The Tribune

America is sick. Some of its worse ills long ago metastasized and are so pervasive that they will only respond to dramatic change. White supremacy is an unyielding and entrenched power and bastion. Long-term demographic change will help to seriously address some of the worst features of white privilege.

The response to the George Floyd killing offers hope of some change but this will likely be limited. Much of it will be cosmetic, with corporate America rushing to be seen doing the right things. Power does not yield easily and only with unrelenting struggle.

And as throughout US history, including after the abolition of slavery and the Civil Rights Movement, there is going to be a backlash to any racial progress made in the next few years.

For a brief period during Reconstruction, some black men attained higher education in tertiary institutions and some were elected to local and state office.

The backlash to the rise of black intelligence and leadership was swift and diabolical. Such leadership and intelligence threatened white power and equally threatened the layers of lies, including pseudo-scientific untruths, about black talent and possibilities.

Whites, including those in Washington DC, were horrified at the idea of being governed by blacks. White business people and citizens acted quickly to bring such black leadership to an end.

A majority black Washington DC did not attain home rule until 1973, the year of Bahamian independence. The city still has limited rule as the Congress has considerable oversight, jurisdiction and power in the District, which continues to struggle for statehood.

Even after the relentless killing of black men, many white Americans still do not believe or understand the structural and endemic racism which haunts the entire American Project or Experiment.

Colossus

Today, the world’s leading superpower is like a bizarre hybrid nation, part military colossus and advanced technological society cum banana republic and failed state.

America still glitters and attracts. Its popular culture - from television and film to rap and country and western - entertains many millions around the world who view the glamour and excitement of America with enthusiasm on their mobile devices. They have also seen the images of George Floyd being choked to death.

America can still make the dreams of immigrants come true, though in this it has not proven exclusively exceptional. The dreams of immigrants also come true in other countries. Downtown Toronto is but one example of a city made vibrant by the dreams and talents of generations of new arrivals, including an increasing number of Bahamians.

The self-described “indispensable nation”, which many Americans still believe is a “shining city on a hill”, brazenly failed to employ the celebrated ideals of “checks and balances” to rein in the abuse of power of an American President who continues to mock the democracy and the country’s constitution.

Donald Trump came to power because of the country’s antiquated electoral system which overvalues the electoral votes of rural communities and smaller states. Many scholars argue this system is antithetical to a modern democracy and should be replaced.

With his Mussolini-like jutted chin and penchant for revenge on political opponents, Trump  intimidated a Republican Senate, which failed to muster a serious trial after his impeachment by the House of Representatives.

His Republican allies in the Senate refused to allow certain witnesses. Some vowed to acquit him even before they heard any testimony in the upper chamber.

Trump indiscriminately exercised the power of pardon granted the American President, including for individuals who showed no remorse for their crimes. It is a pardon power that is a vestige of the British monarchy pre-American independence.

Few Bahamians are reflexively anti-American, though there are quite a number who are reflexively pro-American, with little knowledge or concern for the country’s imperialistic, racial and genocidal history, including the decimation of Native Americans.

Relentless

While most have a mixed view of the country, the Trump Presidency, the COVID-19 pandemic and the relentless killing of black men - many unarmed - by police officers has dramatically changed the perception of many Bahamians and non-Americans about the United States.

The boast of exceptionalism which has fuelled America since its inception is an even emptier boast today.

This boast stands in marked contrast with the country’s current meltdown, especially in terms of a health crisis which is worsening, and a US President who regularly debases his office and American democracy, aided and abetted by a Republican-controlled Senate which has failed to check his abuse of power, including the recent grant of clemency to a close associate convicted of lying to Congress.

The hubris and pride which fuel and exemplify the myth of American exceptionalism is again having deadly results. This myth has led to many Americans believing they are immune to the deadly effects of the virus.

One tragic example was a young American who went to a COVID-19 party and who refused to wear a mask. He has now succumbed to the virus. He previously boasted that he was free to do what he wanted because he was an American.

Today, America seems a shell of the country many people in the world viewed with some esteem, even while acknowledging the deep-seated problems, hypocrisy and vainglory of the American Colossus.

The Republic has been laid low by a devastating pandemic it should have been able to respond to more aggressively and effectively. Many health experts are alarmed because they realize that given the country’s response to COVID-19, a more lethal virus would have killed even more Americans and been even more devastating.

Ill-prepared

One of the more medically advanced countries in the world, which boasts the renowned National Institutes of Health, some of the best medical centres, including the vaunted medical facilities in Houston, Texas, and other states, alongside leading medical schools and biotech firms, was ill-prepared on multiple fronts.

The response to COVID-19 from countries like Vietnam, South Korea and New Zealand made the American response seem more like what one would expect from an under-developed Third World country.

The US, a nation with an annual defence budget of more than half a trillion dollars proved a spectacular failure with contact tracing, testing and the mobilization of other public health measures. America also has extraordinary industrial and manufacturing might.

Yet, not every American can get a test. It can take up to a week to receive test results. Meanwhile, some athletes on professional teams have been tested numerous times and various celebrities have easy access to tests.

A Columbia University Study in May estimated that if the US had started limiting social contacts just one week earlier, approximately 35,000 lives could have been saved during the beginning of May. A two week start, the study estimated, could have prevented one million cases and prevented approximately 58,000 deaths through the early part of May.

The United States had the ability to utilise a mixture of therapeutic, medical and behavioural measures to limit the spread of COVID-19 and to save many lives. Its stunning national failure continues to shock the world.

China bears responsibility for its failures in how it initially responded to the outbreak. A number of global experts continue to question its reporting on the number of people initially infected.

But China quickly responded on many fronts, limiting community spread which saved many lives in the country. While democracies could not employ the degree of preventative measures as China, the former had the capacity, as demonstrated by Germany and others, to lockdown more quickly and to reopen more slowly.

Why did the American superpower fail? More Next Week