A year after the Jan. 6 storming of the Capitol, the United States seems perhaps even more alarmingly fractious and divided. Regrettably, the right has sustained its support for Donald Trump and continued its assault on American democratic norms.
It Can Happen Here
We think American democracy is impervious to autocratic tendencies because of the measures built into the Constitution. But we're finding out that it's only as strong as its weakest links. And there seem to be fewer of those every day.
Written during the Great Depression, when the country was largely oblivious to Hitler’s aggression, it juxtaposes sharp political satire with the chillingly realistic rise of a president who becomes a dictator to save the nation from welfare cheats, sex, crime, and a liberal press.
The GOP’s leaders are attempting to destroy the foundations of American democracy. In October of 1860, The Atlantic’s first editor, James Russell Lowell, wrote of Abraham Lincoln that he “had experience enough in public affairs to make him a statesman, and not enough to make him a politician.” …
Americans are anxious about the stability of their democracy. Roughly 40% of the politically active say that members of the other tribe are evil; 0% believe they are a threat to the country.
Written more than 70 years ago, 1984 was George Orwell’s chilling prophecy about the future. And while 1984 has come and gone, his dystopian vision of a government that will do anything to control the narrative is timelier than ever...