Pillars being toppled - the end times of American democracy - going going...

[UTUSN]

* Separation of Church/State -

* "Give me your tired... " -

* Blind justice -


*** Chicken Little fantasies about *this* being THE apocalyptic time have popped up throughout human history. "American democracy" is a blip of a chapter in the larger sweep of things - such as, totalitarianism rising, nuclear annihilation looming, environmental collapse, super volcanos ... is the thought an overreaction?

[RKP5637]

1. "... is the thought an overreaction?" No. We should all be concerned! n/t

[UTUSN]

2. Thanks. Was expecting (not from you) to be blasted/mocked at the gate, still might happen.

As for "American democracy," Drumpf, Jan. 6, and the nutcases taking charge have shown how fragile it is.

[Irish_Dem]

7. Sometimes people speaking truth get blasted but that is normal.

Reality is hard to face.

[UTUSN]

8. Gosh, internet PTSD is so pervasive that kind/tolerant posts like yours are a balm.

[Irish_Dem]

10. We can just take up space or take some risks to do the right thing.

I admire people with courage.

Who take a risk to speak out knowing they will get flack.
Which is what you did.

This is a political discussion forum and we need to
discuss and argue to learn and grow.

So thank you for your post.

Just know that some topics are hard for people and
it is OK if they push back. Talking about the end of the
US as we know it, boy that is a sad one to contemplate.
But we are going to have to face it sooner or later.

Sometimes you just have to drop some bread crumbs.
And let it sink in.

[RockRaven]

3. The Chicken Little tale can also be read as a story of a bunch of pedants dismissing a

misstated/misunderstood complaint. Chicken Little WAS struck by something falling from above (an acorn, in many versions). The fact that it was not the sky but an acorn is not a good reason to dismiss the complaint entirely with sneering and mockery. Falling objects do pose a potentially fatal danger, and this incident illustrates that the barnyard does in fact contain objects capable of falling upon the animals. Absent appropriate diligence, the next time it might not be an acorn but an entire tree branch for example.

While Chicken Little's complaint demonstrates a misunderstanding of some fundamentals about how things work, the inciting incident is a real event which demonstrates a future danger which should not be ignored or dismissed entirely.

[Hortensis]

4. As a final one, absolutely. This has been going on for some while

now, all this century, and recent events show democracy's winning so far. One evidence: The danger reached the point of having to show itself and is now widely known, instead of widely ignored and poo-pooed as recently as 2017.

Remember then, when the most passionate concern of too many here was the ACA's supposed corrupt corporatism and their greatest comfort that the Republicans were also working to repeal it, somehow to magically clear the way for "MfA"? The Republicans somehow magically just getting out of the way?

That mostly passed. Now real-world events have forced people on both sides to realize that their biggest enemy is not "corrupt Democrats." Not sure if many realize they'd been deceived into assisting the anti-democracy side, but their awareness on both left and right, as well as the relative collapse of both populist movements, is a HUGE advance in the battle.

Very importantly, much of the giant RW "grassroots" craziness that's fueling this threat has similarly been increasingly focusing internally on the extremist "Koch-type" megadonors to the Republican legislators.

The danger's still real, but we're growing in strength and we're winning.

[localroger]

5. We are actually kind of the authors of the nuclear annihilation thing

It's been a mini-obsession of mine since Robert del Tredici's At Work in the Fields of the Bomb leapt off the bookstore shelf at me in the mid 1980's, but I don't believe any other country would have put in the massive industrial effort necessary to prove fission weapons were possible, and outside the context of WW2 I don't think we would have either. Of course once we lit up the Jordana del Muerto with Trinity the floodgates were open and now everyone has the damn things and we've made them so much "better." It would be nice to think that we have learned something since then but the presence of Marjorie 3-names and Pinocchio Santos would suggest otherwise.

[Irish_Dem]

6. No you are correct. We lived during America's golden era and didn't realize it.

We are watching American democracy being severely damaged.

American voters may indeed vote to end our democratic form of government.

Traitors are now elected to high office. Voters love it.
The worst candidates are the most popular.

We see autocratic power take hold across the country.
The installation of white male christian rule.

I just hope I am not around for the final death throes.

[Timeflyer]

9. In Florida, it feels like the end of American democracy is closer everyday,

and there are so many idiots who are a-ok with an authoritarian leader taking the state to fascist hell.

[BunkieBandit]

11. Whiskey Tango Foxtrot, we have the Senate and Presidency

And we have a dang good chance of smoking their arses in 24. Let's not throw in the towel. It is our right to fight against them.

[Silent3]

12. I'm tired, however, of teetering on this edge

I agree we're not in an immediately dire situation, and that we stand a decent chance of holding on in '24, but we're too close to the edge, and the fundamental changes needed to back away from the precipice aren't happening.

We shouldn't merely hope to hang on by the skin of our teeth one election after another. If that's what we're doing, sooner or later we will fail. There's a deep sickness in our body politic that hasn't been rooted out yet. Perhaps in this, and in any country, it can never be entirely cured. But we need to at least shrink the tumor much, much more than we've managed to so far.

[Just A Box Of Rain]

13. Our republic is under a greater threat from populist extremism today than I could have imagined

it might be in my youth.

And we saw assholes like Nixon and George Wallace.

Stay vigilant. Battles remain. We will win.

[Prairie_Seagull]

14. To just assume (after everything we have seen/are seeing) that everying is just going to be alright-

is asinine and an affront to reason. IMO.

[RealityChik]

15. All empires fail...

Our decline has been an elegant one.

Scientists have extrapolated that by 2050, it will be too hot to grow food. By 2100, the temperatures will be too hot for human existence. I'll be long gone by that time, but my heart bleeds for my great grandchildren and their children. We are suppose to leave this earth a better place than it was when we got here. I think we have failed in that regard.

So, at this point, the best thing we can do for ourselves is to look for happiness wherever we can find it and continue sharing it with others until the day we die. If dementia doesn't get me first, I intend to die with a smile on my face.