What a beautiful piece of writing, about something so intensely personal, at such an emotional time. Thank you for sharing.

I’ve been avoiding commenting on threads where Americans have been commiserating with one another and trying to salvage hope from this election result. I’ve avoided it because even though American politics is terrifying and frustrating, and even though this most recent result makes that clearer than ever before, I figured now wasn’t the time to express those feelings. Not while so many of you were in a kind of mourning.

But then you linked to this Gruber piece, which I’ve read, because I read both your blogs. While it’s a great piece of writing, it makes even starker the dissonance that, to an outside observer at least, seems essential to the American identity.

Have you read his bloodthirsty commentary about the Middle East? It wouldn’t be a stretch to say that he’s been cheering on genocidal acts with something approaching glee, and with the full moral authority of someone who believes that they are doing the right thing – as many abetters of violence do. That dissonance – the ability to support or commit acts of acquisitive or repressive violence while never doubting that you are a force for rightness and good: to me, that is a definitive characteristic of the American. This type of dysfunction isn’t unique to American culture, but it feels like it’s taken deep root over there, an extra troubling possibility when you consider the amount of weaponry you’ve allowed your government to amass.

I say this with kindness, not anger, simply a statement of the reality as it appears to me: Gruber’s post could have been heartening, it could have been hopeful, maybe even motivating; but for me it can’t, because it can’t be viewed in isolation. Not when it appears alongside murderous propaganda and the usual USA-boosting world view. The fact that people find it hopeful only tells me that the American dissonance is alive and well. This is why I sympathise with those who punished the Democrats for taking a soft stance towards genocidal warfare, not to mention failing to bring your own war criminals to account, thus handing moral authority to crooks like Putin. Until enough people wake up from the “American dream”, this nightmare will persist.