On America’s 244th year of independence, I offer these “rants” from Tom Engelhardt, an American editor, publisher, and author who belongs to the same generation as our 45th president.
That my generation, whether in the form of Donald Trump or Mitch McConnell, would be responsible for turning imperial America into an autocratic-leaning, collapsing semi-democracy, and a first-class world annihilator, I would have found hard to imagine. [In the early 1970s], if you had told me that, half a century into the future, the world’s fate would rest on a presidential election between a genuine madman and something close to a dead man (that, for all we know, may not prove to be an election at all), I would have dismissed you out of hand. And yet that, it seems, is the pandemic legacy of my generation for which we should all be ashamed, even as we watch the young, driven by the insanity and inanity of it all, turning out in our diseased streets to protest a country coming apart at the seams.
Excerpt from “The Age of Disappointment? Or How the American Century Ends” by Tom Engelhardt, published in TomDispatch.com on June 18, 2020.
Tom Engelhardt is a co-founder of the American Empire Project and the author of a history of the Cold War, The End of Victory Culture. He runs TomDispatch.com and is a fellow of the Type Media Center. His sixth and latest book is A Nation Unmade by War.
A Happy Fourth of July to all my American blogging friends! For the sake of our country and planet, may saner minds prevail.
I think that pretty well captures it.
So many countries with leaders not worthy of the great peoples they lead. Brazil, Russia, even Poland and Hungary. It really makes me wonder how it comes about.
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John, I get a general sense of humanity flailing in a turbulent ocean.
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Sadly, I fear so too.
From SA, to USA, to India 😦
My refrain, “…but why???”
We can do so much, be so much yet we regress.
May saner minds prevail indeed!
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Kavitha, I would add Guyana and Brazil to your list. I agree that we can do better. We regress when only a few are allowed to reap the fruits of Earth and the labor of the mass of humanity.
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The question remains “Why are there still 40 % of US voters supporting Trump?” according latest polls. Are they all blind and deaf?
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I wish I knew the answer!
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Everything in this world sees rise and fall. nothing is permanent
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Very true, Atul. And, right now, we’re racing towards the precipice.
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And ya. well put-may saner minds prevail everywhere in the world.
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Well, according to his latest speech, the US has already gained a great victory over the virus. I don’t know what planet this guy’s from, but I wish he’d return there.
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Sad to say, Denzil, he lives in an alternate universe. Hopefully, at some point in time–the sooner, the better–our colliding universes will separate and we will be able to deal with this pandemic without this current polarization.
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A sad truth
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Happy 4th of July weekend to you
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Same to you, Nikki! Thanks for dropping by 🙂
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💔☮️🇺🇸
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We just had a great party last night which comprised of atheists, catholics, witches, evangelicals, lots of kids who are niethers, good food and a little drink, ten minutes of fireworks, and it was fantastic. That’s America—Not its politics, newscasts, and soundbites.
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Lucky you, Jim! With our surge in Covid-19 infections, here in Los Angeles, my family and neighbors are respecting the calls from our Mayor to maintain social distancing.
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I am fortunate to live out in the countryside. All the best to you all.
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The last sentence in your essay says it all perfectly.
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My generation too. We’ve had our better moments but the worst of us seem to have come to the fore.
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Thanks for sharing your thoughts, Ken. This was no accident. I believe that it’s the final stand of the minority power elite as they face the collapse of their globalized capitalist economic system.
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He lost me at the “dead man” comment, but I share the overall sentiment of a failure of my white U.S. generation, arguably the luckiest people in world history. As a grandfather, I think of this often and do what I can to influence the November outcome so that it is not a dystopian one.
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I, too, stumbled over his “dead man” comment, Dr. Stein. As you know well, reality can, at times, punch us in the face. But, here we are. This makes Biden’s pick for vice president very critical.
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Wise words from Tom Engelhardt. I fear that what so many are calling the “best” election outcome is going to mean an evermore entrenched neo-liberal, racist world that brought us here. Too many of us have accepted the sins of our country for too long, and increasingly leveraged them for the few. Too many of us want to believe that protests and a national conversation alone will change things for the majority. I still am clueless as to what the “presumptive” candidate plans to do to get us out of this mess. Thanks for the forum, Rosaliene.
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You’re welcome, Kim. From what I’ve learned about the civil rights movement here in the USA, protests have not been enough to bring about real and lasting change. The Power Elite that benefits from the entrenched social-economic system will not give up without a unified mass engagement in the struggle.
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Four years ago, when I heard the news about who’d been elected our 45th president, people consoled me saying “How much harm can he do? There’s still congress to balance it out.” I was not convinced. The damage has been extensive, as I feared. I think hope is important, I think supporting the candidate we’ve got is important, but above all I think that Participatory democracy is crucial. This is not a vote snd go home and fold your hands kind of year or moment in history. We must keep fighting against racism, against poverty, against the destruction of our natural world. It will take all each of us can give to overcome them. Rebecca
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I agree, Rebecca, we must all remain engaged as members of the body politic. The future of our nation and life on this planet, as we know it, depends upon it.
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There are two immediate hurdles we must clear before any chance of recovery: 1) the four months ahead of the election, and 2) the 2 1/2 months after that when a new president can take office.
