I have been thinking about where we, as a nation, are, what has been happening and where we are going. I do not like the prospects.
There are three primary supporters. One is the people who fear change, brown people and choose Trump despite what the choice is doing to the country. They seem to feel that at last someone is paying attention to them and they do not care about Trump’s philandering, prolific mendacity, or financial duplicity. I suspect many think it is a joke and possibly in the long run just politics, which they didn’t understand, as usual.
They reject, facts, logic, and reason so it is extremely frustrating to try to discuss with them the current events in a rational manner. When the Mueller report is released they will not believe its contents.
Another is the dyed in the wool racists, neo-nazis and right-wing extremists, and their fellow travelers, who simply hate any but those they perceive as being as lily white as they think they themselves to be. They know that they cannot win a rational discussion so they choose force and up till now semi-violence, feeling that when this all shakes out they will be the natural Obersturmführers of the future. They are dangerous and they will align themselves with any apparent strong leader. Reason is not likely to work and I have no idea how to bring them into a morally sensible democratic system.
I remember Hillary Clinton once complaining about a “vast right-wing conspiracy” and laughed as at the time the idea seemed the kind of far-fetched secret plan of dystopian fiction books.
Watching the way things are progressing I have passed from ridiculing her claim, through wondering about it being possible, to a point where I do think that there are people and organizations that want to destroy our government and system of political democracy. It may not be a signed agreement between like-minded individuals in some smoky room, but it seems to me that such individuals have found one another and are working to destroy the pillars of our government, a vibrant free press, the U.S. Senate, once considered the worlds greatest deliberative body, the U.S. Supreme Court, the election process itself, and most insidiously, the federal investigative agencies.
We also are seeing the breakup of the North Atlantic Alliance, other international agreements, and the underlying trust in America’s good word, that has kept the world from war, as well as tariffs that have destroyed international commercial agreements.
The one bastion of strength untouched is the U.S. Military, but I recall even there, there has been an effort by evangelical Christians to subvert it through its officer corps. (Google: Air Force Academy Embroiled in Religious Controversy)
Along the way, the once respected presidency has fallen into the grubby fingers of a cadre of disgraceful men surrounding a spineless congenital liar who demands loyalty to himself above the rule of law and defense of the Constitution. (Google: Eid auf den .)
Another effort has been to ridicule education, science, and general learning just as it appears that the planet’s environment might be protected somewhat by simple preventive measures.
I suspect the goal is to create a new system of royalty controlled not by dukes, princes, and kings, but the extremely wealthy who are above the law and can influence events to sustain their wealth and exponentially expand their power.
Along the way, well placed religious leaders see it as a path to impose their particular belief system on society just as the Church of the Middle Ages was able to stifle thought and personal freedom. What is amazing is that these leaders fail to realize that what gave them their strength and freedom to exist independently of a national church is the very democratic system that they are now working to destroy.
The question confronting reasonable people is what can be done to prevent a catastrophe?
Logic and reason will not convince many of these people, they reject fact and evidence. I am divided between hoping to live long enough to see these problems solved and fearful of seeing them develop into an unrecognizable totalitarian system.
So where should a concerned citizen go to generate a positive effect on any of these motivated groups?
As far as I can see they are entrenched and unreachable through logic and reason. Most libertarians reject the use of force as unfair, unjust and would be an unsustainable effort in the very democracy we wish to promote and protect. We need some long-term thinking and planning and Congressional partisanship is not acceptable.
I am frustrated by what I see happening and have been for some time.
Charlie Jensen
Foc'sle Chatter 