ASIA
12 April 2025
America’s Forever War with Itself
The great American nation has always been at war with itself, compromising social and political stability at home, and undermining its ability to lead the free world, writes John West
For the civilised world, the behaviour of President Donald Trump and his team is shocking – especially during his second term. But according to Nick Bryant, former well-known BBC correspondent in the US and Australia, there's nothing unprecedented about Donald Trump and the ugly turn in American politics.
Bryant’s book, The Forever War: America’s Unending Conflict with Itself, explores the history behind Trump and JD Vance, although it was published in June 2024, some five months before the recent presidential elections. According to Bryant, violent insurrections, gun massacres and assassinations run right through American history. The country has never been able to heal its most elemental divisions. So America keeps fighting the same fights decade after decade.
Is another civil war possible? Bryant hopes not. But he cannot see there ever being “civil peace”, and that's the real worry.
Bryant takes readers through a range of issues to illustrate his narrative of the forever war. As a child, he was captivated by the figure of President John Kennedy, and even wrote his PhD thesis on Kennedy. Bryant thought that Kennedy was a great champion of the struggle for black equality. But as he studied Kennedy’s civil rights record, he was amazed to learn that Kennedy regarded civil rights not as a great moral issue, but really a political irritation.
Bryant had initially thought that Kennedy’s assassination represented America’s loss of innocence. But Kennedy’s rise to power was far from innocent. It seems that Kennedy may have come to power thanks to illegal interventions by Richard Daley, mayor of Chicago, and the “mob”. And in reality three other US presidents were assassinated – Abraham Lincoln, James A. Garfield, and William McKinley – and there have been numerous other attempted assassinations, notably of Ronald Reagan and Donald Trump.
When you look back at American history, political violence is a continual thread, writes Bryant. In particular, Dallas was known as the city of hate, as the home to so many right-wing fanatics. President Kennedy was warned about going to Dallas, the site of his assassination, by Adela Stevenson, his Ambassador to the United Nations, who had been roughed up on an earlier visit. The John Birch Society – an American right-wing political advocacy group – had put out a poster for Kennedy, Wanted Dead or Alive, on the day of his visit. They saw him as part of a communist conspiracy that went back to Roosevelt.
And while much of America recoiled in horror at Kennedy’s assassination, there were huge sections of America who were cheering his death. There were even reports of classrooms of students studying American history who literally applauded the tragedy. And following President Kennedy’s assassination, we saw the killings of Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King.
In light of these assassinations, President Johnson commissioned an academic study which concluded that racism was the source of a lot of America’s political violence. The study also concluded that America has a habit of historical amnesia, to wipe clean its historical memory, partly because it does not accord with the positive myths of American exceptionalism.
Bryant sees the January 6 2021 attack on the United States Capitol as the culmination of the political violence that is characteristic of American political life. Violence is seen as a legitimate tool of insurrection in American history with insurrectionists regarding themselves as patriots acting in the spirit of the American Revolution. Indeed, in the runup to the American Civil War, the halls of Congress became a battlefield. Preston Brooks, a congressman from the South attacked abolitionist and Republican Senator Charles Sumner, beating him nearly to death. In the South, Brooks became a hero with people naming their kids after him.
Today, the most deep support for political violence actually comes from white nationalist Christians. They see themselves as victims of an American future that is becoming more secular and multiethnic (meaning less white). They see Democratic governments in Washington as a new form of tyranny – overbearing governments that are interfering with their personal liberties.
America is widely revered as the modern world’s first democracy. And yet the beloved Founding Fathers feared an excess of democracy. They were fearful about the idea of mass participation and a mass democracy. So they ensnared the body politic in the intricately designed straight jacket of the Electoral College which means that the winner of the popular vote in presidential elections does not necessarily win the presidency, as Hillary Clinton and Al Gore experienced. And all states – from California with its 38 million people to Wyoming with less than 600,000 – get two senators, giving conservative rural areas disproportionate power.
