candycorn
Diamond Member
- Aug 25, 2009
- 110,873
- 51,014
I don't know if I would specifically put a date on it. Just a continual slide to mediocrity and below. I mean look at where we stand educationally. The population in this country seems to have lost it's drive or something. I notice it glaringly in hiring. Five years ago I would have told you that I couldn't remember even considering hiring some one under 25. Now it would be 30. They seem bothered to have to be there(in an interview), have no interest in anything I say or the job, can barely read, consider math a foreign language, are dressed like a bums, are disrespectful and rude. There just seems to be a different attitude and not for the better. The response to every problem is "what is the govt going to about it".How about when we stopped being able to pay the bills without other countries sending us money? Or maybe when it became impossible to start a business without 3 lawyers and 4 ex-govt officials? Maybe when some genius decided it was a schools job to teaching morality and ethics instead of critical thinking? I could go on.Donald Trump's major talking point is that America is no longer great- so why do Conservatives believe America is no longer great?
When do Conservatives believe America stopped being great?
Please do- when exactly did the scales tip so you now no longer think of the United States as a great country?
Howard Cunningham had the same problem in an episode of Happy Days. Amazingly we had to wait 28 years later until a black guy was hired to be President to pronounce the nation isn't "great" any longer.
The theme song to All in the Family bemoaned the same silly stance come to think of it.
--------
To view the problem critically (I am a proud liberal so the question in the OP wasn't addressed to me), one has to assume that we were "great" at one time. By some metrics we were, by some we were not. Personally, I have always thought we were a great place to live, work, raise a family, etc... Personally, outside of Italy; there is no other nation on earth I would want to visit...that should tell you something about how great I think America is. Give me Mt. Zion National Park over the Castles of Europe; a tour of Bryce Canyon over a tour of the Great Wall of China; a trip to Key West over a trip to London any day.
At any rate, if you believe we are "no longer great" or have to be "made great again", it means you thought we were great once and no longer are. Some metrics support that theory; most do not. So I don't buy it.
One thing I will say in the defense of those who no longer believe that the nation is great is that America did become complacent as a nation after WWII. And why wouldn't we. We defeated two imperial powers with minimal material support from our allies; our economy was booming, there were no serious threats on the world stage and the expectation was that every nation on earth would want to be like us since we were prosperous, peaceful, benevolent, and had destiny at our mercy. That worked for about 15 years. The 1960's saw the rise of enemies like Russia; the other "metrics" that measured America differently began to speak up against institutionalized discrimination, a proxy war in Vietnam saw us losing. Then the political scandals of the early 1970's hit. In the 1980's we moved from the years of pain to the years of gain with Reagan and spent the Soviets into submission. Someone forgot to tell the Congress that the plan was to spend a lot for a while, then strip away the spending after word because every President after Reagan saw what he did and mirrored it...and hoped to mirror his 70+% approval rating in retirement.
What was happening during the 70's and 80's though was larger than our turmoil domestically or the international issues. We learned (or did we?) that not every nation wants to be like us. What took us 175 years to learn (1776-1950) was that America is a very complicated place. We know this and we accept this. Most people who live in large cities are used to having radio stations that do not broadcast in English on their dial; television stations that are in a foreign language, and having to repeat orders slowly for the guy at In and Out burger who just doesn't understand English as well. We don't worry about it; we put up with it, and it's second nature. We are all capitalists to where we sell our labor for the most advantageous ends but beyond that, little social knitting keeps us together. This evening, I will likely have Mexican food for dinner. I would imagine that some Mexican Americans are having pizza. And some Italian Americans will enjoy hot dogs or Hamburger Helper. We have a commonality of a goal and that is pretty much it; socially, we stick to whatever satisfies us.
If you are John Q. Chancellor from Nation X, would you rather have one pretty much homogeneous group of people who pretty much think like you in the main and disagree around the edges or would you rather have opposition that uses a different language, different symbols, and is determined to get their piece of the power? I'd opt for the former. I think most of the supporters of Mr. Trump would too. The Leave it to Beaver 1950's.
Those days are gone and they are not coming back (if they were ever here to begin with). We're still a great nation; just a different type of greatness.