Let a Thousand Parties Bloom
SOMEWHERE IN THE MULTIVERSE, the United States took a slightly different turn on Nov. 8, 2016. Hillary Clinton narrowly won Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Michigan and became the 45th president of the United States. This version of Earth—let’s call it Earth 2—is a safer, less polluted planet than our own.
But U.S. democracy in this alternate reality is no less precarious. The Republican Congress on Earth 2 is fiercely relitigating every old Clinton scandal and boldly innovating new ones. In the 2018 Earth 2 midterms, Republicans gained seats in both chambers by running against Clinton and promising to finally “lock her up.” The right-wing media echo chamber froths at the prospect of impeaching both Clinton and Vice President Tim Kaine and making newly selected House Speaker Mark Meadows president.
Meanwhile, Donald Trump remains a media personality and the front-runner for the 2020 election, though Sens. Ted Cruz, Tom Cotton, and Josh Hawley are outdoing each other for recognition as the most belligerent fighter against the so-called globalist Democratic Party and its anti-Christian socialist agenda. Right-wing militias, meanwhile, have more than doubled in membership after the so-called stolen election of 2016 and are preparing for a civil war if Democrats steal the 2020 election, too.
The problems of U.S. politics are deeper than the results of a single presidential election. They reflect a binary party system that has divided the country into two irreconcilable teams: one that sees itself as representing the multicultural values of cosmopolitan cities and the other that sees itself as representing the Christian values of the traditionalist countryside. Both believe they are the true America. The many individuals and groups that don’t slot neatly into one of these two teams have no other place to go.
Climate change is proceeding faster than expected,
