The Trouble We're In
What I appreciated most about American Theocracy is the way it provided a historical framework to think about the looming, ambient sense of crisis and breakdown that seems to pervade everything these days. Things in America certainly seem very bad to me, but it can be hard to grapple with the extent of our peril without falling into the secular version of Left Behind apocalypticism. (Part of the popularity of the Left Behind books, besides being an epic revenge fantasy against smug blue state nonbelievers like myself, is that they speak to the very real sense that the country and the world are hurtling out of control).
This is what I wrote in my Salon piece about American Theocracy:
At any time, of course, one can catalog apocalyptic portents and declare that the end is nigh. Obviously, things in America have been bad before -- there has been civil war, depression, global conflagrations. The country seems to have exhausted its ability to elect decent leaders, but some savior could appear before 2008. One doesn't want to be hysterical or give in to rampaging pessimism. Books about America's decline in the face of an ascendant Japan filled the shelves in the 1980s, and a decade later, the country was at the height of power and prosperity.Yet just because America has endured in the past does not mean it will in the future. Thus figuring out exactly how much danger we're in is difficult. Are things really as dire as they seem, or are anxiety and despair just part of the cultural moment, destined to be as ephemeral as the sunny mastery and flush good times of the Clinton years? It's human nature to believe that things will continue as they usually have, and that we'll once again somehow stumble intact through our looming crises. At the same time, it's hard to imagine a plausible scenario in which the country regains its equilibrium without first going through major convulsions.
So how scared should we be?
Kevin, you seem to be saying that we should be very worried indeed. You write of the "potential for an incendiary convergence if -- a big if, to be sure -- several of the worry-wart camps prove to be correct … I can't remember anything like this multiplicity of reasonably serious calculations and warnings. It is as if the United States, like the poet Oliver Wendell Holmes's 'One-Hoss Shay,' is about to lose all its wheels at once."
You avoid speculating too much about what such a disaster-wracked United States might end up looking like. That's obviously wise in something as enduring as a book, since there's no way to get it all right. Maybe in the more ephemeral medium of the Internet, though, you might venture a few predictions. Do you think American democracy, such as it is, is likely to survive if the upheavals of peak oil and widespread bankruptcy actually come to pass? James Howard Kunstler has said, " Americans will vote for cornpone Nazis before they will give up their entitlements to a McHouse and a McCar." Do you think he's right?
We need to improve our educational system so that more people join the "reality based community". This end of the world phenomenon has many precedents in world history including William Miller (I think that was his name) and the 19th century beginnings of the 7th day Adventists.
In case anyone didn't notice none of the precedents proved true, although the way Bush is going he is working on destroying the best traditions of our country (but hopefully not our country and world).
Tom
March 21, 2006 7:48 AM | Reply | Permalink
If the religious community were so not so wrapped in literal dogma from the pages of the often-edited, "unalterable Word", they might be able to imagine that the text was actually correct.
Bush could be the "Deceiver".
No, wait, scratch that. It's got to be "them". It's not Apocalypse if we do it.
Alphonse ( Al ) Kada
March 21, 2006 8:38 AM | Reply | Permalink
You know what worries me, Michelle? If the country really falls apart and devolves into warring factions, blue staters vs. red staters, the red staters will win -- they have all the guns.
Don't be too quick to think it can't happen. It's surprising how fast a Constitution can turn into a piece of paper when strong centrifugal political forces get to work.
What we see now is the tragedy of a great country, with noble impulses, successful institutions, magnificent historical achievements and immense energies, which has become a menace to itself and to mankind. - Anatol Lieven
March 21, 2006 8:57 AM | Reply | Permalink
Believe me, I don't think it can't happen. It's telling to look at the growth of Posse Comitatus, the precursor to the militia movement of the 1990s, in the farm belt during the farm crisis of the 1980s. A combination of falling prices and rising interest rates led to the dispossession of tens of thousands of families, creating an incredibly fertile recruiting group for paranoid, far-right paramilitary groups. If widespread social disorder were to spread throughout the country in the near future, I think we'd see an exponential growth in right-wing militias.
