AMERICA IS MEETING THE END IT HAS ORCHESTRATED FOR ITSELF
By Vincent Lyn
In the late 1400s, Christopher Columbus, an inexperienced and misguided sailor, embarked on a journey to find a new route to India. However, his navigational errors led him to land on an unfamiliar continent. Under the influence of various substances and ailments, Columbus mistakenly believed he had reached India.
Despite encountering a rich and diverse indigenous society upon arrival, Columbus and his European backers claimed the land as their own “discovery.” To legitimize their claim, the Europeans dismissed the humanity of the native people. Their differing skin color, religious beliefs, and languages were used as justifications to exclude them from the European definitions of civilization and humanity.
Labeling the indigenous people as “savages” and “others,” the European powers could justify the seizure of their lands under the guise of spreading “Christian” values. This dehumanization allowed the colonizers to commit atrocities against the native populations, treating them as obstacles to be removed.
Building on this tradition, the British colonized the regions north of Columbus’s landing, inflicting violence and displacement upon the native peoples. To develop their new territories, they forcibly transported millions of Africans into slavery. Again, the Europeans rationalized this brutal practice by deeming Africans as subhuman.
Slave owners subjected their enslaved people to extreme cruelty, both to maximize labor output and to assert dominance. This brutality was carried out by even the lowest echelons of British society, who took pleasure in asserting their superiority over the enslaved through horrific acts of violence.
On July 4th, 1776, the 13 American colonies declared their independence from Great Britain with the adoption of the Declaration of Independence, proclaiming:
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”
However, many of the Declaration’s authors and countless other advocates of American freedom continued to exploit and abuse enslaved individuals for nearly a century thereafter. Even after the abolition of slavery, it took another hundred years for Black Americans to gain essential legal rights. Until the 1960s, systemic discrimination barred Black Americans from equal access to jobs, education, and housing.
Although legally prohibited, crimes against Black Americans by their white counterparts often went unpunished. A law enforcement system rooted in antebellum slave patrols continued to disproportionately target Black communities. This practice endures today, feeding a steady stream of Black individuals into the prison system, where, according to the 13th Amendment, slavery remains permissible as a form of punishment.
Women fared little better. While not constitutionally deemed subhuman (the Constitution infamously counted slaves as 3/5 of a person), women were explicitly excluded from the founding document’s promise of equality (“all men are created equal”). For the first 200 years of the nation’s history, women were treated as little more than reproductive and sexual subordinates. Like Indigenous people and Black Americans, they had limited recourse against sexual violence, often masked as courtship or marital rights. The role of rape in reinforcing American social hierarchies is both revealing and consistent.
Women did not secure the right to vote until 1920. While women’s colleges appeared in the mid-19th century, career opportunities for female graduates remained scarce until well into the 20th century. Women in the United States were expected to serve men, bear children, raise families, and manage household duties. Oberlin College, the first formerly male institution to become coeducational, excused female students from classes on Mondays so they could wash their male counterparts’ clothes, despite being the most progressive higher education institution of its time.
Nearly 248 years after the Founding Fathers declared independence from the absolute power of the British monarchy, the United States Supreme Court has effectively undermined the American experiment in representative democracy. In the ruling of Trump v. United States, granting presidents absolute legal immunity for any crime committed during an undefined “official action,” the Court has essentially transformed the United States into a monarchy of its own.
In a landmark case where the twice-impeached, 34-times indicted former president stood against the United States, the Supreme Court ruled in favor of Trump. This decision not only protects Trump from prosecution for most, if not all, of the crimes he may have committed or attempted in his efforts to overturn a democratic election, but it also effectively eliminates checks and balances on the executive branch.
The American president, whom the Court seems determined to reinstall in office by November, now operates beyond the reach of the law. He can accept bribes, interfere with elections, and even imprison or eliminate political rivals with impunity.
By overturning Chevron U.S.A., Inc. v. Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc. days earlier, the Court has also significantly increased its own power. This decision removes the authority to interpret industry-specific regulations from federal agencies and places it in the hands of the courts. Given the Supreme Court’s recent pattern of reversing long-standing legal protections for minorities and women, the ultimate goal is evident.
