Check out this 65 year old cartoon from the 1934 Chicago Tribune. Those crazy midwesters. Except for the names of the individuals doesn't this scene seem strangely familiar?And I don't think the familiarity is necessarily because the cartoon is an accurate depiction of what's happening in our country today (although it could be that). The way I see it this is interesting as a historical piece no matter which side of the political aisle you feel most comfortable sitting in.
For example, if you are appalled by what's happening today and believe that President Barack Obama and the current political gang in Washington are drunk with power and spending us towards socialism, then this cartoon will definitely appear as an accurate depiction that what was happening during the Great Depression under Roosevelt is reappearing with new names and faces. Please feel free to pass it on to your friends.
On the other hand, if you don't believe that the amount of spending going on today is actually bad and that our surviving the Great Depression and the subsequent societal gains are the proof of that, then you could actually see this cartoon as a historical indicator that the anti-government reactionaries and naysayers have nothing better to pull out of their bag than the same old demons of communism and intellectualism. In that case show it to your friends and have a good laugh.
Interesting isn't it this great experiment in self government? It sure would be a lot easier if everything were black and white with no shades of gray, wouldn't it? You know I think sometimes the political pundits on both the left and the right actually sell us this lie, that things are just black and white. This guys a good guy. That guys a bad guy.
I don't know, maybe I just need corrective lenses but I see a lot gray on both sides of the political spectrum. I'd say political rainbow but I don't want to offend anybody.
The one thing I do appreciate about the process though is the freedom of the press and the freedom of expression that allows us to disagree, sometimes vehemently, at yet still remain Americans. That is a great thing.
For the past 20 to 30 years, I have, by choice, moved in conservative, right wing, religious circles. Politically I've been Republican. It has been difficult for me to be a Democratic during these years because I felt the party was so beholden to what I feel are radical elements in Environmentalism, Social policy and economics.
My heart has always been bent towards freedom and individual liberty which means that I believe strongly in limiting government's power over the individual. I've seen the Democratic party loyalties after Kennedy's assassination solidifying themselves more and more in ways that seemed to me to be an expansion of governmental power and control. If I was going to be a Democrat I'd have to be a blue dog choking for air since Harry Truman and John Kennedy. The only problem is that I come from the liberal Northeast and I don't have a southern twang.
And yet my ideas concerning limited government and individual liberty were not at all crystallized during my teen years. I spent the 1970's, like many others of my generation, wondering why the heck we were in Vietnam and disliking Richard Nixon. I mean how do we kill four college students at Kent State even if they are disrespectful and throwing rocks? That was scary. To this day no one has ever been brought up on charges for that one.
And seeing the race riots and the prejudice that existed against blacks...that was really harsh too. As a teenager I became suspicious of almost all governmental authority because they had the power to shoot you or club you and throw you in jail which seemed really oppressive to my young mind.
In my junior year of high school, my buddy and I got an A- from our English teacher for our anti-Nixon, anti-Watergate song and slide show. I argued a lot with my Dad back then who was clear about what side of the fence he was on. I mean he wasn't comical like the caricatured Archie Bunker and I wasn't as liberal as the caricatured Michael Stivick but we were a little like that back then. (for those of you who don't know who Archie Bunker is...I'm sorry...use Google, you may even get a laugh out of it.)
I think the reason why talk show hosts like Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity and even Bill O'Reilly have risen to such popularity is that they really do give voice to a silent group of Americans who do not and did not relate to all the turmoil that accompanied the 1960's and 1970's. There was such an emphasis in the media on the Civil Rights issues and the student protesters and the Vietnam War and the Environmental initiatives, all of which needed coverage don't get me wrong, but I think it left a lot of 'common folk' as Bill O'Reilly calls them (#1 cable news program in the US for over 8 years in a row?...that's got to say something) feeling like nobody cared about them. Yeah it might be white rage but I don't see everything in terms of black and white, remember?
So I think that when the Carter administration failed to unite the country while at the same time appearing weak and ineffectual against terrorists as gas prices and interest rates rose in an inflationary spiral, there was a backlash. Many Americans were embarrassed by how quickly the greatest nation in the world that had defeated National Socialism in Germany (Nazis) and put down the burgeoning empire of Japan was now somehow wallowing in self-pity and defeatism.