Astonishingly, the US Constitution does not contain a positive affirmation of the right to vote. It is defined in negative terms – the vote should not be denied. Thus, the passage of the Voting Rights Act in 1965 was a major achievement in that women were granted universal suffrage and blacks in the South were no longer subject to literacy tests and poll taxes which restricted their voting.
Nevertheless, in recent years we've seen the Voting Rights Act be chipped away, as voting is deliberately made more difficult, mainly due to efforts by the Republican Party and the Supreme Court. Voting takes place on a working day (not the weekend like Australia), imposing inordinate costs on blacks and poor people, who may have to line up for hours in the snow. Opportunities for early voting have been cut back. Polling stations can be hidden. Voter ID laws require a driver's license, something which not all poor people have.
The legitimation of violence in the US is manifest in the modern interpretation of the Second Amendment to the United States Constitution, according to which “A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed”. According to legal scholars, the original intent of the Second Amendment was to enable well regulated militia to use arms against a tyrannical government, but not to endorse the right of individuals to bear arms.
But due to a brilliantly successful campaign by the National Rifle Association of America, the Supreme Court decided in 2008 that the Second Amendment was the basis for individual gun rights. This may make the gun lobby happy, but this has become the enabler of America's extraordinary mass shootings and other gun violence. This is the reality of American democracy – a government of the lobbyist, by the lobbyist, for the lobbyist, and against the will of the people, the majority of whom want America’s gun violence to be stopped.
After every mass shooting there is outrage from liberals. Ironically a spike in gun sales follows, as the gun lobby reacts in fear of restrictions on gun ownership being implemented. President Clinton bravely took on the NRA and in 1994 he passed an assault weapons ban that came into effect for 10 years. Then in the 1994 midterm elections the Democrats were absolutely decimated. The assault weapons ban was not renewed in 2004. Even President Obama, a president who was perhaps the most deeply affected by gun violence was unable to do anything. It is widely felt that the pious hope of confronting gun violence is a lost cause. Indeed, in some states it is legal to shoot people dead if you believe you're about to be attacked. America is awash with guns, there being many more guns in the country than people.
Today, America finds itself having elected, and now being governed by a convicted felon. Trump was found guilty on 34 charges of falsification of business records in relation to paying hush money to the porn star Stormy Daniels. But of course his supporters believe unconditionally in his innocence, and his claim that the 2020 presidential election was stolen.
Curiously, America’s Founding Fathers are held to be virtually Biblical prophets, whose thoughts and philosophy must never be contested. In reality, the America of the time of independence comprised only the first 13 British colonies, namely New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia, which had only a tenuous sense of American nationhood.
These Founding Fathers had no perception of what America was to become.and this was also one of the most secular phases of American history. They didn't really believe that the almighty was giving them a sort of special blessing. They did not imagine that the country would go to war with itself (the Civil War), and that slavery and racism would still be endemic in America after that War. And they certainly did not imagine that America would go on to become a great power and global hegemon. It is highly implausible that white men, 250 years ago, could design a system of governance that is fit for the 21st century.
After years of studying and reporting on America, Bryant has retreated with his family to live in Australia. He is admirative of America’s achievements, especially in science and technology. But he is very pessimistic about a country where children do drills to improve their chances of surviving a school shooting. Reporting on school massacres and other gun violence became too depressing for him. In sum, he believes that rather than a democracy, today’s America looks more like a plutocracy, gerontocracy and a “anocracy” (the latter meaning part democracy and part dictatorship).
.
The traditional pillars of the Republican Party would be distraught to see the “Grand Old Party” (GOP) today. It is a party that became so consumed with hatred towards President Obama, America’s first black president, that it became the anti-Obama party and let itself be hijacked by a most emphatically anti-Obama person in the form of Donald Trump – the man behind the “birther movement”, which claims that Obama was not born in America. And the American government which led the defeat of Nazism in Europe is governed by a political party which condones neo-Nazi militia groups at home.
