We didn't quite make it to our two hundred and fiftieth birthday. The American idea of equality before the law and self determination grew from the long, slow Western turn from rule by capricious gods and divinely appointed kings to belief in the innate worthiness of every human to determine how they should be governed. This was a momentous change. Yes, it was muted and diminished from the first by the unspeakable burden of slavery, but a nation "conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal" as Lincoln said, was a new and shining ideal that, however poorly executed, has still inspired and uplifted us Americans for over two centuries. The definition of "all men" has arduously changed in this time from "all white male property owners" to "all citizens, no matter what their race, or gender." We have become ever more inclusive as our country has matured and this has been a great driver of our wealth and power.
Until now.
In our last election we have chosen fascism over democracy and turned our backs on what makes us American. The forces of greed and fear have always been a shadow upon us, but over and over we have turned from demagoguery and demonization of the "other" to larger acceptance of people different from ourselves. Now we have finally succumbed to the terrors that plutocrats have manufactured to induce us to give up our democratic sovereignty. We have bought the bullshit about immigrant hordes and the enemy within, echoing all the most heinous lies of dictators throughout history. We think if we can force women back into the home and foreigners back across the borders we will return to some halcyon good old days where white men rule and everyone else knows their place. We have done this to ourselves, so apparently we will now get what we deserve.
I am the product of public education, which taught me to be proud of what America has stood for, even as I recognized our failures to achieve our aspirations. My belief in the ideals enunciated by the Declaration of Independence are unshaken, but my confidence in the decency and good judgement of my fellow Americans has been betrayed. I'm not sure we can come back. Our experiment is over.