Sam Smith – My father was a
New Deal official and I first covered Washington for a DC radio station 67
years ago so I have some background for
saying that we are in the worst political period of my lifetime. And it’s not
just Trump. Trump is clearly a major beneficiary of the collapse of American
democracy but he wasn’t an early cause.
There are matters we don’t even discuss. Such
as the role of television in creating a false reality for our lives. And how
modern advertising changed politics. As David Halberstam wrote in his book, The
Fifties:
There was in all
this new and seemingly instant affluence the making of a crisis of the American
spirit. For this was not simple old prewar capitalism, this was something new —
capitalism that was driven by a ferocious consumerism, where the impulse was
not so much about what people needed in their lives but what they needed to
consume in order to keep up with their neighbors and, of course, to drive the
GNP endlessly upward. “Capitalism is dead — consumerism is king,” said the
president of the National Sales Executives.
Politicians have become another product to
be bought thanks to hyperbole or deceit. And television, far more than any
prior media, has crealed false personalities and the fictional world they
allegedly live in. It’s not an accident that two of our worst modern presidents
– Trump and Reagan - were created in no small way by their televised
personalities and sagas.
Further, our lack of moral leaders can be
traced in part to the failure of the media to pay much attention to ethical
issues.
We are trapped in this new world and our history,
cultures, values and communities are all under attack.
What can we do?
One thing is to build subcultures of
democracy and decency. These may involve organizations but more easily
communities that already are holding on to their morality and values. As I have
noted about my small town in Maine, hardly anything that happens or is said
here mimics the madness of mass America. While we may not be able to save the
national we can still hold on to local principles and practices.
Another approach is for the young, as they
have in the past, to create a youthful counterculture that challenges the
methods and madness of those older than they.
And we need to help community
organizations – ranging from churches to unions and public schools – to
function more as teachers of decent humanity despite what we see on TV.
Trump is a terrible problem, but he is far
from our only one and while we may lack the money and the power to alter what
has taken place, we can create countercultures that can still challenge them.
We just don’t have much time.
