Is American Democracy Close to Collapse?
January 6th, 2021, seems like a distant memory, yet here we are again on the brink of the much-feared apocalyptic collapse of American democracy. Only this time, it seems like the democratic values and foundations that this country was built upon may have a very hard time surviving. We will survive all right, but we will pay a high price for it socially, economically, and morally. Indeed we might no longer have the moral high ground and might not be considered seriously when we lecture to the rest of the world.
The stars don’t seem to be aligning up properly, and too many things are going wrong at the same time. First, it is the continued Russian-Ukranian war that doesn’t appear to be heading toward a really meaningful solution.
It is pretty obvious that Russia is not going to win, and we can “thank” the American weapons largesse, along with surprising European solidarity, for this forgone conclusion.
Russian President Vladimir Putin is threatening to use nuclear weapons, and I, for one, don’t think that he is joking. Come on, think about it. Why wouldn’t he? Why did we use the nuclear bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki? To save American lives and end the nightmarish 2nd world war already. We succeeded in our objective.
Making matters worse, former president Trump suggests that Putin might be justified in deploying tactical nuclear weapons. He seems to suggest that it is the fault of NATO countries that this scenario has even come to pass. After all, in the opinion of the former president, Russian stakes are similar to what we faced back then with Japan, and even Putin himself said that America had set a precedent with the Japanese bombings.
The world would be naïve to assume that Russia will stand idly by while the entire western world is fighting a transparent proxy war with them. We just came perilously close to a confrontation with Russia based on the erroneous initial conclusion that Russian missiles had struck the border town in Poland on November 15th. Despite the Ukrainian President’s initial pointing of fingers at Russia, cooler heads prevailed, and the missile strike was attributed to an accidental misfiring by Ukrainian forces. Still, it must be noted that this is a matter that is still under investigation.
As winter in the region progresses to the historically harsh conditions that have thwarted many an invading foe and acted as a natural defense, it remains to be seen what the future of the war looks like. Until then, all we can do is hold our breath.
