This July 4, Look to Your Fellow Americans
It's going to take more than our leaders to figure out what direction the United States needs to go.
When the United States celebrated the 200th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, I was just four years old, going on five. I don't remember much about the celebrations, other than the city of Longmont having a more elaborate fireworks show than usual.
But I can look back at the year 1976 and learn more about what life was like in the United States at the time. Inflation was by far the biggest concern, thanks mainly to bad monetary policy, but with other factors coming into play. Chief among them was rising oil prices, in which the country wasn't far removed from the OPEC oil embargo.
Meanwhile, a couple years earlier, the United States had pulled its final troops out of Vietnam, a war that can't be described as anything but a failure for the United States. The war was mainly fought because of concerns of Communist expansion and ever-increasing tensions with the Soviet Union during the Cold War.
The country wasn't far removed from the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s, but its later years were marred by violence, which arguably more harm than good for the movement. It didn't help that some of the remedies suggested didn't help matters, namely the busing effort in many public schools.
There was a swine flu pandemic that led to a vaccine rollout, only for said vaccine to be associated with increased reports of Guillain-Barre syndrome and, thus, the vaccine program was suspended.
Then there was the start of the drug war, in which everything from marijuana to heroin hit the radar and there was a continued push to curb all such usage (though not always successful).
Finally, the nation was only a couple years removed from the end of the Watergate saga, which led to multiple people serving time in jail and the first resignation of a President before his term expired.
In other words, at the time this nation celebrated its bicentennial, there was a lot going on that may have made people wonder if they can trust anybody who's running the show.
With that said, I remember enough about the bicentennial to know that people found plenty of cause for optimism. Usually, though, you weren't going to find that optimism by looking to those in Washington D.C.
Instead, you found it in your fellow Americans, the average citizen who just wants to make a decent living and strives to be good to other people, even if it doesn't always happen that way. Most of all, the average American still believed in the principles on which the country was founded, even if the average American realized that those principles weren't always practiced.
Fast forward to today. We are two years away from marking the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence. And it's kind of eerie to notice some of the similarities to 1976 as we are two years away from that 250th anniversary.
Inflation? You better believe it's a major concern, even if the elites keep repeating that the economy is just fine. Bad monetary policy is still a thing, though again, there's more to it than that. Energy prices in general are likely playing a role, along with supply chain disruptions from which it's not certain we have recovered.
Failed wars? Afghanistan is right there, one of a number of wars the United States fought in the name of stopping terrorism. Yet Afghanistan was much like the United States meddling in Iraq, Syria and Libya, in that the United States has done more harm than good.
Oh, and while the Soviet Union is no more, Russia is still there and tensions are rising between Russia and the United States. And that takes us to another war, Ukraine, in which it may have been Russia that invaded, but after what were initial successes for Ukraine, that country is now losing and the United States continues to funnel money despite no evidence that Ukraine can turn things around.
Then there was the death of George Floyd, the protests that followed, but this time, it didn't take long for violence to happen. Riots broke out in multiple cities, then a "defund the police" movement came along, but once again, the riots (along with the "defund" push) have done more to damage the chance of meaningful change.
And we aren't far removed from the COVID-19 pandemic, complete with a vaccine rollout that has not gone according to plan. Case in point: The increased risk of myocarditis, particularly in young men and teenage boys.
Oh, and how about that drug war? Fentanyl may be the biggest concern, but marijuana is right there, too, with a legalization push that may be more trouble than it's worth. And there are still those who remember the opioid crisis (which some may say is still ongoing).
And if you want your Watergate equivalent, there were no doubt those who hopes that Russiagate would actually stick, but it's turned out to be a whole lot of nothing. Perhaps our Watergate equivalent would actually be Bidengate — that is, if you want to assign a "gate" suffix to describe the fact that our current President's mind is deteriorating, yet despite it being evident to the majority of Americans, Biden loyalists (ranging from Democrat politicians to mainstream media personalities) kept telling Americans that there is nothing to see here — well, at least until the recent Presidential debate, in which at least half of those loyalists are now in a state of panic.
Once again, we may have reasons to find optimism, but we sure aren't going to find that from those who inhabit Washington D.C.
Instead, that optimism is going to come from looking to your fellow Americans, the type of people who just want to make a decent living and be good to one another, even if they don't always succeed. Also, those fellow Americans are more likely to believe in the principles on which the county was founded, even if it may be true that they are being practiced less often.
I will say that, in order to do that, it's going to require the realization that the nation needs to go a different direction and, thus, there needs to be significant changes in how we do things. I'm not convinced that will happen from our leaders in D.C., though, even if the Oval Office or control of Congress changes hands.
But I do hope that people realize that, in order to determine what that direction needs to be, it comes from looking to our fellow Americans.
I do wish everyone a Happy Fourth of July. I'll be visiting Raton, N.M., this weekend, the first time I've been back there in 11 years. I'll be back to my regular Substack schedule in a little more than a week.