Most years, I just put up with politics: it’s as necessary as taking out the trash, but only about as interesting.
Sure I have my preferences, and occasionally a candidate is exciting, for awhile. But usually I’m eager to get it over with, and go back to what feels like real life.
This year is different. I’m following the campaigns as closely as I can, with a morbid, horrified fascination.
Many parts of our former republic, including civil liberties, are already close to catatonic; and profoundly anti-democratic forces (the secret security state, the war machine, vote suppression) are already loose, some beyond our control (which is why we mostly prefer not to think about them).
But all this could get much, much worse, depending on how this political year turns out.
Cohen comes at the 2016 campaign from the BTDT (“Been There, Done That”) perspective, of those who have seen — and lived– this movie before.
It’s also a movie which is being remade today in more and more corners of their continent.
And What about Ours?
Let Roger Cohen say it: “Europe knows that democracies can collapse.
Roger Cohen, New York Times Columnist
It’s not just that Trump re-tweets to his six million followers a quote attributed to Mussolini: “It is better to live one day as a lion than 100 years as a sheep.” It’s not just that Trump refuses to condemn David Duke, the former grand wizard of the Ku Klux Klan, who has expressed support for him. It’s not just that violence is woven into Trump’s language as indelibly as the snarl woven into his features . . . .
It’s the echoes, now unmistakable, of times when the skies darkened. Europe knows how democracies collapse, after lost wars, in times of fear and anger and economic hardship, when the pouting demagogue appears with his pageantry and promises. America’s Weimar-lite democratic dysfunction is plain to see. A corrupted polity tends toward collapse.
Trump is telling people something is rotten in the state of America. The message resonates because the rot is there . . . .
A Hungarian Neo-Fascist shows his colors in an international language.This disoriented America just might want Trump — and that possibility should be taken very seriously, before it is too late, by every believer in American government of the people, by the people, for the people. The power of the Oval Office and the temperament of a bully make for an explosive combination, especially when he has shown contempt for the press, a taste for violence, a consistent inhumanity, a devouring ego and an above-the-law swagger.
As Europe knows, democracies do die. Often, they are the midwives of their own demise. Once lost, the cost of recovery is high.”Hello, David Duke. I’d like you to meet somebody who wants to Make You Great. (Again?)
Related
One thought on “2016: Politics “When The Sky Darkens””
What can be done from this side of the aisle? is horrid fascination all that’s left when each “side” finds the other to be selling out this land?
What can be done from this side of the aisle? is horrid fascination all that’s left when each “side” finds the other to be selling out this land?