What Lies Beneath? Is There an American Soul?

We are going to find out. Soon.

We have arrived at the part of the dystopian thriller where our neighbors to the North are advising their citizens stay out of America for fear of serious human rights violations, and because America “is a threat to our very right to exist as an independent democratic nation.”

Unfortunately, Canada is right. The US government is a lawless, abusive, authoritarian regime—and it will only get worse. I wouldn’t recommend coming here to anyone at the moment.

In his speech today, Member of Parliament Charlie Angus was referring to, along with many others like it, this story—one of the most stomach-churning things I have read in a long time. In this case, a Canadian woman was illegally and unconstitutionally held by ICE for two weeks under degrading, despicable conditions—after visiting an immigration office to update her work visa.

“No one in this unit has a criminal record.”

If this story had happened in Canada to an American, Donald Trump would take it as an excuse to start an invasion. This is a textbook human rights violation, and just the very tip of the iceberg of what immigrants across the country are facing. Hundreds of alleged terrorist members of “Tren de Aragua” were sent, against a court order, to a concentration camp in a foreign authoritarian country, with no due process, many of whom, like Canadian Jasmine Mooney, have no criminal record.

Alleged gang members in El Salvador; Bukele; https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/17/world/americas/el-salvador-nayib-bukele-deportees.html

The violation of due process is a core demand of all authoritarian regimes. No real justice system survives a fascist takeover. Any remaining courts serve as window dressing for the crimes of the government. It is also standard practice for fascists to cite the need for “emergency powers” as a way to override the rule of law.

For example, imagine the United States sending a second destroyer to patrol Mexico, or using the military to set up a “buffer zone” across the southern border. It’s all a show, a pretext for war, as are the tariffs that we’re attacking our neighbors with.

At home, the regime’s priorities are signing an illegal Executive Order dismantling the Department of Education and making Social Security checks harder to get—while allowing an unelected Nazi billionaire pick and choose what checks the Treasury cuts in order to please his radicalized social media followers.

Every bit of this is fascist theater—a performative celebration of democratic suicide. Attacking our allies and allying with our enemies serves the same purpose; the more unpopular and disgraceful the action is, even with its own base, the more the regime will do it.

Effectively, America is getting thrown into a vat of acid alive, and it’s going to hurt. Sorry. The question we are going to get the answer to is: What lies beneath the exterior?

Once the regime does its worst to rip away everything it can find, collapses every institution and crosses every line, what is left of the country? It’s there a skeleton of steel, a sort of American Terminator under our fleshy exterior? Or will it all dissolve into mush?

Maybe another way to put it: Does America have a soul? Is there really such a thing as an American spirit? Or are the stories we’ve been told about ourselves just a silly myth?

I’m not asking because I have an answer. I really don’t. While I have hope that the 250 years of history we’ve been through is not an accident or coming to an end with this regime, hope is not a plan. Hope is not evidence of progress. Hope is mostly a crutch for doing nothing.

Do we have a soul, America? What lies beneath?

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