We use words like “issues,” but most voters, even elected representatives, almost never drill down into the actual underlying facts, the pragmatics of implementation, the real (global cost) in the longer term, the possible serious consequences and the likelihood that the desired result will be secured. Votes today are about optics, opinion polls and slogans that sound like solutions that have absolutely zero chance of working. And when consequences appear later, we tend to label them as ‘unforeseen’ or ‘unforeseeable,’ even though to those schooled in the areas where these decisions were pressed pretty consistently predict the probable twists that may distort the original intent.
When it comes to politicians, we tend to excoriate their pandering to the mega-wealthy, the elite that is prospering at the expense of the rest, even though we have established a patronage system where money talks, screams if you will, and the odds are completely stacked against someone who doesn’t want to sell their votes. We talk about “character,” when we embrace back-room horse-traders, bought and paid for by their patrons, who seem to be the only ones that can get enough moola to run for office. Or folks so concerned with “optics” that the truth is an untenable threat. Or we have billionaires, who believe that insults and wildly inaccurate statements pandering to our greatest fears, create the kind of cowboy sloganism that caters to a nation in seemingly unstoppable precipitous decline.
The growing schism between old world, white Protestant traditionalists with values built on America’s rural heritage versus the fast-paced new urban demographics with ethnic and cultural diversity that are gradually redefining our general population seems irreconcilable. This split pretty much mirrors the irreconcilable differences that gave rise to our Civil War.
The losers, those traditionalists, in terms of changing demographics, slowly being overwhelmed by a newly-defined majority of culturally diverse Americans, are desperately driven by their singular view of religion, patriotism and tradition. Well-armed and pledged to stay that way, they have used gerrymandering, voter ID laws, litigation and tapping the treasuries of the mega-rich (who themselves just want barriers to further wealth – taxes and regulation – blown off and are willing to trade “whatever” social conservatives want for those exemptions) to hold off the invading masses.
Immigration restrictions are not about border control (or why wouldn’t we want a wall with Canada?) or stemming the crime rate (those crossing our southern border have lower actual crime statistics than the general population). The issues are black and white… or should I say brown and white. They’re voting to preserve an Evangelical America that is slowly being diluted by ‘other.’ They control both houses of Congress and the majority of governorships and state legislators even though their constituency would never be able to sustain that power if voting were truly based simply on numbers of people versus “districts.”
They talk about the need for “strict constructionists” for the Supreme Court, but even judges who qualify themselves into this category, are perfectly content to call corporations “people” or ignore reading the first half of the Second Amendment because it is an inconvenient truth. They are conservative “activists” by any objective measure.
As children are slaughtered in rolling serial killings the thought that their last bastion against a government and a new cultural majority they see as increasingly threatening – guns and lots of them – might be curtailed in any way cuts them to the core. A few kids may have to die – “stuff happens” – but those guns are in reserve should any political force suggest that these white traditional rural values will no longer set the American agenda. We are in for a tough time.
We’ve seen this pattern throughout history, and the reflections of the resistance to the mass migrations impacting Europe parallel our own fears. The combination of climate change – despite the right wing denials – overpopulation, global conflict with overly ambitious tyrants and the harsh reality of the global scramble for resources seem to be producing an erosion in the quality of life of the white-powered middle class in the United States and Europe. It’s getting to be too expensive in the West to live the life the vast majority actually expected since WWII.
It’s the history of people behaving badly, allowing fear and selfishness (masquerading as self-preservation) to govern their own national and local political choices, choices wont to draw lines in the sand, take extreme positions and generally provoke an acceleration of their own demise. We cannot splinter, ignore our crumbling schools, infrastructure and stop research, and expect to prosper. Not here. Not in Europe. Not anywhere.
“My way or the highway” on the scale we are witnessing in America today, unchecked, cannot lead to any other conclusion than the end of the United States, a fracturing that will inflict vastly more harm than finding unity, common ground and accepting compromise plus diversity. Drawing lines in our American sand will only make things worse. But we there is no spirit of political compromise on the horizon; the lines in the sand have become reinforced concrete bunkers.
I’m Peter Dekom, and unless we relearn how to talk to each other, respect our differences and find compromises and common ground, we are on a rather historically clear path towards our own destruction… and lots of separate little political units that once comprised the United States of America will have a vastly diminished power on the global stage.
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