America 2021: Who Are We?

It would seem to even the most casual observer that America is in serious trouble. As I write this, the horribly historic year of 2020 is mercifully coming to a chaotic close and the optimistically anticipated new year of 2021 is less than a week away. This nation is now in the depths of winter, as well as in the depths of the worst pandemic we have ever known, with more than 330,000 dead and the total number of Covid-19 related fatalities projected to be anywhere between 500,000-700,000 by April 1st. Almost one million Americans file new unemployment claims every week, large sectors of our economy have collapsed and may never return, and millions of Americans cannot afford to pay their rent, heating bill, or put food on their table. And if all that was not enough, more than 80% of the Republican electorate believes the recent presidential election was stolen by the Democrats, therefore rendering the incoming president, Joe Biden, illegitimate. Our current president, Donald Trump, has publicly contemplated sedition in order to overturn the results of a lawful election, and the majority of Republican elected officials supported him in this unprecedented and felonious endeavor. Therefore, at this point in our history the following questions must be asked:

Who are we as a nation?

Why do we exist?

What do we stand for?

Where do we go from here?

Can we even continue to exist as a nation in our present form?

The United States of America, the richest country on earth, has thus far not been able to put together even the semblance of a coordinated national response to the catastrophic national disaster that is Covid-19. In fact, for several weeks at the start of the pandemic, when other industrialized nations were putting together comprehensive national plans to combat this deadly virus (including successful quarantines and total lockdowns), our president (backed by loyalist, cowardly Republican officials) intentionally ignored, and then downplayed the coronavirus as either a Democratic hoax meant to “make him look bad”, or that it was no more dangerous than “the flu or the common cold.” In only ten months, the number of Covid-19 related deaths has already eclipsed the annual number of flu related deaths in the U.S. (22,000 between 2018-2019: CDC) by many times over and will probably wind up being more than 20-30 times as deadly. That stunning fact has not changed the opinions of Covid-19 deniers one bit. They still loudly proclaim the coronavirus is either a liberal hoax or about as serious the flu.

Preventative measures such as wearing masks, social distancing, hand washing and contact tracing were not only ignored, but openly ridiculed and made into a political statement about American “individual liberty versus the tyrannical power of the state.” Our president cheered and even encouraged heavily armed right-wing militia groups to storm state capitals in an effort to “liberate” their states from “fascist” governors who were trying to take away their “liberty” to infect and kill other Americans by simply trying to get them to observe CDC guidelines on pandemic containment and prevention of wider outbreaks of Covid-19. This presidential support of political violence resulted in at least one case of an attempted kidnapping of a sitting governor (Gov. Whitmer of Michigan) with plans to execute her shortly thereafter. Other public health officials, politicians and their families have been the targets of death threats based on the apparent approval of these violent tactics by the president and other GOP leaders.

All throughout the pandemic, the president and GOP have been greatly aided and abetted in misleading the American public to the dangers of the coronavirus by an army of right-wing media personalities who gave the president and GOP leaders a national megaphone from which to blast their lies and distortions about Covid-19 to an audience already addicted to the conspiracy saturated information they broadcast 24/7. These dangerous right-wing media personalities succeeded in turning a serious public health issue into a partisan political issue that demanded party loyalty above all else. Factual information on Covid-19 from (GOP appointed) medical professionals and (GOP led) public health agencies was ridiculed, and individual medical experts and public health officials were targeted for scorn, abuse, and in some cases, they and their families became the targets of death threats for suggesting that Americans use masks and take other common sense precautions in preventing further infections and deaths.

The federal government has never taken the lead in confronting this national health emergency. Rather, they have ceded that critical responsibility to state and local officials to deal with this catastrophe the best they could using the limited resources at their disposal. Inevitably, that has lead to an uneven, hodgepodge sort of response in which some states reacted quickly and aggressively, while others, taking their lead from the White House, totally ignored the pandemic and tried to wish it away (“It will just disappear, like magic”).

In the early stages of the pandemic, the majority of infections and deaths occurred in the major metropolitan areas of the northeast and west coast causing the White House and GOP to refer to the coronavirus as the “Blue Flu.” However, as the summer turned to fall and the fall turned to winter, the second and third waves of the virus exploded to blanket the entire country, leaving no state or locality unscathed. Rural “red state” areas were now the pandemic hotspots with per capita rates even higher than the urban areas had been the previous spring. The Blue Flu had morphed and was bleeding red. Still, no national response was forthcoming, even as the rates of infections and deaths soared.

Then came the November election.

