Our downward trajectory is obvious and at this point needs neither further description nor endless analysis. What is needed now is the urgent work of intervention. While it’s important to recognize how we drove so recklessly to the edge of a cliff, it’s even more important that we immediately put the car in reverse. Our ability to do that – or not – will ring for ages. One way or the other, historians will be referring to this chapter of our history for decades or even more. It will be remembered either as a time of the greatest threat to our nation since the Civil War but one in which a generation of Americans pulled back from the brink of national self-destruction; or it will be remembered as the tragic end to what was once a great experiment in democratic self-governance.
. . . We are standing at a precipice now, with only one of two options going forward. Our present disquiet is unsustainable. We will either descend into the abyss of an authoritarian dystopia, or we will ascend into the genuine trajectory of a new birth of freedom. We cannot and will not remain where we are. If we do not wage a peaceful revolution against the forces of neoliberalism, there will be a violent revolution born of blind and unknowing rage against its consequences.
The neofascist threat in our midst did not come out of nowhere, nor did it emerge full blown from the malignant ravings of one narcissistic man. It came just a surely from the timidity and indifference of those who came before him. It was the inevitable result of a soulless economic order that has sent an unfettered American capitalism flying off its rails. The neoliberal agenda of obsessive deregulation, privatization, tax cuts for the wealthy and austerity for everyone else, was sprung upon us full bore by a Republican president, yes, but no Democratic president stopped it. For over forty years our government – which according to the Declaration of Independence was created to secure for every American “the inalienable rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” – has in its whoredom to corporate donors withheld from the American people what FDR referred to as “the blessings of democracy.” And just as he warned, in the absence of those blessings the demon of fascism has appeared in our midst.
Absolutely no one should be surprised.
It is time now not simply to bemoan this, but to stop it.
the U.S. Midterm Election Results
Related Off-site Links:
We Need to Talk About What's at Stake in the Midterms – Ryan Cooper (MSNBC, October 20, 2022).
“Democracy Demands We Participate”: Black Voters Mobilize for Midterms Amid GOP-Led Voter Suppression – Democracy Now! (October 21, 2022).
Progressives Warn of Federal “Don’t Say Gay” Law If GOP Wins Midterms – Julia Conley (Common Dreams, October 21, 2022).
Is the 2022 Midterm Lost to Dems? – Robert Kuttner (The American Prospect, October 21, 2022).
The Problem With Polling Ahead of the 2022 Midterm Elections – Philip Elliott (TIME, October 21, 2022).
See also the previous Wild Reed posts:
• Historian Nancy MacLean: The Threat to American Democracy Is at “Red-Alert”
• “Come for the Racism, Stay for the Autocracy”
• Jelani Cobb: Quote of the Day – September 4, 2022
• William D. Lindsey: Quote of the Day – August 12, 2022
• Marianne Williamson: Quote of the Day – July 22, 2022
• Heather Cox Richardson: It’s Up to Us to Prove That Democracy Is Still a Viable Form of Government
• “How Can One Overreact to a Mortal Threat to American Democracy?”
• A Deeper Perspective on What’s Really Attacking Democracy
• “The Coup Attempt on Jan. 6th Was a Warning for What’s to Come If We Don’t Act”
• “My Biggest Worry Is for My Country”
• Republicans Pose an “Existential Threat” to American Democracy
• The Big Switch
• The Republican Party in a Nutshell
• Republicans Don’t Care About American Democracy
• Heather Cox Richardson on Combating the Republican Party’s “Rigging of the System”
• David Remnick: Quote of the Day – February 13, 2021
• Dan Rather on America’s “Moment of Reckoning”
• Michael Harriot: Quote of the Day – January 6, 2021
• Insurrection at the United States Capitol
• “We Have an Emergency On Our Hands”: Marianne Williamson On the “Freefall” of American Democracy
• Marianne Williamson: Quote of the Day – June 2, 2020 • Fascism Is Upon Us
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