For generations, doomsayers have warned about the imminent collapse of the American republic, effected not by outside forces, but by inside elements that gnaw at the nation’s gut like a cancer. Watch out for the Communists. Watch out for the foreigners swarming our borders. Watch out for leftists. Watch out for the Jews. Watch out for the Muslims. Watch out for rock and roll. Watch out for Disney.
Well, now the U.S. as we knew it is tottering on its final feeble legs. But the collapse wasn’t caused by any of these things. It was caused by radical ideologues who knew how to pervert the very mechanism that was supposed to ensure the stability of American democracy: its system of checks and balances.
Theoretically, it was a brilliant structure. Three branches of the federal government to crack the whip on each other, and all of them supposedly answerable to hoi polloi. But in all their wisdom, the Founders were unable to foresee that two centuries hence, there would be plotters and schemers who would exploit the chinks in the wall to bring the whole thing tumbling down.
The weakest chink was the Electoral College. And the Founders certainly were not blameless in foisting it upon posterity. Because for all the high-minded rhetoric used to justify such an institution, its primary purpose was to advance the interests of slaveholders. And while there are no longer slaveholders, at least in the literal sense, they have spiritual descendants who are possessed of the same obsessions with power and control.
It was supposedly designed to safeguard against the “tyranny of the majority”. Instead, it flung the gates wide open to the tyranny of the minority. It was supposed to be a shield against the success of a demagogue who might win overwhelming public support. Instead, it provided such a demagogue with the keys to the White House.
The Electoral College allowed the Supreme Court to be hijacked by unprincipled authoritarians — five of whom were appointed by losers of the popular vote, and four of whom helped one of the losers ascend to the Oval Office. One is also married to a conspirator in the insurrectionist plot, and apparently is hauling in plenty of cash under the table from corporate interests eager to buy their share of the government pie.
And now, that Court has driven its stake fully into the heart of democracy; ironically, the maneuver to revert to a de facto monarchy occurred just before the holiday designated to celebrate independence from a tyrannical monarchy. The presidency is now officially a dictatorship, and the Court is its chorus of yes men. That just leaves Congress, and it’s hanging by a very tenuous thread. Even when the Republicans don’t have a majority, they are quite adept at getting their way, with a heavy arsenal of tools such as filibustering, gerrymandering, obstruction, bogus investigations, court packing and a host of other dirty tricks. All of them perfectly constitutional. And all of them being used to chip away at the Constitution.
Nothing will save America now except the ballot box. And even that has very grim prospects, because it’s being severely hamstrung by those in power. More than ever, the will of the people can be easily and totally overridden.
The republic’s future is in the hands of those who hold office, and is dependent upon their character. In short, all the evidence indicates we are royally fucked.
The Propaganda Professor 
Years ago, soon after Trump’s victory over Hilary Clinton, someone posted a comment on the Medim website warning readers that Since Trump was separating parents from children and keeping them in cages, we could no longer expect our institutions to help stop Trump from vilifying desperate immigrants and making them into scapegoats who supposedly wanted to kill, rape and provide addicting drugs to Americans–much the same kinds of claims Hiter used to demonize Jews! The article’s author also affirmed that Congress will not help us, the courts will not help us, and only the power of the vote will help us! At the time I thought the author was exaggerating unnecessarily but in these ensuing years, most of his predictions now ring true. The most personally upsetting to me is the way our own courts, including our Supreme Court, with its 6 to 3 majority of conservatives, is now willing to be used as a mere political pawn! I never thought that in my lifetime such radical changes would become feasible and preferable as ways that a (much too large) group of disgruntled Americans, would choose to join Trump’s cult and eat up his crap about their strongman being persecuted by the Justice Department, as well as the more specific claims made by Trump, that they were going after him, to persecute his followers. And then he used them as pawns to achieve what he hopes will be an effective dictatorship. He even vowed to provide them with retribution, while his Gullible group of MAGA followers was told about the central role of religion and the fiendish schemes of liberals and “God-haters” who supposedly wanted to destroy America.
