“The United States of America”
Gosh, that has a nice ring to it. All the citizens of those states, working together to accomplish great things. We can do that because, of course, we are “united”.
Thank you, Abraham Lincoln!
Actually, when one considers what’s been going on in America over the past half century, the term “The United States of America” should probably be considered an oxymoron, like “military intelligence”, “benign neglect”, “Creation science”, “Federal budget”, “kosher ham”, “pretty ugly”, and “twelve ounce pound cake”.
How about The Divided States of America?
That makes more sense to me, as our government and populous seem to revel in disunity, proudly disagreeing on everything, making little effort to come together on serious issues, and squandering the legacy of accomplishment given to us by our forefathers. They worked together as a team to build things, defeat Nazis, and make the American Dream possible. Conversely, the current crop of politicians and “citizens” waste valuable time and resources shooting spitwads at each other in lieu of solving problems or moving the needle once inch toward progress.
In The Divided States of America, during a deadly pandemic, partisanship rather than science has resulted in 200,000 deaths. We, as a society, can’t even agree if the pandemic is real, if our public health experts know what they’re talking about, and if we would avail ourselves of a vaccine if one were offered.
Meanwhile, in other less “united” nations, and in some “shithole countries” (to use our President’s term), the death rate from Covid-19 per million people is dramatically less than that in our country. The latter is what happens when people work together to solve problems, when a nation’s leader actually knows how to lead.
In The Divided States of America, we seem to have great difficulty agreeing amongst ourselves that a policemen choking a handcuffed, unarmed man to death is a crime. Many citizens feel like our police forces should be allowed to dispense justice on the spot, as they see fit, while other citizens are upset that such extra-judicial force seems to be primarily exercised when the supposed perp is non-Caucasian.
That such police brutality and systematic racism exists has been statistically known for decades. Most Americans acknowledge it as a significant problem. And, yet, there is a significant core of “non-believers” in many states, who favor allowing the police to do whatever they want to, including using excessive force, violating laws, lying about their actions, etc. The massive public demonstrations occurring now throughout the Nation are a reflection of the divide between those who acknowledge the cancer and those who pretend that all is well.
(Interestingly, a lot of attention has been given to the case of Breonna Taylor. This young Black lady, an EMT first responder, was sleeping in her bed in her apartment when three policeman busted down her door and shot up the place, killing Breonna. Her Black boyfriend shot at the un-invited guests who broke into his apartment. This seems to have justified the police over-reaction of riddling the apartment with 30 bullets, many of which struck Miss Taylor. No charges were filed against the officers for murdering Breonna Taylor. One has to wonder what would have been the reaction of Trump’s “Second Amendment” contingent if three Black officers had executed a no-knock warrant on the home of a White resident who was legally armed and proceeded to protect himself, his girlfriend, and his property. That’s why so many Americans own guns…to protect themselves from intruders. Right? At least that’s what the National Rifle Association says. Evidently police officers don’t believe that Black apartment dwellers are covered by the Second Amendment.)
In The Divided States of America, most people believe the 97 percent of the world’s scientists who are alarmed about our warming global climate. Virtually all of the countries in the world have come to the conclusion that this problem is to a significant degree man-made and are taking steps to ameliorate the environmental damage.
However, our President is not one of those believers, and he has mobilized his political base (and supporting petroleum industry lobbyists) to bad mouth climate scientists, disseminate misinformation, withdraw Federal funding for climate research, and punish Administration officials who don’t deny global warming. As a result, a significant portion of American citizens don’t know what to believe. In the meanwhile, catastrophic weather events, like hurricanes and forest fires, are occurring at an accelerating pace, as was predicted by the scientific community.
In The Divided States of America, despite the fact that the original Constitutional doesn’t mention religion and the First Amendment guarantees freedom of religion to all, a significant portion of Americans believe that: (1) Christianity is the state religion; (2) Other religions, including atheism, agnosticism, Muslim, Hinduism, Shintoism, etc. are un-American; (3) That Christian beliefs, including opposition to abortion and homosexuality and same-sex unions, should be forced upon all Americans; (4) That Christian dogma, including “Creation science” should be taught in public schools; and, (5) That private Christian schools should receive taxpayer funding like public schools.
Interestingly, a recent Pew research project revealed that only about half of the people who identify as Christian are actually members of a church, and that 27 percent of all Americans never attend church. Research on this subject over time reveals that the number of non-religious citizens has rapidly increased over the past several decades. And yet, Christian evangelicals continue to exert pressure on non-Christians publicly and through government officials who have been co-opted.
