Discussion question: is The American Experiment a failure?

Great Debates
1

Continuing the discussion from 7 Jan 2021 and beyond - the aftermath of the storming of the Capitol:

Continuing the discussion here.

The crux of the matter, as I see it, is that the USA is a melting pot that never really melted. Since the beginning we have had populations emigrating from all over the world (not to mention the indigenous population that we stomped all over), and how do you create a unified society and government to manage so many different backgrounds of all kinds?

To me there are two ways:

  1. A completely totalitarian dictatorship (which is not what the founders wanted).
  2. An extremely (unrealistically) enlightened general population that can “live and let live.”

I’m afraid the divisiveness and fragmentation we are experiencing now has passed the point of no return. E pluribus unum is in reality E pluribus pluribus pluribus…

I want desperately to be wrong.

2

American culture has been infected by a particularly virulent strain of bacteria and all we can hope for is to control the infection.
I’m inclined to think the damage done is mostly permanent.

3

I’m trying to remember exactly when The American Experiment wasn’t a failure.

4

The American Experiment is overall pretty good.

I’ve commented before how, as a racial minority, I can interact with cashiers, gas station attendants, hiring managers, etc. and sometimes forget that I’m not white. I don’t get gawked at. My neighbors don’t do a double-take at me, or harass me for my skin color. Almost never has anyone ever called me or anyone else in my family a racial slur. I’ve never been physically attacked for my race or anything else.

I think we often forget how difficult it is to forge a society that is 1) democratic, 2) a blend of different races, religions, etc. and 3) have people all coexist fairly peacefully. Relatively few nations have ever achieved all three.

5

This word is doing some heavy lifting here.

6

I haven’t forgotten. In fact, that is exactly the point I’m making. And look at the ones that have done it: racially, ethnically, culturally pretty homogeneous. I’m thinking, for example, Scandinavian countries.

7

I see, sorry, I misunderstood.

Well yes, America has a lot more troubles than Scandinavia. But considering that we’re playing the game of “run-a-country” on a higher difficulty setting, so to speak, I’d still say we’ve done quite decently.

8

That word is doing some heavy lifting here.

9

The American experiment has failed. I don’t see how anyone can argue that a country that elected a fascist game show host as president is anything but an abject failure.

There is not a single institution that is isn’t in a state of near collapse: health, education, the legal system etc; and one of our two major political policies is openly hostile to democracy.

We have an insane gun culture written by racist cowards who won’t go to a restaurant without carrying a gun. We actually have statues up to enslavers and traitors and people become irate at the idea we take them down.

Hardly a month goes by without a fascist terrorist incident.

Our Supreme Court is manned by the openly corrupt and yet Americans argue with a straight face that America isn’t a corrupt nation.

And then there is climate change. As the effects become worse and become obvious to even the most benighted corners of Red State America, the tensions will become untenable. Millions of violent, uneducated, but well armed red staters will be displaced.

Almost all of it can be traced back to American exceptionalism and racism, the cancer on our soul.

10

I kind of feel like the human race has failed. So ipso facto America has failed.

But then again, I’m a hopeless pessimist. So what do I know?

11

As opposed to the past, when we had actual enslavers and traitors.

12

As a species, we’re trudging along, so there’s some hope that someday–maybe 2000 years into the future, maybe 30,000–assuming we don’t knock ourselves off before this point, we will look back at this unenlightened period and marvel that a racist, corrupt, overtly oppressive society such as the U.S. was perceived by some to be a shining city on a hill.

13

No. Just because there are people you vehemently disagree with doesn’t mean anything is over.

14

I think we’re doing great, and I figure we’re on the brink of getting even better.

15

Unquestionably, there are cracks in the veneer, and there is much to do in regard to cutting out the cancer. Sure, there is always going to be a lunatic fringe, and that’s not necessarily a bad thing. Every loaf of bread needs yeast.

I’m just not ready to throw in the towel at this point. (Sorry, I seem to be speaking in cliches this morning…) This country has been damaged, and good people need to have the courage to do what it takes to fix it, and to hell with the political consequences. We cannot worry about how it is going to look if we send tRump to prison…we should worry far more about the example it sets if we don’t. We let Nixon, Reagan and Bush slide on their malfeasance “for the good of the country,” and that turned out to be anything but. We need to find the courage to let the judicial process play out to the fullest. We’ll heal after the people who need to be punished are convicted and serving out their sentences.

