When I think about all the changes triggered or excused by US “national security” policies that have taken hold in society since I arrived at the National Security Agency as a senior executive in 2001, the escalating damage to democracy is truly awful. The presidential election that’s now just weeks away will likely determine whether that damage will reach the level of destroying the very foundations of our nation’s democratic experiment.
Must also admit that over the last few months that much of the news these days is very depressing at home and abroad and quite easy to turn cynical and retreat from all the negative realities. As a personal perspective, I want to share a reflective essay piece concerning the governance stakes at hand in the US, the casual cruelty of toxic politics, the flood of counter-narrative gaslighting, and yes, a positive call for active participation and engagement for the best (or at least the better) in us.
In looking at what’s left of America, I spent a lot of time in pensive contemplation and reflection wrapped by glimmers of hope in the face of a lot of negative news and trends. As I took some time to visit family and friends over the past number of months, I was increasingly left to focus on what really matters in life. And what matters is our core humanity and actually caring about the welfare and well-being of our fellow human beings.
However, there are clearly those who do not respect the lives of others and simply wish to control people through the raw abuse of power in all its forms – by malignant individuals and via institutions and corporations who clearly do not always have the best interests of their constituents or customers in mind.
As I write this essay, we are now experiencing yet another presidential election season and much is very much on the line and at stake — with one major party candidate clearly promoting blatant calls for autocratic power while the other major party candidate stands for a return to at least the modicum and ‘normalcy’ of more conventional, institutionalized democratic behavior.
Also clear from the 2 October public release of the unsealing of the Special Counsel’s sealed filing on the private actions of former President Trump by Judge Chutkan, in the government’s felony case against Trump, that Trump led a criminal conspiracy to subvert the 2020 election and stay in power.
In other words to borrow a phrase from the movie A Few Good Men, Trump ordered the Code Red to thwart the will of the American people so he could unlawfully remain in power and overturn the 2020 election by any means necessary — thru hands-on, widespread deep deceit, subterfuge, fraud and then the incitement of a violent mob rally insurrection at the Capitol on 6 January 21 — in his final attempt to steal that same election.
To put it bluntly, Trump willfully and violated the unique and special oath he took as President to “preserve, protect and defend” the Constitution as the head of a criminal conspiracy against the nation.
Trump’s retribution and revenge 2024 election campaign to reclaim power is the siren call of a Lost Cause and now a way-above-the-flood-stage moment in the future of America that Trump and his confederates wish to transform into a neo-fascist AmeriKa—unleashing carnage and chaos across the land — and crush what’s left of the Constitutional Republic.
The autocratic audacity of straight face mendacity does not replace steely eyed truth burning through the facade and fusillade of lies. What happened to public service for the people and not for the persons in power? Yet truth too often becomes just another casualty when power is on the line.
And one primary reason pop-up populist personas lie and deny, and promote performative narratives designed to twist and distort reality, is because they possess a pathological need to destroy rationality and facts themselves by propaganda through omission and drama-filled revisionist history. And yet very little in politics is truly authentic. And nothing is really as simple as it seems or appears, whether it’s in small-town America or on the national stage.
But the 6 January 21 case against Trump is really about the survival of the Constitution and the rule of law and that nobody is above the law. The same case is also a stark example of how public institutions and officials are corrupted and compromised. If someone is above the law, it’s because the law was reinterpreted or changed or simply set aside and ignored.
Social media also promotes a toxic environment of disinformation and tropes that too often drive out truth while fragmenting reality and replaced by propaganda that freezes our moral and civic compass, and thereby destroying democracy under the banner of saving it.
There is a lot of establishment-level corruption normalized in America, which is just doing business for profit, gain, control, and influence. There are also everyday types of normalized rackets, and then there are full-on criminal protection rackets, with their own racketeers often peddling and promoting naked grift. Converting democracy to autocracy exchanges the rule of law for rule by the lawless.
I am unfortunately reminded of history with The Enabling Act of March 1933 that became law in Germany and gave the chief executive power to enforce their own laws without any checks or balances. The passing of this Enabling Act marked the formal transition from Germany as a democratic republic to a totalitarian dictatorship and a short six months later Germany was turned into a one party state ruled by Hitler.