Despite the White House predicting a “landslide” victory by Trump and engaging in a months-long and concerted effort to suppress voter turnout, Democratic candidate Joseph Biden won the election convincingly, capturing about 81 million popular votes and 306 electoral votes with Donald Trump receiving about 74 million popular votes and 232 electoral votes. Almost two months after the election, Trump has yet to concede defeat.

Since the Democratic Party had urged its voters to make use of mail-in ballots to limit their risk of infection by going in person to polling locations, the vast majority of Democratic voters (more than 80%) listened to that advice and voted by mail. Conversely, the Republican Party, denying the existence and/or severity of the coronavirus and trumpeting the (unfounded) risk of mail-in voter fraud, told their electorate to vote in person, and overwhelmingly, Republican voters did just that. What followed the election set the stage for numerous acts of official GOP cowardice and lies, increasing acts of violence and threats of violence, and even attempts at sedition.

As is widely known by anyone that cared to learn the facts, in-person ballots in all 50 states are counted first, followed next by mail-in ballots, which can be counted in some states up to three days or more after election day, as long as they were postmarked prior to the end of the day on November 3rd. For some reason, this simple fact seems to have eluded Donald Trump, the GOP, Republican voters and even GOP campaign attorneys. They have stated publicly on numerous occasions of their incredulity at how Trump could have been leading “by a lot” in the vote count at 10 p.m. on election night, but then “miraculously” had his lead start to dwindle more and more as the hours and days went by (and the mail-in ballots started to be counted). To Donald Trump and his loyal supporters, there could be only one explanation for this startling turn of events: a stolen election! Like a wounded beast, Trump, his sycophants, and Republican voters rose as one and roared, “FRAUD!” They have attempted to overturn the election results (sometimes illegally), and to systematically and recklessly destroy our democracy ever since. They may yet succeed.

I will not repeat the desperate, anti-democratic and very dangerous actions taken by Trump and the GOP since election day. If you are reading this, you already know that information as well as I do. What I will say is that we have now, as a nation, crossed a red line, a line that once crossed cannot simply be erased and forgotten. Crossing that red line signifies the end of rational forward looking governance based on science, reality, and the inherent worth of all Americans.

Crossing of that red line means that for Donald Trump, the GOP, and Republican voters, the dangerous “socialist” America of Joe Biden and the Democrats will have to be replaced with a grievance-based, profoundly racist and authoritarian government headed by an iron-fisted, but charismatic dictatorial leader and founded on such principles as a hatred of: science, libs, education and the educated, of truth, and of all non-white, non-Christian foreigners. It will embrace: a constantly changing perception of facts and reality (based solely on the needs of Dear Leader), and the creation of an uncompromising, Handmaid Tale style of a white evangelical nation that is currently favored by approximately 50% of the general voting population, and more than 80% of the Republican electorate. This new national ideal is overwhelmingly supported by a Republican electorate that worships the Confederacy, white supremacy and loves sporting Nazi flags and other Nazi regalia. Ceding our national security and economic interests to Russia (or China/Iran/North Korea) is of no importance to these cult fanatics. Their primary and only goal is “owning the libs."

This nation may have lost both our collective minds and our collective souls.

The grim scenario outlined above is very possibly the future path for America in spite of Joseph Biden winning the election.

With that in mind, I must again ask:

Who are we as a nation?

Why do we exist?

What do we stand for?

 Where do we go from here?

Can we even continue to exist as a nation in our present form?

I can honestly say that I at the present time I do not have the answer to any of those questions. The fact that I do not have the answer to those questions is deeply disturbing to me. I am a lifelong patriot and have a deep and abiding love for America, its ideals, its aspirations, its achievements, its desire to always try to learn from its mistakes in its never ending desire to become something better that it was before. America was never a perfect nation, but it always strived to become "a more perfect union." It always tried to look reflectively at past errors, sometimes egregious and almost unforgivable errors, and learn from those profound mistakes.

As a nation we constantly engaged in self-reflection in an effort at self-improvement. We never reached perfection and that was not the goal, for perfection is unattainable. However, the quest for continual improvement, renewal, and rebirth, was. The idea and ideals of America were forever tweaked, tinkered with, and scrutinized to try, as best as humans can, to allow us to live up to our foundational ideals, to constantly reimagine and refine our core values. I was always proud of the example this nation set for the rest of the world, how more people wished to live in America than any other nation on the planet, how we were looked up to as the face of freedom, democracy and hope for untold millions, a nation that other freedom loving nations aspired to become and which authoritarian nations despised, but nevertheless grudgingly respected.

I cannot say I feel that way today. And because I cannot say I feel that way today, I and the rest of world are much the poorer for it.