Thoughts and Theories
Initial thoughts after finishing The End of America by Naomi Wolf
The book, published in 2007, calls for the left and right to unite against a dictatorial trend perpetuated by George W. Bush and his administration. It paints a picture as though our democracy, while having faced challenges in the past, hadn't been troubled to the point that Bush was pushing—at least not in a long time. I'm not sure if I agree with that. That's part of what this project is about; I need to know more before I can confidently say that Bush planted the seeds that are blooming today.
Something else I feel the need to challenge is that Wolf talks about a return to our beloved America, as if there has ever been a time in the U.S. when we really experienced racial, social, and economic equity. I think a democracy is only as strong as the most marginalized parts of its society. Depending on the color of one's skin or the amount of generational wealth one carries (two things with an often correlational, often causational, relationship) the U.S. has a long history of being less than free and fair. In any fight against the fascist takeover of the United States, I think It's critical to work towards a better society than we had before. We shouldn't strive for a return to a former status quo. That status quo is part of what got us here. We need to turn it on its head to create a better country than we had before—for everyone.
The last chapter contained some very poignant quotes about how the U.S. wasn't susceptible to a violent overthrow of our government, but a paper-pushing one. It said that our legislature, judiciary, and media were all too independent for the former. welp. That independence has been whittled down over the last two decades (arguably much longer), so I found no solace in that sentiment.
Theories: What I expect to find out
Obama was president after Bush. I expect to learn about how the Obama administration worked to set some things straight from the Bush administration, and I'm fully prepared to be disappointed by those efforts. For example, Wolf wrote a lot about the use of torture under the Bush admin. I know that the Obama administration did something about that; changed the policy, though I'm not sure how. I don't know the details, but I suspect that Obama didn't push for accountability alongside the policy change. Correction without accountability is a permission structure.
The Supreme Court is also going to play an important role in this story, for obvious reasons. Obama's Supreme Court appointment was blocked by a partisan legislature intent on appointing a partisan judiciary. They succeeded, and now Trump moves with impunity in his second term.
Questions
Some of the questions I hope to answer are as follows:
- Was Bush a definitive starting point to our current trajectory, or have we been on this path much longer?
- What was done and by whom in response to Bush's expansions of executive power?
- What more could Obama's administration have done to curtail future efforts toward consolidation of power?
- How did Trump 1.0 use the momentum that remained?
- What more could Biden's administration have done to curtail Trump 2.0?
- Why weren't those administrations willing or able to do those things, and how can we learn from that?
- What more could WE have done, and how can that inform our actions now?
I like to think that in learning these things I'll be able to assert a potential path forward; a means of The People making sure this never happens again. We deserve a better country than we had before, and I hope to contribute to a larger conversation about how to get what we deserve.