For all America’s bluster about democracy, for all the super-charged admonitions by both Democrats and Republicans we citizens “get out and vote” and “make your voice heard,” there is a certain perversity in the fact that we have, for the past few decades, averaged something like 2.5 presidential debates an election year.
When police flee, bullets fly and Americans die. It’s a troubling description of the current state of national affairs. Gunfire kills, but so do decisions by politicians that force cops to retreat and leave the streets to the angriest throngs. The sounds of death are likely to echo until Election Day.
Success in entertainment stakes its fortune on the notion that the show must go on. So does politics. Donald Trump, with a knack for occupying the sweet spot between the two, would no longer be restrained from taking the stage. With a jolt, he has relaunched his dormant 2020 presidential election campaign for a dash through a minefield of radical strife fueled by national sickness of body and soul.
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo's meeting with top Chinese counterparts in Hawaii on Wednesday was held in secret. The list of topics for painstaking dialogue may have been long, but one underlying sentiment likely linked them all: Misery loves company.
If one judged only by Hollywood's depiction of the American intelligence community, one could be forgiven for believing we are possessed of an awesome, best-in-class assembly of hackers, spies, gatekeepers and various assortment of keyboard warriors, all at the ready to break-in, shutdown and generally disrupt the digital machinations of our enemies.
It has happened again: A black man dies at the hands of white police officers, this time in Atlanta. Like clockwork, crowds gather, angry voices fill the air, mingling with the smoke of arson-lit fires. It's another made-for-media performance of the nation's race ritual, one that hardens hearts and betrays the dream of a colorblind society that the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. held so dear. An altogether different rite is playing out across America, though. And over time, it cannot but extinguish the hatred: interracial and interethnic marriage.
Two days ago, the mayor of Detroit ordered a bust of Christopher Columbus removed from its pedestal. It was a peaceful removal for the Italian-born discoverer of the new world. After all, last week in Boston he was beheaded and in Richmond he was pushed into a lake. One supposes he is used to the harsh treatment. In many cities and states, his namesake holiday has long been replaced with Indigenous Peoples Day. In a few decades, it is not inconceivable he will be relegated to a proverbial footnote of history.
The long, hot summer of discontent we can expect as the numerous protests of police violence are accompanied by sackings, and lootings are bound to have an impact on the upcoming presidential race. Whether it will benefit President Donald J. Trump or former Vice President Joe Biden is, at this point, anybody's guess.
As the most famous living poet in America once sang, "He not busy being born, is busy dying." These are words for the current moment. Take a look around. Everywhere, from our education and financial and technological systems, down to our familial dynamics and even the way we as individuals view ourselves and live, things are changing. And thanks to pressure of current events, they are changing -- irrevocably -- fast.
For almost a dozen weeks the American people were subjected to a barrage of information leading them to believe the novel coronavirus was the contemporary equivalent of the "black death" that killed millions in Europe during the so-called Dark Ages.
If the unfolding economic pain caused by COVID-19 didn't cause businesses to board up, construction projects to halt and despair to settle upon the collective bones of our body politic, some of the protests-turned-riots, from Santa Monica to Manhattan, certainly did the trick. So, this week, as we sweep up broken glass and restock merchandise, and as various states shift from Phase 1 to Phase 2 of reopening plans, the moment enjoins us to ask, "well, what now?" Our answer: Build, baby, build.
There are places on the planet where the natural urge for free expression is not allowed. The United States has never been one of those forbidding spots -- until now. Like a smoldering match dropped too close to a gas pump, the inexcusable police killing of a black man has blown racial sensitivities sky high. The resulting concussion has stripped away the great American tradition of searching for a pathway to peace through reasoned discussion, replacing it with robotic recognition of "systemic racism." So much for unfettered speech in "the land of the free."
Cities thrive because they are centers of human activity. Cities decay for the same reason -- because they are centers of human activity. The difference between urban growth and shrinkage is the nature of the human activity. The quality of life their major cities offer is no longer sufficient that Americans are proud to call them "home." Sadly, the outbreak of twin scourges of disease and anarchy is hastening the hollowing out of the nation's population centers. It's an ugly black eye for blue leadership, which is to say, the Democratic Party.
Among the most admired men and women in America today are our technical experts. They tend to reside in Silicon Valley or Boston, and even in The Washington Times' own backyard, Montgomery County, Maryland. They work in bits and bytes, and are given over to making astounding pronouncements on seemingly-miraculous health cures, colonizing the outer galaxies of the Milky Way, advanced weapons systems and uploading our consciousness onto computers to achieve immortality.
Whether we're experiencing the beginnings of a period of profound social change or witnessing the effects of the long lockdown hangover, it's time someone stood in the middle of the public square and shouted "Enough!" at the top of their lungs.
