William Astore, Mother JonesIt's September 2016, year 15 of America's "Long War" against terror. As weary troops return to the homeland, a bitter reality assails them: despite their sacrifices, America is losing.
Iraq is increasingly hostile to remaining occupation forces. Afghanistan is a riddle that remains unsolved: its army and police forces are untrustworthy, its government corrupt, and its tribal leaders unsympathetic to the vagaries of US intervention. Since the Obama surge of 2010, a trillion more dollars have been devoted to Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, and other countries in the vast shatter zone that is central Asia, without measurable returns; nothing, that is, except the prolongation of America's Great Recession, now entering its tenth year without a sustained recovery in sight.
Disillusioned veterans are unable to find decent jobs in a crumbling economy. Scarred by the physical and psychological violence of war, fed up with the happy talk of duplicitous politicians who only speak of shared sacrifices, they begin to organize. Their motto: take America back.
Meanwhile, a lame duck presidency, choking on foreign policy failures, finds itself attacked even for its putative successes. Health-care reform is now seen to have combined the inefficiency and inconsistency of government with the naked greed and exploitative talents of corporations. Medical rationing is a fact of life confronting anyone on the high side of 50.
Awfully perceptive of a Lefty to realize that this is where Obamacare ends up.
Presidential rhetoric that offered hope and change has lost all resonance.
Already happening.
Mainstream media outlets are discredited and disintegrating, resulting in new levels of information anarchy.
Already happening.
Protest, whether electronic or in the streets, has become more common--and the protestors in those streets increasingly carry guns, though as yet armed violence is minimal. A panicked administration responds with overlapping executive orders and legislation that is widely perceived as an attack on basic freedoms....
If you click through and read the rest of it, you'll find that the author's prescription for preventing the "coup" is taken straight from Pat Buchanan and Noam Chomsky: reduce the defense budget and withdraw from the world. He does have one item on his list, though, that will make the Mother Jones readership go ballistic:
7. Let's take Sarah Palin and her followers seriously....