Should Trump win (or be awarded) the upcoming presidential election, the fate of Black people, women, immigrants, LGBTQ+ communities, and others outside the narrow bounds of those who see themselves as America’s ruling class will depend entirely on the whims of Trump and his Supreme Court.
The most controversial president in American history, supported by some of the most blatantly corrupt and partisan justices ever to sit on the Court, will aim to “Make America Great Again” by transforming it into the autocracy the founders opposed in the Declaration of Independence.
Much of the damage inflicted by the John Roberts/Trump Court could be reversed by electing a president and congressional majorities committed to the principles of American democracy. However, American voters seem to favor white male patriarchy over liberty and justice for all.
According to a recent Marist poll, Trump leads the flawed but steadfast President Joe Biden by 12% among white voters. American whites prefer dominance in a white nationalist order over democracy. A New York Times poll indicates Trump leads Biden by double digits among male voters, revealing a preference for patriarchy over democracy. This trend aligns with the choices Americans have historically made when faced with decisions between progress and retrenchment.
In 1961, Jackson, Mississippi, had five public swimming pools. Four of these pools were designated for the city’s white residents, while the sizable Black population was confined to a single pool.
After a federal ruling declared segregated recreational facilities unconstitutional, local civil rights activists demanded equal access to all public pools. Knowing that the law supported the activists, the mayor and city council quickly closed all of the city’s pools.
The city’s white upper class was largely unaffected, as they typically swam at private pools and country clubs, which were not subject to the ruling. The closure of the public pools primarily impacted the poor and working-class residents, both white and Black. Despite this, there was no outcry from the disenfranchised white populace. Many even supported the decision.
The message was clear: the poor whites of Jackson would rather forgo swimming altogether than share a pool with Black people. The perceived superiority outweighed the tangible benefits of equality. This pattern is seen throughout American history, culminating in the election of Trump.
Trump’s inadequacy is not a flaw but a feature. His blatant incompetence serves as a defiant symbol to women and minorities who have advanced too far for some people’s comfort. Reasserting white patriarchy through a figure embodying white grievance, Trump assumes power over people of color and women, persecuting them and their allies.
The deep-seated issues of a nation built on dehumanization are now causing it to unravel from within. Perhaps if the country’s underlying pathology had been proactively and rigorously addressed, it might have been managed or even cured.
Instead, we chose to live in denial.
We created jingoistic fantasies and called them American history. We buried the evidence of our greatest wrongs in reservations and prison cells. We wrapped ourselves in flags and slogan-adorned caps. We nurtured a worldview where wealth and military power equate to virtue, allowing us to proudly and delusionally proclaim the United States as “the greatest country in the world.”
America didn’t just give rise to Donald Trump, nor was it hijacked by him. America is Donald Trump. We are bloated and bankrupt, both financially and morally; narcissistic and deeply insecure. So lost in our self-made myths, we are blind to the internal decay, and the thin veneer we’ve hastily applied is no longer enough to hide the external disintegration.
Delusion can’t last forever. Eventually, the bubble will burst. The last brown migrants will be deported or confined to border camps. The last Black individuals will be imprisoned or relegated to ghettos. The last queer people will be pushed back into the shadows of locked closets. And the disillusioned white masses will find themselves with no one left to look down upon.
They will be forced to look around.
They’ll see rented trailers and crowded apartments filled with unwanted children they can no longer afford to raise on post-union wages, with public assistance a distant memory. They’ll see those children, with no opportunities, swallowed by a voracious military-industrial complex and lost to wars fought for resources hoarded by a small group of insatiable imperialists. They will witness the elite class — the Trumps, the Musks, the Bezos— growing ever richer while they, the expendable fuel for this machine, wither away physically, mentally, and spiritually.
Then they’ll look back. They’ll realize that we could have been better. We could have been great, had we been humble enough to admit we weren’t there yet.
They’ll see that we chose avoidance and the instant gratification of fantasy over the hard work of healing.
They’ll see the rotting corpse of a hollow promise, decayed and dying the death it deserved.
Vincent Lyn
CEO & Founder of We Can Save Children
Deputy Ambassador of International Human Rights Commission (IHRC)
Director of Creative Development at African Views Organization
Economic & Social Council at United Nations (ECOSOC)
Rescue & Recovery Specialist at International Confederation of Police & Security Experts