With four months to go to the US elections, the current state of domestic chaos has reached a level rarely seen in the modern history of the post-war US.
Over the past two years or so, US President Donald Trump has painstakingly engineered a mini-recovery of the economy, including a rise in the stock market and employment rates, only for these efforts to be blown to bits by the coronavirus. Trump is a businessman who is used to making deals. Although he knows the coronavirus came from China, he actually wanted to trade the truth of the matter for a US-China trade deal. Early this year, Trump was boasting to the American people about his phone conversation with Chinese President Xi Jinping: “He feels very confident. He feels that... by April or during the month of April, the heat... kills this kind of virus.” At first, a lot of people thought Trump was being sarcastic — it turns out he was being truly naive.
On top of that, there is a national leftist movement against racism. It could have boosted Trump’s re-election chances because the US “Cultural Revolution” started by the extreme left should have tested the limits of rationality and common sense of the American people. But given Trump’s unpopularity and frivolous attitude, he has not been able to project the authority of a benign patriarch, as Franklin Roosevelt and Ronald Reagan did. In the face of a national crisis, Trump is still leading with levity and belligerence, leading to a slide in his ratings. (NB: Just two days ago during independence day events at Mount Rushmore, Trump commented about recent protests, saying this "left-wing cultural revolution is designed to overthrow the American revolution".)
American society is in flux — property is unprotected, rights accorded to citizens by the law are unequal, and even the police dare not rashly make arrests. If the police mistakenly shoot at someone out of self-defence, the police go to jail and politicians kneel in apology, while the offender gets a sizeable compensation.
Local governments around the US are cutting budgets for the police, public transport, and city infrastructure, while increasing government funding support for illegal migrants, poor urbanites, and criminals, worsening their bad behaviour by making room for their laziness and reliance on social welfare support.
Violent crowds engaging in acts of mugging, trespassing, looting, setting fire to property and damaging historic monuments, while the police either take their time to arrive or just stand and watch: all this would be hard to imagine in Japan, for instance.
In the US, it seems that homosexuals and transgender people are accorded more rights and dignity than the rest of the population. Local governments around the US are cutting budgets for the police, public transport, and city infrastructure, while increasing government funding support for illegal migrants, poor urbanites, and criminals, worsening their bad behaviour by making room for their laziness and reliance on social welfare support.
The Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare, has not improved the US healthcare system. Middle-class employees whose employers used to pay for their insurance now have the added burden of paying for their own insurance.
There is no policy that motivates the disadvantaged groups to keep their feet on the ground and contribute to society.
Individuals who could not afford their own medical insurance before are now required by law to buy insurance. And while the working middle classes face a heavier burden, illegal immigrants and poor people get all sorts of assistance. Even released convicts get free mobile phones.
The Democrats’ longtime policy of taking from the rich to give to the poor has created a large group of lazy people and social parasites. Over Barack Obama’s eight years in office, political correctness has sent the Democrats down the wrong path.
There is no policy that motivates the disadvantaged groups to keep their feet on the ground and contribute to society; the burden of public expenses falls squarely on taxpayers, leading to the prevalence of far-left ideology, where the fate of poor people is attributed to US society not taking sufficient care of them.
"America’s Democrats are being blindly driven by a bunch of unrealistic idealists, and being quietly used by communists who are up to no good. You won’t feel it unless you live in the US."- Chinese American
A Chinese friend of mine in the US has this to say: “What is happening in the US today started as a uniquely American cultural phenomenon. But the Democrats’ strides towards the left today have elevated what was an issue of cultural differences and cultural clashes to a question of political correctness. This party that used to be a driver of progress and a force for improving America has now become an extremist-influenced, counteractive force that works against traditional American values and social order. America’s Democrats are being blindly driven by a bunch of unrealistic idealists, and being quietly used by communists who are up to no good. You won’t feel it unless you live in the US.
“Some things just cannot be made clear by theories alone. To really understand the social problems and political tussles in America today, first of all, you need to live in America, and understand it through feeling it. You need to feel the pain in order to understand.”
Are such views exaggerated? Maybe our friends who live in America can comment.
This article was first published in Chinese on CUP media as "大踏步向左轉".
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