In The Divided States of America, the two dominant political parties have opposing views of voting in elections. The Democrats want every eligible American to vote, while the Republicans discourage voting, except in those States and local jurisdictions where there is a Republican majority of registered voters. Voting is a right granted by the Constitution. Why would a political party want to deny a citizen that right?
Absentee or mail-in voting enables many Americans who physically cannot get to a fixed polling place the ability to cast their vote. This is particularly important during a viral pandemic, where mingling with other people can be hazardous. Republican leaders, including the President, discourage any type of voting which doesn’t require the voter to physically show up at a designated polling place. They claim that mail-in voting encourages fraud (although no research by either Party, nor the President’s hand-picked Election Fraud committee, found such evidence), although it is interesting that the President himself votes by mail, as do all of our servicemen stationed overseas, as well as all of the eligible voters in Colorado, Utah, Washington, Oregon and Hawaii.
Forty percent of eligible voters in our democracy didn’t vote at all in 2016. Why does one political party think that this is a problem to be solved and the other party (and our President) want to dampen voting by fellow Americans?
In The Divided States of America there exists two forms of reality: (1) That which can be seen, heard, experienced and factually proven; and, (2) Whatever Donald J. Trump decides is “real”. If President Trump (or his stand-in, Fox News) announces that water isn’t wet, 1 plus 1 equals 4, or that the moon landing was faked, there are approximately 80 million Americans who will believe him, no questions asked. Of course, most Americans distrust Donald Trump, because he is a psychopathic liar with a proven track record of making shit up to suit his purposes. But, still, the 24/7 misinformation campaign creates a palpable tension between Trumpists and rational Americans that basically sabotages any chance of reasonable discussion on any subject.
The Divided States of America will be on display tomorrow night, as President Trump and Joe Biden will square off in the first Presidential debate of the 2020 campaign.
We can anticipate little civil discourse in this televised “debate”. The combatants will be primed to take each other out at the knees, with “gotcha” ambushes, name-calling, and fact-bending.
President Trump fired a pre-debate shot over the Biden bow this week when he insisted that the ex-Vice President submit to a drug test before the debate (insinuating that “Sleepy Joe” will be using PEDs just to stay awake and respond to questions). We can expect more of this gamesmanship from the President, who wants to dominate the debate by lying about his supposed accomplishments and diverting attention from his failures, like the pandemic response, health care, unemployment, and social unrest due to overly-aggressive police behavior towards people of color.
Joe Biden will want to hammer Trump on the 200,000 deaths from Covid-19, the President’s incessant lying to Americans, the Trump Administration’s lack of progress on health care, and the “tax cut” which benefitted the rich, not the poor.
Speaking of taxes, the New York Times yesterday published a story which alleges that billionaire Donald Trump paid $750 in income tax in 2016 and 2017, and his Trump Organization lost hundreds of millions of dollars in the early 2000’s. Candidate Trump promised to release his tax records to the public but never did. This NYT story, even if it is non-factual, will stand as the truth unless Trump comes forward with his “real” tax records. So, this bombshell has to hurt the President, particularly with blue-collar Americans in swing-States, and we can anticipate Joe Biden saddling up and riding this story bigtime.
Another item that is sure to be “debated” is President Trump’s oft-recited musings on what might happen if he loses the election. The President has refused to commit to a peaceful transition, implying that he might challenge the legitimacy of the election because, in his opinion, it would have had to be “rigged” for him to lose.
Trump, of course, made this same “rigged” claim in 2016, and then won that election. It was only later that the American public realized that Russian government actors helped the Trump campaign to “rig” the election through social media.
If anyone knows anything about “rigging”, it’s Donald Trump.
It’s just a little more than a month to Election Day, and it can’t come soon enough. The campaign spectacle is overwhelming, with the daily “breaking news” and conjecturing from the television network talking heads. Big news this past week was President Trump’s nomination to fill the Supreme Court vacancy caused by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s death from cancer. Trump will nominate a Conservative, which is not news, and which he has every right to do. Democrats are annoyed but are saving their powder until the Election results come in. I’m sure there will be counter-moves if they win the Presidency and secure control of the Senate.
If the Democrats don’t claim a Senate majority, and Biden wins, The Divided States of America will go on as it has for the past twenty years, spending a lot of effort tarring and feathering the different factions in American society, frittering away valuable time and money, and watching a once-mighty Nation circle the drain, as the Chinese and Russians lick their chops.
We might even experience a second civil war, pitting one angry faction against another. Wouldn’t that be great.
United we stand, divided we fall.