Forward

“Many modern Americans now seek camaraderie online, in a world defined not by friendship but by anomie and alienation.  Instead of participating in civic organizations that give them a sense of community as well as practical experience in tolerance and consensus-building, Americans join internet mobs, in which they are submerged in the logic of the crowd, clicking Like or Share and then moving on.  Instead of entering a real-life public square, they drift anonymously into digital spaces where they rarely meet opponents; when they do, it is only to vilify them.” – Anne Applebaum and Peter Pomerantsev from HOW TO PUT OUT DEMOCRACY’S DUMPSTER FIRE

“But over the last several years, something interesting happened: Authoritarians found God.  They used religious symbols as nationalist identity markers and rallying cries.  They unified the masses behind them by whipping up perpetual culture wars.  They reframed the global debate: It was no longer between democracy and dictatorship; it was between the moral decadence of Western elites and traditional values and superior spirituality of the good normal people in their own homelands.”–David Brooks from WHEN DICTATORS FIND GOD, NY TIMES

This is a story about divisive, cult politics, the rise of white supremacy merged with conservative Christianity, conspiracy theories, and the failure of liberalism.

Prologue:  After the Covid-19 pandemic, the United States of America following an election sweep by Democrats, passed legislation voiding Section 10 of Article 1 of the US Constitution.  This legislation provided the legal groundwork for the creation of multi-state trading districts, semi-autonomous regions bound together by a perception of a common culture, values, and economics.  Hawaii, Washington, Oregon, California, Nevada, and Arizona formed Ameriwest.  Alaska, Montana, Wyoming, Idaho, North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, Utah, and Colorado, formed the Intercontinental Province.  West Virginia, Kentucky, Ohio, Indiana, half of Pennsylvania, Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Minnesota formed the Great Lakes Province.  Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Rhode Island, Delaware, Connecticut, Massachusetts, New York, half of Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Virginia, North Carolina, Maryland, and the new state of Washington, DC, formed Amerieast.  Texas, Oklahoma, and New Mexico formed the American Heartland.  South Carolina, Tennessee, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Arkansas formed the Confederation of Southern States.  Florida, Georgia, and Puerto Rico formed the South Atlantic Province.

America’s founding fathers knew, as Aristotle warned so many years before, that inequality brings instability.  The founders tried to understand the descent of ancient democracies and republics into oligarchical dictatorships.  They sought to create a system of checks and balances that would counter the usurpation of power by any one individual or group. 

To be born an American was serendipitously to be rewarded with a life of untrammeled freedom and opportunity.  A life where individuality, daring, and self-sufficiency were a birthright.  Where all are created equal.  Where there was no king or lord to bow down to.  Being an American was the essence of egalitarianism.  It was not just citizenship but an opportunity to serve a grand national purpose.  A purpose of personal opportunity and achievement.  A purpose of intellectual enlightenment.  A purpose of self-reliance and individualism.

But that wasn’t the whole history.  There was a chunk of history that wasn’t celebrated-a separate and unequal history of slavery, genocide, and racism.  And it is that separate history that posed the greatest threat to America’s future.

E Pluribus Unum.  Out of one, many.  America’s creed.  Americans became increasingly disillusioned by America’s creed.  The idea that people from all walks of life, all nations, all races, all religions could come together and unite under the flag of freedom had diminished.  People on the left saw America as divided between oppressors and the oppressed.  People on the right saw themselves as patriots and nationalists who believed America was divided between themselves and the godless internal enemies who betrayed it.  The nationalists blatantly discarded America’s creed and adopted a clannism that demanded loyalty to the clan.  You were either in or out.  You were either with us or against us.  There was no middle ground.  The individual was subjugated to the clan and derived meaning and value from the clan.  With the abandonment of the creed came the abandonment of shared patriotism.  Once shared patriotism was abandoned, the bonds that held America together were severed. 

Americans sought camaraderie online, seeking recognition from “likes” and “shares.”  Our sense of community became defined by the social and ethical standards of common hate, drifting anonymously into a digital world united in loneliness and divided by mutual intolerance. The history of modern democracy follows an arc of creation, growth, inequality, decline, and failure.  Recent history informs us that democracies can fail, morality can collapse, and ordinary people can do extraordinary evil.  As globalization created winners and losers, as the wealth gap became ever greater, the fraying of America was rocked by seismic shifts of shocks and aftershocks, creating fault lines of irreconcilable differences.