American hope and hopelessness
Last week this column had words of praise for Connellsville’s Rose Brady and the women of the city’s World War II canteen. As a demonstration of patriotism and service to country, the Connellsville Canteen is hard to beat.
The war years – 1941 to 1945 – were unique, in that Americans pulled together to confront two enemies who just happened to threaten the future of freedom around the world and posed a specific danger to the United States.
In the effort to defeat fascist Germany and imperial Japan, World War II fostered a spirit of unity that’s rare in the history of our country. It was a time when it was possible to believe the country was doing the right thing for the right reason. Evidence discovered at the war’s end – Nazi death camps and the campaign to exterminate European Jewry – further confirmed that sense of righteous purpose.
World War II, the most destructive and deadly war of all time, paradoxically produced an “exuberance of the [American] spirit,” as one writer from that era put it.
Fighting on fronts spanning the globe while manufacturing the materials of war – guns, tanks, ships, and planes – on a scale never before seen cemented the idea that nothing was beyond our capacity as a nation to achieve.
We believed in our institutions – our churches and schools. We also believed in the government, in the military, and in ourselves.
It’s the exact opposite of today’s mindset. Today we’re at each others’ throats. And if we’re not shouting at one another, we’re establishing separate enclaves, where “the other” is not welcome. The Associated Press reported last week that Americans are on the move to politically safe havens. A Colorado real estate agent was quoted as saying that politics is now the top concern for people buying a home.
The story’s headline said it all, “The Great Divide grows larger.”
World War II was a period of unrivaled confidence. Today, the nation finds itself mired in the muck of little or no confidence. Instead of working together, as we did during “the big one,” we find it hard to even speak to one another.
How might we get out of the deep funk we’re in? It won’t be easy. Maybe the first thing to recognize is that we do not need perfect unity. World War II was unusual. For the vast majority of our history, Americans have been clawing at and disagreeing with one another.
For example, the first half of the 19th century was one long and frequently violent wrangle over western expansion and slavery, while the second half of that century saw Americans bitterly divided on matters relating to the money supply, political corruption, and popular government.
The first 50 years of the 20th century fostered divisions over the claims of labor and capital and the role of women in U.S. society. The second half witnessed clashes, both political and civil, over the rights of Black people and the conflict in Vietnam, among other matters.
In every period, there have been divisions over war and peace; our 19th century war against Mexico engendered considerable controversy, for instance; ditto, the post-World War I proposal that the U.S. enter the League of Nations.
The first 23 years of the current century have been hard on American comity – beginning with the disputed Florida voter recount in 2000 and continuing through the pandemic.
The national institutions that once loomed large have taken a beating, as reflected in a recent Gallup poll, which included the finding that fewer than 1 in 4 U.S. adults are “extremely proud” to be American.
It hasn’t helped that the recent progressive critique of U.S. society, as Charles Lane of the Washington Post has noted, includes questioning “the founding of the country itself.” More deleterious has been the rise and staying power of Donald Trump. Thanks largely to Trump, the 20th century Republican party of Eisenhower, Ford, and Reagan is now largely a reactionary conglomerate of authoritarian wannabes and conspiracy theory zealots.
What will it take? Restraint, reason, and reasonableness are starters. All are in short supply, however, which makes the road ahead look plenty bumpy.
That road includes the 2024 campaign for president. It can either be a curse or a course redirection. The candidates who insist on trashing the country, who say or do crazy and outrageous things, need to be summarily dismissed by voters. Will it happen? We shall see.
Richard Robbins lives in Uniontown. He can be reached at dick.l.robbins@gmail.com.