The last eleven days in the U.S. have been a crazy whirlwind — and one hell of a ride. Come to think of it, this entire month and year have been pretty crazy — and a hell of a weird ride.
At the end of 2023, I wrote about “Why 2024 is Shaping Up to Be a Total Shitstorm.” I followed up that article with a six-month update in early July, and largely confirmed most of my original predictions or observations. But then…
A wild series of gut punches and crises
Suddenly, everything got up-ended, and our political and social worlds experienced an unprecedented series of gut punches and crises. In just over three weeks, we witnessed the following in rapid succession:
· The U.S. Supreme Court affirmed ‘presidential immunity’ for all official acts performed while in office and also affirmed that all presidential acts are entitled to ‘presumptive immunity’ unless they can be proven to be purely ‘private,’ personal acts. This ruling effectively places a president above the law, or at least makes it extremely difficult to prosecute and convict a president and hold him/her accountable.
· The Trump-appointed judge in Trump’s stolen documents/ obstruction case suddenly dismissed the entire huge case, based on a technicality and a bizarre far-right interpretation of some arcane (and irrelevant) legalese. The Special Prosecutor was furious, of course, and is appealing the decision.
· On July 13, we all witnessed the attempted assassination of ex-president and current candidate Trump. MAGA and ‘Trump-world’ immediately went crazy, and started hurling all sorts of baseless accusations at Democrats, liberals, and Biden — for supposedly ‘inciting’ the violence, when the GOP has been the party increasingly embracing political violence! Meanwhile, Trump’s semi-divine status (in the eyes of his supporters) got a huge boost, since he was clearly ‘saved by God.’
· On July 21, Pres. Biden announced that he was dropping out of the presidential race, and endorsed Vice-president Harris instead. Harris’ team then swung into immediate action, and a new Democratic presidential campaign commenced.
· By July 23, Kamala Harris had garnered enough delegates to make her the presumptive Democratic nominee for president. A digital roll-call vote is still planned to solidify her ascent and unify Democrats before their August convention.
Shades of ‘The Year That Shattered America’: 1968
That’s quite an amazing, even astounding, three-week period.
The last time the U.S. experienced such a major cluster of disruptive political events was probably in 1968 — another presidential election year — when there were two successful assassinations (of RFK and MLK) and much political and social violence, culminating in the disastrous and violent Democratic convention in Chicago.
Weirdly, the 2024 Democratic convention is being held next month in… wait for it… Chicago.
Even more weirdly, 1968 was also the last time a sitting American president, Lyndon Baines Johnson, decided NOT to run for re-election.
So, is America somehow doomed to repeat or imitate the disastrous year of 1968, in a bizarre ‘deja vu all over again’ reenactment?
2024 is both better and… much worse
Well, I don’t think so — and here’s why. I think this year has been, and will be, better in some crucial respects, but much worse in others.
I think it will be better than 1968 because we’re unlikely to see and go through TWO horrific, high-profile assassinations. Especially now that a failed assassination attempt already occurred, heightened security measures will be in place and the Secret Service will be on its ‘best behavior.’
Also, the upcoming Democratic convention is very unlikely to be the focal point of massive political and police violence, as happened at its 1968 counterpart.
That said, there’s a strong likelihood of mass protest about Israel’s ongoing war in Gaza and the U.S.’s too-forgiving support of Israel. These protests could well devolve into violent clashes with police or right-wing demonstrators — but will probably not reach the level of intense public violence seen in 1968.
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Now for the bad news. Back in 1968, the U.S. had not yet experienced a tremendously divisive and dangerous demagogue like Donald Trump, nor had his pathological lying or public lying in general been ‘normalized.’
Back then, the nation was undoubtedly also experiencing severe divisiveness and social conflict, yet our basic concepts of ‘truth’ and ‘reality’ were still quite similar for most Americans. Back then, we still trusted ‘the news,’ and shared some basic social agreements — such as, that public lying and overt political violence are bad, dangerous, and will not be tolerated.
But over the past decade, especially, public lying, blatant political manipulation, and even politically-motivated violence have increasingly been normalized, and are now deemed ‘acceptable’ by many.
A highly ‘combustible’ election approaches
This sea change in Americans’ moral values is a social disaster waiting to happen. And when we combine that with the extreme divisiveness now plaguing our nation, and the fact that America has split into two entirely separate camps that get totally different ‘news’ and believe in two completely different ‘realities’ — well, the potential for intense conflict and widespread political violence is clear and growing.
Since this presidential election features a convicted felon, sexual abuser, and pathological liar as one of our three candidates for president — and an extremely popular one, at that — with the other main candidate being part Black, part Asian, and a woman to boot (that’s three huge counts against her, in this society) … my, what could possibly go wrong?
The answer, of course, is — almost everything could go badly wrong.
Our 2024 shitshow continues to swell and expand, and I’ve started thinking that the next three months leading up to the election may be the last semi-peaceful months we’ll have in the U.S. for quite some time.
The U.S. is truly ‘in for it’ come election time
Here’s why. Trump and his MAGA followers have made it abundantly clear that they will only accept the election results if Trump wins.
They have abandoned democracy and basic democratic principles, and both they and the entire GOP have adopted a ‘might makes right’ and ‘my way or the highway’ attitude.
This spells big trouble for the U.S. and for the coming election aftermath. The horrific truth seems to be that no matter who wins, we’ll be ‘in for it’ as a nation.
If Trump wins, the Dems and liberals will be horrified, massive protests and civil disobedience will likely erupt — and meanwhile, Trump and his enablers will immediately start dismantling the federal government and concentrating power in the executive branch (that is, in TRUMP).
If Trump loses, however, he’ll insist it was all ‘rigged’ and the election was fraudulent (of course!); the GOP and his MAGA followers will be utterly enraged; and there will almost certainly be many outbreaks of intense partisan violence and right-wing terrorism, all across the country.
Plus, if we add in the ‘inconvenient truth’ (thanks, Al Gore!) that Trump was bested by a Black, Asian woman — well, the MAGA folks, White supremacists, White Christian nationalists, misogynists, and Trump himself will be both disgusted and furious… and will react with utter rage and widespread political violence, in an(other) attempt to overturn a legitimate election.
We’ve gotten a reprieve — but the worst is yet to come
Thus, I have to say: even though Biden’s selfless decision to exit the race and Harris’ rapid ascent to presumptive nominee were both very positive developments — in the larger scheme of things, the ‘big picture’ is still terribly alarming, if not horrifying.
Our 2024 American shitshow continues to unerringly intensify… and drag on, and on.
However, the rapid-fire political developments of the past three weeks show that our semi-democracy is still functioning in some arenas — for now.
For now, we’ve all gotten… a bit of a reprieve.
But sadly, terrifyingly, the worst is almost surely yet to come.
(And I haven’t even mentioned all the horrors and wild weather disruptions being unleashed by intensifying climate change.)
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This post was previously published on medium.com.
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From The Good Men Project on Medium
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Photo credit: Carlo D’Agnolo on Unsplash
