I was 8 when my dad took a job with Ampex Corporation, the video recording pioneer. He used to joke that company sales only did well every fourth year when the networks upgraded their equipment for the summer Olympics and U.S. presidential election.
Well, this is one of those Olympic and election years, and I'm wishing and hoping it's a good one. At the same time, nightmares of what could go wrong in 2024 for us Americans haunt my sleep. Like what? Well, here are the five that keep me up in the night's darkest hours.
— Former President Donald Trump winning back the White House. Could he really win despite 91 charges in four criminal trials, despite a New York court holding him liable for sexual abuse, despite the violent attempt to overturn the results of the 2020 election? The polls say yes. And Trump says he'd be a dictator on his first day in office and that election fraud would enable him to terminate "all rules, regulations, and articles, even those found in the Constitution." Forty percent of his Republican supporters believe "true American patriots may have to resort to violence in order to save our country." I doubt American democracy could survive four years of lawlessness and chaos brought about by Trump's election.
— Appeasement of Russia. The lesson of World War II is that appeasement does not deter aggression. When British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain struck a deal to give a hunk of Czechoslovakia to Nazi Germany in 1938, he declared it was "peace for our time." Less than a year later World War II began. Vladimir Putin's Russia invaded its neighbor Ukraine in 2014 and seized Crimea. A namby-pamby response from the United States and its NATO allies whetted the appetite of Russia's dictator, and he came back for seconds in 2022. If we abandon Ukraine now, Putin will help himself to a third course.
— War or peace in the Middle East. No country can tolerate a neighbor who sends terrorists across the border to murder, rape and massacre, and Israel is no different. The Israeli Defense Forces have rules to avoid killing civilians. Still, they can and should do better even if the Hamas terrorists hide among noncombatants in hospitals and schools. Iran is stirring the pot in Iraq, Lebanon and Yemen: The chance of a wider war looms. Israel has a right to live in peace, and so do the Palestinian Arabs of the Gaza Strip and the West Bank.
— The crisis in American universities. During the academic year, I live and eat with undergraduates. One thing I see for sure is that the diversity of the student body makes a college exciting and intellectually stimulating. Racism, antisemitism and prejudice have no place there. At the same time, free expression is fundamental to a university's mission. According to the (London) Times Education Supplement, seven of the top 10 universities in the world are American. The legacy of our world-leading institutions of higher learning would be imperiled if the right balance is not struck among the core principles of diversity, lack of prejudice, and free expression. Danger lurks, too, if the federal government becomes too involved in deciding who should be admitted to our universities and what opinions are acceptable in their classrooms, textbooks, archives and labs.
— Antisemitism in the United States. Last month's Harvard CAPS-Harris Poll found one-third of 18-24 year-olds view Jews as oppressors. The Anti-Defamation League reports that antisemitic incidents in the U.S. including attacks on Jewish owned-businesses and synagogues increased by 337% in the two months following the Oct. 7 terrorist attack on Israel. Jews constitute only 2% of the American population. When the whites of a person's eyes turn yellow, it can mean liver cancer is eating away their insides. The turn upwards in antisemitic incidents in America means something is rotten in this country's soul. Prejudice and racism will spread beyond Jews if the sickness is not treated.
My list doesn't include the hazards of a Chinese invasion of Taiwan, a deadly hurricane or flood caused by climate change, a recession, artificial intelligence run amuck or another pandemic. Why not? Because they only trouble me in the daytime.
Looking back over 2 1/2 centuries, we can spot a few years that were turning points in American history. Examples include 1776 when the American colonies declared their independence, 1861 when a war between the states over slavery broke out, 1941 when Pearl Harbor was attacked and 1968 when Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy were murdered. This year looks to me like just such a turning point.
President Franklin D. Roosevelt told Americans they had a rendezvous with destiny in 1938. So do we in 2024. For better or worse.
In Keith Raffel's checkered past, he has served as the senior counsel to the Senate Intelligence Committee, started an award-winning internet software company and written five novels, which you can check out at keithraffel.com. He currently spends the academic year as a resident scholar at Harvard. To find out more about Keith and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators website at creators.com.
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