All my life I have believed in the promise of America, the idea that America was an exceptional country—the world’s greatest democracy. I admit that I bought in fully to the American mythology: that whatever our flaws, we were at heart a kind and generous nation whose citizens tenaciously believed in democracy and the rule of law, that we were jealous guardians of freedom at home and abroad, that we were a shining example of those ideals in the world.
I used to wonder how people in other countries with functioning democracies could so easily surrender their rights and freedoms to authoritarian rulers (Weimar Germany in the past; more recently, countries like Hungary, Turkey, the Philippines, and India). How could a citizenry succumb so foolishly to an obvious demagogue? How could a nation’s independent legislature and judiciary cower to a strongman without a fight? Having grown up in America, with its long, stable history of self-government, I found that backsliding hard to imagine.
Now I understand.
I understand, in a way I never could before, that America isn’t special. We are simply a nation of human beings, like humans in every other country, and no less susceptible to cheap demagoguery.
I see now that Americans, too, are perfectly willing to sacrifice their rights and freedoms for superficial promises of security.
I see how stupid, gullible people (many more than I thought possible in an educated society) will eagerly believe any lie they’re told if it’s a lie they want to believe.
I understand now how intelligent people are happy to rationalize and excuse any behavior or character flaw in a politician—including mental health disorders, condoning political violence, racism, pathological lying, and a lifelong history of sexual predation and profligate adultery—if it means their own political views will prevail.
I have seen how Americans will blindly follow a “leader” who validates their prejudices, encourages their fears and hatred of others not like them, promises facile solutions to all their problems, and gives them permission to be their worst selves.
I have witnessed firsthand how easily venal politicians will cave to the will of a populist leader for the sake of their own careers. Though they recognize the danger of the demagogue early on, they will instantly abandon their principles, sell out their country, and emasculate themselves in his service out of fear of retribution or craven self-interest.
I have seen how a nation’s supposedly independent judiciary can be fully complicit in the degradation of a healthy democracy.
Many years ago, I saw a play called Rhinoceros, by the absurdist playwright Eugene Ionesco. Written in 1959, a few years after World War II, the play is a clever and drily witty allegory about the nature of conformism and the lure of fascism. It begins with the main character—an unremarkable everyman, though a bit of a lazy drunkard—and a friend having coffee in a quiet French village. Suddenly, out of nowhere, a rhinoceros charges through the town square! Over the next several days, more and more rhinoceroses are seen rampaging through the town, causing a stir and much debate among the citizens. Gradually, the man realizes that everyone in his village, including his friends and neighbors, are one by one transforming into the beasts. Before long he is the only human left in town, but he is determined to resist joining the herd of this appalling mass movement.
Over the last several years, I have watched many of my fellow Americans turn into rhinoceroses. I have seen people I like very much—an uncle; a friend of more than 40 years—transform into beings I don’t entirely recognize.
We are not all rhinoceroses yet, though they are apparently now the majority. Somehow we’ve been transformed from a nation that others admired to one they must now fear. I used to believe such a thing could never happen in America, my beautiful country. I used to think America was the strongest democracy in the world. I used to think our nation was an unwavering beacon of hope and freedom that would blaze into the far future.
I don’t think that anymore.
