The Current Election is Evidence That The United States is Crumbling

Thanks, Pro- The poet Robert Lowell once joked, "In the end, every hypochondriac is his own prophet. " Pro's argument reminds me of a hypochondriac who, convinced his headache is a brain tumor, sees no reason therefore not to continue breakfasting on vodka and Cheetos. If we as a nation, at the height of our security, convince ourselves that we are crumbling, then fall we surely shall. The symptoms Pro presents to justify a diagnosis of America's demise are not new or particularly fatal but if we are intimidated into inaction by lumped up laments we may fail to seek the remedy. In R1, the symptom of decline was the election- authoritarian candidates and unreasoning voters. Pro overlooked profound gradations in the candidates relative to that trait and expressed a preference for the most authoritarian choice- helping to fulfill his own prophesy. In R2, Pro moved on to immigration and military folly as symptoms of decline. I countered that both concerns are commonplace to great nations in power. We should worry rather when people stop dreaming of an American way of life. We should worry rather when nations stop looking our way for guarantees of security. Pro also offered evidence to suggest that the US is increasingly oligarchical against which I apply the same arguments as before. Is oligarchy new? No- in fact, I can think of few times in history when authority did not boil down to a small cadre of wealthy men. As always the question is degree. In a sense, Republics are oligarchies by design- certainly the Supreme Court is a judicial oligarchy, the Senate an oligarchical check on the more representative House. Are we more oligarchical now than the era of plantations? Are we more oligarchical than the era of Carnegie and Rockefeller? Does Google call the shots more now than did General Motors and AT&T in their day? I don't think so. Yes, the current wealth gap is unsustainable in the long term. Yes, the billionaires enjoy outsized and unfair influence. But the oligarchs don't always win- net neutrality, the Keystone pipeline, Obamacare, the Paris agreement, the stall of TPP are recent populist wins over powerful interests. Trump's candidacy is certainly a kick in the teeth to the powers that be. Further, our oligarchs are too much in competition to be said to dominate- Jeff Bezos vs Rupert Murdoch, George Soros vs the Kochs, Trump vs Mark Cuban. Like authoritarianism, oligarchism is one of these habitual consolidations of power which our democracy is meant to balance and check rather than eradicate. At the end of R2, Pro countered my argument that electing a woman as POTUS represented an increase in democracy, symbolizing an end to 240 years of disenfranchisement from that office for the female majority. Pro argued that voting for a woman because she was a woman embodied the problem with the electorate because she doesn't represent their interests. Pro went on to suggest that civil unrest in response to recent police abuses was an expression of Black dissatisfaction with Obama and to expect similar dissatisfaction from women regarding Clinton. Hunh? Obama's current approval rating within the Black community is 86%- a number few politicians get out of any constituency. [1] And no, women aren't confused about which presidential candidate represents women's priorities in healthcare, jobs, minimum wage, child care, education, climate change, and abortion. Even if she weren't a woman, Clinton's policies would be overwhelmingly more in line with the majority of women than Trump. In R3, Pro offers 3 more symptoms of national decline: weakening civic duty, an increasing sense of entitlement, and interpersonal disconnection. Against each, I offer the same arguments as before- all of these are problems, none of these complaints are particularly new or particularly worse than in prior generations, none are necessarily fatal to the nation's prospects. I'll refute that we are weakening in our sense of duty to one another. Charitible giving is at an all-time high, up 4.1% in 2015- $373.25 billion or an average of nearly $3000 per household. That just over 2% of GDP. [2] Volunteerism is down a point or two from historic highs in the years after 911, but roughly a quarter of Americans do some kind of formal volunteering. [3] Pro argues that Obamacare proved necessary because of a breakdown in community networks. I would ask why Obamacare itself should not be seen as exactly the kind of community outreach Pro admires. We've capped the max annual cost of healthcare for most Americans, made some insurance possible for millions on the lowest economic rungs and made tens of millions eligible for insurance when before no insurer would take the risk. [4] Pro misses the continuity of American community because of changes in scale and medium. He pines for the "Wonderful Life" days when communities pulled