March 21, 2006 9:25 AM | Reply | Permalink
Against or for what? Unified overthrow of the government? Every Barney Fife cop in the country would be "nationalized" and on shoot to kill status. Northern Command would be ready for any right wing militia that they could not control. It would take a series of events happening simutaneously to spin it out of control quickly.
Alphonse ( Al ) Kada
March 21, 2006 9:39 AM | Reply | Permalink
Yeah. The militia crisis of the mid-90s that ultimately subsided is another of your "just because we got out of it OK in the past doesn't mean we will in the future" moments. I caught a chunk of a "The Postman" rerun on TV the other night; I still think it was a pretty decent movie. That clash of right-wing paranoid violent hysteria versus the rather humdrum consensus-oriented rationalist desire of liberals to accomplish very basic everyday goals like getting the mail delivered remains one of the fundamental fault lines in American politics. It's truly infuriating that just when we seemed to have most of the country convinced that there were no black helicopters, these homicidal morons fly planes into the WTC and get all that violent paranoia going again, but at 100 times the volume.
March 21, 2006 9:45 AM | Reply | Permalink
Oops. Meant that as a reply to Michelle above.
March 21, 2006 9:46 AM | Reply | Permalink
What we're talking about is a political issue that splits the government itself, as happened in the USSR, Yugoslavia, and so on. The cops and the military themselves have competing claims on their allegiance. When people see the signs that authority over the military is disintegrating, they move very quickly to align themselves with whatever part of the military and police are most likely to defend them, if the shooting/forced relocation starts. Liberal governors will try to retain authority over their National Guard units, but Guard members, being more conservative, may defect. People will start seizing armories. And then it's good night, and good luck. The war in Bosnia got started when Serbian police officers got worried that they would lose their jobs under the new majority Muslim government, and seized a few armories. A year later, you had concentration camps.
March 21, 2006 9:54 AM | Reply | Permalink
I just don't see it on a political issue alone.
A rapidly occurring series of physical events that tested the Fed and states might be a different issue. A Katrina again in the gulf followed by one hitting NY/NJ, an earthquake on the other coast, and forced isolation/relocation due to a sweeping outbreak of bird flu, well, that's a perfect storm.
I haven't seen the guns coming out in South Dakota yet.
Alphonse ( Al ) Kada
March 21, 2006 10:06 AM | Reply | Permalink
If it's true that history repeats itself, the demise of America as a great nation may be inevitable. The same symptoms that spelled the downward spiral of great nations of the past are apparent in 21st century America. The Sybarites. 720 BC, are remembered as a people who lived in luxury, devoted to self-indulgence and profligacy. Legend has it that, fond as they were of extravagant entertainment, they trained their horses to dance whenever music was played. A would-be conquering army learned of this so rode into the city one day playing music. The Sybarite horses all began to dance as programmed and as a result became useless as a vital part of the Sybarite war machine. The city fell to the conquerors and that was the end of Sybaris.
March 21, 2006 10:22 AM | Reply | Permalink
I on the other hand believe that America has entirely too few dancing horses.
March 21, 2006 10:43 AM | Reply | Permalink
There is something really odd going on with political writers today...I'm not exactly sure what it is, but it's distinctly hinky...amazingly, they repeat these republican fed "facts" as though they really are facts. If there's a trend in politics, it seems to be moving (incrementally) away from religion as politics according to statistics from Pew Research. There's no overwhelming trend towards religiousity and in fact, the country's pretty evenly divided on how much religion should be interjected in the political discourse, figures that have remained virtually the same since the 1950s. According to Pew research 54% of republicans think that christian conservatives have too much control over their party.
The christian conservative movement seems to be in recline - a ready example is the trouble Ralph Reed finds himself in - his campaign had to pay people to attend a just past function. He's losing and this is in a state with a high evangelical population. Something's not right about this, and I suspect that we're succumbing to republican talking points which are a distraction to us as a party.
