There are days when I am glad to be 68 and running out of time here on Earth.
This is one of those days.
A third World War would doom all human life. The only sure way to prevent it is to give up all liberty, to retreat from Taiwan and give up Ukraine, to wait for fascism to roll over us and for every country to have its own dictator. Even that’s not so sure, because the first thing a secure dictator does is go after the neighboring dictator.
That’s the world we’re facing, and it seems there’s nothing that can stop it. Taiwan has been surrounded. Ukraine is unable to get out of its own lines and is being systematically destroyed.
The war has also come home. Fascists are on the march throughout the American south. In Texas, in Mississippi, in Tennessee, in North Carolina, and in Florida, white nationalists are pushing to see who can push the frontiers of autocracy furthest. I would like to believe they’re overreaching, that they can be pushed back. But that reduces the national unity we need to face the external threats.
It’s clear now, if it wasn’t already, that our domestic enemies have foreign support. The money Putin put into winning the Presidency for Trump was the best investment ever made. It is still paying dividends, as fascists compete to see who can destroy more people faster. Will it be women dying from forced pregnancy, children dying from gunfire, or minorities dying from Jim Crow? The economy says these are the best of times. The headlines say they’re the worst.
There’s no doubt the struggle between dictatorship and democracy is a global one. In Israel, and in India, entrenched right-wing leaders are trying to make opposition impossible. (Do I need to even mention Turkey or Hungary, North Korea or Iran?) In Africa dictators seem emboldened, and even functioning democracies like Kenya and Nigeria are threatened by corruption, jealousy, and poverty caused by climate change. Not to mention direct and indirect Russian and Chinese intervention.
No President has faced so many simultaneous threats to democracy since Franklin Roosevelt, and Joe Biden is 80 years old. Yes, Kamala Harris has yet to turn 60, but we’re told by everyone she’s a drag on the ticket, that she must be replaced. By whom?
Victory remains possible. But if the Cold War turns hot, no one wins but the cockroaches.
