Without a doubt, the last few months have been depressing, to say the least. First came the Delta resurgence, which hit many places – even ones that were here to fore considered “safe.” Then, it was made worse in states like Florida and Texas, where their governments just turned a blind eye to the pandemic, pretending that it either was not happening or, worse yet, going out of their way to ally with the anti-vaxxers in a craven effort to appeal to the Fox News set.
The results were nothing short of deliberate murder:
Pretty much every governor throughout the South has taken this attitude, From Ron “Death” Santis west to Greg Abbott in Texas. This also includes states in the midwest and a less than honorable mention for Kristi Noem in South Dakota, who has also been doing her bit to prolong the pandemic.
The list of malfeasance does not stop there, however. We now have in the United States folks who have come to accept book burning as a normal thing. An insurrection against a free and fair election is something not to be taken seriously. The arrest of Steve Bannon is a small step- but it took 30 days to get to it when he clearly defied a Congressional subpoena.
What passes for “normal” in the United States is anything but these days. And as much as I would like to blame it all on Trump, the truth is, it actually has been an evolutionary chain of events since the 1980s. And for about half that time, I was just too blind to see it.
Consider the Reagan era, which- sadly – I was a cheerleader for, having come of age during the 1970s and 15% interest rates. I was quite conservative back then and spouted the party line. I did this even as I watched with mystification while the laws changed around me, taking away tax breaks for the middle class and giving them to the wealthy. Now with the benefit of hindsight, I can see clearly that it was all an illusion. Either through accident or by design, Reagan laid the foundation for the shift to the oligarchy that the US has been undertaking ever since.
The 1980s were the time of:
– The rise of IRA’s and other investment vehicles effectively robbed people of duly earned pensions. It sounded good, and certainly, it put a lot of capital into the markets, but as was documented here – it came at a terrible cost.
-Iran Contra. The resulting scandal rocked the Reagan administration and shook the public’s confidence in the U.S. government; 11 members of the President’s administration eventually were convicted of a variety of charges related to the scandal.
– The nation’s first dive down the Middle East rathole in Lebanon. It would turn out not to be the first time we accomplished little and bled a lot.
– And most importantly, the failed experiment of “trickle-down” economics.
Then came the 90s-and the trend accelerated. Newt Gingrich and so-called Contract on America ( actually with, but it was more like a mafia contract to destroy America). While the decade is considered an economic growth time for the country, the truth is that wages stayed essentially flat for ordinary people.
The century turned, and I got to go to paradise and learn about the world as it was, not as I had believed it to be. That helped me fully understand how so much of what I had been taught and thought was correct was actually wrong. I still consider my years in Japan to be the greatest adventure and blessing in my life. It changed my viewpoint and helped me understand that there was a better way for the land of my birth.
Of course, the pace of bad change accelerated too.
March 19th, 2003, came and went. Instead, the country embarked on its horrific fiasco in Iraq. For me, that was a big turning point – because I and many others saw the train wreck it was going to become. Yet, the counsel of so many was ignored – with tragic results.
And as the decade came to an end, the country literally went insane. Here at Far East Cynic HQ, we well documented the insanity and dangerous trend that is and was the tea party; I don’t need to repeat it here. The vicious embrace of cruelty and selfishness was the final part of my personal transformation. Conservatism had been exposed to me as the vicious doctrine that it has always been, and I knew I could never go back to it. But, as I have said many times – they left me, not the other way around.
Then came 2016.
2016 was a disaster of manifest proportions for the United States
And the jury is still out as to whether the country will actually survive it – or that we will face an even greater descent into political hell in the next few years.
Emboldened, these forces will try again, whether under the leadership of the dictator or not, and I am far from the only one who thinks they will be much better organized next time. In fact, they are already laying the quasi-legal groundwork in many “red states” to nullify election results in 2022 and 2024 that are not to their liking.
So, what comes next after this terminal crisis? Not having prophetic powers, there is no way I can say. I do feel safe in saying, with the late Leonard Cohen, that no one with any decency is going to like it — and not a few “indecent” folks won’t care for it, either. In the same way, I was one of the “alarmists” who foresaw a mortal threat to the American republic, along with massive loss of life, from the dictator’s election in November 2016. We were mocked and scorned at the time. There was no way that I or anybody else could have foreseen the exact form events would take — the fact that the mass death we have endured over the past year and a half has been the result of a plague the dictator denied was even happening, a denial his followers “doubled down on,” as the annoying catchphrase has it. Nevertheless, we who sounded the alarm were right that the future was grim. I am sorry to say it is even grimmer now, even after the temporary and shaky restoration of the ancien regime, the U.S. republic, in the person of Joe Biden.
No, we cannot say now precisely what horrors await the formerly United States. We can specify some visions that almost certainly will not materialize.
The benefit of being my age is that I have been lucky enough to have seen the different United States and, more importantly, the workings of other nations that actually provide far better for their citizens than we ever will.
When I think of what might have happened, what could have been possible, what should have been done legislatively and socially in this country, it stirs in me white-hot anger. One that only has grown stronger as time has passed. There are some people – my classmates included – who say I have no right to be angry. But, I tell them repeatedly, they are wrong. Their apathy and refusal to speak out make them complicit with the horrible crime that is being perpetrated. We as a country deserved far better.
Even Chunky Bobo realizes it:
The decline of the Whining States of America did not have to happen. It was not inevitable. It could have been avoided. I have the right to be angry that it did not. As Mr. Pierce explains:
There is no longer any reason to try to “understand” these people. Nor should there be any compunction about doing whatever we can to read them out of American politics, because they clearly have opted out on their own. They should be considered anathema, as should the entire Republican Party and the modern conservative movement that animates it. Anything that can be done without including them should be done for the good—to say nothing of the sanity—of the country. Raw political power should be used to push through whatever of this administration’s policy priorities can be passed without any Republican help whatsoever. Majoritarianism should be invoked without mercy, and by whatever legitimate means necessary, and the window of opportunity to do that is closing fast.
It doesn’t matter if 53 percent of them say they believe the former president* is still the president* because they actually believe it, or they say it because it makes them one of The Elect. The effect on democracy is the same. They are poison in the bloodstream. And they’re proud of it.
This is beyond the beyond. There is no compromise with this. There is no common ground. There is no deal to be struck. Millions of our fellow citizens are lost in rebellion against reality, and the only solution for the common good is to isolate them from decision-making and hope enough of them find their way back to make the country governable again.
And for those of us who pledged to work for the ideals, we once thought America could achieve – we have more than earned the right to speak out in our anger.
