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b'Published in Rolling Stone, Anthropologist Wade Davis on how COVID-19 signals the end of the American era. Excerpt: In a dark season of pestilence, COVID has reduced to tatters the illusion of American exceptionalism. At the height of the crisis, with more than 2,000 dying each day, Americans found themselves members of a failed state, ruled by a dysfunctional and incompetent government largely responsible for death rates that added a tragic coda to America\\u2019s claim to supremacy in the world. Evidence of such terminal decadence is the choice that so many Americans made in 2016 to prioritize their personal indignations, placing their own resentments above any concerns for the fate of the country and the world, as they rushed to elect a man whose only credential for the job was his willingness to give voice to their hatreds, validate their anger, and target their enemies, real or imagined. One shudders to think of what it will mean to the world if Americans in November, knowing all that they do, elect to keep such a man in political power.\\xa0\\nBut even should Trump be resoundingly defeated, it\\u2019s not at all clear that such a profoundly polarized nation will be able to find a way forward. For better or for worse, America has had its time. For the first time, the international community felt compelled to send disaster relief to Washington. For more than two centuries, reported the\\xa0Irish Times, \\u201cThe United States has stirred a very wide range of feelings in the rest of the world: love and hatred, fear and hope, envy and contempt, awe and anger. But there is one emotion that has never been directed towards the U.S. until now: pity.\\u201d As American doctors and nurses eagerly awaited emergency airlifts of basic supplies from China, the hinge of history opened to the Asian century. COVID-19 didn\\u2019t lay America low; it simply revealed what had long been forsaken. As the crisis unfolded, with another American dying every minute of every day, a country that once turned out fighter planes by the hour could not manage to produce the paper masks or cotton swabs essential for tracking the disease.\\xa0\\nThe nation that defeated smallpox and polio, and led the world for generations in medical innovation and discovery, was reduced to a laughing stock as a buffoon of a president advocated the use of household disinfectants as a treatment for a disease that intellectually he could not begin to understand. As a number of countries moved expeditiously to contain the virus, the United States stumbled along in denial, as if willfully blind. With less than four percent of the global population, the U.S. soon accounted for more than a fifth of COVID deaths. The percentage of American victims of the disease who died was six times the global average. Achieving the world\\u2019s highest rate of morbidity and mortality provoked not shame, but only further lies, scapegoating and boasts of miracle cures as dubious as the claims of a carnival barker, a grifter on the make. As a British writer quipped, \\u201cthere have always been stupid people in the world, and plenty of nasty people too. But rarely has stupidity been so nasty, or nastiness so stupid\\u201d.\\xa0\\nThe American president lives to cultivate resentments, demonize his opponents, validate hatred. His main tool of governance is the lie; as of July 9th, 2020, the documented tally of his distortions and false statements numbered 20,055. If America\\u2019s first president, George Washington, famously could not tell a lie, the current one can\\u2019t recognize the truth. Inverting the words and sentiments of Abraham Lincoln, this dark troll of a man celebrates malice for all, and charity for none.\\xa0\\nLinks:\\n\\xa0https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/political-commentary/covid-19-end-of-american-era-wade-davis-1038206/\\n\\n--- \\n\\nSend in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/comethisfar/message\\nSupport this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/comethisfar/support'