Is our nation broken?
The cable news shows say it, the pulpits preach it, and social media is filled with it. Whether talking about racial issues, our political system, income disparity, endless wars, moral decay, or even the seeming decline in good manners … our nation seems broken.
But is it?
Well, yes, it is … but no more than it ever was.
America has always been broken — because we are flawed people attempting to live together. That’s just life. Nothing has changed. We might pine for the days of Richie and the Fonz, or Fred and Ginger, but those are myths we created for escapism. It was never that good.
Americans tend to have short memories, quickly embracing gloom & doom without first taking a moment to reflect. We are drawn to politicians who scare us. We sit through sermons that begin with, “America is broken…” We see foreign policy failures and grumble about how American was once unbeatable (which it never has been).
We lose perspective, and we lose hope. We want to live in a binary world because it’s so much easier. We want to choose between cops and young black men, when we need to love both. We want to decide between terrorist event or hate crime, when we need to call out both. We want to either call America the greatest nation on earth or the source of deeply unjust racism, when we should acknowledge both.
Look, I’m not saying we don’t have problems. We certainly do. The recent shootings — by police, terrorists, bigots, racists, or the unstable — are too many and too varied to list. We are gutting our middle class. We are in need of comprehensive reform in multiple levels of government, corporations, education, and health care. I could go on but you can fill in the blanks with your own personal pet peeve. We have issues.
But I’ll say it again: we always have. Forty years ago we suffered what President Jimmy Carter called “a crisis of confidence.” Want to know why? Look at just a few of the things that happened in 1975, the year before he was elected and look for the parallels to today:
– Nelson Rockefeller was appointed to investigate alleged domestic abuses by the CIA.
– The Weather Underground bombs the US State Department.
– A shady protest group kidnaps a leading West German politician.
– A bomb explodes in a Paris media company.
– Portugal endures another military coup attempt.
– King Faisal of Saudi Arabia is killed.
– A militant group kills 27 Palestinians in Lebanon, triggering a civil war.
– The Red Army Faction takes over the West Germany embassy in Stockholm.
– America evacuates from South Vietnam; North Vietnam declares victory as they take over Saigon.
– A US merchant ship is seized in Cambodia by the Khmer Rouge. In the rescue operation, 38 Americans are killed.
– Indira Gandhi declares a state of emergency in India, suspending civil rights.
– Over 200,000 people die when the Banqiao Dam bursts in China.
– The President of Seagrams, a Fortune 100 company, is kidnapped.
– The Founder-President of Bangladesh is killed in a coup attempt.
– A follower of Charles Manson attempts to assassinate President Gerald Ford.
– The London Hilton is bombed.
– Another assassination attempt on Gerald Ford.
– Another bomb blast in London.
– Angola erupts in civil war.
– New York City, suffering it’s worst economic crisis in history, is approved for Federal bailout money.
– Six delegates at an OPEC conference are kidnapped.
– A bomb explosion at La Guardia Airport kills 11 people.
I could take almost any year of America’s history and come up with the same kind of list. People die needlessly. Violent protests erupt. America’s strength around the world is constantly challenged. The economy ebbs and flows. People worry about moral decay with anecdotal evidence.
Of course America is broken — it always has been.
So if you’re a politician, a preacher, a news anchor, a blogger, an active social media poster, or anybody who has a public platform, please shut up about America being broken. You aren’t doing any good by saying it, and you are feeding the frenzy of fear our nation has become addicted to. Don’t say America is broken; say it always has been and you want to be part of the solution.
For more reading you might want to check out this post about “the good old days” and this one about the myth of America’s decline.