A Nation Learns to Doubt

Regardless of whether or not Obama and the Republicans avoid bankruptcy on Aug. 2, their country will never be the same again.

Maybe it will actually happen. The unthinkable. Maybe the land of unlimited possibilities will turn that description into a literal reality this summer and leap into the as yet unimaginable. Maybe those in charge are willing to accept leading their country into financial collapse by refusing to raise the debt ceiling, thereby bringing about national bankruptcy, and all in the name of partisan political tactics.

Perhaps. Or perhaps, and as is most likely, they will pull back at the last moment and compromise. Somehow. But a bell can’t be un-rung; something will be different for the nation afterward, and it will stay that way forever. The possibility of bankruptcy is nothing new. What’s different this time is that Americans are having doubts about their future to an extent that is shaking the nation to its very foundations.

It’s almost as if there’s been a rude awakening from the “American Dream.” As if this “Yes, we can” and this “If my neighbor drives a huge red truck, then so can I, and mine will be a little bigger and a little redder than his” has suddenly come to an end and is no longer the way life really is.

Every day, the United States witnesses the incarnation of “anything is possible,” getting grayer, weaker and more hopeless, just like Obama himself. Even the success against his arch enemy Osama bin Laden helped him only briefly, returning that aura of victory with which Obama the brilliant campaigner was able to instill hope in so many hearts.

But what will hold this gigantic, multicultural nation together if not its identity as a major force for global good and the belief that anyone can make it to the top? What happens if the people, even those who work for Fox News, finally come to realize that America has always been a brutal, two-class nation? That increasing numbers of people have already lost before they’ve even been born and haven’t a chance in hell of changing that? And that the nation’s first black president hasn’t brought the country together, but that he governs a nation more polarized than ever, one that is imbued with a shocking streak of racism?

What happens when the people begin to get really angry about reports such as those in Tuesday’s New York Times telling them that no progress is being made on saving the nation from economic catastrophe, while in the same paper they’re told about rich people’s kids being jetted off to summer camp, wealthy Los Angeles commuters using helicopters to avoid freeway traffic jams and more and more New Yorkers having fitness centers built into their condominiums? What happens if the people finally get fed up with this?

America’s future isn’t over now, and neither will it end on Aug. 2 if it has to declare bankruptcy. But America will have to say goodbye to many things it has taken for granted in the past. This will be bad news for some Americans, there’s no question about it, but not such bad news for every American. And it certainly won’t be bad news for the rest of the world.