Borrowing shamelessly from an iconic novel for television: what is built will endure, and what is loved will endure. America will endure.

16

This is the second time you’ve thrown in a pithy remark about a particular word doing a lot of heavy lifting. It’s not particularly clever nor does it add anything of value to the conversation.

Back in April of 1861, we started shooting each other in the face because a bunch of states decided preserving slavery was more important than keeping the nation whole. As bad as Trump is, we’ve been worse off in the past and managed to come through it. I think we’ll survive Trump and his ilk.

17

The primary question that is begged here is what is the “American Experiment”. And then what is the metric of failure or success – and after that whether the answer is to be: “is failing” or “has failed”.

…or if there is an “American Experiment” any more realistically than there is an “American Dream”, or if it is just another motivational phrase. I once raised the question: Was the American Revolution really a revolution or merely a War of Independence? I say that the 1775-1783 hostilities were the latter. The “revolution” or “experiment” was a longer drawn out process of establishing our notions of constitutionalism.

Biggest issue as has been alluded to in some of the early posts in this thread is in fact that a large share of Americans have their own definition of what is “America” and what is America about. Is it an “idea state”, is it a cultural community, is it a volk? Is the Idea of America something you engineer deliberately or is it something that evolves organically and chaotically and can go in a bunch of unwanted directions, and is going the way we don’t want “failure”?

…or is what really scares us that any “experimental” phase if there ever was one is done happened long ago, and for the lifetime of everyone around today, we are just another country like all the rest with no special annointment, no grace shed or brotherhood crowned or guidance of a light from above. That “the bad guys” CAN win or at least the bent of the arc of history is not necessarily in the “right” direction where we sit at the time we sit there.

18

I see the rise of trumpism as the last gasp of the hegemony of aging, privileged white people.

To be clear, I don’t see it as being all about racism. After all, public establishments used to have “No Irish” signs. It’s more about the wish to preserve or restore a certain culture that never really existed in the first place: the mythical American Dream. A time and place where neighbors all knew and helped out each other, everybody worshipped the same God and obeyed the same rules, and anybody willing to work hard and obey those rules could be assured of a safe, comfortable middle class life.

For decades the rich and powerful, who are almost exclusively white, have been quietly exploiting this idea by lobbying and gerrymandering and passing certain laws that help them stay powerful and rich. Meanwhile, the ‘middle America’ people are wondering why they struggle so much to make ends meet. The rich and powerful sent quiet dog whistle signals their way, saying “those ‘Others’ are the reason why you’re struggling; only we can preserve ‘our’ culture, so continue to vote for us and support us and our policies”. But of course this is a lie; the mostly white middle-class middle Americans are not part of the same culture as the rich and privileged, but are being exploited by them.

Then trump and his handlers come along, throw out the dog whistles, and start saying the quiet parts out loud. Instead of the rich and powerful quietly pulling levers behind a curtain like The Wizard of Oz, trump is P.T. Barnum, carnival-barking out loud the things that many in middle America had been quietly conditioned to believe.

In short, I see America’s problems not stemming from racism and multiculturalism so much as being the result of a classic class struggle. America was founded with the intention of leveling the playing field through Democracy, and giving everyone an equal chance for success. Marxism and the rise of the Soviet Union was a very different attempt to level the playing field for all. But both institutions were thwarted by the rich and privileged few exploiting the system for their own ends at the expense of the less privileged many, while pretending the “equality for all” system was still in place.

So, do I think the ‘American Experiment’ is a failure? I don’t; at least I remain optimistic. America is becoming more and more multicultural, that is just a fact. At some point the myth of the American Dream of a mostly white middle America will collapse. The question is, what will replace it? Will the rich and privileged continue to dominate, the only difference being that the new rich and privileged will no longer be exclusively white? Or will the majority of Americans finally stop being fooled into thinking that they’re part of an exclusive club that bankrupts them with membership dues that are higher than they can afford?

19

That was racism, the Irish were not considered to be ‘white’ at the time.

20

Yes, racism does definitely exist. What I mean is, I see the basic problem with the “American Experiment” as a clash of class and culture. Just as the Irish were eventually accepted as being part of the American “culture”, so can others of different ethnicities and gender preferences. As they will be, since America is becoming more multiethnic.