Donald Trump and the movement he represents are not “just” a matter of politics: They are effectively a public health crisis that touches all areas of American society and life.
These assaults on democracy and a humane society are emotional, physical, spiritual, psychological, economic, intellectual and material. Trumpism and fascism attack reality and truth, seeking to replace them with what social psychologists have described as a state of “malignant normality."
The result of these assaults is a collective state of trauma, anxiety, lack of direction and growing despair about our futures as individuals and citizens of a supposed democracy. These negative emotions are amplified by existential fears about global climate disaster, disruptive technologies such as AI, wars in multiple areas of the world, past and future pandemics and other unpredictable crises.
Fascism and authoritarianism are like opportunistic predators. They seek out societies in crisis whose dysfunction and brokenness allow them to flourish.
If Trump and his MAGA forces take back the White House, whether by fair means or foul — a once-unthinkable prospect that now seems increasingly likely — that might finally mean the end of innocence for those Americans who have deluded themselves into believing that “we are better than that."
People seem to be missing that this not the result of trumps presidency. This is the result of a disgusting and systematic destruction of public resources and a rollback of the provision of public services. This was done at the same time that oversight and consequences were systematically removed from political operatives. (Thanks, Citizens United!) All of this has been accomplished by the rich in the name of further enrichment at the expense of every single person in the nation. And while they did this, they blasted us with increasingly limp propaganda.
I have a serious wake up call for people reading this article and taking it at face value: EVEN IF BIDEN WINS, DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA WILL STILL WHEEZING ITS LAST SAD BREATHS. And that won’t change until the deeper economic issues and the political operators fostering and worsening those issues are dealt with.
Yeah, obviously it’s worse if trump wins. But the fact Biden is being painted as a savior of Democracy is blatant propaganda by people supporting a party that has been complacent at best for creating the material conditions enabling trump to rise to any sort of political relevance. That should be a wake up call. Biden is a dogshit senile crank that authored one of the worst crime bills in our nation’s history.
Yeah: clearly, fuck trump. But dear god fuck Biden and the democrats too. They’re not the answer. We as a society need to fucking torch both parties and that, not voting for one of the two, is going to save democracy in America.