Letters | Donald Trump’s conviction will deepen America’s split. Will it lead to civil war?
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America has a belief system that is best summarised as the idea that every human being has an inalienable right to “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness”. It is its faith in this belief system that made America a beacon of hope in the dark days of World War II, and allowed it to emerge from the ashes of the war as the most powerful nation in the world.
Arguably, it was when the only challenger to America’s pre-eminence, the Soviet Union, collapsed in the early 1990s, that America’s decline began. For as long as the Soviet Union was hot on the tail of America, America’s belief in the premise that every person has an inalienable right to “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” was unshakeable. Its people, government, institutions, culture and towering personalities did all that they could to make this belief a part of their life, and as a result, America flourished.
Paradoxically, however, without the spectre of the Soviet Union hovering over it, America’s people, government and institutions seemingly no longer saw the need to keep their faith in the beliefs and values that made them great.
It is debatable whether Donald Trump is the solution that America needs today, but what is certain is that Trump is the leader of the faction in America that believes that America has lost its way.
