To say that the United States faces an existential crisis (crises?) not experienced since the American Civil War (1861-65) is not hyperbole. American history is being erased and rewritten on a daily schedule, by those who care more about tearing down its purported affront rather than understand its recognized importance. I use the word schedule because this occurrence, undoubtedly, is timed with the longstanding agenda by certain, well-funded extremist groups to ultimately dismantle, if not fully overthrow, the ideals and values for which the country stands. Correspondingly, there are those who willfully continue to deny that this is even happening. When confronted by the evidence, it is categorized and dismissed as conspiracy, hoax, or propaganda; anyone disseminating it is labeled insensitive, privileged, and/or racist. As much as one may wish to be surprised by this circumstance, the dire warnings have been present, yet ignored, for decades.
In 1820, the U.S. was embroiled in the admission of new states, Maine (1820) and Missouri (1821), that centered on the balance of power between free and slave states. This debate resulted in the Missouri Compromise, which, for the time, allayed what eventually would boil over decades later into the aforementioned civil war. Also that year, President James Monroe, in a practically uncontested presidential election, was re-elected to a second term. In 1920, the U.S. Department of Justice, at the direction of Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer, continued rounding up anarchists, communists, and other radicals (known colloquially as the “First Red Scare”), mainly in reaction to the Russian Revolution that fueled fears of domestic infiltration and unrest. Additionally, race riots engulfed multiple cities throughout the country, as tensions heightened due to numerous socioeconomic factors in the post-WWI era. Prohibition also went into effect and Warren G. Harding was elected president in the U.S., while world powers continued efforts to conclude WWI by adopting the Treaty of Versailles and battling the Spanish flu pandemic. Although not a comprehensive list of events in those years, history may not repeat but, as Mark Twain suggests, it sure does seem to rhyme.
For this 2020 election year, Ronald Reagan vs. Walter Mondale in the 1984 presidential election undeniably might be even more relevant to current events. Mondale, a former senator who had served as vice-president under President Jimmy Carter only four years earlier, and his running mate Geraldine Ferraro, a U.S representative from New York, were heralded and forecast by media and politicos to sweep out the incumbents Reagan and his vice-president, George H.W. Bush. Instead, the opposite happened, with the Mondale/Ferraro ticket winning only the former's home state, Minnesota, and astronomically losing both the electoral and popular vote; four years later, Bush would be voted into the presidency, thus cementing the legacy of “Reaganism.” If that scenario sounds remotely familiar, Trump/Pence vs. Biden/Harris quite possibly could see history repeat.
Humanity has been on the brink of chaos and descent before, looking over this similar precipice many times. There is a reckoning that must hold to account the circumstance, but there also must be change; what has happened before can, and ultimately will, happen again without either one. We may indeed look back on 2020, quite literally in hindsight, as a watershed year not only for the world, but especially for the United States. Let us hope, and assuredly plead, that it will not be for misguided and ill-fated reasons.
©2020 Steve Sagarra