It is the best of times; it is the worst of times, to paraphrase
Mr. Dickens. Technologically speaking,
it is wondrous. As a kid our Philco
radio (which was actually a piece of furniture) brought me into the world of the
Lone Ranger and Hopalong Cassidy, graduating to a big Dumont TV (well the cabinet
was big but the screen minuscule), where I could finally see my cowboy heroes
(that’s me in my Hopalong outfit). We
had a party line telephone and had to wait for our neighbor to get off their
call to make a call. No dialup. You
spoke to an operator to make a call, and telephone numbers began with a word,
in our case “Virginia.” When dialup
arrived and party lines disappeared, the first two letters of the word preceded
the number. I still remember ours:
VI-6-3134. Unthinkable, making or taking
a call from a tiny device on your wrist, or from one hanging on your belt, or in
the comfort of your car This was the
stuff of science fiction, although it was commonly thought that by the 21st
century everyone would be driving flying cars.
This time of innocence was belied by the increasing
tensions of the cold war with regular air raid drills in school, hiding under
our desks as the shades were drawn to thwart the effects of a Russian nuclear
attack. We thought of it as protection,
but it was part of the propaganda, that the threat of a sudden attack was real
and we shouldn’t worry, the government would somehow look after us (e.g. the drawn
shades). The McCarthy hearings and
communist witch hunting were just part of the scheme to whip up fear to justify
the investment in a giant nuclear arsenal.
Back then, though, there was the rise of a real middle
class, the American dream realized which started with the GI Bill after WW II. Hard work really did pay off then, and company
loyalty and affordable housing abounded, although other social issues lagged,
in particular; racial equality, long held prejudices were still ingrained in
our institutions.
Fast forward to the present with the wonders of
technology which have changed our lives, and have given promise to a future of
driverless cars, robotic assistants, and the colonization of planets (we’ll
have to eventually get off this one).
Mankind seems hell bent on destroying those future
benefits. Imagine, the reality of global
warming still being questioned, politicizing the very existence of our species
(quick get me to Mars where I can feast on potatoes, but please don’t run out
of ketchup : - ). Even if we agree to
solve this primary issue, we still have a dysfunctional government which cannot
agree on matters of gun control, a decaying infrastructure (see anecdotal photos below), reeducation of the
depressed middle class to replace their disappearing factory jobs with those in
the technology, health, or service sectors, and how to properly deal with
terrorism and immigration policies, income inequalities, and that is but to
name a few.
The ingredients seem ripe in the forthcoming Presidential
election for the tipping point into downright dystopianism, the stuff of
fiction until now, 1984, Brave New World,
Fahrenheit 451, Clockwork Orange, and
The Road. I think of the latter two
in particular in relation to what is already happening in Michigan, the Flint
water fiasco, and the condition of the Detroit public schools.
Read David Brooks' insightful piece in a recent New York Times editorial in particular his comments on Donald Trump and Ted Cruz: Worse is the
prospect that one of them might somehow win. Very few presidents are so
terrible that they genuinely endanger their own nation, but Trump and Cruz
would go there and beyond. Trump is a solipsistic branding genius whose
“policies” have no contact with Planet Earth and who would be incapable of
organizing a coalition, domestic or foreign. Cruz would be as universally
off-putting as he has been in all his workplaces. He’s always been good at
tearing things down but incompetent when it comes to putting things together.
Imagine if Bernie Sanders does beat Hillary Clinton and Trump
or Cruz wins their party’s nomination. I
don’t think this nation is ready to elect a Jewish politician who has socialist
leanings. And of course Clinton has her
own issues so she isn’t a shoo-in. Maybe
the Democrats at the last minute can draft Al Gore who won the election in 2000
if it was not for the Supreme Court? : - )
(Parenthetically what would our world look like now if Gore was allowed
to win? Would 9/11 still have happened? Would we have gone into Iraq? Would there have been better controls over
bank risk taking which might have at least mitigated some of the 2007 collapse? More progress on reversing global warming?). Or, as Michael Bloomberg recently hinted, perhaps
he’d run as an Independent if Sanders gets the Democratic nomination and either
Trump or Cruz runs as the Republican nominee.
But that would further split the progressive vote, making the Republican
candidate a more likely winner even with a minority of the popular vote. (As a
fiscal conservative and a social liberal, I’d support Bloomberg.)
So, if we find ourselves a year from now waking up to a
President Trump or Cruz, would we, as Brooks contends, be in a position of having
a new President genuinely endangering our own nation? A self-aggrandizing, poll spouting, reality
TV star (to watch Trump squirm as Sarah Palin rambled on invectives and
gibberish would be as funny as Tina Fey portrayed, if it were not so tragic –
that’s what our political system has come to: reality TV star endorsing a
reality TV star), or a borderline fascist, a real tough guy (his persona
reminds me of Senator Joe McCarthy in many ways) who as Supreme Court Clerk, made the death penalty his cause and who would carpet bomb the sand of the Middle East until it glows in the
dark.
Either Cruz or Trump might have us strapping on guns as
our “Constitutional right.” And if
everyone was so armed, shouldn’t it be a safer America, where we can shoot the
“bad guys” and “stand our ground?” Hopalong Cassidy America!
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