Do Americans Know How Much Trouble They’re In?

Why America is at a Crossroads in History — and There Might Not be Any Way Back to Normal, Sane, or Civilized

umair haque
Eudaimonia and Co
Published in
6 min readJun 4, 2018

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A President who invokes absolute authority to…pardon himself. An ambassador to Germany who declares he wants to…topple the German government. Senators — the most powerful people in democracy, save the President — knocking on the door of a “detainment center”, looking for kids separated from their parents, only to be denied by guards who…laugh at them contemptuously, call the police, and have them shooed away like nobodies.

Do Americans understand how much trouble they’re now in? How grave the threat to America’s constitutional democracy, its civil society, its place in the world, and its ongoing survival is? Now. When I ask this question, you’ll protest: “Of course I do!” (or perhaps “You’re overstating it!!”, in which case the answer is already…no.) But I don’t mean you, yourself. I am asking you to ask yourself about everyone else, perhaps the mythical average American.

Here is a truth you would probably rather not hear.

America is at a crossroads. A point of no return. A democratic society cannot really survive the three assaults above, and go on being one. They may seem like just daily events in the…

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