America is ending.

Some people think that the number of patriots in America has diminished, or that some of their countrymen are anti-American.  What they don't understand is that when a country elects  a person of the character of Donald Trump as president, it has failed as a democracy.  

It is not a partisan matter.  The two party system presents different ways that people think a democracy should be run.  That is not the issue when a person like Trump enters the picture.  The issue is whether you want a democracy that is open, honest, and competent in the quest for liberty, equality, and justice, or you want a fraudulent system in which self-proclaimed winners prey upon designated losers.

The obsequious groveling of Republicans before Trump in the belief that he is essential to the party is obscene.  Seeing Sen. Chuck Grassley giving Trump's ego a blow job in public is to witness ultimate degradation.  Republicans who once castigated Trump now line up to service him.  The grossest obscenity is that the GOP calls itself the party of Lincoln.  You can't claim the virtues of Lincoln while fawning in adulation over the likes of Trump.  That 74 million voters preferred Trump as president defines the state of the country. Despite the loss to Joe Biden,  those people have put the rest of the nation on notice that about half of its citizens do not believe in or want what have been considered the democratic virtues.

This is not new in western civilization.  My ancestors, as is true with most descendants of immigrants, faced political and social corruption.  Rather than engage in a futile struggle to reform their countries, they chose the American frontier.  As people line up at the southern border to escape  corrupt societies, few are aware that half of America prefers the kind of governance and society those refugees are fleeing.  

The contentions that the 2020 election was fraudulent and that January 6 was a patriotic protest are evidence that the U.S. is making George Orwell's 1984 come true.  People who prefer humane decency over malevolent bigotry face a dilemma.  With the Trump campaign to subvert the voting system, many realize that America probably cannot be salvaged in the voting booth.  The fights over masks and vaccinations for Covid-19 is an overwhelming measure of intellectual and moral deterioration of the country.

In 1984, the protagonist has a  job in the Ministry of Truth in which he alters the historical record to fit the needs of the Party. That is just the kind of party the GOP has become.  It has promoted a version of January 6 which denies that the insurrection was an attempt to stop the counting of votes in Congress, and contends it was just a peaceful demonstration.

During World War II, we lost 405,399 soldiers to combat.  In our deadliest fight, we lost 620,000 in the Civil War.  As of today, we have lost 719,725 lives to the coronavirus.  A significant number of people are resisting attempts to mitigate the disease as an infringement of their freedom to the point of violence.  When so many people have descended to this state of dementia, democracy cannot be sustained.  

The angry resistance to health measures is more malignant and debilitating than the disease.  We have preventions and potential cures for the virus that attacks the lungs.  We have no equivalent resources for the malignancy that debilitates the mental  and moral faculties in some people.

Unlike our ancestors, we have no America to move to.  Thinking people see the futility in trying  to change minds that demonstrate an aversion to the premises of equality and justice.  Still, many people would rather cede part of the country to them rather than live with their demented bigotry.

Reports in the media note apathy among Democratic voters.   But some of the discussions on the internet do not reflect apathy as much as a recognition that America has changed and large parts of it have undergone an intellectual and moral failure.

In some of those discussions, the idea of a counter migration has been raised.    Some have proposed organizing a body of people to colonize in another country,  Others have discussed establishing democratic enclaves in the U.S.  much like the Amish, or on the order of Indian reservations.  Others simply contemplate a move to another country.  And some discuss America as the object of a cancel culture.  A colleague says that the election of Trump as president was a cancellation of American culture.

But the significance of recent events for all Americans is that almost half of our countrymen  have rejected the qualities that once defined our democracy.  They are closing that America down.

If there is apathy among some voters, it is because the vote is being undermined, and they must decide how they wish to respond to the closing of America.