Setting the Stage

 

Unusual Suspects

Americans face seemingly insurmountable problems and need someone to blame.

We have mastered the world.  America is the most prosperous and powerful country on Earth, and we tend to take credit for that success.  However, we cannot do everything and some things we do have unintended side effects that we cannot control.  For example, we do not treat everyone equally.  While many things point to why, the greater truth is we have not figured out how to make that workable.  We have created a great deal but consumed a great deal to do so.  This has created problems such as pollution, which we have struggled for decades to ameliorate with minimal success.  We invest trillions in our military but cannot stop wars, and we provide others with weapons to fight.  We reached the top but now watch others climb past us.  We are the wealthiest country with the highest debt and have no plan to settle it.  We have literally changed our planet to meet our needs, and now we must live with the blowback.  We have ourselves to credit for so many accomplishments, but now we must live with their consequences.  When we succeed, everyone takes credit.  When we fail, everyone points to others for blame.  It is very stressful.

 

Leaders once addressed the people's frustrations by pointing out some external group of people who were incapable of defending themselves and blaming them. Scapegoating as a means of attribution of blame is classic societal stress relief. Wars start that way.

 

America can and may start a war with a lesser opponent to blow off some steam and focus the electorate away from the social strain and collective frustration that diminishes their ability to cope. However, America’s problems are too endemic to externalize successfully in such an old-school manner.  We realize this as a collective, although not individually.  So, we have turned on ourselves. In a true sense, we only have ourselves to blame and, therefore, blame each other.

 

On the one hand, this is perfectly logical.  On the other hand, it can look very silly at best and self-destructive at worst.  Collective frustration does that.

 

Karl Marx noted when resources become scarce, people turn on each other in competition for those limited resources.  This scarcity drives frustration, which drives a zero-sum thinking that only worsens things.  This is further exacerbated when the masses perceive a great inequity somewhere (e.g., the infamous 1%).  While Marx was known as a socialist/communist, in this case, he was pointing out populism.

 

We once fought each other in a Civil War. It was immensely destructive, and the scars have not fully healed even after more than a century and a half.  Another war would only ensure that some other nation would take our place in world leadership, which would also destroy our economy and way of life.  Realizing that might make us self-destructive, taking humanity with us. Indeed, it is a zero-sum scenario.

 

It is frustrating, but need it be destructive?  Possibly. Taking ourselves to the precipice of such an apocalyptic conclusion might bring us together for compromise.  Possibly.