America isn't breaking. It was already broken, and these are just the symptoms

[muriel_volestrangler]

Andrew Gawthorpe is a historian of the United States at Leiden University in the Netherlands

...
Given this baseline, it is no surprise that today’s problems also have an outsize impact on black Americans. Black Americans are dying of coronavirus at nearly three times the rate of white Americans. Although the economic impact of coronavirus for the poorest Americans has been blunted for now, expanded unemployment checks will stop coming at the end of July. When that happens, black Americans will suffer disproportionately. Meanwhile, videos circulating on social media of America’s poorly trained and over-armed law enforcement agencies meting out violence show what happens whenever they attempt to protest their plight.

But to understand what has gone wrong with America, we have to widen the lens. It is fashionable to refer to racism as America’s “original sin”, a phrase which assigns culpability to previous generations while ignoring how decisions in the here and now perpetuate America’s failure to live up to the promise of the founding. But racism doesn’t just inflict specific blows, both physical and psychic, on black Americans and other Americans of color. It is used cynically as a means of maintaining power by the same leaders who are currently failing so disastrously to deal with economic and public health tragedies that are affecting all Americans, regardless of color.

Despite his deep culpability, Donald Trump is, in a sense, incidental to this story – a lucky opportunist who was in the right place at the right time. More significant are the forces which propelled him to power and stuck by him long past the time it became clear he had no business being there. Republicans have chosen to pin their own fate and that of the nation on a law-breaking, racist, corrupt ignoramus for so long as he embodies the white grievance which now defines their politics. Even with disease ravaging the land, public trust in the authorities collapsing and blood in the streets, what used to be called the conservative movement – but what we should now call the Trump movement – sticks by a president who has manifestly made each of these crises worse.

There is no way to escape the American carnage unfolding across the nation without tackling this truth head on. The last few years, then the last few days, have confirmed it. The forces of white rage and entitled grievance are willing to see America destroyed before they are willing to allow a dilution of their own power. America will still exist, of course, but only as a place rather than a promise. Every act of state violence, every deranged presidential tweet encouraging it, every act of disenfranchisement, every elected official who looks on and does nothing to stop it – they are all choking that promise away. One breath at a time.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/jun/02/america-isnt-breaking-it-was-already-broken-and-these-are-just-the-symptoms

Gawthorpe's commentary has been accurate so far - from March 14th:

When Trump and his allies can no longer lie or deny, we can expect them to move on to the next phase of their crisis management playbook: attacking their enemies. It is already clear that they intend to interpret the virus not primarily as an existential threat to millions of Americans, but as an existential threat to their own political power. With the markets tumbling and Trump’s re-election suddenly in doubt, it is only a matter of time before the right goes on the offensive. When they do, it won’t be the virus in their sights, but the familiar foes: journalists, experts, blue states, immigrants and people of color.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/mar/14/trump-may-exploit-coronavirus-crisis

https://www.democraticunderground.com/100213099017