I was born as the tide turned in World War II. I made my way through childhood as President Eisenhower brought together and stabilized all that Presidents Roosevelt and Truman, working with the Congresses and Supreme Courts of that period, had achieved. Yes, there were struggles and violence around the world. Challenges were met, if imperfectly. But the profound beauty of our form of government gave us a means of working through the worst challenges and building a potentially free and stable future. The President had his role. The House and the Senate had theirs. And an independent Supreme Court kept a “law-some” eye on all of it.
Even given the tragedy of JFK’s assassination and the War in Vietnam, the first half of the 1960s saw racial equality written into law (at last!) along with Medicare and Medicaid. Education was available and affordable. My parents’ generation came to feel secure that my generation could create a better future just as they had. My father was a factory worker who retired in 1968. Neither he nor my mother had inherited any financial wealth, but they owned their own home mortgage free. They felt secure that their very modest savings plus Social Security and Medicare would allow them to live their final years with sufficient comfort and minimal stress. I was able to pay my college tuition and some graduate school with little debt.
The 1970s saw a President resign, the Church Committee bring the CIA under control, a worldwide energy crisis erupt, the Vietnam War come to an end (finally), a triumphal treaty between Egypt and Israel written at Camp David, and President Sadat of Egypt fly to the Israel and speak before its Knesset. Hope was in the air… but not enough.
With the election of Ronald Reagan, some of the most important fundamentals began to change. A slow but purposeful movement of wealth began, from the working and middle classes to the wealthiest Americans… and it hasn’t stopped. The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) reported that between 1979 and 2007, adjusted for inflation, after-tax income in households of the top 1% of Americans grew by 275%, compared to 18% for the bottom 20%. For every $20 increase a non-unionized janitor made, Donald Trump made $300. The structure of income taxation was simple for the person working for wages and a lot more “loopholed” as one went up the income scale. Much of that wealth transfer happens through shady income tax returns prepared by accountants skilled in making questionable deductions that look good on the surface but would require skilled IRS agents to discover. It is unsurprising that reducing funding for the IRS is an important Trump priority.
My state college tuition cost $50. At the same school it is more than $5,000… an increase of some 10,000%.
The lack of security among the working and middle classes and a lack of confidence among young people that they can be happy and successful given their economic insecurity and lack of faith in the future has resulted in widespread dissatisfaction… and appears to have become an excuse for authoritarian responses that act as a salve for folks who actually need more than that to do away with their social/economic unhappiness.
Enter Donald Trump, a man of inherited wealth seeking to surround himself with gilded elegance and extravagance without bounds. Yet, as he moved shadily up in the world of real estate, there was always something a little “off” about him. He described his every action as the “greatest ever.” Whatever he built had never been seen before; it was unparalleled in history.
He avoided taxes as deftly as he avoided the draft and was sure he was the envy of everyone but couldn’t understand why he wasn’t deeply respected. Dancing with shapely women at Manhattan’s Studio 54, hanging out with Jeffry Epstein became no longer good — or bad — enough. Somehow, he was still not a desired guest at Manhattan’s most refined parties. He was a rich-guy braggart and loudmouth. Trump was featured on a nationally televised Saturday night interview show with Connie Chung. It was a disaster. She laughingly refused to take his bloviating seriously. He then created his own TV show where he could perform as the powerful, judgmental, dismissive, and unassailable master he saw himself to be. His celebrity had become national. He was on his way to political power where he could bring to heel ALL those who did not accept his inherent greatness.
Sophisticated Republicans thought they could handle Trump just as the traditional German elite — its military, its business class, and others — thought they could handle Hitler. In his novella The Order of the Day, the French writer Eric Vuillard describes this process in smooth, graceful, almost poetic terms.
“We will vanquish every danger and crush every threat to our freedom,” Trump recently announced to “his” generals and admirals. He would deal with “the enemy within” and ignore the “stupid rules of engagement” that previously limited soldiers and commanders in the field. His commanders who would be strong, fit, white and male. Some experienced military leaders — many of them people of color and women — would have to go.
Since January, Trump’s actions and policies have gone from bad to worse — sometimes faster, sometimes slower — but inexorable. One bad executive order was just prelude to the next.
What if, on Feb. 1, he had ordered troops into LA, DC, Portland, Chicago, and Memphis? Americans would have been astounded and the streets flooded with protest. But no… the groundwork has been slowly set so that the masked men of ICE and armed Marines in the streets are, well… unsurprising.
“It’s getting kinda warm in here” said the frog from his swimming pool.
Jim Walsh is a writer who lives in Nahant.
