Author Chris Hedges on Trump, the Democrats and the dying American empire

The United States is sick with income and other forms of social inequality. It suffers from cruelty, loneliness, greed, gangster capitalism, white supremacy, violence, sexism and a culture of ignorance and distraction. Our broken political system does not encourage critical thinking or nurture a capacity for responsible, engaged citizenship.

President Donald Trump is the human embodiment of almost everything wrong with American society. He is both the symptom and the disease.

Trump and the Republican Party’s fascist movement and its news media and supporters are America’s problems given life as social and political chaos and destruction on a massive scale. Even reality and the truth have not been spared this assault.

In this conversation, philosopher, journalist and cultural critic Chris Hedges warns that impeaching Donald Trump will not save American democracy from these problems.

Hedges is the author of numerous award-winning and bestselling books including “Empire of Illusion: The End of Literacy and the Triumph of Spectacle,” “Death of a Liberal Class,” “War Is a Force That Gives Us Meaning,” “American Fascists: The Christian Right and the War on America” and “Days of Destruction, Days of Revolt.” His new book is “America: The Farewell Tour.”

Hedges has also written for the New York Times, the Christian Science Monitor and NPR. He is currently a contributing writer for the site Truthdig.

In this wide-ranging conversation Hedges also explains how Trumpism, right-wing evangelical Christianity and white supremacist groups are the types of death cults that dying empires inevitably produce. Hedges also discusses the impeachment of President Trump and the 2020 campaign, warning that he sees Sen. Elizabeth Warren as a Republican-lite who cannot be trusted to create substantive social and political reform in America because she is beholden to corporations and the rich.

Loudmouth Schnook

Article URL : https://www.salon.com/2019/12/09/author-chris-hedges-on-trump-the-democrats-and-the-dying-american-empire/