A lot of families are forced to make a decision when faced with a dysfunctional family member. One that continually creates chaos for themselves and others. The one that ends up in and out of rehab or jail until the day comes when the members just can’t take it any longer and give up on them. America may be at that point. We have used up all of our good will, particularly under Trump, and may have finally permanently abdicated our position as a leader, a light for democracy. America is no longer the most fertile soil to take root for those who want a better life. Maybe it was myth all along, though a persistent one that somehow endured all our attempts to discredit it through various misadventures over the the last 40 years.
How did we fuck this up? Coming off WWII we had it all. We were in the best possible position for a long run of good fortune and a force for good in a chaotic world looking for guidance. A role model for a humanistic form of governance and the antithesis of the fascist regime we helped conquer. The American people were ready to back this ideal. They had elected Franklin Roosevelt to four terms as President and he helped heal a nation of the wounds that resulted from unabated greed and inequality. Surely America had learned its lesson.
We stumbled along through subsequent leaders trying to figure out how to be a responsible steward, maintain the mantle of the most important nation on earth in the 20th Century. One of those missteps was the Vietnam War. A tragic miscalculation that got out of control. We still had a pass card however, the world forgave us as we seemed to have learned another lesson by pushing out Richard Nixon and electing a pious every man in the form of Jimmy Carter. The world gave a sigh of relief that the first super power of the new age had found its way. This contrition was short lived however.
I could write a full book on this topic, but this is a blog diary so I’ll be succinct and get to the main point which is this; Republicans have a poisonous ideology that is rooted in a perversion of Darwinist thinking that one group is superior to another and therefore more deserving of survival and God’s favor. This is the central core behind their thinking and consequently this is how they govern. It’s crude virtue is inherent in its simplicity as it comes from the basic instincts that allowed humans to be successful and survive where other species have failed. We couldn’t run as fast, had small incisors and hairless bodies. We needed to be more cunning and ruthless to thrive. We also benefited from sticking together in a tribe who would fight to the death for this ideal. Those that protested were banished or killed.
America under Republican leadership has become the world’s most predatory nation and reflects the baser instincts of humans and their limbic brain manifesting as a government. This has never been more evident than under the Presidencies of Reagan, W. Bush and now Trump. The world is watching what we have done to our own people and are probably wondering if they are next. They have seen their share of tyrants with bad intentions and recognize the warning signs. We are no longer the beacon of hope, rather we are the red beacon of danger. We received the benefit of the doubt when we shifted to Carter and then Barack Obama. America may have used up its right to expect the trust of the world ever again.