Literary Ledger #21
Meows and Morons: Cat-astrophic Decline of America
It’s 2024, and the United States, the imperial hegemon of our time, enters yet another election year. Some claim that the significance of this election extends far beyond American borders, as both its domestic and foreign policies invariably affect us all. Even for someone as distant as myself, residing in a suburb outside of Yola, Nigeria.
Personally, I. find this election as inconsequential. It’s another iteration of a familiar pattern. I'm all too familiar with the terrorising imperial tactics disguised as US foreign policy to take the November polls at face value. It feels like yet another round of choosing the lesser of two evils. For many within the US – minorities, most pertinently, Mozlems – the harrowing reality of the Palestinian genocide looms heavily, likely swaying votes across the board. Yet, in a bid to punish Genocide Joe, the alternative becomes Trump. Democracy has this wretched way of forcing us to choose between two worst extremes, like an unending hourglass of existential torture.
Presidential debates offer little more than a platform for candidates to broadcast their stances – at least for the politically naive, those trapped in the matrix. For the discerning eye, it’s no more than a televised drama, rich in platitudes and recriminations. Just look at last week’s Biden/Trump episode.
I watched some clips of that circus of a debate and, to my misfortune, I grew nauseous. Demented Genocide Joe compared Trump’s moral compass to that of an alley cat – a remark he repeated ad nauseam and even tweeted several times while on stage. Trump, never one to be outdone, retorted with his signature dismissiveness: “Frankly, not even he (Biden) knows what he was saying.” Oh boy, how right was Trump!
These two figures are avatars of what the US has represented since its bloody birth (oh, I mean it) and what it has become as it declines: one, the spectre of terror dressed in suits and ties, and the other, corporate subterfuge veiled beneath empty, crafted notions of liberty and orthodoxy. In a saner society, one that adores alley cats, both candidates – the demented and the deluded braggart – would be institutionalised to the psychiatry. But this is American culture. They sense their decline, hence the attempt at rebirth by leaning on vassal states. Rarely do civilisations feel the weight of their twilight during their fall, but that very awareness separates us. The American psyche knows that we are, indeed, in the endgame.
These two exemplify what America has represented and continues to embody: a moral blackhole, a disregard for consequence, fueled by imperial bravado and devoid of substantive values, showing no remorse for the countless lives sacrificed and communities laid devastated throughout its history. In one unbelievable instance, Trump debased “Palestinian” to belittle his opponent. I owe an apology to the alley cat I adopted three years ago – my beloved companion who possesses more empathy and moral decency than both presidential candidates combined.
The collapse of imperial hegemony is one of those most anticipated chapters of history for readers – one that you long to witness firsthand. Yet it is a historical cruelty that countless peoples, cultures, and now Palestine are caught in the throes of this merciless, destructive cycle.
