The lost nation; America in freefall

Although my voice will probably only be heard by a handful of people, nonetheless, it needs to be said on behalf of the voices that really count - the American people who did not choose to have their nation taken over by a dictatorial and fascist oligarchy.

Sadly, the American perspective is heavily inculcated with the fantasy that the “American dream” is still alive, and it is not - that is pure radical nostalgism at this point.

When I moved to the United States from Canada, where I grew up, America was still a vibrant and dynamic culture and the spirit of capitalism was truly alive - as the pop culture, film industry and technology sectors were booming and were inspiring the world with new advances.

America, in those days, was still seen as a nation carrying the torch for freedom and democracy, but all of that changed in 2001, when a President at that time, convinced the nation and the world, that fighting terrorism was more important than continuing the banner for freedom, and in that guise, America started to morph from open borders and a welcome matt, into an aggressor, invading nations it saw fit to invade, the creation of massive policing and surveillance entities with the introduction of Homeland Security, NSA surveillance networks and spying on its own citizens.

I had been living and working in the U.S. for 33 years when we decided to leave, not because I no longer loved the nation and its people, but because the writing was on the wall - America was progressively becoming something else, a nation polarized by two rival political parties, where the growing wealthy class was outdistancing the working class, and a diminishing middle class was driving families to work harder for less. Moreover, it simply no longer felt safe - the focus was not on growing the nation but on “protecting” it from supposed “enemies” abroad, which entirely changed the mental paradigm, from an open arms welcome, to suspicion, distrust and brutal aggression.

One could argue that 9/11 was the starting point of this change, but in fact, 9/11 was a false flag event, in other words, an orchestrated event designed to change the very mentality of Americans, to spark hatred towards “foreigners”, to lay the blame for a dwindling dream at the feet of people outside of American borders, to provide justification and provocation to invade other nations, whereas in fact, the problem was and always has been right inside America - as the economic stanchions that once made it possible for anyone to live the “dream” - were quickly becoming more and more distanced, as financial and economic controls were leveraged by the wealthy and as those in the White Office cow-towed to the rich corporate entities; because as we all know, American political parties, particularly the right, depend entirely on donations from wealthy individuals and corporations to campaign their way into power - and that was, and remains, a broken and corrupt system where the American soul and the heart of its nation can be bought by anyone with enough money.

Donald Trump, like Adolf Hitler, leveraged the dissention in America, the diminishment of the “American dream” where anyone could achieve a better life, and he turned that dissention into hatred for both those who came from other nations, particularly Latin America, and those in other lands, claiming that the world outside its borders had treated America badly, that it was “THEM” who were the problem, and he has fostered and fueled this hatred to the point where now he is able to run the nation with the same heavy hand as Hitler used to enforce his agenda, including his own enforcement arm, ICE, which Trump is using much the same as Hitler used the SS - a NAZI enforcement arm to remove any hindrance to his goals.

Donald Trump has become the greatest threat to the free world and democracy, because he is raising havoc with the platform, the very symbol of that once thriving democracy, by weaponizing the United States to accomplish his “ideals”.

Naturally, if he pursues his assertions that he will invade Greenland, Donald Trump will destroy all trust in America, a nation once known for rule-of-law, will be seen as a threat to global peace and unity.

Europe and other countries such as Canada, Mexico, etc. are already working on the means of distancing themselves from the United States, and if Trump does send troops to Greenland, NATO will collapse as America will have become a turncoat, treasonous and no longer trustworthy, forcing Europe, Canada and the UK, current members of NATO, to forge another alliance, one which will go up against the United States.

Sadly, and unfortunately, many Americans fail to see past their radical nostalgism about the “American dream” - that their country has already stepped over the line and has become categorically a dictatorial oligarchy - just one step away from a true dictatorship, on a par with Putin in Russia, Netanyahu in Israel, and Kim Jong-un in North Korea.

Countless millions of Americans have marched in unity against the Trump Administration over the past year, and yet, in the end, it did not stop the dictator - which means that the very platform of the American system is no longer capable of stopping a Presidential dictator, and while one could claim that Americans have a democracy, the truth is that if a nation cannot remove a dictator from power, then that nation is no longer a nation ruled-by-law, certainly not a democracy, but as the saying goes, and as with all dictatorships, a nation circling the drain.

I say all of this with the greatest of respect and even love for a people that I once lived and worked with for nearly 35 years of my life - and to say that it angers me to see Donald Trump and his Republican Party of subservient followers, and those behind the curtain, the very wealthy entitled institutions and corporations backing him, destroying a once great nation - would be an understatement.

My voice does not matter.

The collective voices of Americans does.

If they do not use that voice to summarily remove this cancer, America will continue to devolve and eventually find itself just an island, separated from the rest of the world - no longer welcomed, no longer trusted, no longer loved, and certainly no longer a symbol of freedom, but rather, a symbol of oppression.

Réal Laplaine

Author of high-concept thrillers

www.reallaplaine.com