Liberty Exposed: Is Today The Most Polarizing Time in Americas History?

Tetra Images

"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." It was written by its often forgotten author, George Santayana, a Spanish American philosopher and poet. Americans seem to always think that they are in the most dangerous and polarizing time in history. We are quick to forget our own history, even from just several decades ago.

The political climates of 1970 and 2020 are almost direct mirrors of each other. After examining the trial and political tensions 50 years ago, Particularly in terms of the economics, changing cultures,  weak foreign policy, and representation on the world stage, there is a great argument that the United States has gone through, just as difficult as before.

Economy

The economic challenges of the 1970s were marked by stagflation and high gas prices. From 1970 to 1978, the inflation rate averaged nearly 7% per year and reached a high of 12.3%. It is also worth considering that the unemployment rate is around double that of today.

In that year, one gallon of gas averaged 36 cents. In just ten years, that number had more than tripled to $1.19. When adjusted for inflation, that would have made the average cost $4.05 per gallon of gasoline. In the last several years, gas was up to 48.7% in 2022. To put those numbers into context, a gallon of gas costs $4.99 on average in the U.S. in 2022. The highest recorded average price was in June at $5.16. Today's national average is $3.23, which is still less than what it was by the end of the 1970s.

International

Internationally, the United States has suffered major embarrassments on the international stage with the threat of becoming the next global superpower. In the 1970s, it was the Soviet Union; today, it is China. These two nations hold tremendous amounts of similarities and pose direct competition and threat to the United States and the potential stability of the world.

It’s not just that both China and the Soviet Union are a single political party, a totalitarian state, but also their communist ideology, their economic plan, and their global expansion. China, especially in recent years, has been assertive in expanding its economic and geopolitical influence through the Belt and Road Initiative as well as BRICS, which looks to pull economic powers away from the west.

The United States is and is still dealing with the failures of major international conflicts. Wars are always messy, but the 1970s and today share striking similarities. In April of 1975, the Vietnam War was over, but after eight years of American involvement, the public had seen enough. Congress desired not to fund South Vietnam after it had been renovated by the north; without it, they were doomed to lose to the advancing communist forces.

This attitude is very similar to that of America’s persistence in the Middle East. In August 2021, the Biden administration pulled all assets out of Afghanistan, leaving behind approximately $7 billion of military equipment and 9000 Americans. Photos of their terribly operated pullout in Afghanistan were easily compared to the fall of Saigon. American evacuation of the Vietnam Embassy in 1975. which shows a perfect representation of how similar times are. One of the people was hanging onto the edge of an airline jet on a runway, and the other was a line of people reaching for a helicopter atop the embassy.

These images pull at the heart and soul of the level of disappointment the American people feel when poor leadership acts in a way that negatively affects other nations and people. It is not only our adversaries, but something so specific as our poor handling of our military capacity, all of which has created instability in the international order. leaving more Americans wary about the future prospects of the United States on the world stage.

Social

On the social front, the 1970s dealt with debates over affirmative action as a means to address racial disparities. Fast forward to the 2020s, and affirmative action is still playing a major role in the standards being set in academia. only recently being overturned by the United States Supreme court.

Racial tensions in the country were also very similar between the two decades. The left is still calling for racial justice, systemic racism, and defunding the police. After multiple decades, it seemed as if those particular arguments had been laid to rest until President Barack Obama’s presidency, where again, racial tensions grew exponentially. starting the trend we see today in terms of the racial division in the United States.

The 1970s were also a witness to the rise of the women's liberation movement, which is considered the second wave of feminism. Which is the predecessor of the current political revolution and is intertwined with that transgender ideology.

Conclusion

If one is in constant consumption of the major news channels, whether it be right or left-wing leaning, the content directed at its listeners is often made to invoke anger and fear, which fosters more political division. Coupled with the current state of the country in terms of economic, social, and international issues, this has led many Americans to believe that we are in the most politically divisive time in the country’s history. With our representative republic and other institutions hanging on by a thread, This cannot be further from the truth, as the events that took place between the 1970s and 1980s prove that America can withstand just as much hardship as it sees today.

It requires a president like Ronald Reagan to pull the United States out of the snare traps that it caught itself in and it will likely take a person of similar character to lead Americans out of these crises. Every few generations, we are tested again with the same trials of the past. Maybe because we refuse to learn from them, or maybe it is because it is human nature to make the same mistakes over and over again.