One reason why it’s so hard to get a handle on American politics, to say anything sensible about it, is that it takes place almost entirely in a hallucination. The country that most Americans feel they are living in does not actually exist.
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But dip into the timeline of any number of these earnest folks and you will find a touching, childlike belief in the essential goodness and rightness of the “American experiment” — however much the noble character of this bold and progressive adventure has been tragically perverted by one’s political opponents at any given time. You will find that despite “knowing” all of the above, they don’t actually live in that grim reality but in a dream world, where the CIA and FBI — known purveyors of murder, lies and gargantuan corruption — have become “heroes of the resistance,” moral champions motivated solely by selfless public service and faithful adherence to our “true” ideals. They’ll even enthusiastically push CIA agents and imperial warriors for public office.
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Again, we’re speaking here of good liberals, highly educated people “in the know,” people who are “savvy,” who are proud of their complicated, critical, conflicted patriotism — so much more nuanced than the blind, cartoonish faith of the Right. Yet even they feel there exists some normative, essential goodness in the American character: in the nation’s history, society, politics – indeed, in its very teleology, which they believe actually exists and is, like the arc of the universe in the 19th-century quote made famous by Martin Luther King Jr., forever “bending toward justice.” And thus all the manifest evils that have beset the “American experiment” since the beginning – and are overwhelming it like a tsunami today – are seen as aberrations and terrible distortions of what the country really is.
How can there be a sensible way forward for a people trapped in such a fever dream?
I thought of this last night, at a panel discussion on what a Bernie Sanders presidency would mean for transatlantic cooperation. Enthusiastic young people, including a Canadian, urged the audience to phonebank in order to get out the vote, and spoke of their suffering („I stayed up all night“) while votes were counted on Super Tuesday. I am coming to realize that I am not an expat, not an American Voice Abroad.
