Notes on the Eve of the End of the American Republic as Such
This was Ineveitable
They were going to keep coming. The institutional rigging disenfranchises a decent slice of the electorate and successfully indoctrinated another decent slice. This means that even policies that are wildly popular just squeak by.
It means that our candidates may have more support, but if they win it is by slim margins. We would have had to win every single time. and not just win but win by wide enough margins to squeeze out the oligarchs, who have functionally run things for the last 45 years.
They only had to defeat us once.
What is institutional rigging? Voter suppression, obscene amounts of dark money, and the dereliction of a venal corporate press.
Because nobody with power would admit the real problem and the oligarchs were able to enrich themselves at our expense and weaken the election laws to the point where there is not even a pretense of fairness. They could do this with abandon during Republican rule. But a Democratic administration merely slowed them down.
Up until now their hegemony was not overt, which means, in theory, they could have been overcome politically. This is just a theory because the problems with our elections have been in place for a very long time. And the whole time, the oligarchs were pushing the overton window farther and farther right from behind the curtain. This ensured as many Republican wins as possible and castrated the Democrats when they WERE able to win anyhow.
But even if there were truly fair elections, no party wins every time. Which means our attempt to fix this from within was doomed from the start.
This was inevitable. Winning EVERY time is too tall an order. In a normal representative democracy, power shifts seamlessly and regularly between the parties. Neither expects to win every election. And either can be trusted in general terms to put the best interests of the country ahead of partisanship.
But we have not had a healthy or normal situation for years. Instead we have a sad burlesque of a functioning democracy, starting with elections that are billed as "free and fair" but are not.
The only way to take it back is to defeat the oligarchs. This has now become orders of magnitude harder as they openly don the full force and power of the United States government. To cleanse the MAGA from the body politic would have required winning the White House in every general election for a generation or two. Let’s say, till 2052.
It would mean winning BOTH houses of congress by a two thirds majority and using this power to expand the Supreme Court, and purge the lower courts of the far right wing activists. It would require overturning Citizen’s United and putting in place strong guardrails such as a Voter’s Rights Act with teeth. It would mean openly confronting the oligarchs and pushing them back harder than FDR ever did.
The Democrats were never going to do any of that. They have not even been able to strengthen gun laws in the face of outright carnage. In the face of TODDLERS being gunned down at school. How could the Democrats stand against the authoritarian tide for the next quarter century?
The failure of the American Republic is occurring against a background of ecological collapse. There is no question that the wheels are about to fall off. As horrendous as it is, this might be the way we win. We have two powers and use neither of them well.
Our vote, which is not going to help. Too late for that now.
And our power of the purse as consumers.
If we divorce the overlords economically we have a chance to build another structure right under the radar of the parasites without them being able to control it or wet their beaks.
It will mean a lot of hardship, moving from a modern convenience footing back to pre-industrial methods. But the party has been over for us for some time.
We are going to end the day tomorrow in a very different country. It may look the same on the outside, more or less, depending on where you live. It may take some time for the meaning of the loss to seep down from inside the beltway to inside your schools, places of business, or even inside your homes.
But it will BE different. The drift has been towards the brutal and ugly for a decade. This will settle in deeper now. But what they do is in the outer world. We still control what we think, how we feel, and how we interface with the world around us. We have a choice about how we meet this moment.
Timothy Leary enjoined the youth of the 1960s to “turn on, tune in, and drop out.” Though he was using the terms differently than I am interpreting them, I think if we skip right to “dropping out” we can take some power back. The less we need, the less they can control us. The less they can hurt us.
If we quit buying what they are selling, what will happen? I would like to find out.
Our Nation has always been run by Oligarchs, simply because they are the only ones with the resources, the, and education to devote their lives to these effortswhethrr fot God, Country, or $$$.
Read this frequently: My friends, do not lose heart. We were made for these times. I have heard from so many recently who are deeply and properly bewildered. They are concerned about the state of affairs in our world now. Ours is a time of almost daily astonishment and often righteous rage over the latest degradations of what matters most to civilized, visionary people.
You are right in your assessments. The lustre and hubris some have aspired to while endorsing acts so heinous against children, elders, everyday people, the poor, the unguarded, the helpless, is breathtaking. Yet, I urge you, ask you, gentle you, to please not spend your spirit dry by bewailing these difficult times. Especially do not lose hope. Most particularly because, the fact is that we were made for these times. Yes. For years, we have been learning, practicing, been in training for and just waiting to meet on this exact plain of engagement.
I grew up on the Great Lakes and recognize a seaworthy vessel when I see one. Regarding awakened souls, there have never been more able vessels in the waters than there are right now across the world. And they are fully provisioned and able to signal one another as never before in the history of humankind.
Look out over the prow; there are millions of boats of righteous souls on the waters with you. Even though your veneers may shiver from every wave in this stormy roil, I assure you that the long timbers composing your prow and rudder come from a greater forest. That long-grained lumber is known to withstand storms, to hold together, to hold its own, and to advance, regardless.
In any dark time, there is a tendency to veer toward fainting over how much is wrong or unmended in the world. Do not focus on that. There is a tendency, too, to fall into being weakened by dwelling on what is outside your reach, by what cannot yet be. Do not focus there. That is spending the wind without raising the sails.
We are needed, that is all we can know. And though we meet resistance, we more so will meet great souls who will hail us, love us and guide us, and we will know them when they appear. Didn't you say you were a believer? Didn't you say you pledged to listen to a voice greater? Didn't you ask for grace? Don't you remember that to be in grace means to submit to the voice greater?
Ours is not the task of fixing the entire world all at once, but of stretching out to mend the part of the world that is within our reach. Any small, calm thing that one soul can do to help another soul, to assist some portion of this poor suffering world, will help immensely. It is not given to us to know which acts or by whom, will cause the critical mass to tip toward an enduring good.
What is needed for dramatic change is an accumulation of acts, adding, adding to, adding more, continuing. We know that it does not take everyone on Earth to bring justice and peace, but only a small, determined group who will not give up during the first, second, or hundredth gale.
One of the most calming and powerful actions you can do to intervene in a stormy world is to stand up and show your soul. Soul on deck shines like gold in dark times. The light of the soul throws sparks, can send up flares, builds signal fires, causes proper matters to catch fire. To display the lantern of soul in shadowy times like these - to be fierce and to show mercy toward others; both are acts of immense bravery and greatest necessity.
Struggling souls catch light from other souls who are fully lit and willing to show it. If you would help to calm the tumult, this is one of the strongest things you can do.
There will always be times when you feel discouraged. I too have felt despair many times in my life, but I do not keep a chair for it. I will not entertain it. It is not allowed to eat from my plate.
The reason is this: In my uttermost bones I know something, as do you. It is that there can be no despair when you remember why you came to Earth, who you serve, and who sent you here. The good words we say and the good deeds we do are not ours. They are the words and deeds of the One who brought us here. In that spirit, I hope you will write this on your wall: When a great ship is in harbor and moored, it is safe, there can be no doubt. But that is not what great ships are built for.
By Clarissa Pinkola Estes