…because we were already pretty dang close to crossing the point of no return for global warming utterly destroying civilization, and with Republicans all but guaranteed to control the White House until 2020 and Democrats facing a massive uphill battle to retake just one house of Congress before then no matter how unpopular Trump and the Republicans become, the United States pulling out of the last best hope to salvage something of civilization might actually be a net positive.
Even without global warming, the increased distrust and discarding of norms once seen as essential to American democracy really makes it feel like we’re witnessing the end of, if not Western civilization, at least the United States as we know it. Throw global warming into the mix, and you get a contributing factor to my lightness of posts so far this year: it’s hard to see any point in trying to contribute to the direction of society when it feels like it’s in the midst of collapse. Short of inventing time travel, all we can do is talk about what should have been done and wrap things up before turning out the lights.
I’d like to think it isn’t that bad and that America and the world do in fact have a future worth contributing to, but it’s hard to see the path to that future, and the narrative being written right now sure seems to resemble societal collapse more than society overcoming adversity to emerge stronger than ever.