I think it’s hard for regular people to imagine having no empathy or guilt or any use for other people whatsoever, beyond as vehicles for getting what they want. Even at my age I am still constantly astonished to know there are people who target the elderly with scams, or beat people up to get their wallet, and celebrate themselves for getting one over on them.
But isn’t that the whole point of the ideal of the America we are fighting for. Monarchies were based on that thinking, and they had the right to do anything to peasants. We overthrew that. That’s why the first three words in the Constitution are so BIG. We the People.
Wealthy landowners had slaves! We had a Civil War that overthrew that. Capitalists made people work in mines until they died from it. We formed unions that made that better – and FDR strengthened them. The South had apartheid. We had a Movement that stopped that. Tobacco companies convinced people to kill themselves slowly while handing over their money and energy companies are knowingly destroying the planet. What we are seeing is the reaction to our trying to stop them.
And now we are struggling to come up not only with multiple means to stop their dismantling but also plans to further the progress that the abolitionists, suffragists, unionists, civil rights and human rights activists pioneered. Some people really believe business as usual will do the trick. Or even worse, as Jim Carville urges, play possum until Trump self-destructs.