They are far from the only source, but they have proven their ability to push narratives and to stir the pot.
Our American social contract has frayed and broken down. Education is breaking, and a common public education is or was part of our social contract.
The Media amplifies the loud, aggressive, hostile, ignorant minority for reasons of their own. However, a violent minority can still demolish a country.
I console myself that we Dems are in the majority. I despair that our system is as broken as it is.
I agree about the global crisis. A couple of years ago (pre-COVID) I realized there was a wave of populism sweeping across the globe, and that populists will end up voting for authoritarians in the end — a strongman to quell the chaos.
There’s a concept of historic cycles in Hinduism, called yugas. The most terrible and destructive is the Kali Yuga. I’m a mythologist, not a Hindu, so I don’t measure yugas by half-million year segments. But there I was, struck with the consideration that in the cycles of history that occur on a human scale, ours may be coming to a self-inflicted end — the climate crisis, and the rise of populism rooted in fear, anger, and ignorance. The so-called American Experiment, grounded in the mythos of the Enlightenment, may not survive. But what I see is world-wide, not just here.
As for nations that are already autocratic, what do they care? Russia and China both continually probe us for weakness — as does Iran, but I don’t know if they try to move in to our political structure the way China and Russia do. Recently I began to wonder if the way Russia is snuggling up to China might result in a pincer movement against us. (Last week, Fareed Zakaria called Putin’s Russia “a satrap of China,” which made me laugh like hell.)
I know this isn’t very cheery, but at least I’m not writing this at 1:30 a.m. at my psychological low ebb.
Haven’t seen you in awhile. Gave you a heart.
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