It’s no longer a matter of living in interesting times. Democracy in the US has always been on a roller coaster. We got started on a big hill by men (women only in the background at that point) who were flawed giants. Their principal flaw was owning slaves, In their defense, we can say that slavery was common at that time, and it hadn’t yet occurred to many that slavery was (and is) an evil institution. The country has had a variety of ups and downs since its founding, we’ve had numerous wars, including the military actions required to complete the theft of land from the Native Americans and the Mexicans, and the Civil War between the “free” states and the “slave-owning states.”
The idea of democracy has been around a long time. How to do it right has had a long learning curve. It took a while, for example, for us to figure out that African Americans should be able to vote and even longer to decide that women should also be allowed to vote. So it is not as though our record of human rights is beyond reproach. At best we can say that our progress, as is true pretty much everywhere, has been slow and uneven. It has almost always been, “two steps forward, one step back.” Every now and then, however, humanity takes one step forward and two steps back. In the States, we seem to be in the “two steps back” phase. And, as Pogo once famously said, We have met the enemy, and he is us.
Currently, democracy in the States seems to be failing. As is almost always the case, the source of the failure is greed. This isn’t the first time in our history that we were in trouble because of greed. Robber barons have been with us for a long time, so we should not be surprised that they have been making their presence in the States known from time to time. They are attracted to politics because politicians control our collective “purse.” With the robber barons, economies tend to go from boom to bust. I grew up listening to my parents and their friends talk about the days of the Great Depression. In a discussion about postwar inflation, my father’s brother once said about the depression of the 1930s, “I don’t care if a loaf of bread costs $5.00, I never want to see those days come again.” My mother talked about needing to put pieces of cardboard in her shoes when the soles wore out.
How quickly we forget…. We had a fairly sustained boom following WWII. Our industrial base was strong. Our increasing population needed housing, and home construction boomed as well. Even if our economy had some ups and downs and social unrest (remember the marches for Civil Rights and against the war in South East Asia), we were, in general, on an upward path. More people were going to college, and the economy was strong. Eisenhower was able to get funding for a massive Interstate Highway program. With commuting times decreasing, subdivisions were springing up in the vicinity of major cities and industrial areas. Basically, life was good for more people than ever before. Eisenhower’s Vice President, Richard Nixon, became president, and our political life took a downward turn. Nixon’s presidency was essentially finished with his I am not a crook speech. By that time, however, everyone knew that he was, and soon thereafter, he was forced to resign from office.
Gerald Ford followed Nixon in the White House. Although no one complained about his lack of honesty, the economy did not do especially well. President Carter taught us the meaning of Stagflation, an economy in which the only thing growing is the rate of inflation. Then came Ronald Reagan, who served as the political model for Donald Trump. Between Reagan and Trump, we had a couple of Bushes, Clinton, and Obama. The economy was not especially good under either Bush, but it was very good under Clinton. Lax financial laws under George W. Bush, led to what is known as The Great Recession.
If you were old enough to be concerned about money at the time, you doubtless remember the rapid decline of the value of your investments. A short version of a complicated story is that “Wall Street” had been gambling with our money and lost a bunch. The government bailed the bankers out to restore confidence, and no one went to jail. The public was left holding the bag, while those who had profited from subprime loans laughed up their sleeves all the way to the bank.
The story doesn’t end there, of course. Under Obama, the economy did well. Unfortunately, too many rich people felt that they weren’t getting richer fast enough, so they hijacked the political system to put the robber barons back in charge. Under Trump, they have been working to solidify their political advantage. It’s really hard to say where we will go from here. Many are still enthralled with his politics, thinking that his policies will Make America Great Again by draining the swamp. Unfortunately, under Trump the swamp has become deeper and more infested with vermin. His economic policies in particular have been the subject of criticism.
The recent announcement by Harley Davidson that it would shift some of its manufacturing overseas was in direct response to Trump’s decision to add tariffs to trade with the U.S. That, of course, angered Trump who evidently expected Harley Davidson to suffer economically so that he could punish our overseas trading partners. That seems to be Trump’s equivalent of the mobster saying, A nice little business you have here. Be a pity if something happened to it.
It’s definitely time to take a deep breath and consider carefully what we can do to protect ourselves and our Nation from further political and economic decline. Other than vote for those we think will be more honest and do what we can to support them financially and otherwise, the way forward is not especially clear.
