Our Society Is Toast. Here’s Why

When I was a young man, back in the 70s, my ultra-conservative father opined that an early sign of looming social collapse was this: drivers disobeying and flouting traffic laws. He saw this trend growing, while simultaneously, many young people were also challenging the status quo and protesting the War in Vietnam. He was … worried.

At the time, I thought he was way off base. I believed he was just spouting conservative nonsense supporting ‘law-abiding’ citizen robots who blindly accepted government control and propaganda. I was sure his claim was ridiculous and unfounded, as well as judgmental.

However, it turned out he was right.

The drastic devolution of the GOP

I’m far from being an ‘America: Love it or Leave it’ type. Rather, I am quite liberal and at times ‘progressive.’ Yet, I’ve come to value and support the ‘rule of law’ and no longer underestimate or disdain it. This feels rather strange to me, since conservatives have always stood for ‘law and order’ (supposedly), while the GOP prides itself on being the ‘law and order party.’

But today … not so much. Not anymore. Over the past 20+ years, and especially since the rise of Trump and MAGA, the GOP has gradually morphed into the ‘we’ll do and take whatever we want’ party — and often, the laws of the land stand in their way. So now, the GOP frequently acts (and acts out) as the ‘screw the law and its rules’ party, rather than the sober ‘law and order’ party.

In practical terms, this means that MAGA and the GOP are far along the corrosive path of blind ambition and ‘win at any cost’ politics. And the central, bedrock belief that must be undermined and destroyed, if they are to succeed, is good faith belief in the impartial rule of law.

Today’s GOP has abandoned its devotion to the rule of law, and instead is working feverishly to subvert our semi-democracy and the power of ‘we the people.’ It accomplishes this noxious feat primarily through racial gerrymandering and persistent, frequent dissing of current laws, rules, and federal judges. These amoral actions are accompanied by sly, winking encouragement for loyal MAGA followers to take the law into their own hands — often through bullying, threats, ‘swatting,’ or even active violence against immigrants, Democrats, judges, LGBTQ+ folks, ‘libtards,’ etc.

A growing, significant segment of US citizens (up to 30%!) now believes that overt political violence is permissible — and often justified. Most of these folks are ‘law and order’ Republicans. Go figure.

Lawsuit abuse and misuse are proliferating

This rapid abandonment of the rule of law and ‘good faith’ participation in our society is just one facet of looming American collapse, however. Another — and here, I’m limiting myself to overt political trends and ignoring major issues like climate change and climate ‘denialism’ — is the absurd, accelerating pattern of ‘lawsuit abuse’ and misuse that is proliferating all around our nation.

It’s well known that the U.S. has always been a highly litigious society, but today that tendency has taken off like a rocket and has reached stratospheric, very dangerous levels. Oddly, at the same time that many Americans are losing faith in the rule of law or even intentionally working to undermine it, quite a few of these same Americans are purposely using (abusing) the law and our courts to get their way, overcome or punish opponents, and perhaps get rich doing it.

This modus operandi, in all its shameless manipulativeness, has been championed and endlessly modeled by Donald Trump, both before and during his two presidencies. It’s not for nothing that he was nicknamed ‘The King of Lawsuits.’ Almost single-handedly, he has shifted the Overton Window far to the right, and increasingly made cynical, sneaky, and/or politically motivated lawsuits ‘A-OK’ with the American public.

More crudely put, Americans are increasingly suing the shit out of each other and, in the process, overwhelming our legal system and courts with endless lawsuits and legal challenges. Some MAGA extremists are flooding the courts with spurious suits, FOIA requests, and complaints to deliberately gum up and sabotage the legal system.

And when I say it’s ‘overwhelming,’ I am not exaggerating — at all. Our legal system is being asked to do and deal with far more than ever before, and its caseload is exploding with malicious and/or frivolous lawsuits. Often, the backlog of cases extends for many months or even years.

The entire situation is way out of hand and getting crazier by the day.

The destruction of our social contract and ‘good faith’ politics

The most astute among you may have noticed that these two trends, though seemingly very different, are linked together and are ‘joined at the hip’ in producing horrendous, society-shredding results.

Both trends effectively diminish or undermine our legal system(s), and both strongly contribute to the loss of faith in our laws and form of government. Both trends spring from vastly increased, ‘socially acceptable’ greed and selfishness, and both end up trashing the primacy of our essential social contract to work cooperatively for the common good.

In truth, neither the ‘win at any cost’ mindset nor the current ‘sue and keep suing ’til we win’ mentality is compatible with a functional, compassionate society OR our semi-democracy. Both are cynical ‘bad faith’ enterprises, and as such, are having massive, destructive effects on our society, our way of life, and the rule of law.

The bottom line, it seems to me, is this: once our faith in our legal system(s), our form of government, and a cooperative social contract starts to collapse, wholesale social and political collapse isn’t too far behind. In our greed and blindness, we’re setting up the perfect preconditions for horrific hard times and suffering in our near future.

We’re mired in intensifying moral, emotional, and ethical collapse

Lastly, there’s the little (no, huge) matter of moral and ethical collapse and the emotional toll it takes. All the varied ways we are abusing and/or manipulating our legal system(s) have tremendous consequences for our mental and emotional health — not to mention our inner morality and conscience.

If ‘good faith’ participation in our society and government keeps disintegrating, as is happening, soon dark cynicism and selfishness start taking over. And when such dark, cynical self-dealing and overt selfishness grow stronger and ‘rule the roost,’ our whole society and every level of government start to disintegrate and suffer.

Again, without any exaggeration, it’s plausible to say that our society and government are both suffering as the rule of law weakens and collapses. This is no abstract problem, though; not at all. It’s scarily real. It means ‘we the people’ are increasingly suffering and are harassed and victimized by vicious, self-dealing manipulators, scammers, extremists, racists, and hate-mongers. Plus, as the rule of law weakens and collapses, ‘we the people’ suffer from corresponding emotional and moral weakening and accelerating inner collapse. As our faith in the basic good intentions of our fellow citizens gets shredded, over and over again, our emotional balance, sense of trust, and overall happiness all start to disintegrate.

Thus, US society is facing multi-level degradation and collapse. We’re facing the destruction of the rule of law on several fronts, and we’re simultaneously experiencing mounting internal pain, frustration, and loss of faith in our ‘American experiment.’

Scarily, all these factors work together to reinforce and amplify each other. Together, they are creating an unstoppable downward spiral of social collapse, chaos, and suffering. That’s why my title says that, for the foreseeable future, ‘our society is toast.’ The vaunted ‘American Dream’ is now … toast. Fried. Done.

It’s time to start over.