We’ve been building to this. The ceremonial acquittal of an American president whose behavior irregularly vacillates between Nixon at his most vindictive and George III at his least lucid, whose administration fervently marches the humans toward a ruinous near-future, is the overlong spire stuck with genuine pride atop a skyscraper constructed upon a rotting landfill. It is artifice without a shred of cleverness, a brazen and pitiful compensation in the face of America’s illegitimate foundations having been laid bare before us.
The lasts gasps of U.S. global hegemony and domestic tranquility present a society steeped in metacognitive rejections of American Exceptionalism as fact. We the people know the truth: we are, and have always been, subjects of empire. Imperial expansion has not been aided passively by uncharacteristic incidences of genocide and land theft, chattel slavery and systemic exploitation, warmongering and economic entrapment, misogyny and xenophobia, state-sanctioned terrorism and propaganda, demagoguery and deification — these are simply a smattering of reliable tools utilized repeatedly in empire-building across the centuries.
Self-evident truths, crafted largely by an unrepentant slaver and pedophile, served to undergird American moral superiority (also contrived as self-evident) while truths on the ground have always reflected a fierce adherence to maintaining white supremacy and devouring precious resources ever more voraciously.
Our eyes tell us our planet is rapidly becoming unlivable. My heart says so too. Reconciliation followed by peaceful reorganization is not an option for America. Historically, empires collapse. As we have observed across the cosmos, planets are also subject to spectacular expressions of mortality’s grip on our comprehension of linear existence. Physically, the humans are infinitesimal in both time and space. But empire is hubristic in nature; here we are, four decades into the Age of Information, and our collective mind’s eye has yet to break past tribalism and geocentrism. Pride, greed, jealousy, hate — the great vastness of space cares not for our childish foibles.
If the ass-backward jurisprudence and wild gesticulations of the president’s men on Capitol Hill are any indication, America’s better angels have lost their wings. Obama sold American Exceptionalism with class and verve — a once-in-a-generation politician, he revived the perceived long-term viability of American hegemony, for a time. Even the most talented builder would find it impossible to reinforce an insecure foundation from high in the sky. The rot festering underneath our gleaming tower has clearly and predictably led to widespread cracking. To milk the analogy further, global ecocide is a 10.0 on the Richter scale. Obama couldn’t have stopped it if he wanted to.
The certainty of a terminal culmination of the status quo depends on what we, the privileged observers of the truth of empire, are willing to give up. Make no mistake, we must march for our survival. It will not be gifted to us by the market or any of our money-soaked institutions, no matter how much we want to believe this scenario is a forgone conclusion. We must reject the notion that incremental course-correction is viable, and instead ask ourselves rhetorically if it’s even possible in our increasingly dystopian present.
The opening of the president’s ceremonial acquittal was preceded by the national observance of Martin Luther King Day. For daring to speak out and organize with talent and conviction in the face of imperial might, Dr. King was slandered and surveilled, infantilized and imprisoned. He and countless more brave Americans have been brutally murdered for what they believed — what WE believe. He knew the risks. Thanks to Dr. King and so many leaders whose legacies have been washed in neoliberal detergent or (more often) ignored, our barriers to voting in 2020 are highly surmountable. So, vote. Get everyone you know to vote. Get them to get everyone they know to vote. Truth has the numbers in a fair fight.
We the people know however that this fight is not fair. By design, it has never been fair. This malignant feature won’t be remedied from within the edifice of imperial might. We can safely expect a constitutional crisis to ensue in November when one of two likely outcomes becomes clear: the voices of hate claim an electoral college victory without popular backing, or rational course correction wins and those hateful voices cry foul. Either way, we’ll be called to stand and fight. To stay fighting. To be the ongoing resistance against our assured collective annihilation.
I’m scared, and I’m hopeful. I’m not ready, but I’m getting there. Eventually it won’t matter who’s ready and who isn’t. We’re in this thing til the end.
Let’s go.
