The two wars that broke America
Unless the political center takes hold in both parties and restrains the excesses of the left and the right, the nation’s course is tragically predictable.
thehill.com
I thought this piece made some good points in tracking back some earlier mistakes and failures of leadership which led America to where it is now.
This is a key point. The article notes that prior to the Tonkin Resolution, the general public mostly believed and trusted in the government and largely supported it. Once the government was caught in a lie, people started wondering "Well, what else has the government been lying about?" Rumors of political malfeasance and conspiracy theories started to circulate and become more readily accepted. The anti-war movement itself was also a major social upheaval which had a ripple effect across the entire culture.
Not sure why he blames Carter for the fall of Saigon, since he wasn't elected until 1976. Maybe it's Ford's fault. I've heard it said that if Nixon had not been impeached and forced to resign, the outcome in Vietnam would have been different.
That's also something would undermine faith in the government - not just the lying, but also the losing.
It was also in the aftermath of the Arab oil embargo and subsequent quadrupling of oil prices, leading to runaway inflation - all of which made America look all the more weak and impotent. The Iranian Revolution and ensuing US Embassy hostage crisis pretty much killed off any sentiments towards peace which might have existed 10 years earlier. The 70s were an interesting transition where we started off the decade with "Love is all you need," "Give peace a chance," and "Imagine" and ended it with "Life in the Fast Lane" and "Bomb-bomb-bomb, bomb-bomb Iran!" (And the counter-culture moved from pot-smoking and rock-and-roll to cocaine and disco, just like we made the switch from glass bottles to plastic.)
The writer then jumps over the 1980s and 90s and cites the 2003 Iraq War as the second war which broke America.
Of course, the second Iraq War would not have happened if there wasn't a first Iraq War. Or, it could also be argued that if they had gotten rid of Saddam Hussein back in 1991, that also would have prevented the second Iraq War, so why wasn't that their primary objective? Just like no one ever came up with the idea of invading North Vietnam and occupying Hanoi. It's as if our leaders no longer wanted to win wars; they just wanted them to continue indefinitely. But "not winning" is often viewed as the same as "losing," and it's on that basis that America's prestige has been tarnished and weakened in the eyes of the world and by the U.S. public. No matter what kind of mealy-mouthed spin the State Department or the Defense Department puts on these things, losing is still losing. ("Americans love a winner and will not tolerate a loser.")
Another key event was the Iran-Contra affair, when Reagan made America look weak in the eyes of the Iranians by paying ransom for hostages. That was not only a defeat on that front, but the proceeds from the arms sales went to the Contras, which was another absurdly failed bit of interventionism that went nowhere. The Sandinistas are still there, but where are the Contras?
The writer goes on to correctly point out that the Bush Doctrine (which was basically a rehashing of the same basic doctrine which existed during the Vietnam era) turned out to be a failure, as it continued to be when Obama continued the same basic policy.
The decline in US-Russian relations is also a key point, as we had already sabotaged that relationship long before Russia's invasion of Crimea in 2014. If we had behaved better 10-15 years earlier, then we might have been in a better position to stop them in 2014.
The lies from government are bad enough, but when coupled with incompetence and continuous failure, then it starts to get really noticed and internalized within the public mindset - even if the media don't really want to talk about it and the rhetoric goes off-balance and off the deep end, which leads us to the election of 2016.
After a half-century of mendacious incompetence and utter failure from our political leadership, it doesn't seem too surprising that eventually Americans would elect someone is the physical embodiment of mendacious incompetence and utter failure - and yet, nobody cares anymore. Even those who hate Trump with every fiber of their being, they show zero willingness to critically examine the decades leading up to Trump. They seem to believe that America was absolutely perfect prior to 2016 and that "it's all Trump!" and that "Trump ruined everything!" That sounds to me like some people are too embarrassed to admit to their own failures and instead are looking for someone else to blame.
Perhaps there's some truth to the idea that "confession is good for the soul." If America has been broken by a questionable past, as the writer here suggests, then perhaps it's time to reveal that past - lay it bare for all the world to see. The government should release every classified document or any other materials which they don't want anyone to know about. Open Area 51 and turn it into a national park. Full disclosure, full transparency, and full confession. An Executive Order from the President is all that it would take, so if Biden does something like that, it might boost his popularity immensely.
