Some men just want to watch the US burn

The apparent self-destruction of the US is a bromide well-worn by many talking heads. The events that led me to write this of late weren’t without precedent, and there were other times in recent history when I saw what was happening in the US, and reacted with a mixture of horror and glee.

Why glee? The feeling is ethically indefensible: there are millions of people who are suffering because of this failure. Logically, it doesn’t make sense either. As someone whose upbringing was largely within the Western sphere of influence, someone whose culture I’ve conflated with the American one, and whose future is undoubtedly tied to the success of the American hegemony, why do I feel an inexplicable sense of elation at the collapse of the Union?

Despite the cultural Kool-Aid I’ve consumed from a young age, I am aware that America and its allies aren’t paragons of good. In my childhood room hang posters and newspaper clippings of Obama; I’ve crossed over and back that section of the political spectrum a few times since I hung them up. I imagine people in countries around the world justifiably find satisfaction in America’s demise: countries whose citizens have been dronestuck, whose democracies have been destabilized, and whose finances have been irreparably damaged. There are also those still living in America whose land has been taken, whose fathers and forefathers have been enslaved and killed, and whose basic rights are still being denied. But I am not one of those people.