With Trump/Vance now at the head of the venomous snake that is the white supremacist project, who is in opposition?
I wish it could say it is the Democratic Party but to believe that the American system is founded on the basic inequalities outlined previously necessitates a different conversation than left vs. right.
Today, the defenders of the American experiment – a multi-racial democracy premised on equality, tolerance, and freedom – are threatened by a) racial animus and b) widespread delusion.
On one hand, true lefties hate the Democratic Party, a hatred that’s only intensified during Israel’s vengeful slaughter of Palestinians in Gaza. This wholesale murder is abhorrent, just as 10/7/23 was abhorrent, and the Israeli policies and actions under Benjamin Netanyahu to perpetuate the war are disastrous. To stop the bloodshed, the political calculation I personally agree with is the one pointed out by Mehdi Hasan:
On the other hand, the Republican Party has shamelessly embraced its fascist wing due to fear and greed. This fundamental asymmetry in levers of support – one party values morality, the other power – fuels the death spiral of centrism, which requires both morality and power, and brings to mind the first stanza of my favorite poem, written over one hundred years ago during a similar age of tumult.
Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
- William Butler Yeats, “The Second Coming”
Centrism still existed in 2008, the year Barack Obama was elected on a platform of hope and change. The first Black man elected to the Presidency. Hillary Clinton tried to ride his coattails in 2016 to become the first woman president.
But America’s original sin struck.
How dare a Black man assume the White House. He must be un-American. Literally, he must have been born elsewhere.
It is no coincidence that the opposition candidate – later President – after Obama was the one who originated and continues to propagate birther lies became a fascist avatar of the white supremacist project.
This is what animates people who support the modern GOP, whether they admit it or not. To punish is what they want and any amount of violence is justified to “save” the country.
As much as I hope and pray for Trump to lose and lose badly, I fear his loss in the 2024 election will propel his radicalized supporters to violence that makes January 6, 2021 pale in comparison.
And if that is the case – if, for enough Republicans, civil war is the answer – then a Harris /Walz presidency will not save us. The Democratic Party won’t save us. The only thing that will is each other.
TOMORROW: The Original Sin of America, Part V: Lull of Paradise, Promise of Revelation.
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