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We Have Already Lost [1]

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Date: 2024-08-19  

The excellent diary by Perlinator points out how unbelievably absurd the political events have been for the past several years. I would like to point out a consequence of this unconscionable chain of events.

Back when Dubya was inserted into the White House by an already corrupt Extreme Court, many Americans were so embarrassed by this that when traveling abroad, they would claim to be Canadians. When he was inexplicably reelected, it confirmed an observation I made back in the days of Nixon and Raygun: the Republican party keeps nominating Bozos, and the American public keeps electing them. This premise was not only confirmed, but was taken up an order of magnitude, when the now convicted felon (X 34) was chosen to be the most powerful man in the free world. The entire world must have stood aghast that the American citizenry would be capable of such insanity. The four years that followed, for most of the world at large and Americans who still had a brain, could be compared to being gagged and tied to a chair while watching a three-year-old play with a loaded gun. “Unprecedented” become the most used word in the news media.

The concept I wish to focus on now is trust. When you lie to someone, you usually lose his/her trust. You may never get that trust back. If that trust manages to be restored and you lie again, you can pretty much kiss it goodbye. The United States lost the trust of a considerable portion of the free world when it chose to elect as president a racist, misogynistic sociopath with no political experience whatsoever, whose only talents were bankrupting businesses, lying and hurling insults. The only trust we had was that we could be trusted to be untrustworthy. The rest of the world could only conclude that the intelligence of the average American was sadly deficient or that our electoral system was deeply flawed. Or both.

Recent events have made it possible that American democracy can be saved. That being said, the rest of the world cannot ignore the fact that the most unqualified person on the planet became the standard bearer of a major political party and has come within a hair’s breadth of actually being elected. Such an outcome would be inconceivable in a rational world.

My point here is that the best case scenario is the United States will be side-eyed by most of the free democratic nations for a long, long time. We will have to have a string of presidents with integrity and a reasonably functioning intellect before we can regain the world’s trust. Our days as the “shining city on a hill” are over. Our position as a world power exists only because of our military might, which will likely be unsurpassed for quite some time. What that comes down to, though, is that the U. S. of A. Is nothing more than the schoolyard bully, an ignoble status we have held for far too long.

We have a good chance of winning in November, and it will be a glorious victory. But our status on the world stage? Not so much. That ship has sailed.

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[1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2024/8/19/2264198/-We-Have-Already-Lost?pm_campaign=front_page&pm_source=more_community&pm_medium=web

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