America Descends to Caricature

Although it seems a lifetime ago, only sixteen years have passed since the United States elected the first Black person, man or woman, ever to serve as head of state for any Western nation.  During Barack Obama’s inauguration, many Americans, not just Black, openly shed tears at what may well have been the most poignant personification of Thomas Jefferson’s assertion in the Declaration of Independence that “All men are created equal.”  Those lofty words were not true in 1776 but seemed to have become so in 2008.

Eight years later, the nation repealed that great advance and elected a man who described Latinos as drug dealers and rapists, sneered at the selfless heroism of a former prisoner of war, mocked the handicapped, and derided Gold Star parents whose medal-winning son did not happen to be white.

Rather than reject these politics of hate, the nation split in two and went to war, fought not only with words but, to a disquieting degree, with actual weapons, disproportionately wielded by the side that most often evoked Jesus Christ and flew the American flag.  One significant battle of that war was the invasion of the United States capitol, the first since the War of 1812, in which one invader was killed, 174 defenders were wounded, some died later, and four more took their own lives within months. 

Most Americans naïvely expected near universal condemnation of such a heinous act of mob violence, but instead the country divided, and remains divided, on whether the invaders were insurrectionists or patriots.

Karl Marx postulated that, “History repeats itself, first as tragedy, second as farce.”  In the United States, that order seems reversed.  But either way, the nation currently has more than enough of both.

 How else but as farce can one describe the behavior of Mike Johnson, the current Speaker of the House, third in line for the presidency, “who has made a career of trying to impose his version of sexual morality on everyone else,” showing up at Donald Trump’s hush-money trial in New York to “defend a man whose criminal activity stems from a sexual liaison with a porn star while his third wife was tending to their recent newborn?”  And how else but as tragedy can one see this powerful leader of his party, who claims that the words of the Bible, taken literally, are the basis of both his world view and his philosophy of government, supporting the attempt both in Congress and in the streets, to hand the presidency to the candidate who lost by more than 7 million votes in what he knew was a legitimate election?  Or denouncing the American system of justice by calling a fair trial before a jury of twelve citizens serving at great personal risk, “corrupt,” “illegitimate,” and a “sham?”

What else but farce is the spectacle of Donald Trump, a man who has openly advocated and excused violence against his opponents, using an act of violence aimed at himself as a springboard to strengthen his candidacy?  What else but tragedy is Joe Biden’s refusal to call Trump out on his advocacy, but instead trying to play the conciliator no one wants, issuing bland calls to “turn down the temperature” and come together as a nation, calls that both supporters and opponents will almost certainly ignore?

Speaking of our doddering president, what else but farce is a country that touts itself as youthful and vigorous, nominating two old men, neither of whom can successfully get out two literate sentences in a row?  What else but tragedy is it that the Biden candidacy is as attractive as a bowl of congealed oatmeal, while Trump makes scant effort to hide his intention to undo more than two centuries of slow, torturous progress spurred by honorable men and women who risked their lives to make the United States a nation that values human dignity?

Is it not farce that members of the party that touts Jesus, the prince of peace, as their savior, promote gun rights over human rights?  Or that they become apoplectic at the fate of the unborn while totally ignoring the welfare of those same living beings the second they leave the womb?  Is it not tragedy that these warped applications of medieval religious dogma threaten the health of thousands of pregnant women, or force them to be Medevacked to different states to be given life-saving care?

What else but farce is a federal district court judge blithely pretending that the law does not apply to the man she hopes will appoint her to the Supreme Court if a vacancy opens up?  Or justices on the Supreme Court blatantly accepting only vaguely disguised bribes from political extremists to rule as they would have them rule, then blaming denunciations on the meanness of their critics?  (Chutzpah works here as well.)  And tragedy again when these same justices, evoking the extreme Catholicism of the Inquisition, sneer at the Constitution’s promise of equal protection of the law to promote an overtly theocratic agenda?

Then there is J.D. Vance, an Ivy League educated best-selling author who once compared Trump to Hitler, becoming the consummate boot-licker to gain his favor, and thereby agreeing to campaign for a man whose policies will strangle residents of the rural, blue collar districts of his youth, people he claims he wants fervently to defend?

There are many, many other examples, but when they are put together the picture that emerges is not one depicting the world’s most formative and successful democracy, but one of chaos marbled with hypocrisy, the sort of construction that could easily have sprung from the pen of Jean Paul Sartre or Samuel Beckett.  Reality has now exceeded the tragicomic excesses of some of the great political satires, such as The Candidate, The Last Hurrah, or The Manchurian Candidate. 

The best way to save the nation and reverse this course is for Democrats, now by default the party of sanity, to win in November.  Which they may well have done if not for one man.

Arrogant, stubborn, tone-deaf Joe Biden, the caricature of a president leading what has become the caricature of a democracy.