The America I grew up in was strong, confident, and open-minded. Every new generation expected their lives would be better than the ones their parents had. It was what we set out to accomplish every day. Yes, we were far from perfect and committed our own range of transgressions, but at our core we believed in our country and ourselves. We were unafraid.
America today is afraid of the world, its neighbors, and each other. Fear is at the essence of everything our MAGA-infected leaders dispatch, from deportations to tariffs. Reagan’s shining city on a hill that opened its arms to the world is now a walled-off and crumbling empire at war with itself. The spirit of America—our greatest power—has been hollowed out and is facing collapse. Trump’s imbecilic tariffs will only accelerate the collapse. His thirst for destruction appears to be insatiable. The great tragedy is that all of this is entirely self-inflicted. The great hope is that we can self-correct.
The fears we have are false; they are manufactured by those who wish to control us. They are not founded whatsoever in credible threats either from outside or from within. The steady flow of what Kellyanne Conway described as Trump’s “alternative facts” deployed with Steve Bannon’s “flood the zone with shit” strategy are very much alive in Trump’s second term and are taking their toll; the constant gaslighting is acutely distorting reality. The Trump/MAGA mantra is, “Be afraid, be very afraid!” often followed by a claim that only he/they can save us. All of it is an attempt to destroy our confidence and courage such that we will accept whatever Trump wants to do to us. It is all a con.
If we allow this to continue, the shame is on us.
Cowardice is not a strategy when dealing with the hyper-isolationist, illiberal, fascist Trump/MAGA agenda. As many of our elected Democratic leaders like Chuck Schumer cower, together with universities, corporations, law firms, the Supreme Court, and government and non-government agencies, the things that made America truly great and the envy of the world like our capacity for creativity, invention and innovation, as well as our embrace of liberalism and pluralism are being squandered in favor of fear-based entropy. I give Senator Booker credit for not needing to go to the bathroom for twenty-five hours, but we will need much more courage from our opposition leaders than that.
If Alexis de Tocqueville were alive today, he would be appalled at what has become of us. The Americans he observed in the nineteenth century would never have behaved in the manner we do, today. Ironically, our founders would likely not be surprised; they were deeply concerned about the prospect of demagogues like Trump even while they had an idyllic leader in George Washington.
There is nothing patriotic about supporting those whose aim is to destroy our spirit and isolate us from the world. On the contrary, supporting this twisted and toxic plague of fear is about as un-American as one can be. If you are one of these MAGA lapdogs, slap yourself around in a cold shower and wake the f*ck up. You are not making America great again, you are destroying it. Trump, Vance, Musk, et al, are not patriots, they are scoundrels as in Samuel Johnson’s 1775 admonition, “patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel” aimed at those who use patriotism as a shield for their nefarious behaviors.
Fear is not healthy. It is a mental, emotional, and/or physical disturbance that generates dis-ease that manifests ultimately into disease. It its simple and primitive form it results in a fight or flight response that, while consistent with survival, is inconsistent with thriving. Fear’s most insidious effects are, however, an abdication of the self that produces complacency and complicity. In this manifestation, it produces a pessimistic ambivalence where life has no meaning, which we call nihilism. Moreover, it grants leaders the most destructive power of all: to define the truth without respect to objective reality—without regard for the facts.
Ironically, we can now observe that nihilism is a natural descendent of abundance. One might think abundance would provide a springboard to greater accomplishments, but what is happening today in America is just the opposite. As I wrote in a post last December, “America’s Arc of Moral Madness (and Hope),” “From humility to hubris to nihilism may be the signposts which tomorrow’s historians use to define America’s final descent.” That which humankind struggled to achieve for millennia—to move from a condition of scarcity to one of abundance—has now produced a meek and weak society that believes meaning is found in comfort rather than struggle and achievement. The shocking thing is how fast American society has lost its strength. What took more than two centuries to develop is being squandered in just two decades.
Nihilism is spreading throughout American society, but no more so than with young men. For the first time in our history, women outnumber men at our colleges and universities. In American universities, 42.7% of enrolled undergraduate students are male; 57.3% are female. For black men, the numbers are much worse. Just 19% of Howard University students are black men. While this is good for women, it is certainly not for men. A healthy society needs healthy enrollment, which should match the general population, roughly 50/50. Education has always been America’s secret sauce of success. Although our primary and secondary schools have languished in the past few decades, our institutions of higher learning remain the envy of the world—for now.
Fear of failure and displacement in society from their traditional dominant position in social order has left young men bereft and depressed. Seven out of ten preventable opioid overdose deaths in America are males. Their fear and depression have also left them susceptible to bro-casters like Joe Rogan and Jordan Peterson who stoke the anger of young men to fill their own pockets with wealth and promote a kind of misogynistic defiance similar to Trump’s ethos of “grab ‘em by the pussy.” In short, our young men’s fears are being exploited for financial and political gain that compromises a whole generation of Americans. The emerging bro-MAGA-sphere is highly unlikely to produce the kind of leaders our country needs in the future unless we desire a reptilian dystopia.
The nihilism that is afflicting young men in America is also affecting all of us to a lesser, but meaningful, extent. It is the pre-condition to nihilism that we should focus on if we have any hope of correcting course. That pre-condition is the abdication of agency; of giving up on the idea that we can and should make our own decisions and take our own actions with confidence to affect our destiny. The maxim in William Ernest Henley’s poem Invictus, “I am the master of my fate/I am the captain of my soul” has been lost in the fog of fear and deceit. We know what is true, in spite of the many lies being told by our leaders. We know what is right, which is a skill we learned in kindergarten. We must simply summon the courage to act appropriately, with respect to what is true and right.
Although it is an evident truth that in the long run we are all dead, making impermanence a noble truth, it does not suggest we should be indifferent while we are here. The circumstances of our lives are our responsibility. My fellow Americans, we need to get our act together, and fast. Get off the couch and get in the game. Realize that meaning comes not from the comfort of abundance, but from the struggle of scarcity. Stand up for what we know is right. Or, as Rosa Parks did, sit down for what is right. Defend and restore our heritage as the greatest nation in history; one that believes in the principles of liberty, equality, and inclusion. We must reactivate that old exemplar exceptionalism that aims to set the example for the world, rather than to be the world’s biggest threat. Neither cowardice nor abdication will serve us well. Our ancestors fought for freedom; our nearer ancestors—our parents and grandparents—fought for an abundance of wealth and opportunity. All that is being asked of us is that we fight for the objective truth.
In two weeks, on Easter Sunday, my Christian friends will proclaim, “He is Risen!” Perhaps we should take a page out of Christ’s resurrection playbook and rise as well, before both freedom and abundance are lost.
