General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: "The American experiment is over..." [View all]Scrivener7
(60,103 posts)We can all see it is over, and those violently denying it in this thread just seem to me to be simply showing their understandable reluctance to look at the fact that it is obviously over.
BUT. This disaster has shown us the unworkable parts of our system that need to go. These show us the road to build a better system if we have the will. Whether we have the will is the unanswered question.
The biggest fissure is that our system depends on its participants having a modicum of decency. We have learned that at least a third of our countrywomen and men don't have that decency. So depending on that decency just won't work anymore. That's done.
We can build something different when we regain power by first addressing those areas this third have exploited. The areas where they have been able to pillage the country for their own ends. That includes corporations and politicians. This requires a concerted effort to PROSECUTE the offenders without mercy. Our mistake in the Biden years was not doing that. Inevitably, I will be accused of trashing Biden for saying that. It's not trashing. Some of us saw his mistake in real time. A lot more can see it in retrospect. He made a mistake. People do. But the appointment of a "go along to get along" prosecutor has had disastrous consequences. This time, if "Just move ahead" is the road taken, it will truly be the end of anything resembling a Democracy.
But also, somewhere down the line when things settle into the new system - because it WILL be a new system, for better or worse depending on what WE do - we need to look at WHY so many of our countrywomen and men are such shits. Why there is no honesty, no character on the right. Bring back civics classes and make them mandatory in high school. Address the income inequality that makes the weaker among us create enemies of their neighbors. This is a lot more elusive than the goal of prosecution, and it's beyond my psychological understandings, but it is something smarter heads than mine need to address.
The same group that will accuse me of trashing Biden will take issue with my saying that WE have to fix this. They will say republicans broke it and therefore should fix it. Which is asinine. Of course they should. But that's not how the world works. They won't. We all know they won't. So if we want it fixed, we have to do it ourselves.