By Berl Falbaum
New York Times Columnist Michelle Goldberg recently wrote a column under the headline: "America May Be Broken Beyond Repair."
To make her case, she devoted the piece to the inability to bridge the bitter divide over gun control legislation. But that hardly tells the story of America's severely damaged and bloodied body politic.
I agree that America may be beyond repair but not solely because of the inability to enact needed gun control legislation. The issue goes much, much deeper and in this column, I will use as a benchmark Tuesday, Nov. 8, 2016 as to when we went unprincipledly and improbably amok.
That was the day this nation elected Donald J. Trump as president, a man totally corrupt, a pathological liar, a man who wallowed in hate, racism anti-Semitism, a man with a perverted sexual history. Sixty-three million Americans voted for this man despite his abhorrent background.
I wrote the morning after his election that his victory revealed a political cancer and expressed hope that it would not metastasize. But metastasize it did.
In 2020, after four years of the ugliest politics seen in modern U.S. history, corruption at almost every level of the federal government, a daily diet of lies and deceit, 74 million Americans - 11 million more than in 2016 - voted for Trump.
Yes, he lost but that was only because of the Electoral College formula. With a small percentage of votes in a handful of states, he would have been re-elected.
The seeds of Trumpism had taken hold; the cancer had spread and is continuing to spread unchecked. Consider:
• Trump, a twice impeached president, remains a powerful figure in American politics.
• A high percentage of Americans believe Trump lost the 2020 election because of voter fraud.
• Many political officeholders and candidates endorse the Big Lie, and make it the foundation of their campaigns. Reflect on that: These politicians believe they cannot win the votes of Americans unless the support the Big Lie which, if embraced, will destroy our democracy.
• Trump's continued lies about the 2020 election has set the stage for others to challenge outcomes of fair elections in the future, endangering the peaceful transfer of power at every governmental level, the hallmark of our democracy.
• In the January 6, 2021 insurrection, five people died, 140 police officers were injured, and rioters threatened to hang the vice president of the United States, but it is still defended by many as legitimate political discourse.
• Several state legislatures are adopting measures that will permit them to overturn outcomes with which they disagree. Some have adopted procedures to make it harder to vote, particularly for minorities.
• The issue of immigration continues to be mired and characterized with racist language and anti-Semitism is growing at alarming rates.
• Political factions are making progress in spreading the "replacement theory" which holds that liberals, particularly Jews, are working to replace white Americans.
• Congresspeople charged with enacting laws are flagrantly violating laws by flaunting subpoenas.
• According to several studies, 1,500 books have been banned in 26 states covering 86 school districts. Among those targeted are works by Nobel Prize laureate Toni Morrison.
• Fox News commentator Tucker Carlson, who supports much of what is described above, has the highest ratings among national TV news outlets. Fox News did not broadcast the first of the House Select Committee's public hearing Thursday night on the January 6 insurrection.
Of course, there is much more evidence of how America's body politic's values have been devalued and how our democracy is being tarnished and ravaged.
A comprehensive analysis of the state of our politics would require a book-length analysis. A brief Op-Ed column cannot do justice to the issue.
It's also true that we have lived through many bitter divisions in the country. Think Vietnam, civil rights, women's rights, urban riots in the '60s.
This time, however, our debates take place in a different political climate because, in short, we have lost our political moral compass. We are trampling our democratic values. We are abandoning our commitment to truth.
A democracy cannot survive, let alone thrive, in such a cancerous environment. It is only a matter of time until it destroys vital political organs and collapses.
Those who fail to see the threats would be well-served to read some history. There is no shortage of precedents.
The question is not whether America is broken. That answer seems clear. The major question we need to ask is: How do we fix it?
Sadly, nothing on our political horizon offers any potential answers. That is the ultimate tragedy.
--------
Berl Falbaum, is a veteran West Bloomfield author/journalist whose 12th book, "Code Red! Code Red! How Destruction of the Environment Poses Lethal Threats to Life on Earth," came out this month.
