Reactionary Conservatism, the Last Turtle and the End of American Democracy

American democracy in the early 20’s is in a precarious state. Without Herculean vigilance, acuity, intrepidness and activism by a majoritarian movement and party, democracy will not persevere. Not even wearily. That is because one of our two viable political parties is not simply hidebound, but is atavistic, illiberal, reactionary, and in many cases shamelessly abuses political power, i.e., it is antidemocratic. Worse, they are doing so, with increasing frequency, in both authoritarian and totalitarian fashion. Sometimes even demonstrating a fascistic approach to establishing domestic hegemony. Of course that can only be the Republican party, which has been this way for decades, though this century has plumbed new depths of depravity to calcify its own power, where possible. Republican’s antidemocratic tendencies have left the American democratic experiment as susceptible to falsification and as precarious as any period in our nation’s 240 year history.

This continues to be true even after we escaped the moral, political and existential hazard of Donald Trump’s presidency. In one sense Trump was merely the inevitable epitome of a trend engendered and propagated by elite wealthy conservatives. His roguish political behavior was made possible by a political-historical cycle which spans some sixty years. That cycle is…