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What does revolutionary history tell us about this moment?
Let’s check in with Todd Otis, a former Minnesota legislator who’s written a story about that past.
The Minnesota Star Tribune
July 11, 2024 at 10:30PM
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The recent performances of President Joe Biden, former President Donald Trump and the U.S. Supreme Court have you feeling queasy? You’d like to find a seasoned voice to help put today’s news in the context of American fundamentals?
That’s what I found in the new novel from Modern History Press, “Sparks of the Revolution,” and a conversation with its author, Todd Otis.
The word “seasoned” befits Otis and the perspectives he brings to today’s headlines. He’s a former Minneapolis DFL legislator and early education lobbyist who turned curiosity about his forebears into a tale about how national unity was forged 250 years ago — and what it might take to unite Americans again.
The son of the late Minnesota Supreme Court Associate Justice James C. Otis, Otis was raised to believe that the rule of law and scrupulous judicial ethics are essential to American governance. The state chair of the DFL Party from 1990 to 1993, he knows something about the role and responsibilities of party leaders during tumultuous elections. (See: Minnesota gubernatorial election, 1990.)
He’s also a distant cousin of several leaders in the resistance to British rule that led to America’s Revolutionary War. “Sparks of the Revolution” is set in Boston and focuses on attorney James Otis and his sister, Mercy Otis Warren, both prominent advocates for the American cause.
His book is necessarily a novel, Todd Otis explained, in large part because James Otis burned his personal papers during a bout of mental illness. But the story adheres closely to the historical record as it describes America’s break with the British crown.
“What they created is a gift,” he said of the Otises, Adamses, Warrens and others who populate his narrative. They latched on to a powerful idea: “Your rights come directly from God, not from the king.” From that idea flowed an inclusive spirit that led to alliances between city and country, rich and poor, and — in a nascent sense — Black and white.
In Otis’ telling, what passed for inclusivity in the 18th century was vital to the patriots’ success. Inclusivity’s enlargement by fits and starts in the two and a half centuries since is the heart of the American story.
American inclusivity is being challenged by Donald Trump, Otis said.
“Trump is comfortable with squeezing people out. That’s antithetical to the ideals of the patriots. The spirit of the patriots is bringing people in.” He deplores Trump’s refusal to accept the results of the 2020 election and his allies’ efforts to make voting more difficult. In this country, he said, the obstruction of voting is “a sacrilegious thing.”
Trump isn’t the only threat Otis sees. He’s much offended by the gift-taking of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas and the bias-signaling of Thomas and Justice Samuel Alito. “The Supreme Court is making a mockery of judicial ethics,” Otis said. “When I was little, my mom couldn’t go to anything remotely political because my dad was a judge.”
He’s also dismayed by the way Democratic Party leaders have responded to date to Biden’s confidence-eroding performance in his June 27 debate with Trump. Those leaders have a duty to put the nation and the will of the people ahead of loyalty to the president, Otis argued. He believes they should prevail upon Biden to end his campaign for re-election.
“If ever there was a time for elected and party leaders to step up, it is now and it is urgent,” he said. “When Trump did what he did on Jan. 6 and more than 100 Republicans in the House agreed with him that the (2020) election was not valid, I thought they were spineless. If the Democratic Party does not stand up to Joe Biden now, they are spineless too. The stakes are way too high for people to be playing it safe.”
To be sure, Otis sees those stakes through a lens of partisanship as well as history. But Otis also gleaned from his research a fresh awareness that partisanship can go too far. The Bostonians and the British showed what can happen when disagreement hardens into enmity.
The quote in his book he deems most relevant to today’s stomach-churning moment in America comes not from James or Mercy Otis, but Benjamin Franklin. About the British troops deployed to Boston in 1768, Franklin said, “They would not find a rebellion. They might make one.”
“If I have one takeaway, it’s let’s quit treating each other like enemies,” Otis said. “We are not enemies. We are citizens with different perspectives on how best to advance this country.”
One might say that America’s governance has long been an Otis family project. Democracy’s survival may depend on whether the rest of us take it on as our project, too.
Lori Sturdevant is a retired Star Tribune editorial writer. She is at lsturdevant@startribune.com.
