The real danger

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.