Americans are in Denial About the Fact That Our Nation is Headed Towards Suicide

Ignoring the truth doesn’t make it go away.

I have often had a… let’s say “complicated” relationship with most of the Republican Party’s Presidential nominees and Mitt Romney was no exception to that. Looking back on it, for example, I certainly don’t regret doing this back in 2011:

A movement is bubbling in DC among conservative operatives and talking heads who don’t think Mitt Romney has what it takes to beat President Obama. Freedom Works’ Tabitha Hale, Gaypatriot.org blogger Bruce Carroll, Townhall’s John Hawkins, Tea Party activist Tiffiny Ruegner, and GOP political consultants Matt Mackowiak and Ali Akbar are launching NotMittRomney.com today as a grass-roots effort to oppose his nomination.

Today, Mitt Romney is generally looked at as a Country Club squish, just as he was when he was the Governor of Massachusetts. In between those two points, Mitt often tried to portray himself as a diehard conservative and as was the case with so many other people, it grated on my nerves. That doesn’t mean Mitt is always wrong or more of a shifty, say-whatever-it-takes to get his way politician than the average Republican in DC, it just means that in the immortal words of Judge Judy, it’s really aggravating to have a politician pee on your leg and then try to tell you it’s raining.

All that being said, despite himself, Mitt Romney managed to write a genuinely thought-provoking (albeit sometimes off-base) column for The Atlantic called, “America is in Denial.” Here’s an excerpt that will give you the flavor of the piece:

Even as we watch the reservoirs and lakes of the West go dry, we keep watering our lawns, soaking our golf courses, and growing water-thirsty crops.

As inflation mounts and the national debt balloons, progressive politicians vote for ever more spending.

As the ice caps melt and record temperatures make the evening news, we figure that buying a Prius and recycling the boxes from our daily Amazon deliveries will suffice.

When TV news outlets broadcast video after video of people illegally crossing the nation’s southern border, many of us change the channel.

And when a renowned conservative former federal appellate judge testifies that we are already in a war for our democracy and that January 6, 2021, was a genuine constitutional crisis, MAGA loyalists snicker that he speaks slowly and celebrate that most people weren’t watching.

What accounts for the blithe dismissal of potentially cataclysmic threats? The left thinks the right is at fault for ignoring climate change and the attacks on our political system. The right thinks the left is the problem for ignoring illegal immigration and the national debt. But wishful thinking happens across the political spectrum. More and more, we are a nation in denial.

… Bolstering our natural inclination toward wishful thinking are the carefully constructed, prejudice-confirming arguments from the usual gang of sophists, grifters, and truth-deniers. Watching angry commentators on cable news, I’m reminded of H. L. Mencken’s observation: “For every complex problem, there is a solution that is clear, simple, and wrong.”

When entire countries fail to confront serious challenges, it doesn't end well. During the past half-century, we Americans have lived in a very forgiving time, and seeing the world through rose-colored glasses had limited consequences. The climate was stable, our economy dwarfed the competition, democracy was on the rise, and our military strength made the U.S. the sole global hyperpower. Today, every one of those things has changed. If we continue to ignore the real threats we face, America will inevitably suffer serious consequences.

As I’ve written before, I do not agree with Mitt’s take on global warming. In addition, I don’t have the same view of Jan 6. that Mitt does, although we do have to acknowledge that the run-up to it could have led to a serious constitutional crisis. It’s also worth pointing out that these aren’t “even-steven” problems between the Left and Right. Yes, the Right has its issues, but the Left is essentially to the point where they believe they can deconstruct reality and put it back together any way that they choose because some Marxist professors, college students, and mentally ill people think the world should work that way. When you’re putting this guy in charge of things in the government, you’re far gone to the point of needing more competent people around to save you from yourself.

It was tempting to pick out a handful of topics where America has stopped paying attention to what matters and make a neat little 7 item list out of them, but once you get into it, there are really too many of them to do justice at this point.

* The American public has heard so many warnings about our debt that they’ve stopped paying attention. However, it’s now to the point where it’s impacting our economy in the real world. Interest rates today should be TRIPLE what they currently are to try to bring down inflation, but our debt is preventing the Fed from going that high. Will their efforts to fight inflation work or will we end up with stagflation instead? No one knows because we’ve never gotten into this situation before. We’ve become increasingly irresponsible financially and the consequences are likely going to be economically catastrophic.

* In twenty years, both Medicare and Social Security may exist in name, but they almost certainly won’t function the same as they do today because every dime from both programs has been spent and they’re only being paid off with borrowed and printed money. Anyone telling you that there’s nothing to worry about with these programs is lying to you because if they told the American people the truth, they’d flip out.

