Kurt R.A. Giambastiani

As I write this, we are all caught in this liminal condition, this “state between states,” as votes that have been cast continue to be counted. Regardless of which campaign is eventually judged the winner, though, there is a clear loser: America.

Post-WWII America was a place of rigid social norms. It wasn’t a good place for many Americans, but it was stable, and if you were White (and male), it wasn’t a bad place, generally speaking.

From within these constraints (and to a great extent because of them), in the ’60s my generation burst forth to break every part of it we could. Our goal? To improve equality and acceptance, to limit discrimination, to promote peace throughout the world, and to help the less fortunate.

And progress was made. Wars were ended. Lynchings stopped. Fewer women died from unsafe abortions. Racial slurs became taboo. Civil Rights laws and Voting Rights laws were enacted. We worked to fix social ills and compensate for blatant racism, installing programs designed to assist the poor and oppressed minority populations.

It wasn’t all rosy, of course, and we failed in many ways, but when comparing the ’70s to the ’40s and ’50s, the improvements to American society were quantifiable and obvious.

Progress was made on the global stage as well. The Cold War was won. Democracy gained strength. America was an example to the world. We went to the Moon. We eliminated harmful chemicals. We cleaned our air, our water. We began to put people ahead of corporations.

And that, I fear, was our American apex, our high-water mark, because from that point, from 1981 onward, there began a steady undermining of those achievements. Advances that continued in one area were sapped by take-aways on the sidelines. Politics began to polarize. Compromise was redefined as weakness. Profits became the meat rather than the gravy.

Which brings us to 2020, when many of the laws and norms put in place decades past have been torn down or diminished into ineffectiveness, and when disagreement has been morphed into warfare. Black men may no longer be lynched, but nooses are displayed as hateful reminders and Black men now are simply shot for non-compliance by law enforcement. Women are facing the terrible prospect of the loss of personal sovereignty at the hands of a dishonestly packed Supreme Court. Every single advance made for the LGBTQ community is now at risk. Regulations designed to curb pollution and protect our environment have been rescinded.

Then came this election season, when America had a choice.

And America failed.

If you feel that this is too broad a statement, let me narrow it down a bit: White America failed (including my own cohort).

We failed to repudiate a leader whose autocratic tendencies have been on full display for years. We failed to chastise a party that is so dead-set on its goals that it’s willing to harm its citizenry in order to achieve them. We failed, allowing ourselves to be cozened, at the top by promises of wealth, and at the bottom by predictions of doom. We failed by ignoring our distaste, casting aside our morality, all to adopt a slavish devotion to a leadership that openly lies, regularly cheats, and is obviously more interested in holding onto wealth and political power than it is in bettering the lives of everyday Americans.

In short, America failed because, regardless who wins the presidency, it should not have been this close.

And now, we have this Fall of Rome playing out before our eyes. 

The good news—if any is to be found at all—is that it can be reversed. History isn’t hopeful on this subject; empires in decline generally do not rescue themselves mid-descent. It is possible, though. We Americans do have a tradition of bucking trends, and there is a lot of energy out there, people who want to build on the advances of the ’60s and ’70s (and beyond), rather than tear it all down and return to a refurbished rigidity of the old-school mid-20th-century white patriarchy.

The key to this is who sits in the Oval Office for the next four years. If we continue on our current path, the fall will be inevitable. Autocracy will be within easy reach, and the power of the state will extend into our daily lives, suppressing dissent, eliminating choices for health, finance, and even love, all while it frees industry to run rough-shod over us. Our rivals around the globe will be come our friends, and our friends will become our rivals.

The other option won’t fix everything, but at least, with some compassion in the White House, we might have a chance to slow or perhaps stop the decline of our nation. I am not hopeful of this, though. It is obvious that too many of us are too comfortable with the methods and goals of the past four years, too accepting of disdain masquerading as concern. Too many of us have adopted a Machiavellian outlook, where results determine our morality and fear and loathing trump love and caring.

America has stumbled.

I pray we do not fall.

k