- Sep 14, 2011
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I've said and believed that the US has survived other attacks on our constitution and democracy and that we will survive this one too.
But, I can't remember another president openly praising one dictator after another, attacking our democracy and constitution as well as attacking democracy around the world.
I can't remember another time when a political party and voters have embraced Communism, Fascism, nazi-ism, kkk and attacked our constitution.
Or a time when so many people are against the long history the US has with the rule of law.
There's also the refusal to support the taxpayer, jobs, openly sending jobs and manufacturing out of the country. Not all RWNJs are 1% and yet they support the very wealthy even though it harms them.
Biggest is the wilful ignorance of climate change and what it means to their children and grand children.
Do Americans Know How Much Trouble They’re In?
Why America is at a Crossroads in History — and There Might Not be Any Way Back to Normal, Sane, or Civilized
A President who invokes absolute authority to…pardon himself. An ambassador to Germany who declares he wants to…topple the German government. Senators — the most powerful people in democracy, save the President — knocking on the door of a “detainment center”, looking for kids separated from their parents, only to be denied by guards who…laugh at them contemptuously, call the police, and have them shooed away like nobodies.
Do Americans understand how much trouble they’re now in? How grave the threat to America’s constitutional democracy, its civil society, its place in the world, and its ongoing survival is? Now. When I ask this question, you’ll protest: “Of course I do!” (or perhaps “You’re overstating it!!”, in which case the answer is already…no.) But I don’t mean you, yourself. I am asking you to ask yourself about everyone else, perhaps the mythical average American.
Here is a truth you would probably rather not hear.
America is at a crossroads. A point of no return. A democratic society cannot really survive the three assaults above, and go on being one. They may seem like just daily events in the ongoing sad saga of a troubled nation — but they are not just that. They contain great significance to history, which I feel American intellectuals are doing a poor job of interpreting and presenting to the American people. Let me take them one by one.
But, I can't remember another president openly praising one dictator after another, attacking our democracy and constitution as well as attacking democracy around the world.
I can't remember another time when a political party and voters have embraced Communism, Fascism, nazi-ism, kkk and attacked our constitution.
Or a time when so many people are against the long history the US has with the rule of law.
There's also the refusal to support the taxpayer, jobs, openly sending jobs and manufacturing out of the country. Not all RWNJs are 1% and yet they support the very wealthy even though it harms them.
Biggest is the wilful ignorance of climate change and what it means to their children and grand children.
Do Americans Know How Much Trouble They’re In?
Why America is at a Crossroads in History — and There Might Not be Any Way Back to Normal, Sane, or Civilized
A President who invokes absolute authority to…pardon himself. An ambassador to Germany who declares he wants to…topple the German government. Senators — the most powerful people in democracy, save the President — knocking on the door of a “detainment center”, looking for kids separated from their parents, only to be denied by guards who…laugh at them contemptuously, call the police, and have them shooed away like nobodies.
Do Americans understand how much trouble they’re now in? How grave the threat to America’s constitutional democracy, its civil society, its place in the world, and its ongoing survival is? Now. When I ask this question, you’ll protest: “Of course I do!” (or perhaps “You’re overstating it!!”, in which case the answer is already…no.) But I don’t mean you, yourself. I am asking you to ask yourself about everyone else, perhaps the mythical average American.
Here is a truth you would probably rather not hear.
America is at a crossroads. A point of no return. A democratic society cannot really survive the three assaults above, and go on being one. They may seem like just daily events in the ongoing sad saga of a troubled nation — but they are not just that. They contain great significance to history, which I feel American intellectuals are doing a poor job of interpreting and presenting to the American people. Let me take them one by one.