[CHAPEL HILL, NC]
In October of 2016 I went to Italy and returned to an America on the cusp of an election. It was a different country. Barack Obama was still President. Then, to quote Donald Fagen (Mary Shut the Garden Door),
I woke up
And sensed the new condition
They won
Storms raged
Things changed
Forever
Ever since then, it’s been “after” here in the United States. Kamala Harris likes to use the slogan “we are not going back”, but there’s a bitter irony in what she says because she is right, but not in the sense that she means. We aren’t ever going back to before, to the way things used to be here.
At the same time, it’s only impossible to read the situation here in such a way that might give one faith in predicting a particular result. Who knows how the vote will turn out?
What is clear, however, is beyond alarming. In the United States of America mass deportations are being promoted as a major policy platform, along with violent law enforcement action against “criminals”, arrests and reprisals for political opponents, including prominent politicians and media outlets, and the use of the US military against voters of the opposing party. The dominant rhetoric now includes Nazi rhetoric about immigrants “poisoning the blood of our nation” and the need for a violent, thorough purge of the outsiders to make room for Americans of white, European, Christian descent.
The Republican party is openly allied with Christian Nationalist, White Supremacist and Neo-Nazi groups. Meanwhile, a recent study showed that a full one third of Americans agree with the “poisoning the blood” rhetoric.
To those who know history, this is all very frighteningly familiar and threatening, in particular to a Jew like me.
So, this is where we are, and this is who we are now as a nation. To cite an even more obscure song (The Lie, Tony Banks), in America it’s “forever morning after the night before”. We are not going back, but where we are headed is an increasingly frightening unknown.
Now I’m heading back to Italy, with the US on the verge of another election, and the only thing I can feel sure of is that this will be another moment of ‘before’, perhaps like no other. When I return, election day will have passed.
Beyond that, the great unknown, after.
L’articolo Before/After proviene da ytali..