Reflections On An Imploding Empire
Americans have a knack for demonstrating, in spectacular fashion, that they possess neither the political language nor the maturity to address the crises of our time.
As the climate catastrophe hurtles past the point of return, US pundits are content to debate “cancel culture.” As levels of economic inequality soar from the obscene to the unfathomable, half the political class obsesses over Russian meddling while the other half nurtures conspiracy theories about the “deep state.”
Critics have long characterized American politics as a form of mass paranoia. Witnessing recent events, one is reminded that American identity itself is an act of self-deception. As a society we remain trapped in petulant adolescence, incapable of and uninterested in developing any real awareness of ourselves.
For decades this willful ignorance made the US an especially dangerous superpower. Now, as the decline of US empire accelerates, our practiced innocence is fueling a sense of collective disorientation and despair.
To grasp our predicament we must recognize modern American politics as a clash between competing delusions. The populist insurgents of the right pursue one set of ideological fantasies while elite apologists for the status quo pursue another. Even as political polarization increases, both camps embrace the myths of American virtue that perpetuate our national blindness.
The mob that recently stormed the Capitol is a toxic outgrowth of the cult of lies on the right. Among those lies is the assertion that “Blue Lives Matter.” Americans who watched footage of the Capitol invaders pummeling cops with flags and other objects (one officer was bludgeoned to death with a fire extinguisher) might wonder whether “Blue Lives Matter” is actually a principled declaration of support for police, rather than a cynical effort to subvert Black Lives Matter and justify racist state terror.
Many antiracists have long known the truth. Many of us recognize, as well, something that few Americans will ever discover; namely, that White supremacy does not love White folks. Whiteness is simply a method of conquest. It is a necessarily antihuman mode of domination. When the hordes at the Capitol called for the head of Mike Pence, a great White patriarch, and erected gallows outside the halls of Congress, they were enacting a philosophy not of tribal loyalty but of capricious and unrelenting violence.
If the forces on the right wing are driven by lies, the moderate defenders of liberal democracy are no less devoted to deception. Business and political elites condemned the Capitol siege in the wake of the attack. Yet they routinely launch their own “raids” on the commons through the practice of corporate sovereignty and unrestrained capitalism. Some members of the ruling class have framed Trump’s departure from the White House as an opportunity to restore the rule of law and the prestige of American democratic institutions. They cannot be serious. The net worth of US billionaires has risen by a trillion dollars since the pandemic began. Precisely which democracy are Americans supposed to reclaim?