together to bail out failing bankers and bemoans the 2008 TARP plan, when communities pulled together to bail out failing bankers. These days, much of my neighborhood defines itself online. Lost dogs, garage sales, police blotter, zoning aporovals depend less of posted bills and public halls and more on apps. Last year, the neighborhood rallied to give a well-liked old-time neighbor a trip to Iceland, her lifelong dream. Perhaps digital neighborhoods are less personal but they're also less isolated, less racist, less conforming. I also refute that our generation is particularly dependent. Pro points to unemployment insurance and student loans as evidence of a lack of rugged individualism. Well, it's easy to forget that until the 20th century, rugged individualism was a rare and mostly fatal tendency in American life. Men mostly expected to inherit the family enterprise, mostly farms. Women mostly expected to depend on their husband's fortune. Those restless few who wandered off to prospect gold or wrangle cattle or found some new business mostly lived shorter, crueler lives. The industrial era created stronger, more independent middle class but the efficiencies of the post-industrial era require a much smaller body of much better trained people who need to learn new skill sets constantly to maintain relevance. As educational demands increase so do costs and some inevitably are left behind by the whirl of competition. Perhaps our interdependency is more evident today, less personal than in days gone by, but I refuse to believe we are less intrepid entrepreneurs than our forefathers. Look at how quickly Walmart replaced Sears, Amazon replaced Walmart. Look at Uber taking over the taxi market. Look at food trucks taking down McDonald's. Every day now is a brave new world, and any of us with the courage to take on the next challenge is at least as rugged in the face of the unknown as those of the far more static past. Can we take a beat to note that Pro has essentially complained that Americans are too interdependent and not interdependent enough in consecutive arguments? Pro's final malady is a lack of connection on substantive issues. Again, this argument must be nearly as old as human speech and the contradiction to Pro's assertion can be found in the digital age. Look, nobody took notes when Mark Twain talked about the weather with his mailman but the internet stores vast quantities of conversation and the preponderance is idle chatter. Substantive debates have always been a rarer breed but they seem more common in the past because they are better remembered. There are plenty of forums available to discuss the great issues, they're just less popular. This debate will probably get fewer readers then the next Pickachu battle but truly it was always thus. Let's not assume our country is at an end just because we now over-record the silly stuff. With Pro's major points refuted, let's conclude by consulting the most popular modern authority on societal collapse, Jared Diamond. Diamond identifies five principal factors contributing to the fall of civilizations: 1. climate change 2. hostile neighbors 3. diminished trade 4. environmental issues 5. failure to adapt [5] We should note that Pro's evidence for US collapse does not coincide with Diamond's research but more importantly we that Pro's conviction of an imminent US collapse precludes the option of adaptation. Diamond distinguishes two crucial choices made by civilizations that managed to persist: 1. long-term planning 2. A willingness to reconsider core values For her first 12 score years, the US has proved pretty weak on the former quality but fairly agile on the latter. Certainly, we can and must improve on both to survive the future. Diamond, for his part remains " a cautious optimist. By that, I mean that, on the one hand, I acknowledge the seriousness of the problems facing us. If we don"t make a determined effort to solve them, and if we don"t succeed at that effort, the world as a whole within the next few decades will face a declining standard of living, or perhaps something worse. On the other hand, we shall be able to solve our problems " if we choose to do so. " Pro and Con agree that the US faces important challenges but we strongly disagree about the nature of those challenges. In short, Hillary is not a threat, but Trump might be; authoritarians and oligarchs are not a threat so long as they are kept in check; military failures are not a threat so long as they are small and overseas; immigration is not a threat so long as we continue to adapt and synthesize; our public-mindedness is not waning; our independece is as strong as ever; and we maintain the capacity to discuss our destination and course corrections we need to make to get there. Sailors convinced that the ship will sink because they spot a storm ahead don't add much to our perilous navigation. Thanks to Pro for a good debate.