Yes! There is a Crisis in America

YES! THERE IS A CRISIS IN AMERICA

(Democracy Threatened)

In fact there are two crises – with the first creating the second.

The first crisis is of Donald Trump’s ego.  It rises from his deep-seated sense of self-worth deficit. In compensation, his ego demands that he be superior to all other human beings in both his attitudes and actions.  This is the only ethic that rules his life.

As a result, he is a sociopathic liar and the truth is a utility designed to feed his ego. He may well believe his lies.  Therefore, he can create what he wants to be true, irrespective of its absurdity or contradiction to reality, and expect to do so without moral or legal impunity.  He can also use lies to verbally erase any harm his other lies have created and expect a blank space to appear that attests to the purity of his character.  This means he is always right and his critics are always wrong.  It also means his entire existence is geared to creating realities that are confined to his ego needs.  How his attitudes and actions affect others is of no consequence to him.   This leaves little room for empathy.

Here is the current source of his ego crisis.  Increasingly, political decisions are being made that do not support his campaign promises. Fulfilling these promises is critical to his sense of ego perfection. At the center of these promises is building a border wall in the southwestern states that supposedly will stop the flow of both diabolical Hispanics and devastating drugs from entering America and destroying our way of life. 

Those professionals, whose job is American border security, have shown the president that such a wall will not have any effect on the flow of immigrants or drugs and may actually cost upward of a hundred billion dollars.  However, backing down would question his superior knowing because he claims the opposite of these professionals.  Therefore, he creates more lies and seeks to manipulate the political system and use his presidential powers to get the wall that will affirm his ego superiority.

Moreover, the Republican Party, as a whole, continues to support his lies and endeavors despite their absurdity and citizenry harm.  They even support the current damaging government shutdown and encourage him to use his presidential powers to build this ill-conceived wall.  Rather than pushing him to accept reality, they defend his ego illusions.  Why?  Because long ago they sold their soul to political power as more important than democratic values.  In addition, many are economic imperialists who believe, like Trump, that democracy is a utility for profit-making rather than a utility for achieving the common good. They have the president’s anti-democratic back.

This raises a serious question about the future of democracy – which is deeply invested in ethics because its focus is the equal worth of the citizenry and their common good.  About such trivialities, Donald Trump has no concern because they do not fill his ego needs.

This identifies the second crises.  Democracy is in deep serious trouble because the citizenry has allowed its structures to be captured by leadership whose primary concern is the politics of power and economic benefit.  And while a majority of democratic supporters were elected to the House of Representatives recently, the Senate, which makes critical future shaping decisions such as Supreme Court appointments and Advise and Consent decisions about foreign relationships, is still in the hands of Republicans. 

Hopefully, whenever democrats get their act together and retake the reins of government, it will still be there to be reclaimed for democracy.  But during the meantime, the citizenry will continue to suffer and we may well plunge into a disastrous economic crisis that, once again, will pillage the economic future of the lower classes.

It is time to begin building for tomorrow with hope that there will be a tomorrow to be built.

Robert T. Latham

Citizen