After the shocking election result of 2016, the uneasy peace that many made with it was that we would be ok unless the nation came face to face with a real crisis. Trump seemed ever so eager to fulfill that prophecy, careening from one manufactured crisis to another. But somehow, he seemed to make it through without serious damage to his political fortunes. Many of us continued to wring our hands and bemoan our helplessness as the Trump administration (quite possibly one of the more incompetent cabinets ever assembled by a President) unleashed one senseless move after the other. We debated the possibility of Trump winning another term while marveling (in frustration) that he remained viable.
Much ink has been spilled on analysis and exposes (for a person with a disdain for books and reading in general, Trump's tenure has been a boon to the publishing industry), but the reason his prospects remained bright simply came down to the cynical calculus of self-interest. True, there was much moral outrage, but how many people actually vote their morals? Despite all the hand wringing about Trump's actions, how many of us have experienced a materially negative impact? It's like the war on terror - it's happening in far away lands, fought by young men and women who are disproportionately from underprivileged circumstances, and return to a nation that has all but forgotten them.
And then came Covid-19. As the first reports of another viral infection originating in the far east started filtering through, it was easy to view them merely with academic interest. Many of us recalled the SARS epidemic. Then there was MERS and Ebola. None of these made any meaningful inroads in the US and I am sure many of us made the implicit assumption that this time would be no different. But, seemingly overnight, it all changed and the disease has spread with a ferocity that we have struggled to come to terms with. The experience has been entirely unique. It is safe to say that most of us have never lived through such an extended lock-down period. There was almost a fairy tale quality to it. We didn't quite know how to behave or how we should feel about it. The movie Contagion was much discussed in the early days and I have to admit, watching it now, it did have almost a documentary kind of feel about it. But, it is Groundhog Day that more accurately captured the sensation of our lives - without the regimented schedules (which we so loved to rail against) of our quotidian lives, there was no sense of the passage of time. Time seemed to simultaneously stand still and fly by at breakneck speed. Many of us had the epiphany that it was only by the things that we did (& had to do) did we register the passage of time.
There are some that agonize about the confluence of an unprecedented pandemic, its economic fallout, and angry protests breaking out all over the country. But, in fact, they are all connected. The economic fallout is of course the direct result of the lockdown in response to the spread of Covid-19. The killing of George Floyd and the anger and pain that has burst forth is of course unrelated to Covid-19, but the lockdown and a general sense of dread seemingly from an ineffable source added an edge to the anger and pain. And that edge is what is different about this latest round of protests over institutional racism that, most recently, can be traced back to Michael Brown in Ferguson, with multiple stops in between.
And what do we see Trump doing? Raving and ranting as always, throwing blame around and taking no responsibility whatsoever. There is no sugar coating it - he is a racist and his only interest is self-interest. Trump couldn't care less that he and his administration are causing (almost) irreparable damage to American society, its people, and to its place in the world, as long as it furthers his personal agenda. We are squarely in a moment of reckoning - are we going to unravel from here or is the system resilient enough to withstand these body blows and still remain standing?
There have been many a great civilization that seemed invincible in its time. The sun never set on the British empire, until it did. In 1700, India accounted for 27% of global GDP and a full quarter of the world's textile trade. The US has been the indispensable power for more than a century now, but is this the start of a slide into irrelevancy? American exceptionalism has always turned on the well justified notion that despite all its manifest flaws, the world is simply a better place when the US is the accepted moral authority. And if you didn't care about that, well, we have the weapons to blow you out of existence. Under Trump, there is not even a pretense of retaining that mantle of moral authority. China is fast becoming the dominant economic force in the world and most of the world is armed to the teeth. So, what remains of the US role?
I always thought that the 2000 election that brought in Bush the younger (along with Cheney and the rest of the Neo-Cons) was one of the most consequential elections of my lifetime. With Al Gore in the White House, how different would our response to 9/11 have been? And how different would the world be today if that had happened? But, all of that will pale in comparison to the implications of the elections coming up this November. If Trump is not defeated at the polls - and it really has to be a veritable blue tsunami that sweeps him and his enablers in the Senate out - the protests and strife that we see today will seem like a walk in the park. At the risk of sounding melodramatic, the very survival of this country - its soul at any rate - hangs in the balance.
No comments:
Post a Comment