For what is happening in this country, Washington DC remains in a suspended state of calm. The occasional protest erupts, disperses, and leaves behind the residue of sweat, tears, and pepper spray. The thought of America today conjures the images of Palestinian flag waving college students or chest thumping right-wing militants unfurling “Trump 2024” banners. There is the impression that chaos has consumed this country, but I do not see that. What I sense is chaos in the American soul. 

I stood on the white marble steps of the Supreme Court the day it announced its decision on whether Donald J. Trump, former president, would enjoy immunity from criminal prosecution for official acts during his time in office. News cameras were everywhere. A few impassioned protesters gathered too, waving signs. One read “coup plotters to prison!” and another, “Clarence Thomas (perhaps the most controversial of the nine Supreme Court justices) has no moral authority to decide laws for the rest of U.S.”. The Trump v. The United States ruling granting Trump immunity did not impress them. There was discontent inside too. In her dissenting opinion, Justice Sonia Sotomayor expressed that the decision now allowed a president to be a “king above the law”. Nothing noticeable changed. Cars passed by, the DC metro continued running, and the shelves at Trader Joe’s remained fully stocked.

Even when a sniper tried to assassinate Donald Trump in Butler, Pennsylvania, 400 km to the north, there were only hushed whispers in cafes across the city. 

“Did you see the video of Trump getting shot?”

“Yes, horrible what is happening to our country.” answered one voice. 

From a separate conversation on another table I heard, “If only he didn’t miss.” 

Washington DC is a sight to see. It is a sight, not a city to be truly lived in. The streets lined with offices and embassies are empty and dead when work has become a matter of the past. Under the city’s bridges, the homeless huddle in their tents, passing their days without knowing the end to their poverty. When the buses become unreliable, the metro remains an option. As one descends into the brutalist depths undergirding the District, peculiar smells of human refuse and marijuana. By the platform, a hooded man stands still, then moves suddenly, flailing his arms. He freezes. His body shakes, an entire spasm runs through him. “He’s probably on drugs,” a friend reassures me. There is not a look of disappointment, not even a sign of pity; only indifference. 

This is the heart of American democracy. Where decisions are made and where representatives and senators gather as defenders of their individual state interests with the ideal outcome of compromise to pursue what is best for this Union. What remains true of the greatness of American Democracy and Western Civilization I was taught is slowly fading. What has become of this country that was once an inspiration for the oppressed, the shining beacon for those parts of the world shrouded in the darkness of dictatorship? We have in recent years gone in circles chasing answers to such questions, with no satisfactory conclusions. The very act of seeking solutions to the ailing institutions of this country, and the global order, has become trite. There is a sense that the Great Peace my generation has enjoyed is coming to an end. 

In the 1939 American film “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington”, James Stewart plays a naive, newly appointed senator wrestling with the political machinery that controls all that was meant for the people. Smith wants to create recreational camps for young children to discover their patriotism and understand what America means. Late one night, while discussing with his secretary how the camps should be constructed, he points from the window to the Capitol’s shining white dome:

“That’s what’s got to be on it…the Capitol dome. I wanna make that come to life for every boy [it was a different time] in this land…you see, boys forget what their country means by reading ‘the land of the free’ in history books. Then they get to be men and they forget even more. Liberty is too precious a thing to be buried in books…men should hold it in front of them every single day of their lives and say, ‘I’m free to think and to speak. My ancestors couldn’t. I can, and my children will.’”

Tears rolled down my face when I watched this scene. For how I wish I could say the same. “I’m free to think and to speak. My ancestors couldn’t. I can, and my children will.” For not even my own father from Hong Kong nor my Singaporean mother can say this, how can I? When one chooses to come to this country, to see this Heart of Democracy, there is not disillusionment, not disappointment, but pain. It is this beating heart that the people who call this land home must keep alive. Yet so many autocrats and dictators, from the petty to the terrifying, would like to see this land crumble, to know that this Heart of Democracy no longer gives life to a nation still vibrant and built upon impeccable ideals that don’t enslave Man. 

“I want people outside of America looking at us to know that the issues at hand matter to us.” Noah told me. “People really do care about this country and we are trying to fight for a better future”. Noah, a young voter wrapping up his undergraduate studies in the city, voted early. His choice: the Kamala-Walz ticket. “Climate change is a big issue for me. Science has shown that humans are causing global warming and we are closing in on the amount of time we have. One party has made efforts to mitigate these issues, the other calls it a hoax.” 

“I’m voting for DJT!” James, a lab technician from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, exclaimed over the phone. “I don’t agree with him on everything, but I think he would be better for the country. Immigration, for example, has exacerbated other issues like housing and stretching law enforcement thin. There is only one candidate I know of who is tough on immigration.” When I told him that I was writing a story about DC he joked, “Are you writing about the National Mall or a Senator’s haircut? They pay $50 more and I bet you mine still looks better.”

The imperatives of Empire create the impetus for order, the type that becomes more innovative with each iteration. But decline is inevitable if the mind and soul of the nation, and thus the Empire, becomes corrupt and decadent. If you create a society based on perpetual profligate consumption, then you are left with a people who become fixated on the material world, a citizenry that abandons sacrifice for short-sightedness. Is this not reflected in the politics of America? The inability to agree on necessary legislation that forwards the national interest? How can the fate of entire countries be held hostage to political parties who cannot see beyond blue and red? 

