I weep for a tortured America that has lost its conviction

I’ve been fascinated by the USA for many years.

I left my hometown of Ajax simply east of Toronto to attend the College of Nebraska in one of the crucial Republican states within the nation, after commencement labored as a reporter in Kansas Metropolis in coronary heart of the American Midwest and a few years later travelled broadly throughout the nation because the Star’s correspondent in Washington.

I admired America for its optimism, its power, its deeply ingrained perception that it’s the land of alternative, with its entrepreneurship, its creativity, its wealth — its overriding sense that it’s the dominant drive on the earth.

Right this moment, although, the USA is a tortured nation, uncertain of itself, afraid of what lies forward. Gone is its conviction, so fundamental to its nationwide psyche, that it was the perfect at every part.

As Tuesday’s midterm U.S. elections confirmed, America is a deeply polarized nation.

It’s extra so than at any time because the Nineteen Fifties now that the Republican Celebration, which as soon as was an inexpensive conservative political entity, has now morphed into the celebration of what barely 20 years in the past would have been known as the lunatic fringe, full of offended election-deniers, anti-vaxxers, isolationists and anti-government “haters.”

True, Democrats breathed a deep sigh of reduction that the Massive Pink Wave of victories predicted by Republicans in essential Senate and Home of Representatives elections become a Pink Trickle when votes had been counted.

However the actuality stays that numerous hard-line Republicans, many aligned with former president Donald Trump, gained seats in Congress and gained vital contests in races for governor and different key places of work in statewide elections.

Though Republicans didn’t win the sweeping mandates they hoped to realize, the stage remains to be set for the GOP to unleash political mayhem in Washington and state capitols throughout the nation.

And so I weep for America!

I weep for a nation that elected a shocking variety of Republicans who’re overtly pushing to show America right into a theocracy, now not hiding their view that the U.S. is a “white Christian” nation, forcing academics to advertise “Christian values” and arguing that the framers of the U.S. Structure didn’t desire a strict separation of church and state.

I weep for a nation the place newly elected Republicans promote vigilante justice — “good guys with weapons,” spying on neighbours and taking motion to cease girls crossing state strains to acquire authorized abortions.

I weep for a nation the place some 300 election-deniers, Republican who fervently imagine Trump, not Joe Biden, gained the 2020 presidential election, had been operating for elected workplace. Some 71 per cent of Republicans say they’re snug voting for a candidate who believes the election was stolen.

I weep for a nation that elects governors and different high state officers who wish to undermine free and honest elections.

I weep for a nation the place 20 per cent of individuals say political violence is justified.

I weep for a nation the place the highest courtroom overturned a federal abortion rights regulation after 50 years, a choice cheered by the spiritual proper, however opposed by most Individuals.

I weep for a nation the place anti-immigrant, antisemitism, anti-Black, anti-Muslim and anti-LBGQT sentiment is on the rise.

I weep for a nation the place the hole between the wealthy and the poor is at an obscene degree.

I weep for a nation the place very important authorities support to Ukraine is in danger, opposed by influential Republicans, akin to Lindsey Graham and Marjorie Taylor Greene.

Most troubling is that over the previous couple of years America appears to have misplaced religion in itself, in its soul. That’s why it’s worrisome to look at what’s occurring now — and probably within the coming months — in America, and to visualise what it would imply for our southern neighbour, in addition to for Canada and the world.

We should always all weep for America.

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