Cogito Ergo Non Serviam
MAGA Damage is Permanent
The America political system is under going a major generational change. This seems to happen about every 40 years. Mr. Reagan had his revolution in the 1980s, before that was the FDR 1930s and 1940s. The 1900 change was Teddy Roosevelt' busting the trusts that created the Gilded Age, and in 1860, there was a civil war. There was pain with each change, but the changes led to stronger institutions and faith in the future. The MAGA revolution offers the same, but the way it has done politics for the last decade has done permanent damage. There is a whole generation of right-wing activists just coming of age who simply do not understand democracy and do not seem to care.
One of the things that America has done well over the generations has been to teach the young how the political system works. Called either civics or government class, each kid used to have to learn the three equal (co-equal is not a word) branches of the federal government, its relationship to the states and how voting for officials works. Kids had to learn how a bill becomes law and how the Constitution is supreme.
The US Chamber of Commerce Foundation website discusses a survey done as part of its 250th anniversary (yes, it is older than the US itself).
The survey finds more than 70% of Americans fail a basic civic literacy quiz on topics like the three branches of government, the number of Supreme Court justices, and other basic functions of our democracy. Just half were able to correctly name the branch of government where bills become laws.
While two thirds of Americans say they studied civics in high school, just 25% say they are "very confident" they could explain how our system of government works.
As the Foundation also says, if a person does not understand how something works, fixing it is impossible.
Instead, the voter (or potential voter because the biggest voting bloc is those who do not vote) defaults to structures they do understand. The workplace is the most common, and in the US, every work place is a dictatorship. Do it the way the boss wants it done, or go find another job. It is a short distance from that to thinking the President of the United States, duly elected, can do whatever he wants. The understanding of history on July 4 does not go much farther than celebrating with fireworks.
While there has always been a fascist faction in the US, the current crop of young rightists (those under 30, the future of the country) have never seen conservative politics done within the rules of the Constitution. The idea of burning it all to the ground appeals to them. A childish nihilism seems to be the only intellectual underpinning of the movement. It is more a unicellular stimulus-response reflex that actual thought.
What this means when these people are 40 or 50 or 60 is that there will be no one on the right willing to accept constitutional limitations of the elected fuhrer. The nation saw some of this under the administration of Bush the Lesser; this journal used the term fuhrerprinzip, the idea that the leader is above the constitution. Some claim that the Global War on Terror (an outdated term by now) made this necessary, but it took Mr. Trump to make it a peacetime pose.
The trouble with all of this is that MAGA is winning office. The movement says democracy is great because MAGA wins. When MAGA loses, they lie about cheating and attack the Capitol.
The left is going to pick up on this soon. The future of the democratic left in the US is no more secure that the future of the democratic right. Quite simply, there will be very little of the center left to hold.
One rarely changes political views over the years. When it happens (Churchill leaving the Liberals for the Conservatives), it is almost always opportunism. Today, one can find people in the Democratic Party pining for the 1960s; they cannot move into the 2020s intellectually. In 2050, the same will be true of MAGA. By 2060, another generational change is due. It is unlikely to be done in a democracy.
©p Copyright 2025 by The Kensington Review, Jeff Myhre, PhD, Editor. No part of this publication may be reproduced without written consent. Produced using Ubuntu Linux.
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