What if it is too late to save America?

Farhad Manjoo admits he's feeling jumpy: "To me, the signs on the American horizon are flashing blood red. Armed political skirmishes are erupting on the streets, and scholars are tracking a rise in violence and instability as the election draws near. Gun sales keep shattering records. Mercifully, I suppose, there’s a nationwide shortage of ammo. Then there is the pandemic, mass unemployment, natural disasters on every coast, intense racial and partisan polarization, and not a little bit of lockdown-induced collective stir craziness."

I admit to finding this way of thinking persuasive. Democracy depends on agreement that it's ok for the other party to win elections, even if we want our party to win. I'm pretty sure that agreement is no longer operable in the United States, and I don't quite know how to get it back. That's the short version of my argument.

And it pains me, greatly, to think about. I'm terrified of living out the last third or so of my life in an unstable, poor country. (Especially one that possesses an endless supply of nuclear weapons -- it is terrifying to think how instability in the United States could quite literally bring about the end of the world.) Even worse, I feel miserable when I think about my son having to navigate such a world, if it survives.

Manjoo's column this morning reminded me of Jonathan Franzen's New Yorker piece, almost exactly a year ago, in which he contemplated the likelihood of a "climate apocalypse." It made a lot of people angry, but his case then -- that we're far down the road, and there is insufficient political will to do what is necessary to fix the problem -- seems to have grown in strength now that we see how much of a mess America has made of the pandemic.

But I didn't think the piece was totally hopeless. Here's what he said toward the end of the piece:

It’s fine to struggle against the constraints of human nature, hoping to mitigate the worst of what’s to come, but it’s just as important to fight smaller, more local battles that you have some realistic hope of winning. Keep doing the right thing for the planet, yes, but also keep trying to save what you love specifically—a community, an institution, a wild place, a species that’s in trouble—and take heart in your small successes. Any good thing you do now is arguably a hedge against the hotter future, but the really meaningful thing is that it’s good today. As long as you have something to love, you have something to hope for.

This makes sense to me. Franzen was talking about climate change, but I wonder if it might not be best to take this approach to everything. I may not be able to save America. I may not be able to save Kansas, or Lawrence, but maybe I can do some things to make my corner of this community a little better. It may be all I can do, in fact. And if enough people do it in enough places, maybe we can make enough of our places better that this thing we call America won't slide into total failure.

That's not much hope. But it's the best I can do.