While there are many facets to America’s forever war with itself, Bryant argues that “race is the faultline” in the country.
Trying to understand America today is one of life’s great challenges. But a good place to start is reading American political history like that written with brio by Nick Bryant.
Bryant’s book, The Forever War: America’s Unending Conflict with Itself, explores the history behind Trump and JD Vance, although it was published in June 2024, some five months before the recent presidential elections. According to Bryant, violent insurrections, gun massacres and assassinations run right through American history. The country has never been able to heal its most elemental divisions. So America keeps fighting the same fights decade after decade.
Is another civil war possible? Bryant hopes not. But he cannot see there ever being “civil peace”, and that's the real worry.
Bryant takes readers through a range of issues to illustrate his narrative of the forever war. As a child, he was captivated by the figure of President John Kennedy, and even wrote his PhD thesis on Kennedy. Bryant thought that Kennedy was a great champion of the struggle for black equality. But as he studied Kennedy’s civil rights record, he was amazed to learn that Kennedy regarded civil rights not as a great moral issue, but really a political irritation.
Bryant had initially thought that Kennedy’s assassination represented America’s loss of innocence. But Kennedy’s rise to power was far from innocent. It seems that Kennedy may have come to power thanks to illegal interventions by Richard Daley, mayor of Chicago, and the “mob”. And in reality three other US presidents were assassinated – Abraham Lincoln, James A. Garfield, and William McKinley – and there have been numerous other attempted assassinations, notably of Ronald Reagan and Donald Trump.
When you look back at American history, political violence is a continual thread, writes Bryant. In particular, Dallas was known as the city of hate, as the home to so many right-wing fanatics. President Kennedy was warned about going to Dallas, the site of his assassination, by Adela Stevenson, his Ambassador to the United Nations, who had been roughed up on an earlier visit. The John Birch Society – an American right-wing political advocacy group – had put out a poster for Kennedy, Wanted Dead or Alive, on the day of his visit. They saw him as part of a communist conspiracy that went back to Roosevelt.
And while much of America recoiled in horror at Kennedy’s assassination, there were huge sections of America who were cheering his death. There were even reports of classrooms of students studying American history who literally applauded the tragedy. And following President Kennedy’s assassination, we saw the killings of Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King.
In light of these assassinations, President Johnson commissioned an academic study which concluded that racism was the source of a lot of America’s political violence. The study also concluded that America has a habit of historical amnesia, to wipe clean its historical memory, partly because it does not accord with the positive myths of American exceptionalism.
Bryant sees the January 6 2021 attack on the United States Capitol as the culmination of the political violence that is characteristic of American political life. Violence is seen as a legitimate tool of insurrection in American history with insurrectionists regarding themselves as patriots acting in the spirit of the American Revolution. Indeed, in the runup to the American Civil War, the halls of Congress became a battlefield. Preston Brooks, a congressman from the South attacked abolitionist and Republican Senator Charles Sumner, beating him nearly to death. In the South, Brooks became a hero with people naming their kids after him.
Today, the most deep support for political violence actually comes from white nationalist Christians. They see themselves as victims of an American future that is becoming more secular and multiethnic (meaning less white). They see Democratic governments in Washington as a new form of tyranny – overbearing governments that are interfering with their personal liberties.
America is widely revered as the modern world’s first democracy. And yet the beloved Founding Fathers feared an excess of democracy. They were fearful about the idea of mass participation and a mass democracy. So they ensnared the body politic in the intricately designed straight jacket of the Electoral College which means that the winner of the popular vote in presidential elections does not necessarily win the presidency, as Hillary Clinton and Al Gore experienced. And all states – from California with its 38 million people to Wyoming with less than 600,000 – get two senators, giving conservative rural areas disproportionate power.
Astonishingly, the US Constitution does not contain a positive affirmation of the right to vote. It is defined in negative terms – the vote should not be denied. Thus, the passage of the Voting Rights Act in 1965 was a major achievement in that women were granted universal suffrage and blacks in the South were no longer subject to literacy tests and poll taxes which restricted their voting.
