The United States
It has been the case that while America and the American Dream have been and remain giants in the story of human political and scientific evolution, the notion of the ‘United’ States has always been a flawed ideal. This is because there are two interpretations of what it is.
One is that the individual is sovereign and bigger than the state, is free under the law to enjoy inalienable rights, which include absolute freedom of speech and the right to bear arms. This grouping is broadly socially conservative, covertly white supremacist, self righteous, church belonging, pro life and anti LGBT. Its ancestors founded the Confederacy and now it dominates the heartland of America between the two coasts. It regards the exercise of Federal authority in domestic issues as an assault upon its interpretation of the original meaning of the Constitution, which the Confederacy re-wrote.
The other half believes in the Union as the foundation of the nation, whose authority is final. It is liberal and enlightened, focused on the future rather than the past, anti racism and any prejudice towards minorities in any form, pro equal rights and equal opportunity for women, pro LGBT rights and less committed to religious faiths and traditions. It wants gun control and interprets free speech as carrying with it responsibility for the effect on others of what you say. It is morally more permissive but more proscriptive of aggressive individualism put before the common good.
Both are committed to democracy but only when it suits their cause. When eleven states of the South chose to secede and form a looser union calling it a Confederacy, the North, for the Union, attacked and conquered, to quell a rebellion. Yet that in itself was a contradiction, because strictly in a democracy if people wish to choose a different path they must be allowed to do so. Now in 2020 the majority of Republican voters actually do believe they won, when by any measure they lost. Belief is thought to be a worthy thing. But when belief is denial of truth, it becomes a very bad and destructive thing indeed.
So what about Trump? He is the symptom, not the cause. The Union was never really there. By mobilizing, energising and yes, inciting, the forgotten bedrock of conservative America, he undoubtedly bust it apart. It is far from clear whether it can be stuck back together. Meanwhile America’s political standing across the world has crumbled from leadership to spectacle.
Further essays of these historic events will appear on this blog as events unfold.