The Republic visibly exists; the document which created this government for and by the people rests solemnly for curious visitors to this new Rome. Those who try to read those sacred words written in fading ink on aged parchment give up after squinting their eyes. I wonder, are those aspirations failing us or are we failing them? 

In a different age, the Founding Fathers and other revolutionaries realised that to build a new world, they had to tear the old one asunder. Violence was the sole means to move history forward. Surely, you think, the world and its norms have changed. But if you catch the watchful eyes of Capitol Police officers embittered by the January 6th attack patrolling the grounds you understand that passions will always find their time and place to erupt again, and not always for an honest cause. 

On July 24th, when Benjamin Netanyahu, Israeli prime minister, addressed Congress, an angry mob tore down the American flags in front of Union Station, burned them, and raised Palestinian flags in their place. A masked man climbed a monument to Christopher Columbus and on it spray-painted the words “Hamas is Coming”. The mob cheered. 

Some time later, I caught up with a friend who had recently returned from volunteering on a senate campaign in Arizona. She had been someone who, though aware of politics’ Machiavellian realities, was still optimistic that justice could be won. Now, the fire that had burned in her before she left Washington’s summer humidity for the dry Phoenix desert no longer burned with the same ferocity. 

“Whatever happens in November, it’s not gonna be good,” she said. “We are slowly walking to a storm that we know is brewing and we don’t even care anymore”. 

When the waitress brought us coffee, I took the chance to change the subject and asked about her winter travel plans. “I’ll be back in town early January a few days before work,” she said. I told her that it would give her some time to readjust to DC. “No, I need to make sure I get enough food at home in case something happens on Jan 6.” 

I laughed.

“I’m not kidding. Have you forgotten that I live just a few blocks away from the Capitol?” As we crossed Pennsylvania Avenue from Eastern Market, I could see that white dome in all its glory, as if it was rising towards the heavens. And when walking down that grand avenue, looking ahead, one could feel that they too could ascend with that sacred altar to a place where man is glorified before his Creator. But that thought is quickly shattered when one remembers what happened there that January day. 

This is the core call of isolationists who claim that the affairs of the outside world should not be the affairs of the United States. But the world has called and still calls out to America in times of need. As Winston Churchill remarked on June 4th, 1940, as the Nazi war machine marched across Europe that Britain would fight to the end “until, in God’s good time, the New World, with all its power and might, steps forth to the rescue and the liberation of the old”. The New World Churchill was referring to was, indeed, America. For if the old world’s democracies collapse under totalitarianism’s darkness, the only light that would remain shall be America’s. Yet, in his farewell address President George Washington asked: “Why forgo the advantages of so peculiar a situation [isolationism]? Why quit our own to stand upon foreign ground? Why, by interweaving our destiny with that of any part of Europe, entangle our peace and prosperity in the toils of European ambition, rivalship, interest, humor or caprice? It is our true policy to steer clear of permanent alliances with any portion of the foreign world…” Yet, today it is an unavoidable fact that the affairs of this land have become so intertwined with the fates of nations afar. 

“I like to refer to the Republicans and the Democrats as tweedle-dee and tweedle-dum,” remarked Professor John Mearsheimer of the University of Chicago at a Los Angeles conference early in September, “there’s hardly any difference”. A prominent international relations scholar, Mearsheimer became a controversial voice in Western policy circles when he attributed responsibility of the war in Ukraine to NATO expansion. For Mearsheimer, the two prominent parties are beholden to the “deep state” or the “administrative state”, the amalgam of unelected bureaucrats who are the real drivers of American foreign policy. But the truth is that Washington’s interests have become entrenched, whether in the fields of Ukraine, the rubble of Gaza, or the shoals of the South China Sea.

Condoleezza Rice, who served as national security advisor and then secretary of state in the George W. Bush administration, concluded in an essay for Foreign Affairs that “the future will be determined by the alliance of democratic, free-market states or it will be determined by the revisionist powers, harking back to a day of territorial conquest abroad and authoritarian practices at home”. She warned, “there is simply no other option”. Mearsheimer would most certainly reject her conclusion. For him, the neo-conservatives were the ones responsible for bringing America into the Middle East and pursuing regime change, only to leave behind ruined nations. But neither is Rice entirely wrong. What other choice do we have? A question not just Americans, but everyone around the world, will ask themselves come November 5th. 

“Whatever happens after November 5th, we need to build bridges,” Noah reflected. “We on the left need to remind ourselves what it means to be progressive. We have lost the ability to consider multiple viewpoints…I do want Medicare for all, but that doesn’t mean someone who doesn’t believe in that is a bad person.”

My simple pleasure on Friday evenings is to head over to the now-gentrified DC Waterfront’s Westminster Presbyterian Church. I’m there not for God, but for jazz. For a $10 fee, you get the best three hours of music this town probably has to offer. “Jazz—this country made jazz,” vocalist Sharon Clark proclaimed in a tone so full of soul. “Something gooood’s gonna happen in this country come November.” That night, as with most Friday nights, most of us there were perhaps more enthralled by jazz than God. But didn’t both jazz and God make this country? “Ohhhh how BEA-U-TI-FUL is this country!” And a chorus of “Mmmhmmms and yeaaahs” emerged from the crowd. Clark had a voice as tender as Ella Fitzgerald’s. I wondered how many of us were there to simply enjoy the music, and how many were using it as an escape from a world gone mad. Before I could think of an answer, the band played on.

Nigel Li is a Singaporean based in Washington DC. He specializes in nuclear arms control and Russian foreign policy. He was Jom’s “Correspondent in Moscow”.

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