No matter how hard we try to evade, ignore, or reframe recent events, I believe many of us (on both sides of the political divide) feel like we are running full speed down a narrow, rocky, mountain path, a sheer wall on one side and a chasm on the other. One tiny stumble may send us over the edge.
The concept of “a tipping point” dates to the 1600s when “the last straw” or “the last feather” broke the camel’s or the horse’s back. Popularized in a 2000 book, “a tipping point” now describes sudden changes in social beliefs or behavior. My chosen definition includes an irreversible change, like an overburdened horse or camel suffering a broken back. Farmers and caravan masters could do nothing to reverse the damage.
The world economy may seem headed toward disaster, but wild economic swings have regularly affected both ancient and modern societies. I also think the darkest days of the pandemic are over, like those of the 1300s bubonic plague and 1900s influenza (combined deaths equaling 100-250 million). Miraculously, people and their cultures have adapted and survived.
But three other problems seem nearly irreversible, including climate change. I’ll never forget learning about the feedback loop involving the loss of polar ice and warming ocean waters: as ocean waters warm, polar ice melts, reducing the cooling effects of reflective ice, which allows the sun to warm the waters even more, which leads to more ice melting, which leads to …
The horse may be out of the barn for American gun violence as well. With millions of assault weapons already in circulation, and without the politically impossible step of confiscating weapons, I see America continuing on its self-destructive path of more than one mass shooting per day. All of us, including those openly carrying guns, are fearful for our lives in public and private spaces.
And finally, I see American democracy as balanced on the chasm’s edge or already in free-fall. Democracy is a fragile experiment, susceptible to subversion and destruction by many of its own ideals: freedom of speech, a reliance on custom and tradition to allow reasoned debate, “a government of laws not men” (John Adams), a piecemeal system to ensure that every vote counts.
Republicans launched REDMAP in 2010 after the Supreme Court allowed unlimited, “dark” money (its origin doesn’t have to be disclosed) to flood every level of government. Republicans moved to control state voting districts through gerrymandering to ensure a Republican super-majority even if they lost the overall popular vote badly.
One example will occur in Ohio in 2022, where 75% voted that districts should reflect the political makeup of the state. But the impervious Republican majority on the redistricting commission ignored them, submitting five different district maps that were all found unconstitutional by the state’s Supreme Court. But a federal court, with two of three judges arch-conservatives appointed by Trump, decided the unconstitutional maps could be used because it was too near the election to make changes.
Ohio Republicans gloated, and a Democratic leader suggested that “we’re seeing the disintegration of the rule of law in Ohio. They intentionally created an illegal map, and are laughing about it.” The situation there, and in other states, reminds me of the feedback loop of disappearing ice caps: the more power extremists gain through state legislatures and partisan judges, the more power they will be able to gain through undemocratic laws and court rulings. They have added so many straws and feathers that Ohio’s democracy may have suffered a broken back.
For most of America’s history, people could respond to crises by saying “You don’t like the way things are going? Go to the polls and vote the bums out!” That method may be a thing of the past as democracy wobbles toward the 2022 elections.
I see our government as a high-wire act like that of Frenchman Charles Blondin over Niagara Falls in 1859, threatened with mortal danger by any misstep or miscalculation. Blondin made it across over 300 times, eventually flaunting his skill by dancing across, carrying a man on his back, even cooking an omelet on a stove in the middle. With American democracy facing unprecedented threats, I hope we can avoid our tipping point — unless it has already occurred and we’re now in swift descent, a cartoon Wile E. Coyote suddenly realizing he’s been tricked into a fall to the valley floor. In real life, there may not be a miraculous and comic recovery.
Allen Woods is a freelance writer, author of the Revolutionary-era historical fiction novel “The Sword and Scabbard,” and Greenfield resident. His column appears regularly on a Saturday. Comments are welcome here or at awoods2846@gmail.com.