"The Republic Repeals Itself"

[handmade34]

http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2016/11/andrew-sullivan-president-trump-and-the-end-of-the-republic.html
by Andrew Sullivan

“To see what is in front of one’s nose is a constant struggle,” George Orwell famously observed. So what is it that we have just seen?

We are witnessing the power of a massive populist movement that has now upended the two most stable democracies in the world — and thrown both countries into a completely unknown future. In Britain, where the polls did not pick up the latent support for withdrawal from the European Union, a new prime minister is now navigating a new social contract with the indigenous middle and working classes forged by fear of immigration and globalization. In the U.S., the movement — built on anti-political politics, economic disruption, and anti-immigration fears — had something else, far more lethal, in its bag of tricks: a supremely talented demagogue who created an authoritarian cult with unapologetically neo-fascist rhetoric. Britain is reeling toward a slow economic slide. America has now jumped off a constitutional cliff. It will never be the same country again. Like Brexit, this changes the core nature of this country permanently.

all inbetween good reading

and then... George Washington’s Farewell Address

"The alternate domination of one faction over another, sharpened by the spirit of revenge, natural to party dissension, which in different ages and countries has perpetrated the most horrid enormities, is itself a frightful despotism. But this leads at length to a more formal and permanent despotism. The disorders and miseries, which result, gradually incline the minds of men to seek security and repose in the absolute power of an individual; and sooner or later the chief of some prevailing faction, more able or more fortunate than his competitors, turns this disposition to the purposes of his own elevation, on the ruins of Public Liberty."


A country designed to resist tyranny has now embraced it. A constitution designed to prevent democracy taking over everything has now succumbed to it. A country once defined by self-government has openly, clearly, enthusiastically delivered its fate into the hands of one man to do as he sees fit. After 240 years, an idea that once inspired the world has finally repealed itself. We the people did it.

[TreasonousBastard]

1. I am depressed, but not afraid. A quick look at our history shows...

we have managed to get through a lot worse than this.

This is probably the worst choice for President ever, and the rightward leanings are disturbing, but we survived everything from Andrew Jackson through a war over slavery, a great Depression, and midwest farmers doing battle with eastern bankers.

We will get through this, and be the better for it.

[SammyWinstonJack]

2. I hope you're right, not feeling particularly hopeful at the moment.

[Maven]

3. Sullivan fomented Hillary hate for years

before begrudgingly expressing support for her, thus reinforcing the "lesser of two evils" narrative.

Fuck him.

[handmade34]

5. agree

but this is a good essay

[world wide wally]

4. There is nothing quite like 20-20 hindsight