Somehow it feels like one of those times during a football game when you can sense the momentum changing inexorably in favor of the underdog. Slowly the dominance of the favorite team bleeds away and inevitably the challenger wins.
I sense, I feel, and I see this happening to the United States. In football, mistakes are made, complacency sets in, people get tired and leadership doesn’t keep up with the changes made by adversaries. Unfortunately this picture is an apt metaphor for what is happening here, right now, in our local communities, the states, and most devastatingly with the federal government.
Outrageous behavior, illegal acts, incivility, inhumanity, and abuse of constitutional and legal prerogatives at the federal level have become acceptable. From CEOs to shoeshine boys and the halls of Congress, evil, nasty and immoral actions are now accepted as the norm. The nation is being run by an oligarchy headed by Donald Trump, a crook bent on revenge and personal enrichment. We too often mutter “Ho, hum, there’s really nothing I can do about it” or “I don’t like Trump, but he’s doing the right thing with immigration and taking care of the farmers,” for example. Those of us who are living well simply look the other way; we are not personally impacted by what is going on. Here Martin Niemoller’s* famous poem should warn us about complacency; by not speaking out we become complicit and only postpone our own enslavement.
The rub is that as time goes on things are going to get worse. Watchdog agencies are being trashed, qualified bureaucrats are being replaced by Trump toadies, judges are being assailed and threatened, the military is being undermined and used for political purposes, ICE continues to be overzealous and increasingly acts as Trump’s “Brownshirts,” often arresting and physically abusing American citizens.
In the meantime, major issues including healthcare and economic problems remain unresolved at home while American leadership overseas fails to effectively address the Russo-Ukrainian War or serious economic and military challenges from China and Russia.
Clearly, the momentum of American leadership and dominance of the last eighty years is diminished. More frighteningly, however, is the continued breakdown of constitutional government and threats to the personal well-being of all Americans.
We presently are in the most dangerous time since the Civil War.
* Martin Niemoller, the German Lutheran minister who wrote “First They Came.” Niemoller, initially an antisemitic Nazi supporter, changed his views after being sent to a concentration camp for criticizing Nazi control of churches.
Here are the first couple lines of Niemoller’s poem:
"First they came for the
Communists
And I did not speak out
Because I am not a
Communist
Then they came for the
Socialists
And I did not speak out
Because I am not a Socialist"
The poem’s last stanza reads:
"Then they came for me–and
there was no one left to speak for me."