We Americans pride ourselves on being one of the world's oldest surviving democracies, with basic human rights and freedoms guaranteed in our Constitution. However, I'm concerned that our long experiment in democracy may be coming to an end. And I'm not alone. In several polls over the past year, most people said they felt that our democracy was under attack.
The Democratic Party's majority in the Senate and Congress is razor thin, and there's no appetite for compromise on either side. Nothing is getting done. The rich are becoming richer and more powerful, while the rest of the country struggles to stay afloat. We face massive problems, and most people have little faith that the government can solve them. Add to this the fact that many no longer trust that our elections are free and fair, and we have a real crisis in our democracy.
I hear rumblings that we could be heading for civil war. Looking at the extremists among Trump's supporters, I fear this may be true. He has a cult following of people who see him as their savior. Trump has convinced them that he won the 2020 election. His followers view themselves as patriots, ready to overthrow what they consider to be an illegal government. Their first attempt was on January 6, 2021, when they marched on the U.S. Capitol, aiming to stop the counting of the votes and keep Trump in office. They weren't successful, but it was a close call.
Though the vast majority of people and politicians in this country are closer to the middle than to the extremes, it's the extremists who shout the loudest. It's easy to think that the moderate politicians have given up and gone home. Indeed, some of them have - including Republicans who have received threats for their refusal to support Trump, and Democrats who are tired of the hostile political atmosphere. The extremists make statements that have no basis in fact. Their sound bites play well on "news" channels that focus more on entertainment than news. And Trump's supporters love it.
Mobs in the streets, mass shootings, supply chain issues, labor shortages, high inflation, climate change, friends and families torn apart by their political views - it's dystopian. Disagreements within society are nothing new. In the past, people could engage in sensible discourse. But today, this seems impossible, as the extremists have taken over the narrative and the moderates cower in the background. It does not bode well for democracy.