Make America Better Again

 

The evolution of human history generally means that conditions of life improve over time.  The BBC produced a wonderful segment featuring Hans Rosling's "200 Countries in 200 years" that graphically shows how civilization has progressed from 1820 to 2020  (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jbkSRLYSojo)  This demonstration supports the idea that improvement of the human condition should keep accelerating into the future.  That kind of improvement depends on progressive thought, invention, scientific discoveries, and the maintenance of human rights.  America has been at the forefront of that curve for the past 200 years.

 

We like to think of our progress as being the result of, and dependent upon, the maintenance of personal freedom and liberty, and promulgation of the rule of law and majority rule.  

 

Something has happened over the past several decades, however, that has thrown a monkey wrench into the gears that have been reliably churning out societal improvement in our country.  Somehow, we have missed a beat in the evolution of positive societal change in America.  In our country's 240-year history we have more or less successfully battled the scourges of slavery, disease, racism, misogyny, income inequality.  To be sure there were, and are, battles royale over issues like health care, voting rights, marriage rights, gender rights, and abortion rights.

 

But at the heart of all these battles there was a belief and adherence to

fair play, the rule of law and majority rule, meaning that whatever the majority of our citizens wanted would ultimately steer evolution toward progress and the betterment of American society.

 

That has changed....  and that change is not a good one.  

In America we now have a political party that has morphed into a religious, zealous, theocratic minority that wants to enforce their beliefs and tenets upon all of us, even though they are a minority of our citizens.  They all believe that fair play is not as important as winning.  Deceit is OK.  Lying is OK.  In fact, whether they deny it or not, they do not believe in democratic principles any more.  Representative government is only good if they have the power.  Elections are only fair if they win.  Rules that were set up with the founding of our country are only important when they support this party's desires.  Otherwise it seems OK to use raw power to shape American society their way.

 

The result of this transformation is that the majority's rights are ignored and become less important than the tyranny of minority power.  Effectively this system then becomes an autocracy of the minority.  The result is that society begins to stagnate and crumble.  Inalienable human rights can be abridged because this party does not honor them.  Voting rights, which are the fulcrum of democracy, can be suppressed or ignored.  Theocratic harnesses on personal freedom can be enforced by a lopsided non-representative judicial system.

 

We are living through a period where our progress and evolution as a free society is in retrograde.  So, the obvious question is, "How did this happen?".  What are the reasons for this movement backwards, and how can we fix it?

 

This unhappy result is partly because the forces of progressive thought have been hibernating.  They have allowed Christian Nationalism/autocracy to be ascendant.  The Christian nationalist far-right movement in the US has taken it upon itself to force its morays upon the majority in this country thanks to the archaic Electoral College.  The fundamental tenet of separation of church and state has dissolved.  Some might blame its name brand leaders, but in reality it is the minions of their voters who have bought into the Big Lie, conspiracy theories, and notion that their righteousness supplants anyone else's beliefs or desires.  This ignorant zealousness and deification of its leaders has pushed their rabid leaders to do whatever they deem necessary to maintain their power.

 

The other major reason we find ourselves in this predicament is that the quality of our education has been degraded by the consistent effort to control and attack historical fact, like the effort to reject the 1619 project; to ban books and information from students in our schools, like the efforts in Tennesee and Florida; to promote conspiracy theories like Critical Race Theory; and other red herring issues that support Republican efforts to mold society into their image of what American society should be with no regard for the majority's wishes. 

 

We are witnessing the corruption of the American experiment.  With the impending Supreme Court decision regarding Roe v. Wade, those regressive forces clearly demonstrate how the majority's wishes and rights on the matter of abortion are being abrogated by unelected politically motivated Supreme Court justices appointed by Presidents who have not garnered the majority of the popular vote.  They are out of step with the majority of American citizens.  This decision might finally awaken the hibernating majority to the precarious danger to our democracy. 

 

Let's hope so......