Ms. Eden,
Thank you for the incredibly well written piece.
Missing and perhaps not part of your thesis is that America, while proselytizing a better way of life to the world, was and is engaged in the violent, hypocritical and soul-destroying work of Empire.
You are of course right in that Trump is exactly what America is not only as domestic huckster but also as foreign policy fraud: the perfect symbol of an Empire in decline.
He is also the Jungian archetypal shadow President.
One cannot lament the loss of civil discourse and the diminishment of America’s democratic institutions without a stark gaze into the historical imperial mirror. Therein lies the dark truth, “the shadow”, of what American foreign policy has done in order to control millions of ‘others’ while feeding its own.
One only need look to Central America for the CIA’s murderous malfeasance…and that’s not even mentioning Vietnam.
The US is still fighting orchestrated wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and is spending vast sums of money on maintaining an omnipresent military presence hell bent on an hubristic path of supposed omnipotence.
Is Trump similarly hubristic? Is he narcissitically obsessed with his omnipotence?
Of course.
Which leads to Arnold J. Toynbee, who once said, “Civilizations die from suicide, not by murder.”
Trump is therefore a manifestation of America’s suicidal ideation.
Toynbee also said that empires seem to follow the same path to destruction:
- Last gasp military misadventure (Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria if not Iran — as outlined in the Neocons “Project for the New American Century: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_for_the_New_American_Century
- Sons of Caesars unwilling to fight/the poor become the backbone of the army/mercenaries hired to fill in/ the children of the rulers are not sacrificed.
- Money is concentrated in fewer and fewer hands/oligarchies and plutocracies reign supreme.
- Money meant for military goes missing and often does not reach troops in far flung areas of Empire.
- Infrastructure is robbed to pay for Empire’s largesse: education, hospitals, roads and water, etc., start to crumble and decay.
- Literal and figurative “WALLS’ are built to keep hordes away from Empire. This usually means citizens are isolated from the rest of the world and its ideas. A divisive internecine siege mentality pervades both the leadership and its citizens, who are distracted and divided by ‘spectacles’ which keep them ignorant of a bitter truth.
- Empire is betrayed from within. Russia’s support of Trump…America’s national debt?
- He also argues that “creative minorities deteriorate due to a worship of their “former self,” by which they become prideful and fail adequately to address the next challenge they face”. MAGA anyone?
- “During its decline and disintegration, the non-ruling classes [sic]are increasingly disenfranchised or alienated, and thus lose their immediate sense of loyalty or of obligation.”
- Lastly, he argues that as civilizations decay, “there is a “schism” within the society. In this environment of discord, people resort to archaism (idealization of the past), futurism (idealization of the future), detachment (removal of oneself from the realities of a decaying world), and transcendence (meeting the challenges of the decaying civilization with new insight, e.g., by following a new religion).”
So, thoughtful and articulate articles like yours must be circulated and read before America continues on its slide into the abyss.
Thanks again.