Then this past summer the Supreme Court effectively amended the US Constitution without a new amendment and handed down a far reaching majority opinion that no criminal law applied to the President, as anything he does as President is given the full presumption of immunity for any official acts while officially acting as the President.
And yet giving license to the President for the abuse of power under the protection of absolute immunity for official acts that abuse power does corrupt absolutely. So the Supreme Court effectively created an extra-constitutional carveout in the Constitution where the President now has a license to crime — officially.
We are watching what I will coin democricide spreading as toxic acid within the body politic before our very eyes. Are we now eyewitness with a front row seat to a US republic that we are failing to keep as the people? Because the very last safety net is us — as We the People.
Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson wrote in dissent of the majority Supreme Court opinion on immunity
“…from this day forward, Presidents of tomorrow will be free to exercise the Commander-in-Chief powers, the foreign-affairs powers, and all the vast law enforcement powers enshrined in Article II however they please — including in ways that Congress has deemed criminal and that have potentially grave consequences for the rights and liberties of Americans… It holds that presidents have broad immunity from criminal prosecution — essentially, a license to commit crimes — so long as they use the official powers of their office to do so.”
And yet how can an illegal, let alone a criminal or even unconstitutional act, be official for a person sworn to uphold the law? If the President is deemed above the law then the President can break the law with impunity under the cloak of immunity, instead of faithfully upholding the laws and therefore can literally execute and do away with the rule of law by breaking it.
I must admit it is hard to debate the performative spectacle of an authoritarian pathological liar like Trump, unless you aggressively counter the blatant lying liar’s fake and fabulist reality and go on the offensive from the high ground of truth and one’s own integrity against a now persistent, personal and political cult that has co-opted much of the media landscape and captured the minds of too many Americans over almost a decade.
The bells are tolling for America. The alarm bells are ringing more loudly and the soul of America is increasing tattered and torn as it teeters on the very edge of the proverbial abyss as framed by the dustbins of history.
Trump is now positioned as a charismatic savior while actually performing as the proverbial ugly American and a performative big top political actor on stage drawn from central casting in his gilded con on America with a twist of celebrity TV strongman, glamour and naked grift thrown in to feed the daily soap opera drama.
Despite all the steaming bile of huge and outrageous lies streaming from Trump that pile up one after another (including the slicker version by JD Vance), this toxic drama reflects the embodied state of America, the political dyspepsia at large and the national decline of the US as a nation.
Is there any hope for the future? And who can secure the long term future possibilities of reviving and resuscitating America?
Biden did help stabilize the US ship of state (wobbly as it is) and kept America afloat since 20 January 21 after an unprecedented insurrection and coup attempt incited and led by Trump. And then Biden did what was right for America — gracefully, if not reluctantly — exited the stage, and passed the torch to a younger generation.
Can that generation now step up and steer the ship of the US state into the waters of a renewed and rejuvenated American future — hold the line against the real existential dangers and looming disasters of Trump and the siren calls for autocracy that would sink America — given what is so much at stake in this 2024 presidential election?
Don’t want to see the wolves of dystopia feeding and feasting off what is left of democracy and the remains of the Great Experiment and our Constitutional Republic. Failure to keep what is left of the best in America is just not an option.
Do We the People want to protect democracy and freedom rather than giving any quarter to those who are bent on destroying both and regard any notion of liberty and rights as anathema to autocracy and a twisted form of flag waving, fascistic AmeriKa?
We are collectively staring into the abyss and the accelerating collapse of America into a highly divided disunion of states. And lest we forget, all empires end up in the dustbins of history. So America’s fate IS very much on the line and not entitled to receive a get-out-of-history free exception card.
Trumpism is also a uniquely clear and present danger to American democracy and demands an intensely focused effort for opposing Trump. But time is short for doing what is right for the sake of history and the future of America and NOT sacrificing democracy and letting others as part of a new generation pick up the burden of carrying the flickering flame of America forward and give it new oxygen.
Am again remembering history when Benjamin Franklin was approached after the Constitutional Convention by the Philadelphia socialite Elizabeth Willing Powel who asked Franklin, “What have we got, a republic or a monarchy?” In response, Franklin purportedly said, “A republic, if you can keep it.”
