Into the maelstrom

Photo: (By NASA Langley Research Center (NASA-LaRC), Edited by Fir0002 Publc Domain)

America is experiencing something out of the ordinary. As individuals, we should be ready for life to get a lot more uncertain. We must accept and try to understand this place we find ourselves. As citizens each of us has the power to make a difference. This is a time for learning, a time to engage, a time to enter the maelstrom with eyes wide open.

What does history reveal about political havoc? Societies fall into chaos with regularity. In China, the Cultural Revolution, a run-away ideology of political purity, swept through the country and tens of millions perished. Conventional wisdom suggests that America was founded by people who understood such dangers and created a system of checks and balances to forestall political disaster. More than two century of tradition have contributed to a rich institutional fabric constituting civil society. America, as is often said, has developed a political immune system that protects from the periodic and brutal tides of history.

This political immune system cannot function without trust and legitimacy. In the last few decades, a revolution in information technology has helped illumine a darker side of America, where elites work behind the scenes to privilidge themselves, to shape the laws to their advantage and as a consequence undermine much of society and democracy. These revelations have come in a time where life has become harder and more uncertain. Parts of America have experienced signficant economic decline and many blame on the establishment policies.

Trump was elected primarily because of an impulse and the desire on behalf of many disaffected Americans to clean house. His combative and confrontational are seen as refreshing resistance. His anger resonates with America's anger, towards an establishment personified by a swamp of unscrupulous and corrupt politicians and lobbyist.  In the passion for change, many of the elements of our institutional ecosystem have also come under fire. The free press, government, education, healthcare are all suspect undercutting America's resilency. Anger and frustration have led many to lose faith in the civil institutions that provide resilency and unity.

There is a periodicity to history, the tides wax and wane and the storms inevitably come. In nature everything vibrates at different frequencies. All phenomena are in various stages of oscillation. No matter how brainy and sophisticated we think ourselves, we too are a part of nature. One condition sets the stage for another. Wealth resonates with selfishness, freedom with entitlement, adversity with resistance, peace with complacency, democracy with tyrrany, power with corruption. Society reverberates.

FDR's social democratic policies and WWII set in motion a new era. The global torch was passed to America. The US came out of the war with half of the industrial capacity of the entire planet. A healthy middle class was born out of plenty of jobs and government homeowner initiatives.

Thirty years later, the world had recovered from the war. International competition along with the growing power of the OPEC oil cartel challenged the US economy. A center-right coalition blamed a growing welfare state for the stagnation, and the country shifted to Reaganism.

The next three decades saw many pro-market initiatives like free trade, deregulation and tax cuts, along with waves of technological innovation.  It all culminated in a financial meltdown. During this period the top tier of society benefited greatly, but the middle class stalled, poverty increased, the old and ancient wounds of race and gender making their presence felt all the more.

After almost ten years of  an uncertain recovery, America chose a new course. A highly complex society of three hundred and thirty million diverse people does not shift easily, particularly in a rapidly changing cultural, technological and economic landscape. Change of this level has teeth and claws that lash out indiscriminantly as one reaction creates another. Radicalism of one kind is opposed by radicalism of another. The country fractures. Divisions grow. Resistance takes hold and the hoped for reform stalls.