Risky democracy strengthens it

‘An Indelible Stain’: How the G.O.P. Tried to Topple a Pillar of Democracy

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/12/us/politics/trump-lawsuits-electoral-college.html

While risky for future of US democracy these ongoing tests of its health and strength are likely to be more beneficial than harmful. The current US is far from being the original, not only in politics, governance and number of citizens, but in its diversity, economy, education, opportunity and, yes, its vigorous health and durable strength to ward off much greater threats than it faced at its founding.

This is not meant to be Pollyannishly upbeat about the present disputes of ideology, beliefs, mindsets, anger and anxiety. The pandemic is the top commonly-faced, bleak threat to all of the citizenry, top to bottom, left to right, wealthy and poor, ethnicity and race.

This wholly shared danger to the entire global population, domestically and internationally, may be what is driving political passions off the rails, in seeking a familiar contest of partisanship to cope with an incomprehensible and indefensible enemy where humans are on the same side against a foe which treats us as not at all different.

In this way we are at the mercy of an inhuman force as evolving humans have always been, and has humans have been against other animals and the earth. Superhuman gods have been invented to bless our willful savagery and salve our ignorance of disease, starvation, war, injustice, exploitation.

Worth considering that the pandemic is a foretaste of climate change, and puts political differences in the tragi-comedy realm not unlike those comical grotesques of the medevial era plague-times.