For whom does our history toll? It is still ringing!
We need to reclaim both our precious individual freedoms and our collective community freedoms. We, as the People are the green traffic light of America’s future body politic and must resist and avoid becoming a fatalistic fatality of history. Fascism is at the blinking red stop sign of history ready to make America a historical fatality and consume its future with paralyzing fear — driven through the heart of freedom and liberty by a siren spear of dystopian destiny,
Do we want AmeriKan Fascism or American Freedom?
In this 2024 presidential election, the choice facing Americans is voting for those upholding what little is left of democracy and the remains of a Republic OR voting for those who will take away what little is left of democracy and eviscerate what little remains of a Republic.
Will the Great Experiment stumble, face its last gasp before fading away in the hot sun of history? Will history record the US falling into the dustbins of history, swept away by the machinations of Empire, as the gravediggers of democracy, human rights, liberty and freedom?
Can a next generation of diverse Americans take on Trumpism, the MAGA movement, neo-fascism, white supremacy, theo-nationalism, misogyny in all its despicable forms, as well as the extreme far right? We must seek to restore self-governance over institutional bureaucracy, techno-corporate oligarchy and political puppet masters. What America are we going to choose?
Some of us, persecuted or even prosecuted for calling out in the public interest the abusive and malfeasant power of the State, warned years ago about the authoritarian tendencies (from both government and corporations) subverting the precedence and primacy of democracy, civil liberties and human rights.
What happened?
Normal discourse was up ended and turned into abnormal decontextualized defying and lying, using alternative narratives as instruments of disinformation, hawking carnival barking, dog whistling, ethno-nationalism and propaganda while denigrating and desecrating all forms of democracy.
History stands as eyewitness for those seduced by autocratic and authoritarian preferences and impulses to pre-emptively frame, distort and deconstruct civic society and impose control thru rule, rather than co-operatively lead and govern under rule of law and civil society — both within and without — while rejecting the very bedrock foundations of democracy and informing the public and instead embracing the multiple varieties of the fear-and-smear show.
Differences of opinion, perspective and even discussions and disagreements over facts and reality are turned into artificial culture wars, truth washing and the implacable weaponization of other — as the enemy to hate, divide, project and promote chaos and confusion, engage in cancel culture, sow social discord as well as promoting violence and vitriolic animosity between people — while also using mind virus and meme manipulation projection as a psycho-social, performative spectacle and a toxic drama-ridden set of disinfo’d, miscontented, social media platforms.
Exercising freedom of speech, dissent and opposition to blatant propaganda, card-stacking, lawfare, illegal activities, fraud and the impunity of abusive and corrupt government and corporate power are invariably retconned, censored, censured, suppressed, repressed, silenced or treated as radicalized, extremist and even criminal behavior.
Standing up for the flawed but noble Great Experiment of democracy and the ideals of a civic Republic are still worth defending, preserving and protecting against the spawning ravages and craven, co-opting influencers of national insecurities and bad faith promoters of undemocratic regimes as well as angst-filled, doubt-driven, nihilistic, psychopathic, fear-based propaganda movements that wish to control and undermine the foundational freedoms and inalienable rights of humanity.
Vigilant discernment and media literacy are vital to restoring the health of a civic and civil society — while questioning everything — especially claims of and appeals to authority — and embracing the promise of a future we want to truly keep.
There is a clearly a dereliction and dissolution of democracy.
We must heed Edward Said’s call to speak truth to power, no matter the consequences:
“The intellectual’s role…is to uncover and elucidate…to challenge and defeat both an imposed silence and the normalized quiet of unseen power wherever and whenever possible.”
Agree with President Biden when he stepped down from campaigning for a second term that some things are more important than just staying in power and that’s the people.
But Trump and Vance have turned their backs on the American experiment.
And when did the for sale sign go up?
A system with such low regard for life and liberty warrants disruption and is a State disturbingly comfortable doing so and especially given the tragic history with all the exploitation and corruption of empire behavior and the seemingly endless wars, conflicts and military interventions. I am also well aware of all the injustices and inequalities in US history and the greater world that give “liberty and justice for all” the halo of myth for all too many.
But I also refuse to accept history as the limits of who we are, despite the prevailing human condition.
