I came of age in the developing world. We idolised America. There was no Internet then. Everything we knew of it came carefully curated and packaged in books and old-style media.
As an adult, I became American by naturalisation. But by then, the sheen of perfection on my new homeland had worn off considerably.
The Internet, cable TV, and social media had removed the filters through which America was carefully presented to us. We now saw it naked in real time, warts and all.
It was no longer the paragon of objectivity, discipline, and principled governance they made us believe all those years.
We saw 6 January (2021) and were astounded. Four years later, we saw the people tried and jailed for it being pardoned en masse. What was this? A banana republic?
In between, we saw fractious tribes that swayed according to what their supreme leader(s) wanted. They insulted each other without decorum and showed none of the civility, integrity, and decorum they used to tell us were the hallmarks of their ways. There was no one truth, no objectivity, no principle. Just self-interest.
If an election wasn’t going their way, they armed up and attacked the seat of government in full view. And if their own side seized power, they were all set free.
If they wanted the law to be black, they packed the court with people who would say it was black. If they wanted it white, they packed the court with people who would say the exact same words meant white. The rule of law or the rule of man? We don’t quite know anymore.
The outgoing president pardoned his whole family for anything done or undone. I thought they called that “nepotism” if it occurred elsewhere?
The exclusive inauguration had the country’s richest men in attendance, ringing the incoming president. One of them will run a new agency that has big-brother powers over the entire government. We waited for the media to use the word “oligarchy” as they would if this were Russia or Asia, but not once did we hear it.
For decades in my youth, United States statesmen had lectured us on how tariffs were mad and bad, how we should open our borders to more trade. Something about Adam Smith.
Now, however, the tables were turning, and some others are beginning to dominate trade. So the US now says to us that tariffs, huge ones at that, are the best thing since sliced bread. Protectionism is no longer a dirty word; it is the holy grail!
We are going to lock up and deport people if we allege they are “illegals.” What happened to the lack of respect for ‘human rights” that we’d removed many regimes in other countries because of? What happened to “day in court” that we said was ingrained in our values and made us different from autocracies?
A fire burned acres of houses built with wood(!) in a wildfire prone area for days, and we had no answers, no infrastructure to handle it. We were more interested in looking for scapegoats and to score points (for or against) on DEI. Our tribalism consumed us. Meanwhile, the fire raged.
Truly, the king now doth dance naked.
Ntephe, PhD
