American Ouroboros
A clip of the documentarian Ken Burns delivering a commencement speech is floating around the social medias. At the beginning of the clip, he bemoans the sacrifice of his “beloved neutrality” to warn that “there is no real choice this November. There is only the perpetuation, however flawed and feeble you might perceive it, of our fragile 249-year-old experiment and the entropy that will engulf and destroy us if we take the other route.”
It’s a familiar sentiment that I think oversimplifies what we’re living through at the moment. Yeah, I’m worried about Trump but I’m more worried about what he augers for the future.
My primary worry isn’t that Trump will win this November – although a Trump victory remains a terrible worry – but that a Biden victory won’t do much to arrest the entropy Burns foresees. I mean, hell, we all foresee it because it’s already here. We’re already in the midst of being engulfed, a snake devouring its own tail. What’s worse, we seem to love the taste.
I have, of late, come to the conclusion that America is going to go through some things either way. Either the Republicans win the election and Trump’s Project 2025 goes jackbooting into effect. Or the Democrats win and we wind up with half of the country calling “foul,” simultaneously radicalizing and fracturing the right. At that point, they have to decide which direction they want to move, but the way the party system works, they will – almost necessarily - wind up rallying around another polarizing MAGA-type figure.
In the meantime, all the structural problems in the US will continue to get worse, largely as a result of political polarization, unlimited dark money, a compliant media, changing demographics, technological progress and the underlying uncertainties that progress causes, and the obvious geopolitical problems that all of these same variables will exacerbate. Plus, there’s the whole “dying planet” thing which tends to make people act up a lil’ bit.
The way I see things, it’s not that the election is inconsequential, only that it might be irrelevant. Because, either way, it seems like we’re heading towards cataclysm. The world is balanced on a knife’s edge; whichever way it falls doesn’t promise to be great. Sort of the way I envision Europe felt just before ol’ Archduke Ferdinand took a slug to the jugular.
Wars are typically what get humanity out of these periodic ruts. A little culling of the species tends to focus the mind. We’ve already got a couple of hot little numbers setting the table for a potential global conflagration, along with things starting to burble over in Taiwan. The election may delay it, or even make it a little gentler when it happens, but I have a hard time believing we are anything other than fucked.
There is some good news. First, and perhaps most importantly, I’m almost always wrong. My prognostication skills exist are about as good as those of Carnac the Magnificent.
For you youngsters: here’s a picture of Carnac the Magnificent:
Second, while the modern fascist movement has taken root in disparate countries (Russia, Hungary, India, the American MAGA movement), those countries don’t really have much in common with each other. Whatever alliances they may form – along with even more authoritarian regimes such as North Korea and Iran – are primarily united in their anti-American resolve. I sincerely doubt most of those countries are willing/able to sustain a cohesive long-term alliance against an opposition that will be more numerous and more united.
Third, I doubt we’ll wind up in a new global war along the lines of the last century’s conflicts. Instead, I think we’re more likely to see continued low-level proxy wars flaring up here and there, along with a rise in domestic terrorism and a further eroding of our civic institutions. I’m guessing we’ll see more political violence, up to and including political assassinations. When the economy next craters, we could see larger and more frequent civil uprisings.
It doesn’t mean I think America is going to break apart anytime soon, only that we’ll continue to weaken to the point where we’ll end up doing to the nation as a whole what we once did to Detroit. On the other hand, Detroit recently saw its first population uptick in thirty years, which offers some hope that the pendulum could, eventually, swing back. But why do we have to go through all shit before it does so?
When were things last “normal”? I would peg the date as September 10, 2001. It’s been disaster after disaster since, with just enough sunshine in between to remind us that we don’t have to live like this. It’s a choice people make. Too many people choose the dark if the alternative means allowing other people to warm themselves. That’s where we’re at right now, a bunch of selfish pricks preferring the heavy hand of authoritarianism if the alternative means allowing other people to simply live their lives, or if it means allowing people access to the same nation that fed and clothes their ancestors, or if it means paying a couple more percentage points in taxes to ensure that everybody has access to healthcare, good schools, and a dignified retirement.
We’re lost, not because of one man running for president, but because the darkness we’re living through is self-imposed. We can’t see because we’re ignoring what is right in front of our eyes our eyes – if we don’t change something, and soon, those flawed and feeble institutions Ken Burns describe might not be here one day. Possibly one day soon.
"Too many people choose the dark if the alternative means allowing other people to warm themselves. " That's it. That is the reason I can't sleep at night.
I understand your pessimism and cynicism, but may I suggest reading Heather Cox Richardson’s Letters from an American? https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/She is a BU history professor and modern day muckraker. She has noted that FDRs infrastructure and social policies helped bring the fascists of the country around once they saw their individual lives improving. Times are very disheartening and it’s important not to give up. We’re all in this together.