I am reminded of the American President movie where the President played by Michael Douglas said the following about character when challenged by his political opponent and so telling as a mirror on the 2024 election:
“For the last couple of months, Senator Rumson has suggested that being President of this country was, to a certain extent, about character. And although I’ve not been willing to engage in his attacks on me, I have been here three years and three days, and I can tell you without hesitation: Being President of this country is entirely about character…
America isn’t easy. America is advanced citizenship. You’ve gotta want it bad, ’cause it’s gonna put up a fight. It’s gonna say, “You want free speech? Let’s see you acknowledge a man whose words make your blood boil, who’s standing center stage and advocating at the top of his lungs that which you would spend a lifetime opposing at the top of yours.”
You want to claim this land as the land of the free? Then the symbol of your country cannot just be a flag. The symbol also has to be one of its citizens exercising his right to burn that flag in protest. Now show me that, defend that, celebrate that in your classrooms.
Then you can stand up and sing about the land of the free.
I’ve known Bob Rumson for years. And I’ve been operating under the assumption that the reason Bob devotes so much time and energy to shouting at the rain was that he simply didn’t get it. Well, I was wrong. Bob’s problem isn’t that he doesn’t get it. Bob’s problem is that he can’t sell it!
We have serious problems to solve, and we need serious people to solve them. And whatever your particular problem is, I promise you Bob Rumson is not the least bit interested in solving it. He is interested in two things, and two things only: making you afraid of it, and telling you who’s to blame for it.
That, ladies and gentlemen, is how you win elections. You gather a group of middle age, middle class, middle income voters who remember with longing an easier time, and you talk to them about family, and American values and character, and you wave an old photo of the President’s girlfriend and you scream about patriotism. You tell them she’s to blame for their lot in life. And you go on television and you call her a whore… We’ve got serious problems, and we need serious people…”.
And important to note that the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 is a dystopian blueprint for a blunt takeover and control of the organs of government that removes all the last guard rails of the Constitutional Republic and gives democracy its final set of shoves into open autocracy and at least soft turn-key tyranny. Trump and the neo-fascist elements behind him wish to disown fidelity to the Constitution and seek to dismantle it. The US is not immune from tyranny. We must always remain hyper-vigilant and meet the moment of our future now.
The institutions and the levers of democratic government cannot defend themselves — it is up to us as We the People.
I am reminded of George Washington’s Farewell Letter penned in 1796 that is also very relevant for today where he warned the American people that the price of independence and liberty as well as peace at home and abroad were all dependent upon unity among the states under rule of law and the new Constitution.
He also warned the American people to show suspicion regarding anyone who seeks to abandon or weaken the bonds that hold together the newly formed constitutional Republic and to place their identity as Americans above all other interests.
He also warned about the real dangers of any permanent alliances between the United States and foreign nations and in particular foreign entanglements. He urged Americans to avoid long-term friendly relations or rivalries with any nation, arguing that entangling attachments and alliances would only complicate the government’s judgment as it related to foreign policy and could draw the United States into wars that carry no justification.
And if the Middle East cauldron is any example, it is kill or be killed as the prevailing logic. Efforts by the US that prioritize peace seeking and peace setting through diplomacy and deterrence might just serve as the antidote.
In other words, we need moral clarity as a core civic duty and not vulgarity, cruelty and otherism, that tears out the heart and unravesl the still all too fragile fabric of America’s Great Experiment.
Meanwhile, I will continue to pay it forward and stand in the breach of democracy and promote the perfecting of the Union in terms of both aspiration and action. Why? Maybe I am naive enough to still believe in the promise of America’s Great Experiment — despite all it flaws and failures to date — even as a unicorn of history — but stand I will against all the attacks on its ideals and aspirations for all, in order to secure more of the all enjoying the blessings of liberty and freedom, promoting the general welfare and providing for the common defense of our inalienable rights.
How bad do we want to keep America? It really is our choice!
Yet it’s also way past our due date to re-discover, restore and defend our essential and shared humanity – for ourselves and each other. Our future depends on it so we can keep the Flame of Freedom and the Light of Liberty alive and not let it extinguish or get snuffed out.
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Publish date : 2024-10-09 18:50:00
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