As the year 2000 approached, many were in a mild panic that—The End Of The World As We Know It—was on the apocalyptic horizon. The entrance into the new millennium was known as Y2K, and whimsically, TEOTWAWKI became the new buzzword for those hoarding Bibles, batteries, food, and guns in their basement bunkers. Of course, the dramatic milieu was much ado about nothing, but it was a boon to the survivalist economy. Now that we have entered the New Year, a real crisis is emerging: the 2024 presidential election. Unlike with Y2K, there is no conspiratorial wing to scare us with threats of takeover led by extraterrestrial beings, the Illuminati, or the Rothschilds.
It seems, more and more, that America has a problem with grasping real danger if it cannot be tied to a secret cabal intent on manipulating our thoughts and bodies. From the Kennedy assassination, the moon landing, and the COVID-19 vaccines, science and fact—it seems, are eschewed by some for the mystery of Jewish space lasers and Venezuelan satellites stealing votes. Conspiracy has probably existed since man saw his first eclipse of the sun, but the search for truth did not give way to extremists who wanted to keep us in the dark ages of thought. The evolution of thought from superstition to religious extremism has now taken over politics.
Extremism moves us backward,
The biggest problem with extremist thought is that it has no logical conclusion. When the Salem witch trials took place in the 1690s, men and women were accused of sorcery, and the only way to disprove it was to survive permanently disabling torture, drowning, or hanging. Death was proof of your innocence. Out of that horrific time came the presumption of innocence that we still enjoy today in courts of law. American history is replete with corrections borne of miscarriages of justice; the Miranda warning is a prime example. All the rights the country has fought for and died for are on the chopping block. People who believe that liberals are conspiring to harvest “adrenochrome” from the blood of frightened babies are also in favor of a president being immune from the law.
What was always considered the fringe of American politics and sanity is gaining ground because conservatives are courting the fringe. The leading candidate for the Republican party for President has parroted Adolph Hitler’s words. Republican governors in Florida and Arkansas are rebuking history. The aforementioned Governor of Arkansas, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, signed a law that threatened librarians with a year in jail for providing banned books to children. With all the attention paid to Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, Governor Sanders has been quietly creating a fiefdom in Arkansas, including restrictions on the Freedom of Information in her state. The Republican effort to control the people is not a conspiracy but a real threat.
Last Friday, President Joe Biden tried his best to warn but not scare. Mr. Biden told a Valley Forge rally audience, “After all we’ve been through in our history, from independence to Civil War to two world wars to a pandemic to insurrection, I refuse to believe that in 2024, we Americans will choose to walk away from what’s made us the greatest nation in the history of the world.”
Let us not mistake TEOTWAWKI in American democracy with paranoia. Remember, the best way to control a population is to keep them ignorant and suspicious with the promise of “I alone can fix it.” So, as Donald Trump fantasizes about negotiating slavery, dictatorship, and imprisoning his enemies, the choice is clear: democracy as we know it or death to America.
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