Can Democracy Survive In A Multicultural Nation?
The GOP and President Donald J. Trump are betting, along with Putin, that our American stab at democracy cannot withstand the pressures of multifaceted tribalism — the many divisions of America — religion, race, region and intellect (or the lack thereof of the latter).
Indeed, Trump and the GOP, along with Russian assistance, are stirring up nature’s destructive competing tribal impulses, counting on picking up the pieces of a shattered nation, just as the Russian oligarchs did with the collapsed Soviet empire, to form a criminal kleptocracy intended to benefit a select few.
The GOP leaders in Congress have failed to demonstrate any desire whatsoever to function in a democratic manner or want to protect the institutions that support democratic ideals. To the contrary they are attacking full-bore those institutions that insure democracy and the rule of law from a free press to the FBI.
This is what author Craig Unger writes in his book, House of Trump House of Putin, along these lines. “It [his book he says] will show that president Trump, far from being the only potential ‘asset’ targeted by the Russians, was one of dozens of politicians — most of them Republicans, but some Democrats as well — and businessmen who became indebted to Russia, and that millions of dollars have been flowing from individuals and companies from, or with ties to, Russia to GOP politicians, including Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell, for more than twenty years.”
This helps explain why old Mitch and his GOP pals have been applying such crude measures to gather and hold power in recent decades. It not only looks like they have turned their backs on the democratic process, but in fact they have done so in a quite deliberate and strategic sense. They have intentionally turned America’s multicultural aspects against itself for both the short-term and long-term benefit of America’s own homegrown kleptocracy.
The bottom line is that if the “Russian” Republicans prevail in the elections of 2018 and 2020, the American experiment in democracy is over. We are, indeed, approaching the point of no return.
