Existential crises are a recurring theme for Americans
As the country goes through a challenge to its to its practical, moral and philosophical foundations, it might seem that we have never been this close to a complete and irrevocable collapse. But we have, although it’s been a while.
Loud challenges to our social order still echo from the 1960s, and the taut energy of paranoia in a post-WWII 1950s remains deeply embedded in our national psyche.
There have been many political sea changes in the past 50 years, but it seems this tumultuous time during the middle of the last century is most recent seismic change the United States has experienced, and, for most Americans, that era is history, not experience.
The “Red Scare” of the ‘50s when a nation sought stability and relief after a brutal global war, instead resulted in thousands of firings, black-listings, rampant homophobia, fear of minorities and ruined careers as the new international tensions and provocations of the Cold War wound tighter.
The pressure-cooker atmosphere of the ‘50s ushered in the turbulence of the ‘60s, with that decade’s explosion of the Civil Rights Movement, expanded social safety net programs, divisive wars in Southeast Asia, a cold war that threatened to turn hot and assassinations of civil rights leaders, activists, a president and a presidential candidate.
The fault lines that face us as a nation today have their antecedents in the post-war climate that crystalized half a century ago.
USAID was formed in 1961 and ever since Republicans have been trying to fold it into the State Department. Medicare and Medicaid have been flashpoints since their inception in the mid ‘60s. Expanded civil rights battles were literally fought in blood and continue orbit the American consciousness in a violent ellipse. And claiming America back from its “enemies within” continues its endless windmill tilt.
The current crisis caught many off guard, although it probably should not have. I once thought the first Black president would not serve in my lifetime. I could never imagine—as a child of the ‘80s—that homosexual relationships would be normalized and to some degree blend into the American social landscape. As a healthcare writer, I was delighted to see a plan initiated that expanded healthcare coverage—complete coverage—to millions of Americans as a giant step toward universal healthcare.
In this environment I assumed, wrongly, that anyone who was educated and thoughtful could not vote for Donald Trump. It was an elitist viewpoint, I admit it, though it didn’t feel that way at the time. I truly thought a plurality of Americans would hold their noses and vote for Hillary Clinton, a flawed and charisma-less candidate, but really the only choice when her opponent’s ridiculousness was considered.
But here we are. The elitist Democratic Party (that still sounds weird) has lost working class and centrist voters (although recent developments might be changing that calculus). We find ourselves in a sort of inverted dynamic when compared to the ‘50s and ‘60s, with a liberal, elitist order giving way to a populist, nationalist inwardly focused movement composed of angry and resentful people who are tired of being ignored or talked down to.
It might seem like this order has a durability previously unforeseen as Elon Musk rampages through the federal bureaucracy on the heels of Trump reemerging for a non-consecutive term with the popular vote and near total control of the levers of government. But rapid changes of enormous magnitude are more the norm than the exception. So stay tuned.
After all, this country is not really that far removed from the ultimate constitutional crisis. One that quite literally ripped the country apart. The Civil War.