Those of you who may have followed my diaries over the last year or so may have noticed that one particular thread has run through them: despite our problems as a nation, it is my sincere belief that we must continue to work with magnanimity toward our fellow citizens, if for no other reason than if we cease to believe in our shared fate, all is lost. Once we give in to cynicism or despair, the Grand Experiment is over. I’ve cautioned numerous times that we have to continue to work toward healing and union.
When the draft of Dobbs was leaked, I was angry, like most of us, and somewhat given to frank and profound disappointment. But even when I was incorporating the proposed future that the decision portended, I kept qualifying my words, making sure I described the impending decision as one not yet etched in stone. There was still a small, shrinking chance that someone on the Court would be swayed—that was the whole reason (many surmised) why the decision was leaked in the first place: to apply pressure from both within the Court and without. (See Thomas’s petulant insistance that the Court would not be “bullied.”)
Now the ax has fallen.
Other writers besides me have made parallels between this Court and the Taney Court; and between the Missouri Compromise and whatever compromise—if one could use such a word—Dobbs represents. It took ten short years for this country to bend toward civil war. And, in another time and another part of the world, it took ten years for Germany to warp itself into Nazi intensity and begin its own bellicose campaign against civilization.
We’re on a clock. That’s my interpretation. I’ve been trying, best as I can in my little corner over here in my tiny part of the world, to come up with ideas and suggestions as to how we could knock ourselves off of our current trajectory, which is toward full-fledged totalitarianism. I’m not being hyperbolic here. We have few off-ramps left at our disposal.
Or had. Now, with this decision, we’re full-tilt toward internal destruction, and it will take all of our collective effort to steer us out of this collision course.
We are in an accelerationist age, so it might be an even shorter clip than what I’m proposing. And, nope: I’m not Nostradamus. I do happen to be someone who pays attention to trends, someone rather steeped in American culture and history, and someone who’s been immersed in the study of total societies for nearly every day of the last two years. I see what I see.
Ten years, tops.