The United States has always had two energies in its history - idealism and equality on one side, oppression and opportunism on the other - good America and bad America, it seems to me.
In the beginning, we had a country founded on the ideal that "all men are created equal" - equality is the dream of America.
But, also in the beginning the Founding Fathers had to allow slavery. Slavery was the first brutal authoritarian oppression. There was no democracy nor equality in the Southern Slave States.
Then we had President James Polk and Manifest Destiny - i.e. the idea that white Americans were properly blessed and destined to annihilate native Americans and take over all the land to the Pacific. There was no democracy nor equality in the barbarous subjugation of the native Americans who were already here.
Then we had the Civil War and a brief freeing of the slaves in the south, only to have that freedom and equality taken away by the infamous Compromise of 1877 where a disputed presidential election was resolved by allowing the Republican, Rutherford B Hayes, to win the election in return for the removal of Federal Troops who were enforcing the reconstruction laws. The result was nearly a century of brutal Jim Crow South where blacks did not vote, did not have rights under the laws, and were intimidated, crushed, lynched. There was no democracy nor equality in the Jim Crow South.
Then we had the Women's RIghts Movement that finally gave women the right to vote in the 19th amendment in 1920. This was democracy and equality.
Then there was the Civil Rights movement of the '50s and '60s culminating in the Voting Rights act of 1965 to protect the Constitutional amendments no. 14 and 15 allowing blacks to vote and have equal civil rights. This was democracy and equality.
Then there was the infamous Roberts Supreme Court that gutted the Voting RIghts act in Supreme Court edicts in 2013 and 2023. This was an attack on democracy and equality.
So, now, we have a new Republican in Name Only MAGA administration openly Ruling as a King, Ruling by Fiat, usurping Constitutional Congressional authorities by destroying Congressional laws and agencies at their destructive whim. Democracy and equality are being destroyed. Right now. At the direction of a hostile foreign power, Russia, I believe. It could be just stupidity and ignorance, but it seems to me to be too disciplined and focused to just be the blatherings of a nitwit.
Once the Orange Contagion is gone, his MAGA fanatics will still be with us. And what used to be our allies know it. How can they ever trust America again knowing that the millions of Americans who voted for, supported, and worshiped the Orange Contagion are still here. What will they do? What need they do now?
What used to be our allies will look to markets and supply chains outside the U.S. They will need to develop their own nuclear weapons since it becomes obvious that this group of fools will not protect them. They will fight any invasion of their territory by a nitwit led U.S.
For now, there is a quick victory of authoritarianism over America. It is not the first authoritarianism in America. It is back again. This is horrifying to me.
But this is not the end of the story. I truly believe that democracy and equality will prevail and that Goodness, Truth, and Beauty will triumph over the threats, violence, and fear of authoritarianism.
But it is ugly right now. We have work to do.