March 21, 2006 11:36 AM | Reply | Permalink
What I appreciated most about American Theocracy is the way it provided a historical framework to think about the looming, ambient sense of crisis and breakdown that seems to pervade everything these days. Things in America certainly seem very bad to me, but it can be hard to grapple with the extent of our peril without falling into the secular version of Left Behind apocalypticism
This is astonishing reading. I guess I don't see the "looming, ambient sense of crisis and breakdown" pervading everything the way you do. I live in a liberal college town in California, where I would assume many people agree with you, but I don't see them acting or talking that way. Folks don't like Bush or the Republicans - that's the majority view here - they protest, say what they want to say, dominate the letters section of the newspaper. They are unhappy but don't seem the least intimidated. They just keep working to change things.
I grew up in the South, still have family there and go back to visit. That area is very conservative. I don't get that sense of tension or crisis from any of the people I talk with there either. They are getting on with life, the same way people here are.
I'm old enough to remember the 60s and 70s when things really were very tense in this country with riots and National Guard shooting people and lots of demonstrations. My town, Memphis, had dusk to dawn curfews and tanks and APCs in the streets.
The current atmosphere is nothing like that. There was a sense of tension and restrained violence then that I don't see at all now. Maybe it's that way in New York, but I travel pretty widely in this country and have lived in many different regions and don't see it anywhere else.
Also, my take on the Christian Right "theocracy" meme. Most everyone on the left who writes on this with a sense of alarm tends to treat it as this monolithic ediface. Anyone who has spent time around evangelicals knows how decentralized and fractious they are. I guess I just can't see enough of them getting together and agreeing on anything as ambitious as this nationwide "takeover" without falling apart on a million details. Some general cultural issues, yes. A detailed program of "theocracy", no. Too many details to squabble over.
March 21, 2006 3:18 PM | Reply | Permalink
GWB = Great Whore of Babylon
March 21, 2006 3:53 PM | Reply | Permalink
A more disconcerting parallel, I think, is Rome. It was a healthy Republic that slipped into dictatorship. Stresses from its military campaigns and the political power of the military were part of that.
The more we extend our bases around the world (>700) and the more countries in which we intervene, the more powerful the military is, even indirectly. Its industrial allies can act more overtly in politics, and the military has moral standing due to its service that gives it a strong position if and when it chooses to become politically active.
March 21, 2006 7:31 PM | Reply | Permalink
It used to be that you were entitled to your opinion, but not your own set of facts. That seems to have changed; as now if you don't like the facts as presented, you simply make up facts to fit your opinion.
In order for us to come to a consensus in this country, we need to have an agreement on what the facts are.
Find the Truth. Do Justice.
March 22, 2006 5:51 AM | Reply | Permalink
As I have mentioned in other posts, most on this board are grossly over-estimating the trouble our nation is in. Bush is certainly not the worst president ever and anyone who makes such a claim is likely doing so out of a volatile combination of delusion, depression, jealousy, and misinformation. Bush is a polarizing figure as was Lyndon Johnson, Richard Nixon, Jimmy Carter, and Ronald Reagan (we could even include Clinton in that mix). Any trends here? Why yes there is! Every president is polarizing! Naturally the Democrats claim that Bush is the worst president ever and the greatest hindrance to American progress. Why would they say that? Their party has gotten "whipped" in three consecutive elections. In reality, the Democrats have no answers. As we saw from John Kerry in 2004, their main plan is to smear and attack Bush on every front while completely ignoring the vital matter of putting together an actual alternative policy. When the Democrats cannot even agree on how to manage a campaign, why should the American people trust them with the stewardship of the nation? A divided party out of power could spell true disaster if they were to ever actually get power. Ever heard of Emperor Nero?
March 22, 2006 7:06 AM | Reply | Permalink
You mean the Nero (Bush) who fiddled while Rome (the USA & the world) burned? Yeah, I've heard of him.
Tom
March 22, 2006 7:37 AM | Reply | Permalink