Watching the Republican debate earlier this week, one thing was abundantly clear: Every person on that stage was convinced (or believed it was in his or her political interests to act convinced) that the United States finds itself in the midst of a potentially fatal storm. The country’s a total mess. The Middle East is a complete disaster. The Obama administration has been a catastrophe. ISIS poses an existential threat. The list of hyperbolically gloomy pronouncements was seemingly endless.
What makes Trump the most immoderate figure in an unusually immoderate moment in American politics is that his negative assessment of the situation is more extreme and sweeping than anyone else’s — with proposals to address the problems and threats to the nation accordingly much more radical, representing a much bigger break from the status quo. If the times are desperate, then desperate measures may well be called for.
But is the situation really so grave?
Media personalities and politicians who benefit from stirring up public anxiety go out of their way to convince us that we’re in serious, deep trouble as a nation. But is it true? Is terrorism really a major, let alone an existential, threat? Has the Obama administration actually been a catastrophe? Is it true that the American dream is “dead” — or that the U.S. is “a hellhole” that’s “going down fast,” “can’t do anything right,” is a “laughing-stock all over the world”?
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