My generation believed in the United States.  We believed in its respect for the individual, in its Constitution, in its status as the only benign superpower in history.  In other words, we believed in American exceptionalism.  "Traditional American values are worthy of a passionate defense," said author and TV commentator Monica Crowley.  Referring to these values as "the American project," Charles Murray, author of Coming Apart, defined it as the continuing effort "to demonstrate that human beings can be left free as individuals and families to live their lives as they see fit, coming together voluntarily to solve their joint problems."  If you boil it down, what makes our society unique in world history is the respect accorded the rights of the individual citizen.  The Constitution was written as a restraint on the power of the government to interfere in our lives.

All that seems to be changing.  As we move into 2021, to borrow from Shakespeare, something is rotten.  It is difficult to pinpoint the origin or the exact nature of America's disintegration.  It developed a head of steam when a man who hates this country, Barack Obama, was elected president.  For eight years, we watched his concentrated assault on our values. Obama and his fellow Democrats have introduced some new concepts into our vernacular: democratic socialism, identity politics, social justice, diversity, inclusion, political correctness, Critical Race Theory, cancel culture.  They were intended for the express purpose of destroying everything that is laudable about America.

If you wanted to destroy the USA, how would you do it?  "America will never be destroyed from the outside," said Abraham Lincoln.  "If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves."  Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev said the same thing in 1961.  "We do not have to destroy America with missiles," he said.  "America will destroy itself from within."  Were they correct?

In February 2019, astute Canadian psychologist Jordan Peterson made this observation: "[t]he political debate between the right and the left seems to be moving forward in a manner that indicates the fundamental robustness of the institutions of democracy in the U.S."  Peterson's observation is no longer accurate — our democratic institutions are anything but robust.  The political debate is flirting with civil war as progressives in Congress and on social media gang up to censor conservative viewpoints.  Citizens have no confidence in their elected representatives, the legal system, the media, or each other.  Public officials encourage disrespect for the laws they are sworn to defend.  Our cities are being torn apart with rioting, looting, and arson as mayors and governors encourage the breakdown of civil order.

There is no doubt that our government does not run the way it was intended.  Congress seems incapable of doing the country's business.  What has it accomplished in the last four years aside from the ridiculous impeachment of the president and sending our tax money to countries that call us names?  Using the coronavirus as an excuse, government is trying to insinuate itself into every facet of our lives.  As we allow the government to tell us when we can leave our homes, when we can go to work, and under what circumstances we can run our businesses, we relinquish more and more of our independence.

The worst shortcoming of our government is its failure to maintain election integrity.  According to the US News & World Report, U.S. elections from July 2012 through December 2018 rated "lower than any other long-established democracies and affluent societies."  The source is a 2019 report published by the Electoral Integrity Project, an independent project based out of Harvard University.  This revelation should make all Americans clamor for improvement.

The 2020 presidential election has brought us even lower on the ladder.  We have more than a thousand sworn affidavits attesting to massive voter fraud: suspension of signature verification, violation of state election rules, non-verification of mail-in ballots, backdating of ballots, double-voting, dead people voting, hiding ballots under the table, refusal to allow poll-watching, and vote-switching by machine systems.  "People are going on the record under oath and risking being canceled, doxed, and even accosted, to tell what they have seen about this election process," said Rep. Michael Cloud.  "The apparent lack of action from the Justice Department regarding a number of anomalies, statistical improbabilities, and sworn accusations of fraud is troubling."  It may be troubling, but it is consistent with partisan activities of the DOJ, the FBI, and the IRS.  FBI Director James Comey's refusal to indict Hillary Clinton, Obama's weaponization of the IRS against conservative groups, and inaction from the Durham investigation have destroyed the public's confidence in our justice system.

In spite of the media's efforts to hide the truth, the public knows what is going on.  Actor James Woods tweeted, "70,000,000 Americans are outraged about this befouled election."  "We don't accept this fraudulent result."  Whenever the president tries to expose the fraud, the media poison the airwaves with the same mendacious phrase: "Trump's baseless allegations."  It makes my skin crawl every time I see this lie repeated by CNN, the New York Times, and the Washington Post.  The media are no longer free to express conservative viewpoints and have abdicated their role as the republic's watchdog.

What kind of nation are we bequeathing to our children?  Unless we wake up soon, it won't be pretty.  Perhaps Aldous Huxley, author of Brave New World, was correct when he predicted "a dictatorship without tears ... a kind of painless concentration camp so that people will have their liberties taken away from them, but will rather enjoy it, because they will be distracted from any desire to rebel by propaganda or brainwashing."

Ed Brodow is a political commentator, negotiation expert, and author of eight books including Tyranny of the Minority: How the Left is Destroying America and In Lies We Trust: How Politicians and the Media Are Deceiving the American Public.  He is a regular contributor to Newsmax, the Daily Caller, American Thinker, Townhall, BizPac Review, and other online news magazines.

Image via Max Pixel.