Now the SCOTUS is granting him the power of immunity whenever he uses power as part of his “official duties,” and he will not be tried for the stolen document case, etc. until after the election!–meaning that if Trump is elected, the law will then allow him to pardon dozens of Neo-natzi’s and White Nationalists, as well as others in the basket of true deplorables!
One can play the under-oath recordings of Bill Barr, and Mitch McConnel, as well as the recordings of many other “Republicans”– (currently best described) as a large group of political supporters, which have been effectively revealed as a collection of ideological thugs, one’s which are best defined with oxymorons such as “patriots” and “true believers,” who are now effectively a group of power-hungry Trumpers, aiming to create an incredibly immense political party–which would be empowered by misconceptions about our 1st Amendment, and which willfully seeks to transform them into heroes. They believe that Newtown and the Florida Parkland school district shootings were merely staged by pro-gun Democrats who wanted to grab their guns. And they also believe that one of the fairest elections ever held; was victimized by massive (yet virtually non-existent voter fraud), which was generously heard by judges but rejected in (60 court cases), by many of Trump’s judicial appointees, (due to a complete lack of evidence)! But never mind that, just anticipate seeing our country be taken over by a bunch of farm animals who are “more equal “than the others!
Real love and rationally based arguments may eventually save us from the political snake pit that Trump has created and personally benefited from–once his narrow-minded followers begin to understand the truth, and recognize how, they too, were deceived!!
Well, it happened again, an assassin’s bullet was aimed at a popular political candidate, but in this case, he was spared literally, by a hair, or perhaps by an ear, that could have determined life and death. No doubt Trump has lots of enemies and many of them may not be sane, just as some crazies who have attacked Democrats were probably not sane either.
Personally, I have felt a lot of anger toward Trump, but when I saw a video of this near miss, my first reaction was, Oh No! One of our political candidates was attacked again! But this time he was saved from death by such a tiny margin, that videos of the attack show Trump’s ear bleeding while the rest of him looks unscathed.
In the future (which is now even more uncertain), I think we will hear claims that a lot of attacks made on famous political figures like Trump were planned by Democrats. (and I apologize if I am wrong), but that’s usually the way the gun culture likes to frame things. So, we can bet that many on the right wing will make incendiary attacks on the “radical left-wing,” and claim that, (thank God, that they didn’t get their way)! I would also guess that Republicans in Congress will soon try and capitalize on this act of violence to use as proof that Dems are trying to manipulate politics just to gain power–(Just as they always do)? It’s also very likely that even more online vitriol will spawn even more congressional witch hunts conducted by Republicans seeking to grandstand the idea that the left has always hated Republicans and thus should not be in charge of our government. And, of course, the news media will become saturated with “both sides do it,” claims even though it was done by a madman who previously was a Republican–who was likely the same kind of madman that attacked Democrats in the past.
It has been pointed out by commenters on this website, that the “(both sides do it)” argument, is not always true, or even relevant i.e. If Holocaust condemning letters are published in our opinion pages, then perhaps letters from Holocaust deniers should also be published so that voters can make up their minds if it actually happened?–even though it’s more clear than sunshine that the deniers are either lying or wrong. Likewise, it is still true that Republicans consistently devise outrageous conspiracy theories, used to exploit Democrats for doing things that we do not do, nor endorse! These are usually ugly and concocted claims designed to make American voters hate Democrats–because….well–because Republicans tell them they should.
So no matter who caused or didn’t cause this incredible incident, it will eventually be lied about to score partisan political capital. But Dems will keep asserting the truth, even though all of us were shocked when we saw a popular political candidate attacked, (and almost killed). However, Democrats will still condemn political violence as well as many other kinds of violence, just as Republicans do! Still, we are not going to lie about what happened in Newtown or the Parkland school district, when a young previously bullied student attacked other students using an illegally obtained AR-15. We would be lying if we said those kinds of politically concocted claims didn’t bother us. And Republicans would be lying if they claimed they will not accuse Democrats of doing things we did not do!