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To make matters worse, our Dear Leader works hard at raising the bars of the hurdles. Thanks, Robert, for your excellent daily analyses of the alternate reality we now live in.
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Wow, that is a wonderfully articulate rant – what a contrast to the babble we’ve been hearing from The White House in recent years.
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Engelhardt isn’t usually a person to rant. He does so now with good reason. He began his professional life as an anti-Vietnam activist and editor at a publishing house. His articles focus mostly on America’s military industrial complex and our forever wars.
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Well put
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I think the root cause of America’s difficulties is economic – there were strong indicators the US economy was coming apart at the seams last fall. In my view, ordinary Americans have the best chance of surviving if they look to rebuilding community and strong self-sufficient local economies.
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Dr. Bramhall, thanks for dropping by and sharing your thoughts 🙂
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Great articles, let’s just hope that out of these crises, we can gain some progress.
Martin Luther King was absolutely right about the evil triplets of America.
Thanks Rosaliene. 🙂
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Thanks for reading, Burning Heart. It’s my hope, too, that these crises will bring the societal changes we need to move forward as a nation.
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I sometimes wonder if I’ll wake up and find it was a bad dream. But I have to take a deep breath, face reality, and do what I can while hoping and praying that saner minds will prevail and soon. Biden is definitely saner and not that close to dead, but I do hope he picks a running mate with some good energy.
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JoAnna, without a doubt, Biden’s choice for running mate will be crucial.
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Thanks for sharing…I think.
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Don, thanks for dropping by 🙂
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Thanks for widening my horizon of thinkers like Tom Engelhardt. Now tracing his books and other things he’s written. And yes: may saner minds prevail.
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So glad you dropped by, Rusty 🙂 He’s numbered among the last of our elders of saner minds.
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Thank you for sharing!!… to quote Marilyn Monroe “Sometimes good things fall apart so better things can fall together” ( Marilyn Monroe) and hopefully a lesson learned and perhaps the people that make up the foundation of the country will finally work together for those “better things”… there is no dealing with Trump’s ego… 🙂
Have a good day today and every day and all your tomorrows filled with happiness!.. 🙂
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Thanks for the good wishes, Dutch 🙂 I, too, hope that we can all work together for a better life for all.
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Insane, isn’t it?
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It sure is, Shift. I’m finding it increasingly difficult to mentally tolerate the madness on display daily.
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I’ve felt that way for years already. How long will the madness last?
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P.S. Hitting the “like” button hasn’t worked on your posts for a long time. I have no idea why. Does that happen to any of your other readers? I’ve wanted to mention it for a while but I’m rarely online.
Thanks for another great post.
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Thanks for dropping by, Shift 🙂 No one else has mentioned this problem, so I can’t say if it happens with other readers. WordPress has, once again, changed its system for setting up posts for publication. Perhaps, there are still glitches to be worked out.
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Perhaps. It’s been happening to me for a while, though. Whatever it is, I hope it gets fixed.
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ugh…unfortunate state of our country. But, recently I came across a piece and have been very consciously questioning things in its light – it said you get what you deserve, in the context of countries. Did America deserve Trump? Did we take a few things for granted and did we need the complete chaos to bring us back to the realization of importance of those facets?
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Does America deserve Trump? I don’t know, Pallavi. What I do know, from my observations of life, is that our actions as a nation–whether at home or in foreign countries–have consequences. After reading Nancy MacLean’s book, Democracy in Chains: The Deep History of the Radical Right’s Stelath Plan for America, I learned that it’s no accident that we are where we are today as a nation. The corporate power elite have finally succeeded in placing an unscrupulous businessman to do their bidding from the highest seat of power. While their man in the White House is creating chaos and have us fighting with each other, the power elite are undoing all environmental and health regulations, put in place over the years, that affect their profits. They are also putting federal judges into place that will work to put through their laws under future administrations, whether democratic or republican.
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I hear you. I am taking a step further back and asking why did America let this happen? What was so broken that resulted in this. It’s not like he hoodwinked himself as a saint and people didn’t know what they were getting themselves into. We knew and we still entered his presidency and worse yet, I fear we will make the same mistake twice. I question that “reason” in the first place.
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From what I’ve read in articles seeking answers to your question, there are several reasons for the support he still retains, depending upon the group–corporate backers, white supremacists, fundamentalists, and workers left behind with the loss of manufacturing jobs.
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His description of the two candidates pretty well sums it up!
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It sure does, Dwight! Though his “dead” description of the Democratic candidate was a tough one to take.
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Not sure how they all came up with him. Do you think there could be a coup at the convention?
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I have no idea, Dwight. I guess a lot will depend upon how much of the demands of the leftists in the party are met, including his choice of running mate.
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It is kind of mind-blowing when the “best” we have to offer the country is two “Old Men” !!
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Crazy, isn’t it?!
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Makes one wonder whether it isn’t the money that makes the difference… Buying the Presidency!
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When corporations gained personhood, this has increasingly become the case for both major parties.
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Yes, and then there is the Dark Money that Bill Moyers PBS documentary told about.
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I miss Bill Moyers’ PBS program.
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This is a similar clip: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yNOFv6Jvn5k
It is all about the money and buying power!
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well said. can’t believe that even a single Trump supporter exists, but alas…
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Thanks for dropping by, da-AL 🙂 Sadly, they are those among us who hold fast to his lies and promises.
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