How Serious Is This?

We depend, as humans, on a social and political structure handed down from generation to generation. Often founded initially through the resolution of substantial conflict (e.g., the American Revolution) and shaped by a new equilibrium reconciling competing visions of the “good,” this conflict resolution and the perceived stability that develops in its aftermath exists in countries throughout the world. It power is perhaps best understood by its absence. Countries and regions torn apart by violent, armed conflict are out of equilibrium. The institutions and structures have broken. The social and political norms no longer operate for the benefit of the people living in these regions.
For citizens of the United States these destabilized environments are the places we read about in the news. We do not live not Aleppo, Yemen or even Belfast.
Still the norms that provide the foundation for U.S. social and political structures — and for human discourse and behavior — are showing signs of deep, perhaps irreparable cracks. We aren’t facing war in the streets, yet. But the conflict is real. To some people it can seem as though this large, complex and extraordinary country they grew up in, the country they love, is beginning to unravel or that it almost seems to be under occupation by a foreign invader. The settled things, things they thought they knew, things of which they were certain, are no longer at all certain. They are anxious. Some are fearful. Many are upset. A growing number are angry.
Our relative stability as a nation depends on certain fundamentals — on institutions, practices, processes and norms in which we have come to trust. We take them for granted. Or we used to.
They cannot be taken for granted anymore. Whatever your political persuasion, this should be deeply disturbing to you. Even the rule of law depends, in the U.S. and in most countries, far more on adherence to these norms than on the specific enforcement of a particular law by armed representatives of the state or the threat of fine or imprisonment. If the norms lose their power, so do our institutions and our systems.
This may happen. It could even happen in wonderful ways, ushering in an even better shared experience. (This must have been what so many hoped for during the fleeting “Arab Spring.” If only someone had warned them that “winter is coming.”) In most things I am an optimist, but it is hard to be optimistic about this.
On the other hand, we may lose — in what seems like a moment –what it has taken us hundreds of years to build. Our American Revolution, our constitution, our division of powers, our system of “checks and balances,” our republican form of government. I hope the steps we are taking now as a nation do not cause us (and with us the rest of the world) to suffer in devastating and unpredictable ways.
http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/02/13/trumps-radical-anti-americanism
