There are two Americas. It has always been so. The America of expansion and the America of contraction. We get to choose, and we are in the process of choosing now. Examples:
Contraction - slavery born of the mistaken idea that white European men (not women) are superior to all other forms of human beings on the planet.
Expansion - the American Revolution - Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin and John Adams - "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."
Contraction - the Civil War where the South fought to preserve the false idea that whites are superior to blacks, and to keep African Americans enslaved.
Expansion - the Civil War where the North fought to free the slaves and renew America's commitment to equality of all humans - "Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal."
Contraction - the Jim Crow South that crushed African American power with terror and oppression
Expansion - the Civil Rights Movement led by African Americans and joined by all races to end Jim Crow and establish the Voting Rights Act allowing full democratic participation in the South
Contraction - McCarthyism and the Red Scare used legitimate fears of Soviet Russian Communist infiltration into the U.S. government to falsely strip liberals of influence and power
Expansion - Joseph Welch...As he struggled to maintain his composure, he looked at McCarthy and declared, “Until this moment, Senator, I think I never really gauged your cruelty or your recklessness.” It was then McCarthy’s turn to be stunned into silence, as Welch asked, “Have you no sense of decency, sir, at long last?”
Contraction - the John Roberts Supreme Court has overturned and continues to overturn the Voting Rights Act under the obvious false pretense that bigotry is over in America - the KKK rides again
Expansion - Americans need to, and will, reject the KKK fear based compulsion to perpetuate the false idea that white European men are superior to all other human beings
Contraction - Trump and MAGA - "Make America Great Again" (white only again) - with ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) thugs brutalizing and capturing and deporting brown people on the pretense of hunting illegal and dangerous immigrants, all for videos to show MAGA cult on Social Media and Government sanctioned TV news channels - so you can see how tough tough tough they are - and how they are fighting for the supremacy of the white race, again and again and again
But, here is the trick that history plays - the human race is hard wired for expansion, not contraction, for evolution, not devolution. Contraction is doomed to failure because of its nature. Its nature is to stop, to shrink, to go back. Its nature is fear. Its nature is in the name of fear to be cruel and punishing and domineering. These are small energies. They are not energies that push forward and grow the human race.
The human race is hard wired for expansion, hope, goodness truth and beauty, justice. Martin Luther King said it beautifully: "The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice." This isn't wishful thinking, naivete, childish lack of cynicism.
This is the essence of the Human Species - expansion not contraction.
