving time for convictions under the Espionage and Sedition Acts. The president elected that year, Warren G. Harding, would then commute the sentences of those convicted under those laws. No pardon was issued.
Debs had been put on trial for a public speech on June 16, 1918, which expressed sympathy and support for fellow workers now in prison for their own acts of public dissent. As the transgression was described in an opinion for the majority:
The speaker began by saying that he had just returned from a visit to the workhouse in the neighborhood where three of their most loyal comrades were paying the penalty for their devotion to the working class—these being Wagenknecht, Baker, and Ruthenberg, who had been convicted of aiding and abetting another in failing to register for the draft. Ruthenberg v. United States, 245 U. S. 480. He said that he had to be prudent, and might not be able to say all that he thought, thus intimating to his hearers that they might infer that he meant more, but he did say that those persons were paying the penalty for standing erect and for seeking to pave the way to better conditions for all mankind. Later he added further eulogies, and said that he was proud of them. He then expressed opposition to Prussian militarism in a way that naturally might have been thought to be intended to include the mode of proceeding in the United States.
… The defendant spoke of other cases, and then, after dealing with Russia, said that the master class has always declared the war and the subject class has always fought the battles—that the subject class has had nothing to gain and all to lose, including their lives; that the working class, who furnish the corpses, have never yet had a voice in declaring war and never yet had a voice in declaring peace. “You have your lives to lose; you certainly ought to have the right to declare war if you consider a war necessary.” The defendant next mentioned Rose Pastor Stokes, convicted of attempting to cause insubordination and refusal of duty in the military forces of the United States and obstructing the recruiting service. He said that she went out to render her service to the cause in this day of crises, and they sent her to the penitentiary for ten years; that she had said no more than the speaker had said that afternoon; that, if she was guilty, so was he, and that he would not be cowardly enough to plead his innocence, but that her message that opened the eyes of the people must be suppressed, and so after a mock trial before a packed jury and a corporation tool on the bench, she was sent to the penitentiary for ten years.
There followed personal experiences and illustrations of the growth of socialism, a glorification of minorities, and a prophecy of the success of the international socialist crusade, with the interjection that “you need to know that you are fit for something better than slavery and cannon fodder.” The rest of the discourse had only the indirect, though not necessarily ineffective, bearing on the offences alleged that is to be found in the usual contrasts between capitalists and laboring men, sneers at the advice to cultivate war gardens, attribution to plutocrats of the high price of coal, &c., with the implication running through it all that the working men are not concerned in the war, and a final exhortation, “Don't worry about the charge of treason to your masters; but be concerned about the treason that involves yourselves.”
The defendant addressed the jury himself, and while contending that his speech did not warrant the charges said, “I have been accused of obstructing the war. I admit it. Gentlemen, I abhor war. I would oppose the war if I stood alone.”
Also used to find Debs guilty was his public approval of a document called “War Proclamation and Program”—but described in trial as “Anti-War Proclamation and Program” (a better summary of what the document contained).
I’m including an excerpt here to illustrate again how much history echoes—but feel free to skip ahead if you’re worried about being indoctrinated by socialist propaganda.
From the “War Proclamation and Program”, as uttered and adopted at National Convention of the Socialist Party of the United States, St. Louis, MO., April 1917:
The war of the United States against Germany cannot be justified even on the plea that it is a war in defense of American rights or American “honor.” Ruthless as the unrestricted submarine war policy of the German government was and is, it is not an invasion of the rights of the American people as such, but only an interference with the opportunity of certain groups of American capitalists to coin cold profits out of the blood and sufferings of our fellow men in the warring countries of Europe.
It is not a war against the militarist regime of the Central Powers. Militarism can never be abolished by militarism.
It is not a war to advance the cause of democracy in Europe. Democracy can never be imposed upon any country by a foreign power by force of arms.
It is cant and hypocrisy to say that the war is not directed against the German people, but against the Imperial Government of Germany. If we send an armed force to the battlefields of Europe, its cannon will mow down the masses of the German people and not the Imperial German Government.
Our entrance into the European conflict at this time will serve only to multiply the horrors of the war, to increase the toll of death and destruction and to prolong the fiendish slaughter. It will bring death, suffering, and destitution to the people of the United States and particularly to the working class. It will give the powers of reaction in this country the pretext for an attempt to throttle our rights and to crush our democratic institutions, and to fasten upon this country a permanent militarism.
The working class of the United States has no quarrel with the working class of Germany or of any other country. The people of the United States have no quarrel with the people of Germany or any other country. The American people did not want and do not want this war. They have not been consulted about the war and have had no part in declaring war. They have been plunged into this war by the trickery and treachery of the ruling class of the country through its representatives in the National Administration and National Congress, its demagogic agitators, its subsidized press and other servile instruments of public expression. We brand the declaration of war by our government as a crime against the people of the United States and against the nations of the world.
In all modern history there has been no war more unjustifiable than the war which we are about to engage.
So Debs was found guilty, and sentenced to ten years in prison. During the time he did spend in prison, he read extensively and came out even more staunchly socialist.
As for me, I’m left with a certain ringing in my ears, marvelling at how little changes.
The US government today is openly torn about how best to manifest its commitment to Israel in this war, while also affecting an interest in humanitarian law.
And that see-sawing between unwavering support but also finger-wagging at Israel complicates matters immensely for everyday citizens, when trying to figure out how much they too are allowed to be upset about the mass killing of civilians, including thousands of children, in Gaza—but then again, what’s new about that?
Everyday citizens have a long history of being divided around what it means to be loyal to the US; and in other wars, the right to protest and dissent have absolutely been stripped in service to a more state-driven, nationalist approach to governance.
Yes, this is a painful time for folks like me, who are firmly on the side of pluralism and humanism, and who also strive to be pragmatic and empirical in our thinking.
I look at the news out of the US, and at how disinterested many people are in checking their initial assumptions—how much people want to be led by fear and anger to uncomplicated notions of right and wrong on the road to military victory; how little they’re inclined to stress-test their points of view by checking them against others; how quick they are to disseminate anecdotal data from most any news source that affirms their deepest suspicions and their fears—and I realize that the problem is me, for not being as conservative in my thinking, or as nationalistic in my philosophy.
I am not in the majority right now—if humanist thinking ever was.
We are in a highly nationalist moment in a highly nationalist world: a time when affirming commitment to the in-group is of greater importance to collective security.
And as in other such moments in past wars, that means the idea of democracy is absolutely going to take a back seat for a while, for many, in service to state politics.
When we come out of this moment? Well, maybe after the dust has finally settled, and all the dead from these wretched past few years can be counted and buried, then we can talk about all the other harms done to one another in these, our latest wars.
Maybe then some “Harding” of our own era will come out of the woodwork, too, and offer top-down paths to healing from our deep, deep lines of current dissent.
But for now, this is war.
And war always brings out the ugliest in us all.
Be well, be kind, and seek justice where you can.
ML
I'll confess the title was complete clickbait for me, as the resident negative nihilist quasi-humanist here - where's this "democracy" supposed to be at?
I've never seen it - it's been all money and power and power and money up and down as far as I can see, anywhere. Voting for corporate/military crooks and religious bigots doesn't quite rise to the level of "democracy,' for me - but then, Sanders was no Debs. And neither are mass graves sites in the dirt and rubble of Rafah "democracy" either.