Is it too late for America to Save Itself?

Politics & Elections
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(Mods, I considered this a Great Debate at first, but since it’s so very tied into Political decisions, I used P&E, if you feel otherwise, feel free to move)

NOTE TO ALL - Not a Pit thread, so please argue, do not RANT.

I know the title may sound histrionic, and has been echoed down through the ages “We live in the End Times!” “The death of the Nation!” “Better dead than Red!”. So I know I am standing on the packing crate of loons, naysayers, and out and out crazies. But…

Here is the thing. I think we’ve passed the cusp. Sure, there are plenty of people, groups, and entire movements trying to push against the increasing polarization, or trying to mend the cracks. And those pushing reform in government on all levels. And Biden being elected in 2020, was a momentary pause for all to regroup and reconsider. But here we are, 2024, and the answer to the great pause, and a leader pledging to be a leader to all Americans, not just his own party, was a resounding F___ You from his enemies, and even some of his allies.

Across the board, each side is digging in, and increasingly there are lines neither side will cross, no matter the consequences. To be clear, my sympathies are entirely on the side of the Democrats at this time, and I’m trying to avoid both-siderism, but while I agree with the reasons Democrats are increasingly unwilling to save Republicans from themselves, it doesn’t do the nation all that much good.

And I don’t just blame Trump, that would be another (many!) threads. We’ve had a recent post or two pointing that extreme polarization may be the historical norm, and that bipartisanship was a temporary aberration!

No, what I see is a two pronged major fracture point.

First, using the existing legal and political structures to perpetually lock in the existing structure. Pick your poison, gerrymandering, new state amendments (in Alabama, or conversely, the legislature ignoring them in Ohio), unremovable and outspokenly partisan judges, you name it, we have it.

Second, and probably worse: the increasingly obvious multi-tiered structure of justice. Trump constantly dodging his trials, convictions, appeals, et al is just the most visible elements. Things like the newly uncovered NDAs by the Coast Guard, the Sackler settlements, Epstein’s case, you name it, if you have enough money/power, the courts will give you endless slack. But if you’re a normal person, you get no such deference.

The American Experiment is based on all persons agreeing that a single set of rules applies to all. It is the American Dream, and has always been more a dream than reality if we’re honest. But what is happening now is people on all sides are deciding that it was always a dream and looking at the reality in disgust and fear.

For “liberals” using a loaded term, it’s seeing that the largely rich, white, Christian (could add cis, male, hetero and more) power-block will burn down Democracy to keep it’s position and prevent any sort of balance.

For “conservatives” it’s seeing that deference disappear, and facing a possible (probable?) redistribution of their power, wealth, and protection to those that they likely never truly considered as equals.

AGAIN, I do not ascribe equal value to both sides, but I’m pointing out that both sides SEE that the current system is a direct threat to themselves.

So neither side has an interest in preserving the current status quo. Neither side has (IMHO) a sufficiently strong edge over the other to bring about a complete victory.

Which brings us back to the title: Yes, I think it is too late for America to save itself. I hope to be wrong, but last time both sides were this intent on preserving or correcting the path of the nation it lead to a Civil War.

Your opinions are welcome, but again, please keep it civil.

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For the most part, the Democrats still retain immense advantages: the youth still favor them, demographics favor them, etc. So, given that this board leans liberal, I think most would think America can still be saved.

Also, America retains immense built-in advantages no matter how bad politics gets - vast natural resources, advanced technology, etc. And the reason there won’t be a civil war is because we’re mixed too closely. It’s not like North vs. South; this is a purple America where red and blue are mixed quite evenly.

Lastly, there’s the saying, “Don’t mock the alligator until you are across the stream.” Right now, the reason America is so bitterly divided is because one side (left-wing) is still crossing the stream while in the water with the gator. Once demographics kick in, the alligator (right-wingers) can be mocked as much as the left wing wants. However, the left-wing has a bad habit of not only mocking gators while still in the water, but of creating new gators, too.

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I remember when Thelma Lou OP’ed in GD about whether the American Experiment is a failure. I didn’t quite understand her proposal then but began eventually to see it as at least arguable.

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Here’s an example: my sister and brother-in-law chose not to vote in the California election. They’re both smarter than me and have shared opinions about political climate. Even though they weren’t on some voting list, they could’ve stopped to do provisional ballots but chose not to do that. You can imagine how mad I got at them.

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I’m not saying we’re going to be fighting a second Civil War on the battlefield. I’m saying that each group is going to be unwilling to work with each other until we end up with what’s widely described as a Cold Civil War. No compromise, endless gridlock, each side’s strongholds preserved by law that can not be challenged. We’d likely still be the USA in name, but that doesn’t mean we can’t be a failed state (if a powerful one to outsiders) in all but name.

