Just once in a while, a piece of journalism surfaces
which is so prescient, and so accurately reflects the kind of truth we all
recognize but never see in its entirety, and such is Wade Davis’ “The
Unraveling of America: how COVID-19 signals the end of the American era”,
published in The Rolling Stone
Davis is a Canadian and it takes someone from the outside to see the forest through the trees. My own essays written since theCOVID-19 took center stage touch upon many of Davis’ points, but I deal mostly with the detail and not the big, big picture, the decline of American exceptionalism and the probable permanent demise of America as a world leader, our slide into 3rd world status.
In a fairly recent essay I wrote “we have a full-blown culture war, not a new one, but intensified by [Trump’s] rhetoric and failures. To what extent should individual rights transcend the need to follow measures to protect the greater good of society? This is the essence of why other countries have had relative success after the initial battle [with COVID-19].” However, I assign too much blame to Trump and not enough to us. We brought this monster to life. It took decades of undermining our political system and values that brought this moment in time, which COVID-19 exposed in stark relief.
The American dream and what was supposed to facilitate its ability to be potentially achieved by all --individualism and capitalism -- have metastasized into a form of deadly social Darwinism in this country. As Sondheim’s Sweeney Todd sings, “The history of the world, my sweet --Is who gets eaten, and who gets to eat!” This is what a social net is supposed to eliminate. We not only have no net, the alt-right is proud of it!
My wife, Ann, after reading the article said "oddly enough, it’s nothing that we didn’t already know. It’s just the surgical precision with which he exposes our ‘new norms’ that smacked me in the head.” And it is indeed such a smack and major body blows of truth.
Here are some bullet points from the article which I hope will encourage the reader to go to the link for the full article:
*[What stands out] is the absolutely devastating impact that the pandemic has had on the reputation and international standing of the United States of America. In a dark season of pestilence, COVID has reduced to tatters the illusion of American exceptionalism. At the height of the crisis, with more than 2,000 dying each day, Americans found themselves members of a failed state, ruled by a dysfunctional and incompetent government largely responsible for death rates that added a tragic coda to America’s claim to supremacy in the world.
* In the wake of the war, with Europe and Japan in ashes, the United States with but 6 percent of the world’s population accounted for half of the global economy…. Such economic dominance birthed a vibrant middle class, a trade union movement that allowed a single breadwinner with limited education to own a home and a car, support a family, and send his kids to good schools. It was not by any means a perfect world but affluence allowed for a truce between capital and labor, a reciprocity of opportunity in a time of rapid growth and declining income inequality, marked by high tax rates for the wealthy, who were by no means the only beneficiaries of a golden age of American capitalism.
* More than any other country, the United States in the post-war era lionized the individual at the expense of community and family…. With slogans like “24/7” celebrating complete dedication to the workplace, men and women exhausted themselves in jobs that only reinforced their isolation from their families.
* At the root of this transformation and decline lies an ever-widening chasm between Americans who have and those who have little or nothing. Economic disparities exist in all nations, creating a tension that can be as disruptive as the inequities are unjust. In any number of settings, however, the negative forces tearing apart a society are mitigated or even muted if there are other elements that reinforce social solidarity — religious faith, the strength and comfort of family, the pride of tradition, fidelity to the land, a spirit of place.
*Though living in a nation that celebrates itself as the wealthiest in history, most Americans live on a high wire, with no safety net to brace a fall….COVID-19 didn’t lay America low; it simply revealed what had long been forsaken….[It] was reduced to a laughing stock as a buffoon of a president advocated the use of household disinfectants as a treatment for a disease that intellectually he could not begin to understand. As a number of countries moved expeditiously to contain the virus, the United States stumbled along in denial, as if willfully blind.
*Americans have not done themselves any favors. Their political process made possible the ascendancy to the highest office in the land a national disgrace, a demagogue as morally and ethically compromised as a person can be…. The American president lives to cultivate resentments, demonize his opponents, validate hatred. His main tool of governance is the lie…. Odious as he may be, Trump is less the cause of America’s decline than a product of its descent.
*The American cult of the individual denies not just community but the very idea of society. No one owes anything to anyone. All must be prepared to fight for everything: education, shelter, food, medical care. What every prosperous and successful democracy deems to be fundamental rights — universal health care, equal access to quality public education, a social safety net for the weak, elderly, and infirmed — America dismisses as socialist indulgences, as if so many signs of weakness.
* The measure of wealth in a civilized nation is not the currency accumulated by the lucky few, but rather the strength and resonance of social relations and the bonds of reciprocity that connect all people in common purpose.
* Evidence of such terminal decadence is the choice that so many Americans made in 2016 to prioritize their personal indignations, placing their own resentments above any concerns for the fate of the country and the world, as they rushed to elect a man whose only credential for the job was his willingness to give voice to their hatreds, validate their anger, and target their enemies, real or imagined. …But even should Trump be resoundingly defeated, it’s not at all clear that such a profoundly polarized nation will be able to find a way forward. For better or for worse, America has had its time.
While I’ve tried to distill the essence, the entire article merits a careful reading.
My last blog entry expressed a sense of optimism after the Democratic National Convention. I have to cling to that hope or my condition of Acute Existential Dread will reel out of control. But, now, more than ever I am convinced that we need not only to throw Trump out of the White House, but regain Democratic control of the Senate as well. It is the only hope for beginning the process of restoring American exceptionalism and rejoining civilized nations, such as Canada. It will take decades and commitment to repair.
