Percy Bysshe Shelley’s 1918 sonnet, “Ozymandius,” as well as forcing introspection on our kingdoms and cultures, begs an essential question: How could this King of Kings be so blind to the tides of history? Certainly, the famed poem was a fictional work, and yet the mighty have risen and fallen and often taken their empires with them into the unforgiving sand of time. But what of the United States of America? Is she destined to crumble and be replaced by a new entity that offers scant regard for the roots of her past? And do those who craft her uncertain future even realize that although civilizations disappear in grand battles, they also suffer death by a thousand cuts.
Setting aside the hyperbole of those who declare “our democracy is doomed,” an element of truth in those words exists. The United States is a nation founded on an ideal of freedom, crafted into the most successful experiment of governance in history by the founding documents. But these documents, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights, are more than mere manuals for assembly; they are the scaffolding and the foundations. They are the insulation and the fixtures that make a concrete box a home. And woe betide any who try to remove them.
Biden’s Folly
President Joe Biden had a dream to be president. It is a goal that has occupied him for more than three decades, each year piling pressure and promise upon him. And now that he has the coveted position, his ambition to be remembered is burning bright. “Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair,” crowed Ozymandius the King of Kings.
In his quest for an unending legacy, the president has sought to Build Back Better by first removing the nation’s framework. Whether that be removing the long-standing procedures that protect the congressional minority, attempting to take power away from the states and bring the rule-making power for elections into the federal purview, or even applying workplace mandates that impact the individual even outside of their place of work.
Taken separately, these do not seem so grand, but in conjunction with each other, they amount to a complete restructuring of what makes America the United States.
What will remain of America when Biden’s time is passed? Will the nation be more robust for the adversity it faced, or will the very elements that hold together 50 unique experiments that make up a unique republic be forever torn asunder?
We’ll leave you with the beautiful words and severe warning of the poet himself and let you be the final arbiter:
I met a traveller from an antique land,
Who said—”Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. . . . Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed;
And on the pedestal, these words appear:
My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings;
Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.
~ Read more from Mark Angelides.