See for example, Texas and the border as a trial balloon for each state (and later, because as you point out each area is a mix, smaller and larger regions of a state) going it’s own way despite existing legal and political norms, with minimal effective pushback. Or the Texas state legislature pushing laws carefully written to punish, control and push back on their most profitable and populous cities which attempt to pass ordinances to suit their own needs.

Or Texas and Florida shipping “undesirables” to other states.

Or any other pieces of headline news.

Getting back to my OP - it’s about the Myth of America, where we are governed by the consent of all. The consent is, IMHO (again!) largely gone. And the ones at the top are not only aware of it, but the most greedy among them are counting on it. The Freedom Caucus, DeSantis, Paxton and Abbot, Trump, they’re all onboard to a greater or lesser extent with saying the Dream is Dead, who will get to burn down the remains of the mostly-dead Republic as the New Dictator.

And if various liberals have lost faith in the system (and many of us have by the hundreds of threads), there is little reason to try to save the existing system if they’re going to burn it down anyway, when they have a possible chance to build it back better to borrow a phrase.

How many threads do we have about the Constitution being a document, not a suicide pact, or about how the EC / 2nd Amendment (picking two hot-button topics) are dinosaurs of another age?

Again, from the POV I mentioned earlier, both sides have good reasons (at least to themselves) to burn it all down, internal and external reasons to avoid preserving it, and everyone is seeing it happen in real time, 24/7.

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In history, citizens have come together in crisis but for only a short time, a year or two. I thought maybe the Baltimore bridge collapse might unfortunately do that.

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Oh my sweet summer child! Didn’t you know that the bridge collapsed because of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion? Or was it Woke?

Citizens cannot “come together” if a whole bunch of them are functionally insane.

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The question I have is people keep framing a second civil war as between the Left(Democrats) and the Right(Republicans) but what side do the Non-Voters/politically uninvolved take if an actual war/violence takes place?

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The former, because the dude in charge of the city is black.

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War Profiteers. Sell ammunition to both sides.

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True. But there have always been pro-autocracy, pro-bigotry/apartheid Americans. They haven’t been an existential threat to America-the-Democratic-Republic before because they’ve never before in our history had the level of encouragement they’re now getting–encouragement to be as hateful and yes, violent, as they can be.

What’s new now is that encouraging hateful violence is profitable.

Back when all the far right, pro-violent-hatred folks had was right-wing radio, they felt the disapproval of the larger society, which saw violent hatred as shameful. Now, the Murdochs and Elon Musk and other entrepreneurs have made the promotion of violent hatred so profitable that violent hatred is no longer a source of shame. What’s new in the past couple of decades is that since violent hatred has gained the ‘respectability’ of being mainstreamed on American television, it has gained adherents willing to stand out in the open. In the past, they were ashamed to stand out in the open.

The American Experiment may fail because Americans can now turn on the TV or fire up the Internet and see their resentments enshrined as popular and widespread and (they’re told) universal.

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I don’t think so. I think that the magnitude of current problems tends to be perceived disproportionately to their historical magnitude in retrospect. So things seem bad and that is in part magnified by human nature when it comes to consuming media and how that media is created and targeted so effectively to maintain engagement. But times aren’t that bad actually.

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… or some capitalist equivalent. American Dream, baby.

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It’s seems to me that the ‘right’ is mad about a few things.

  • The ‘left’ is doing better money wise over all. Except for the handful of billionaires.
  • The left does believe that everyone should have a piece of the pie. That frightens the rich right.
  • The poor on the right don’t seem to get a piece of the pie. That’s only their own fault.
  • The left believes in freedom of religion/beliefs. Which for some reason disturbs the right. Why they care can’t be explained.

We are already in a Cold Civil war. I sure don’t know why though. I want everyone to have the same opertunities for success, or failure. Right and Left.

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A difference in philosophy is not a civil war, cold or otherwise. We aren’t going to have unanimity of thought and when you have a two party system which is a stable system and where each party evolves to maintain near parity there will be institutional gridlock. That’s the nature of the system. Just because one faction isn’t totally dominant doesn’t mean there is a ‘war.’ That’s unhelpful hyperbole.

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The role of the demagogue, it seems to me, is to unite the mean and dumb people (massive Venn diagram overlap here!) and realize that, if they stick together, they can be as mean and dumb as they want and do whatever the fuck they want (i.e., “action”). The actual belief system they practice really doesn’t matter very much. The premier example of how this works is Nazism under Hitler.

It was hard to accomplish the same thing in the entire US. We had the regional shame of slavery and then Jim Crow, but that arose not from the desire for “action” but for the advantage (part actual, part only perceived) of whites (that is, stable oppression, not a revolutionary movement). I think one reason it was hard for demagogue to succeed is that, for a long time, the more racist party was also the more liberal; i.e., the Democrats. Contrariwise, the more conservative party received the support of the most oppressed people in the US, i.e., African-Americans.

