Will we survive?

Is it deja vu all over again and again? On the one hand America is experiencing episodes of campus unrest reminiscent of the 1960's. On the other is the xenophobic, nativist unrest that resembles so many outbreaks of anti-immigrant backlash throughout our history, but specifically the Jewish refugees fleeing Nazi tyranny in the 1930's that were unwelcome in the land of the free. Most recently this is due to Syrian refugees seeking a safe haven in the U.S. after terrorists attacked concert-goers and people on the streets of Paris. But there has been fear and loathing every time foreigners are brought up in so-called conservative circles, and blind hatred of immigrants is at the center of Donald Trump's presidential campaign. Student activism is another issue that stirs up hatred in right wing authoritarian followers, and that hatred has been full display in light of demonstrations at the University of Missouri, Yale, and now Dartmouth. These two issues are entwined in the great race between anarchy and civilization that human history has been running since the beginning. This moment seems to be the first time in world history though that the forces of anarchy have been so close to vanquishing civilization and destroying the world.

These are not the only two driving issues, but they have become especially poignant in the last week or so. Racial issues have long been at the center of political and social conflict in the United States. Electing and re-electing Barack Obama was supposed to be a new start to how race is treated here. Instead Americans have regressed into a state of greater intolerance and polarization along racial lines. The white, "conservative" backlash started even before Obama was elected and allowed the republican party to easily shed its awful image as the party of dubya. Fox and right-wing radio went into overdrive on race-baiting and the evils of socialism as though all of their deepest fears about those specters were not only real but had already occurred. And the authoritarian, low-information voters ate it up, no further evidence necessary.