Have there always been problems with the system that
prefigured the crisis it is currently in?
Have the seeds of America’s current crisis of identity (who is an
American?), politics (are Americans committed to democracy in a robust or strictly formalistic sense?),
democratic legitimacy (is the state even legitimate anymore?), and imperial/executive power (I’m the
decider and you’re either with us or against us(me?)?), been sown deep in US history?
Do the formal
procedures and cultural ethos of democracy give Americans a chance to live up to their nation’s
ideological faith in itself?
Are other, less tangible and affective factors at play?
How do we reconcile
American pluralism with America’s contradictory imperial legacy? Can we? Or are the “chickens coming
home to roost,” to quote Malcolm X, in the form of interminable democratic decline?