Nevertheless, in recent years we've seen the Voting Rights Act be chipped away, as voting is deliberately made more difficult, mainly due to efforts by the Republican Party and the Supreme Court. Voting takes place on a working day (not the weekend like Australia), imposing inordinate costs on blacks and poor people, who may have to line up for hours in the snow. Opportunities for early voting have been cut back. Polling stations can be hidden. Voter ID laws require a driver's license, something which not all poor people have.
The legitimation of violence in the US is manifest in the modern interpretation of the Second Amendment to the United States Constitution, according to which “A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed”. According to legal scholars, the original intent of the Second Amendment was to enable well regulated militia to use arms against a tyrannical government, but not to endorse the right of individuals to bear arms.
But due to a brilliantly successful campaign by the National Rifle Association of America, the Supreme Court decided in 2008 that the Second Amendment was the basis for individual gun rights. This may make the gun lobby happy, but this has become the enabler of America's extraordinary mass shootings and other gun violence. This is the reality of American democracy – a government of the lobbyist, by the lobbyist, for the lobbyist, and against the will of the people, the majority of whom want America’s gun violence to be stopped.
After every mass shooting there is outrage from liberals. Ironically a spike in gun sales follows, as the gun lobby reacts in fear of restrictions on gun ownership being implemented. President Clinton bravely took on the NRA and in 1994 he passed an assault weapons ban that came into effect for 10 years. Then in the 1994 midterm elections the Democrats were absolutely decimated. The assault weapons ban was not renewed in 2004. Even President Obama, a president who was perhaps the most deeply affected by gun violence was unable to do anything. It is widely felt that the pious hope of confronting gun violence is a lost cause. Indeed, in some states it is legal to shoot people dead if you believe you're about to be attacked. America is awash with guns, there being many more guns in the country than people.
Today, America finds itself having elected, and now being governed by a convicted felon. Trump was found guilty on 34 charges of falsification of business records in relation to paying hush money to the porn star Stormy Daniels. But of course his supporters believe unconditionally in his innocence, and his claim that the 2020 presidential election was stolen.
Curiously, America’s Founding Fathers are held to be virtually Biblical prophets, whose thoughts and philosophy must never be contested. In reality, the America of the time of independence comprised only the first 13 British colonies, namely New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia, which had only a tenuous sense of American nationhood.
These Founding Fathers had no perception of what America was to become.and this was also one of the most secular phases of American history. They didn't really believe that the almighty was giving them a sort of special blessing. They did not imagine that the country would go to war with itself (the Civil War), and that slavery and racism would still be endemic in America after that War. And they certainly did not imagine that America would go on to become a great power and global hegemon. It is highly implausible that white men, 250 years ago, could design a system of governance that is fit for the 21st century.
After years of studying and reporting on America, Bryant has retreated with his family to live in Australia. He is admirative of America’s achievements, especially in science and technology. But he is very pessimistic about a country where children do drills to improve their chances of surviving a school shooting. Reporting on school massacres and other gun violence became too depressing for him. In sum, he believes that rather than a democracy, today’s America looks more like a plutocracy, gerontocracy and a “anocracy” (the latter meaning part democracy and part dictatorship).
.
The traditional pillars of the Republican Party would be distraught to see the “Grand Old Party” (GOP) today. It is a party that became so consumed with hatred towards President Obama, America’s first black president, that it became the anti-Obama party and let itself be hijacked by a most emphatically anti-Obama person in the form of Donald Trump – the man behind the “birther movement”, which claims that Obama was not born in America. And the American government which led the defeat of Nazism in Europe is governed by a political party which condones neo-Nazi militia groups at home.
While there are many facets to America’s forever war with itself, Bryant argues that “race is the faultline” in the country.
Trying to understand America today is one of life’s great challenges. But a good place to start is reading American political history like that written with brio by Nick Bryant.