The shattered states of Trumpistan

I am not one of those who invests great trust in what Americans will do.  I am too old, have covered too much as a journalist, and have studied too much as a professor who taught American literature (the country's history is recorded in its writing) to have faith that Americans will always choose the highest intellectual and moral pathways.  We have had slavery.  We have had segregation.  We have had Watergate.  We have had Vietnam. We have had unarmed black people shot dead in the streets and in their beds. Those are matters that some people wanted, and many still do.  And now we have had Donald Trump.

America is not the land of the free, equal, and just.  It is the land where people who believe in liberty, equality, and justice have to engage in a constant struggle to attain those conditions, and when they are attained, to maintain them.  There are a lot of Americans who don't really care about them, some who find them out of their reach, and and others who oppose them.  Over a few centuries, America has established them as the goals of our democracy, and for the privileged they may be the conditions of their lives.  But there are masses of people for whom they are not.  

As a journalist, I engaged in the study of American literature in order to maintain the context of what I was writing about on a daily basis.  I was always aware of literature, particularly by Native Americans and African Americans, that recorded a different America than the one traditionally portrayed.  But those divergent portrayals were also present in the work of what we considered as mainstream authors.  Most of America is ignorant of its letters.  The few who do read tend to do so to affirm their personal bias, prejudice, and hatred, not to gain an understanding of the complex diversity of the country.

I have been proud and optimistic about the United States' progress toward achieving their goals, but there were always obstacles and opposition.  America is always in a state of becoming, and sometimes it has setbacks.  It is in a serious one right now.  A measure of it is the number of people who think the request to wear protective masks is an assault on their freedom, not a measure to keep them healthy and alive.  American people cannot be trusted to have the most rudimentary intelligence.

We are in a state of siege by what can only be termed obscene stupidity.  Some of our fellow Americans just can't think. Nor do they want to.  That's why they can't be trusted with matters of thought and consideration.  As far as the country's response to the coronavirus is concerned, Dr. Sanjay Gupta put it well:  the best we could do is the worst in the world.  That's how far the repute of the U.S. has plummeted. Trump is a symptom of the decline, but those benighted souls who support him and adopt his ways are the cause.  They have earned the full blame.

It is wrong to think that the divide in America is between conservatives and liberals, Republicans and Democrats, or authoritarians and freedom lovers.  It is between those cling to the right to be stupidly malicious and those committed "to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations."  We have diverged far from the course tried to set us on with those words.

We have instead fulfilled the skeptical words of H. L.  Mencken: "Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard."  

"As democracy is perfected, the office of the president represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. We move toward a lofty ideal. On some great and glorious day, the plain folks of the land will reach their heart’s desire at last, and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron."

Joe Biden has to restore a nation which includes a huge loony ward.