Almost Entirely Worse
Reflections one year into America’s ongoing political crisis
I don’t tend to write a lot about politics. Not that I’m at all shy on the topic. Given my political leanings and my deep-seated belief that reactionary political traditions inexorably trend towards authoritarianism, my political self comes through in most of what I write. It’s just that I don’t generally write on the topic explicitly.
A recent exception from the past year were two pieces from January, which attempted to clarify my thinking around the January 6 insurrection and the ensuing response of the American political establishment to the same. I won’t pretend that my thoughts were anything all that unique, particularly at that early moment in the aftermath. Still, it’s a year on and I think there’s utility in looking back and seeing where the American political system is at this point, compared to where I thought it needed to go.
Things are not good, and they will likely get worse.
It makes me sad to write this, but I don’t see it any other way. It is hard to look at what I wrote last year and come away thinking that anything approaching the kind of truth and reconciliation process that is required to take account of trumpist fascism and excise it from the American body politic has…
