Righting On The Wall: Has America Exhausted into Nationalism?

by Kim D.

Last year I wouldn't have thought so. Last year I believed that, for the most part, those more right-minded embraced the Constitution, not the amended one but that which our Founding Fathers created as a blueprint for success. This has been the mantra of the Cruz Crew.

The success of Donald Trump has proven me wrong. Even family and friends who have hopped onto the Trump train balk when you mention the Constitution, ignorantly asking "What has it done for me lately?" That lazy thinking is shocking but the sad trap into which America has fallen. We look for a savior instead of rolling up our sleeves. When one savior doesn't make things better, we then look to another, and when one claims he and only he alone can make this country great again, we fall to our knees praising the powers that be.

Holger Stark has asked a similar question in his latest essay: "An Exhausted Democracy: Donald Trump and the New American Nationalism." While Stark speculates that Trump is not a fascist, he sees certain warning signs in the method through which Donald's campaign and most fervent supporters secured the presumptive Republican nomination. Stark explains it like this:

Trump's rise is the consequence of an ongoing crisis in the United States over the last two decades -- one American elites long ignored. They had no answers for Americans who live in states like Kentucky or Oregon, and who no longer understand what is happening on Wall Street, in the White House and the rest of the country. This election campaign has now brought the crisis to the fore. This is evident in Trump's victories, just as it is in the passionate support for Clinton's rival, Bernie Sanders, who has made the term "socialism" acceptable in the country once again. America feels like an exhausted democracy, even though, at first glance, the country isn't in bad shape economically.

Yes the elites have ignored the silent majority. They have asked only for votes and then proceeded to do what was in the Establishment's best interest, retain power at all costs. Stark continues by discussing the depressed state of America:

According to the New York Times, the number of people who still believe in the American Dream has fallen to the lowest level in 20 years. More than half of all Americans under 25 no longer believe that capitalism is the best of all economic systems. The strive for wealth and social advancement, forces that Alexis de Tocqueville once described as the country's binding elements, are no longer strong enough to hold its society together. The problem is further complicated by the competition between the shrinking white majority and the growing black and Hispanic minorities for jobs and wealth.

This is the reality all Conservatives must face. There are more of them, meaning those who have given up on Capitalism, than there are of us. Stark then analyzes America's political climate further noting that we are a pessimistic bunch. We are angrier and less hopeful, much like what happened in Europe during the 1930s:

Trump, who has been flirting with a run for the presidency for years, has developed a perfidious instinct for this moment. He courts the people on the losing end of modernization, or, to be more precise, those who fear becoming one of them. Contrary to common belief, Trump's supporters do not consist primarily of blue-collar workers and the unemployed. Exit polls have shown that his voters have an average annual household income of $72,000, which is higher than the average salaries of Sanders and Clinton supporters. Support for Trump highlights middle-class Americans' fear of social and economic decline.

History has a nasty habit of repeating itself. We look to the mistakes of Europe and vow never to go there; yet we have a Nationalist Populist GOP nominee and a struggling Democratic Socialist who cannot seem to capture a party that has rigged its system to give Hillary Clinton her moment in the spotlight. So what is the solution to our this exhausted state? Stark believes . . .

America needs a major social debate over the causes of the rage, the unfair distribution of wealth and the excesses of capitalism. It was once the Republicans who, under Abraham Lincoln, decided to abolish slavery, thereby laying the foundation for the modern American age. The party will be challenged once again at its convention in July. Before it nominates its candidate, it could exclude all forms of racism and hate from its platform, and Trump would then have to decide whether he could run for president on this basis. On the other hand, this summer could also mark the end of a de facto two-party system, in which Republicans and Democrats no longer represent the interests of many people. Why not field a third or fourth candidate?

Cue Austin Petersen