Once the GOP became the party of the white ruling class, a Trump became possible. Trump managed to rally all the dumbasses and haters under his MAGA banner because he offered the same type of “action” that Hitler did: let’s break things and fuck people up.

That to me is the big problem: 30% of Americans have proven to be fucking idiot assholes who now understand, or rather feel, the power they have when they join together. That flavor is sweet to them, bitter to everyone else, but now that they’ve tasted it, they’re not going to forget it or give it up.

It took Germany being bombed into the dust and occupied by victors for the Nazis and their fellow travelers to learn their lesson. Without its participants learning a similar lesson, I don’t think MAGA is going to go away. Further, the undemocratic features of our political system, including the EC and senate, give them a significant advantage.

Trump isn’t going to last much longer; his health is shit. But this movement is going to continue even if it doesn’t win presidential elections. They and the christofascists (again, major overlap) are going to just fuck with everything they can forever. I think it will take a generation to return to what we might call political normalcy in this country.

Meanwhile, I think our political and economic system is ripe for beta decay (i.e., a quick and sudden shift to something radically different due to macro instability). There is just too much shit that people don’t like and that isn’t working any more. The OP said that both sides don’t like the system now, and I think that is true, but I think there is a lot of stuff that both sides hate without understanding or recognizing that commonality. Modern life is just grating: spam emails, phone calls, and texts; worrying about a zillion passwords; getting hacked; cell phone battery life; rapacious, rent-seeking companies; credit scores; student debt; climate change; endless scams; outrageous health care costs; homelessness; and so on. MAGAs and liberals alike, it seems to me, would all like a simpler, easier life. And I think MAGAs and liberals both agree that the government is doing little to make that happen (someone is going to point out that the government can’t improve cell phone battery life; I know).

In Germany, the desire for “action” arose largely out of the loss of WWI (including wounded national pride and the cost of reparations) and the Great Depression. I think the desire for “action” on the part of MAGA comes from all the stuff people say it does (white fear/rage at a changing demographic landscape, offshoring of American industry resulting in rust belt decay, etc.) as well as ennui and frustration at modern life. We Liberals have our concrete causes: ending homelessness, creating a fairer economy, etc. MAGA has nothing beyond the aforementioned “action” as a vision.

I think what we Liberals are going for would end up making life better for MAGAs and calm them down. If we can achieve that, then yes, America can save itself. If we can’t (and it will be difficult at best), then the MAGAs are going to keep throwing tantrums until lots of shit breaks and they start seeing that that’s not what they really want.

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You’re too impatient.
This will take years to clean up, but it will clean up.
The Red Scare of the 50s was preceded by the Anarchist Scare of the 1920s.
And screwballs were say9ing that Jefferson was conspiring to start a Monarchy.
If we work patiently, this will clean up.
No sudden dramatic solutions, please. That would be bad.

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My fear is that there could be a second Civil War on the battlefield. I think of our current situation in terms of an analogy with D&D. The forces of Lawful Good (the current Democratic Party if we’re limiting this to the US), if given enough time, will overcome the forces of Lawful Evil (the former Republican Party as exemplified by Bush Jr., Dick Cheney, Mitt Romney, etc.). We had been doing so since the end of WWII. Yes, that meant putting up with things like you mention regarding the wealthy being able to buy justice. In the interests of making that slow but steady progress, we have had to put up with that sort of thing. IMHO that’s a small price to pay given the new problems we’re facing. Now the forces of Lawful Good are dealing with Chaotic Evil (Trump and his supporters). What this means is that I think “putting up” with Lawful Evil is part of what we’re going to have to do. It’s not too late, but we’re getting very close to the deadline. If Trump wins, IMHO it’s all over. We’d be done with a corrupt but fixable system and be getting into one that’s completely broken.

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I do. Yes, there was the Tea party group- but they were not a power. trump allowed the bigots and people who use threats are a form of expression to gain power.

That was all trump. Mind you yes, the GOP is entrenched and the Dems also to a lesser extent, but one trump is gone, this will diminish.

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They aren’t that bad currently, but they could become that bad if Trump wins. IMHO I think there’s a very good chance, over 50%, that he goes ahead with things like locking up his political enemies. It wouldn’t surprise me if he ordered the branches of law enforcement he perceives as most loyal to him to round up all the Democrats in the House and Senate and have them locked up. It wouldn’t surprise me if he did the same with Justices Kagan, Sotomayor, Brown-Jackson, and even Roberts. It wouldn’t surprise me if he sacked all the top generals and admirals and had them replaced with people whose main qualifation is loyalty to Trump. AFAIK nothing like that has ever been done in a western democracy without it becoming an authoritarian / fascist country, and that’s what would happen here as well if Trump were to attempt it (and again I think the odds are he almost certainly would if he wins the election).