What Now America?

It’s been a rough week on the U.S. political front and I’m disturbed and deeply concerned about the fragile state of democracy in this country. The presidential debate was an unmitigated disaster with Biden fully displaying the age-related mental impairment that many have been concerned about and Trump spewing dozens of lies that went unchallenged. I actually lost sleep over it that night.

Then came the flurry of decisions by a Supreme Court that is now fully controlled by the Republican-appointed ultra-rightwing super majority. They ruled federal prosecutors had overreached in charging some of the January 6 rioters with obstruction. Next, they granted unprecedented immunity to the President, in affect making that person above the law. And they reversed the long-standing doctrine that required federal courts to defer to agency experts as the credible source for interpreting statutes related to environmental and public health regulations and concerns. This throws the door open for further erosion of protections against corporate polluters. Basically, the court set the conditions so that government can’t restrict or regulate smog pollution but the President can have a political opponent assassinated.

I’ve been digesting all this and here’s my take. I’ve never been more frustrated with and unsupportive of our two-party system. The Republican party has totally sold out to a dangerous and destructive personality. Democratic party leadership isn’t in the clear, however. They bear tremendous responsibility for the mess we’re now in. In 2016 they marginalized Bernie Sanders and threw all support behind Hillary Clinton who then lost to Donald Trump. This time around, even though Biden had implied he would only run for one term, the party declared him the nominee very early, refused to allow debates, and blocked avenues for other potential candidates to express their views.

And yet, even though I’m frustrated with and deeply concerned about our two-party system, including my own Democratic party, I’ve also never been more partisan because, while the party structure and leadership may be flawed, the contrast between agendas, what each party stands for, is stark.

Rightwing think-tank Heritage Foundation has outlined the MAGA goals and strategies in the Project 2025 document. This and other stated policy goals include further deregulation, giving corporations more power to extract and pollute and influence elections, increased restrictions on women’s reproductive choices and rights, blowing open oil and gas extraction from our public lands, reducing access to even quasi-affordable health care, and more.

On top of this, as things stand now, we don’t have a functional Supreme Court. It is a blatantly hand-picked tool of the rightwing, recklessly throwing out foundational law in the U.S.. Meanwhile, at least two members have accepted millions from partisan interests and two have spouses who openly support the MAGA agenda. With the recent presidential immunity ruling it’s clear that Trump and his handlers would be given free rein to force forward the agenda noted above and quite possibly lay waste to the last vestiges of democratic process and check-and-balance in this country.