* We’re increasingly a decadent and immoral nation filled with an ever-growing number of people that couldn’t fairly be called good or decent human beings. You can see that in everything from drag shows for kids, to teachers trying to push transsexuality on your kids to mass shootings. Certainly, there are still good people around, but percentage-wise, there are a lot fewer of them than there used to be. We’re marching right into the sewer as a nation and very few people seem to be speaking up about it.

* Embracing an attempt to rewrite the rules of government to keep liberals in power permanently is now a mainstream idea on the Left. If it wasn’t for Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema, it is very possible that Democrats would have gotten rid of the legislative filibuster, stacked the Supreme Court (which would have meant the end of the Constitution), added Puerto Rico and DC as states, and rewrote election rules to centralize elections and make it easier for the Left to cheat. If you were looking for a recipe to create coups, secession, revolutions, or civil wars, you couldn’t do much better than that.

* The Left in America very casually calls for confiscating guns, even though it would certainly lead to violence and could start an all-out civil war.

* Political violence is becoming increasingly normalized, particularly in liberal cities that are content to let ANTIFA and Black Lives Matter loot, burn, and riot at will while using the law to target people that try to defend themselves. Liberals call for harassing their political enemies in public and at their homes. They were blasé about an assassination attempt on Brett Kavanaugh. This is the sort of thing that can very easily turn into a tit-for-tat sort of violence with both sides cheering on “their guys” and excusing atrocities as long as they’re aimed at the right people.

* Despite the fact that Americans are paying some of the highest gas prices in history right now, the government turned down the Keystone Pipeline, is preventing the oil companies from doing more drilling, and has put regulations in place that make it impossible to build new refineries. In addition, we’re shutting down coal plants and replacing them with inferior solar and wind power. Within a few years, blackouts and high gas prices are likely to become a regular feature of American life unless something changes dramatically.

* Our government is not only deliberately refusing to control our borders, we’re making every effort to INCREASE the number of illegal aliens coming into this country. The fact that out-of-control immigration led to the demise of the Western Roman Empire doesn’t seem to alarm anyone, nor does the fact that we’ve undoubtedly allowed in countless gang members, criminals, shipments of drugs, and potential terrorists. We’re also destroying respect for the rule of law and depressing the wages of low- and middle-class Americans in the process.   

* Both political parties have become tribal and don’t like or trust the other side. We’re to the point now that simply cooperating with the other side on almost anything is enough to aggravate either party’s base. This essentially makes the country ungovernable at the federal level. Since there’s no working together, little legislation passes, Presidents increasingly try to rule through legally dubious executive orders and it’s impossible to plan anything long-term.

* Our mainstream media is so hopelessly corrupted that they’re essentially just arms of the Democratic Party. This is why few people trust the news. Everyone knows it’s propaganda that will be spun, told, and written differently depending on the political party involved. This makes it impossible to trust the media and means that in a very real sense, we no longer have a free press. Maybe they’re technically free, to tell the truth about the Left, but as a practical matter, they’re certainly not going to do so any more than the North Korean press is going to criticize Kim-Jong-un.

We can go on and on with extremely serious problems that aren’t being addressed in any meaningful way. Our schools are pushing and recruiting kids to be gay and trans (we are just starting to address this one as a society). Social Media is having a disastrous impact on our entire society. We’re allowing too many corporations to become powerful monopolies with far too much influence on American society. Between 40-50% of marriages in America are failing. China is starting to surpass us in some areas technologically. Our enormous debt and financial irresponsibility are undermining the dollar as the world currency. We’re increasingly reliant on potentially hostile nations like China for rare metals and medicines. Life expectancy is actually DROPPING in America. Numerous cities and states are likely to go bankrupt in the next decade or two and look for the federal government to bail them out. Our healthcare costs are staggering and nothing of significance has been done to reduce them. Whether you believe they’re right or wrong, a large percentage of the population no longer fully trusts our election results. Etc., etc.

Again, I’m going to go back to Mitt Romney, because, like a stopped clock that’s right twice per day, he’s also spot-on about this:

During the past half-century, we Americans have lived in a very forgiving time, and seeing the world through rose-colored glasses had limited consequences. The climate was stable, our economy dwarfed the competition, democracy was on the rise, and our military strength made the U.S. the sole global hyperpower. Today, every one of those things has changed. If we continue to ignore the real threats we face, America will inevitably suffer serious consequences.

America is no longer such a dominant nation that it can afford to be complacent. On the contrary, this country is beset with an enormous number of extremely serious problems that have the potential to dramatically damage our nation or even split it apart. Meanwhile, our entire political sphere is endlessly obsessed with trivial controversies that are forgotten a week later. Unfortunately, we have real problems in this country that are a lot bigger than whatever controversial thing Joe Rogan, AOC, or Donald Trump said today. We can continue to choose to ignore reality, but reality is not going to continue to cut us a break. The time is coming when it’s going to start teaching us merciless lesson after merciless lesson and do you know what the worst part will be? Chances are, none of it will be a surprise.

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