12/17/2022 0 Comments Turn the clock back![]() Political violence has come to be accepted by a sizeable fraction of those who identify with that party. Sinister promoters of white supremacy and opponents of democracy control the leading cable news network and dominate one of the two major parties. Their chances for success depend to a substantial degree on what the zeitgeist of 2022 is.Īuthoritarianism has been spreading. Today, the right-wing extremists who have hijacked the Republican party are determined to reverse all that progress. The enthusiasm with which many Americans greeted Johnson’s calls for fundamental change indicates that he, like Dylan, was voicing sentiments that were in the zeitgeist. TURN THE CLOCK BACK FULLThe result was a nation reshaped politically, socially, racially, economically, and sexually - and one that became a full democracy for the first time. Such a coincidence of a musician’s words with the arguments of an activist president suggests that something was “in the air.” And one of the things in the air in 1964 was a desire to expand freedom and improve the conditions of society’s “losers.”ĭramatic changes would keep coming at a furious pace over the ensuing months into 1965. Johnson’s vision and ability to get things done in Congress were clearly important in the change that occurred in 1964, but more essential was that Johnson found himself in an environment where progressive approaches were possible. Some say it was an agenda not seen since the Johnson administration. When he took office, President Biden set an ambitious agenda for an activist government, proposing greatly expanded programs that would build a more racially and economically just society. The other points toward a reignition of the spirit that temporarily prevailed in the mid-1960s. One of the forks before us leads to autocracy, kleptocracy, plutocracy, renewed subordination of women and people of color, and to a time before the dramatic progress that began in 1964. The United States in 2022 is at a crossroads and the direction taken will likely determine whether the experiment in democracy launched in 1776 will survive. The current inflection point has become much more apparent over the past five years - and especially in the last few weeks. Johnson obviously played major roles at the turning points MacLean listed, but the spirits of those times were more fundamental. ![]() The key to the occurrence of such watershed moments is less the leaders than a sociopolitical environment that is receptive to change. ![]() ![]() History is punctuated by discontinuities that alter its trajectory. “The United States is now at one of those historic forks in the road whose outcome will prove as fateful as those of the 1860s, the 1930s, and the 1960s,” Nancy MacLean wrote in her 2017 book, “Democracy in Chains.” ![]()
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