The people didn't get this messed up on their own. The propagandists of the right worked for years to make Conservative America this detached from reality, and this estranged from their own traditional values. But now, it is clear: the United States cannot be healthy as a society, as a democracy, without some major changes in the “state of consciousness” in a large portion of the American people.
- Already by 2015, they were broken enough to choose a presidential nominee that previous generations of conservatives would have regarded as unthinkable.
- And by 2021, they had gone far enough off the deep end that they demanded the Republicans continue their servitude to a leader who'd just incited an Insurrection -- right before everyone's eyes -- and committed the most serious crimes in American history.
- And now, in 2024, enough of the American electorate -- confronted with the most blatant choice between destructive and constructive political options -- has handed the powers of the Presidency to someone who has displayed, rather openly, a whole list of what in previous times would have been "automatic disqualifiers." * [see below the box]
Propaganda may have poisoned people's minds. But at this point, the main reservoir of the nation's brokenness is to be found in the American electorate. And the salvation of American democracy -- and even American decency -- will require re-connecting a major part of the American body politic with the better angels of their nature.
Sure, it makes sense for Democrats to look for ways this 2024 campaign might have been run differently. (What if Biden had bowed out in 2023? What if Kamala has stressed this or that? etc.) But all those possible changes or mere tweaks in the campaigning pale in importance in comparison with the devolution — over the course of the past generation — of the American body politic into one that could choose a candidate so profoundly flawed and dangerous that it would be a real challenge to design a leader who was more obviously everything a President should not be.
* Automatic disqualifiers, anyone of which should have been enough, if the majority of the American people were not in so damaged a state of knowledge, understanding, and values as they have now shown themselves to be:
- Continuous lying (30,000+ and counting;
- Repeated sexual misconduct (Access Hollywood, Stormy Daniels, E. Jean Carroll, a couple of dozen other accusations);
- Endangering national security (Ukraine extortion, stolen classified documents);
- Focusing on his own political interests, in the face of a once-in-a-century pandemic, rather than on protecting the American people;
- Attacking the Constitution, inciting an insurrection, to seize power;
- Siding with our fascistic adversaries while treating our traditional allies with contempt.
- Publicly demonstrated commission of crimes of the utmost seriousness.