Saving The Republic: A Macabre Echo
The great American democratic experiment, the creation of a Republic governed by the rule of law, with the motto "E. Pluribus Unum" (Out of Many One), nearly ended with the Civil War. The outcome of that bloody struggle was uncertain while it was being waged. A northern victory was far from assured, with the preservation of the Union at stake. The most conservative and restrictive estimates of the number of lives lost on both sides during the Civil War count only those either directly killed in combat, or afterword from wounds sustained in combat. That number is approximately 260,000 When those felled by disease, starvation, and all of the consequences of massive social disruption are included that number multiplies.
A thought has taken hold of me of late which at first seemed overstated, but I have come to believe it is true. At no time has the future of our Republic, and of the great American experiment in Democracy, been more imperiled since the Civil War than it is now. Furthermore, were it not for the great conflict that we currently are fighting against Covid-19, with the likely resultant loss of hundreds of thousands of American lives sacrificed in that battle, I fear our Republic, with all of its freedoms that Americans have died fighting to preserve over centuries, wold have been subverted. Within a decade, I fear, our government of the people, by the people, and for the people, would have perished from the earth. replaced by mere outward trappings of democracy, manipulated by an autocracy fronted by demagoguery.
There is no solace in glorifying the dead. The majority of those felled during the Civil War, I suspect, did not gladly sacrifice their lives to the cause. Both sides drafted large numbers of men to replenish their armies. If that conflict could have been avoided the vast majority would have wanted that so. Historians argue over whether the U.S. Civil War could have been avoided. Perhaps so, some suggest, but at what price? Would slavery have been preserved? Or might it have been slowly phased out, so that human beings would continue to be defined as property, but for a finite rather than infinite period of time? Would we today still proclaim it our national destiny to "strive for a more perfect union", had some pragmatic national accommodation to allow slavery to continue been embraced by us in the late 1850's?
When the history of this current time is finally written, I am confident that historians will conclude that hundreds of thousands of American deaths caused by Covid-19 would have been saved if sane and effective national political leadership had guided us, but of course it didn't. But those deaths may well prove to have saved our Republic. I subtitled this OP "A Macabre Echo" because the thought that is haunting me now is indeed a grim one. I believe, as we entered the year 2020, that the basic fabric of our American democracy was already seriously and almost irreparably degraded. The sugar high of a "good economy", that mortgaging our future and undermining any and all safeguards that might stand in the way of maximizing short term "profits" produced, served as a powerful narcotic for many, even if their share of the resulting "spoils" were mere crumbs that temporarily fell from mega corporate tables That narcotic like temporary "high" disguised grave maladies in our Republic, such as the literal subversion of the concept of truth, the arbiter of reality that a democracy depends on to guide people toward sound choices.
Great wealth has increasingly been concentrated into fewer hands in America, and with great wealth comes great power. Increasingly that power had been used to implant fraudulent substitutes for truth into the American psyche. Major personal fortunes are earned by participants in media empires that propagate these frauds, and so they have little incentive for honesty. Back when these propaganda techniques were being perfected by merchants of death (and their subsidiary scientists) in the tobacco industry, it was the use of advertising dollars that enabled them to dominate the air waves. Now though, the mouthpieces the autocracy employs hugely and directly profit from those lies also, which incentivizes their loyalty to disinformation. A massive cottage (or should I say mansion) industry developed employing media celebrity commentators on cable TV and talk radio, with easy access to lucrative "red meat peddling" paid speech circuits, not to mention a pre-programmed audience ready to purchase their written to inflame instant best selling books. It was never their intent to convince all Americans of the wisdom of their lies, nor would that have aided their efforts had it been possible to do so. A unified public is harder to control, they want and need division to accentuate raw passions and thus over ride any appeals to reason. Disinformation saturation approaching 40% is more than sufficient for their purposes.
Had Covid-19 been eradicated before it could spread world wide, Donald Trump stood a decent chance of being reelected. But even had that victory been denied him, the forces marshaled behind Trump, let alone Trump himself, would have remained highly potent and increasingly agitated. The threat to our democracy would not have ended, it would have just entered another round. Even with the virus reaching America, had Donald Trump just gotten his own malignant ego out of the way and allowed those who really knew what they were doing guide our nation's response to the pandemic instead, he could have reaped the loyalty that a war time president, which he posed at being for all of two weeks, normally benefits from, and he likely could have ridden that to another term in office. Tragically for hundreds of thousands of American families, now suffering the loss of their loved ones and/or economic devastation, Trump didn't follow scientific advice. With that choice Trump needlessly condemned staggering numbers of Americans to die, and I believe, guaranteed his loss in November's election. As has so often been stated, even Donald Trump can not spin, or lie, or distract his way out of the brutal magnitude of his failure, which now touches the life of every American.
The poison that has flowed into our body politic for years now will not drain out completely with a Trump loss in November. We have become far too ill for that quick of a cure. But with it the tides will have finally turned, and they will turn decisively solely due to the sheer magnitude of Trump's failure, resulting in the loss of American lives on a par with our losses from the Civil War, and with that the harsh discrediting of those who profited through Trump's rule, or who acquiesced to it for their own self preservation rather than that of the nation, will proceed. Trump's defeat must be massive in order for Trumpism to be routed. Spineless Republicans in Congress revealed to us just how fragile our democracy actually is. The repercussions for their cowardliness must be severe. And as Covid-19 continues its deadly march now through every state in the nation, I believe they will be. Hundreds of thousands will die, but I think the Republic will be saved.
= new reply since forum marked as read
To you and everyone else who took the time to actually read such a long and (mostly) bleak OP. 
