Since late Tuesday night, I have been trying to rid myself of the living nightmare that the United States has driven itself off a cliff. It is terrifying to many, even those who have never followed up anything about American politics that Donald Trump has been elected once again. “I think some of the aspects of current American government that people on both sides find frustrating are partly a function of the inability of people to understand how government can and should function.
It is a product of civic ignorance.” So said Associate Justice David Souter 12 years ago. He warned Americans that “.
.. authoritarianism was just around the corner.
He predicted that, paradoxically, American democracy could end up being its undoing if a majority of voters in an election collectively decide to end it.” From the online publication Alternet : “Souter went on to explain that he worries less about the U.S.
losing its form of government due to foreign invaders or by a military coup as is the case in countries like Egypt and Myanmar. Rather, Souter said he felt democracy was most at risk by the American public itself, not being educated enough about what’s causing their frustration and electing a demagogue convincing a majority of voters that they alone can fix it if given ‘total power.’ He noted: “That is how the Roman republic fell.
” A reader who lives in the US and who, like me, believed that based on numerous polls, Kamala would have won, wrote, “Well, as for the.
