A Thought Experiment For An Awful 4th of July
Things feel “over” in the United States right now. The truth is both better and worse than that.
Sitting on a park bench
That’s older than my country
— Minus The Bear, “Absinthe Party At The Fly Honey Warehouse”
Right now, in the United States, things feel over.
This is not a sentiment exclusively held by one or another subset of society — it’s pretty damn near ubiquitous. In January, a new NPR/Ipsos poll found that seven in ten Americans feel the US was “in crisis and at risk of failing”.
In fact, when you look at the poll report itself, it’s even more striking:
“A majority, regardless of their gender, racial/ethnic group, generation, or region of the country, feel that America is in crisis and at risk of failing. There is also broad consensus among Democrats (68%), Republicans (79%), and independents (67%) on this.”
This start-of-2022 poll was, of course, taken nearly half a year before the end of Roe. Or any of the other horrors of the last six months…
