Recently, The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists reset the Doomsday Clock. It is now 89 seconds until midnight. We are, in the opinion of these scientists, closer than ever to the end of human civilization.
It’s not just nuclear weapons that determine this estimate—climate change, bioterrorism and artificial intelligence play major roles as well. Suffice it to say the future does not look bright.
Science and scientists are not in vogue in today’s dumbed-down and duplicitous America, but that hardly matters. Nothing lasts forever, and the United States certainly won’t.
America’s unwinding has been visible for a long time now. George Packer’s The Unwinding was published in 2013, and there were many warning signs prior to that. Over the last 12 years, the country’s disintegration has accelerated rapidly. Donald Trump has been elected twice.
Today’s U.S. citizens are more widely divergent in their beliefs and their acuity than ever. Half of all households, maybe somewhat more, own no books. The American educational system has been in serious decline for years, as have students’ reading abilities.
Red states are growing much faster than blue states, and they are rich in resentment and vindictiveness toward the blue elites (i.e., ordinary people who have a college education and a conscience). Now the far right has assumed power.
“Assumed” is the right word, because Trump & Co. are not limiting themselves to constitutionally authorized authority. Elon Musk, the adolescent genius elected by no one, has assembled a callow wrecking crew to dismantle entire U.S. government agencies, and as of now no one is stopping him.
The Democratic Party, as has been widely noted, doesn’t have a clue. Their attempts to protect the crumbling, fumbling Biden were disastrous, and their attempts to organize and communicate have failed as well. Even if, against the odds, they managed to retake the White House in four years, it wouldn’t matter. The country’s divide is not going away and the far right has seized, and will retain, the upper hand.
If you want to keep the best of America, and American Democracy, then try to do so. Do whatever you can. But keep your eyes wide open, and watch your back. Things are not likely to get better.