And into that vacuum stepped Ronald Reagan. With Carter hiding out in the Rose Garden and Luke Skywalker defeating Darth Vader on the silver screen, Reagan, the former actor, former governor, former Democrat rode onto the political scene like Roy Rogers on Trigger with both six shooters blazing. His speech was simple, direct and to the point: Government wasn't the solution to our current economic woes...it was the problem.
Now for those of you who either dislike Reagan because he was a Republican or just don't know enough about him because you are under 35 years old, I want to draw an analogy for you to help you understand how popular he was back in the 1980's.
What if Barack Obama came into office this past year and had to immediately deal with massive unemployment, a sinking stock market, runaway inflation, failing institutions, a car industry in ruins seeking help, high gas and oil prices, a weak real estate market, a divided electorate after eight years of unsatisfactory Presidential administrations including scandal and corruption at the highest levels, a terrorist threat from the Middle East and an enemy that was threatening to rule the world and moving into Afghanistan with armored tanks and personnel?
You're right. It does sound just like today. So maybe that is what President Obama is facing. But he's not the first. That was exactly what President Reagan was facing 28 years ago. And to make matters worse, on his 69th day in office President Reagan entered the hospital after a bullet from a would be assassin named John Hinkley Jr. punctured one of his lungs. Talk about facing a challenge.
So both President Reagan and President Obama started their administration's under fire, so to speak. Now what about popular support?
I don't think you can argue against the fact that President Barack Obama is very popular today especially among the younger generations in our country. In his presidential race against John McCain, President Obama won 28 of 50 states (365 electoral votes verus 173 for McCain) and had 9,500,000 more votes than John McCain. A pretty decent showing. I don't think it's too much to expect that his followers, at least, take this result as a clear mandate that the country wants the change President Obama was addressing during his campaign.
What many young people today may not know is that in President Reagan's first term in office, running against the incumbent President Jimmy Carter, Mr. Reagan won 46 out of 50 states (489 electoral votes versus 49 electoral votes) and had 18,500,000 more votes than President Carter. And, just for the record, in his second term in office, President Reagan, carried on by the strong economic recovery following the 1981-82 recession, carried 49 out of 50 states for a record 525 electoral college votes the most ever received in a Presidential election.
I'll leave it to you to decide how to define a clear mandate because my point is not to lessen President Obama's victory. I like the guy and obviously so do a lot of other folk. I did not vote for him, however, mostly because of his lack of governing experience and his voting record that leaned towards far left wing economic policy. But he won easily without my vote.
My point is that many of us didn't have the incredibly uplifting experience our country experienced during the Reagan presidency. Anyone who was born after 1975 probably wasn't old enough in 1980 to really understand the devastation our country was facing and then in contrast just four years later to experience what real change is and what it feels like to have the morale and the economy of an entire nation lifted back up from despair to hope again. We experienced that with the election of President Reagan in 1980. Right now I can only hope that we will experience it again with President Obama.
And back then I was a registered Independent like many of us that voted for Reagan. I finally registered as a Republican after the Reagan years when I moved to Colorado in the early 1990's. Today I'm seriously thinking of changing back to an Independent for reasons that extend beyond the scope of this 'public service' length email.
So back to the political cartoon. Is this current administration with their hope for change doing the right thing? No matter what I believe or say, the fact is only time will tell. But I know one thing, the Democrats didn't inherit from President Bush anything harder than President Reagan inherited back in 1981 from President Carter. You may not believe it but I lived through both periods and the facts pretty well bear out the truth of that statement. It was bad in 1978 and 1979...really bad. That's not saying that this current economic situation might not be harder to control because of how long it's been ignored, but we were in just as much hot water in 1980 as we are in 2008. In some ways it might have even been worse.
So since the Democrats now control both houses of Congress as well as the Presidency, whatever happens from here on out will be in their hands. There are no excuses left to blame on the last President or the Republicans or anyone else. This is President Obama's and the neo-progressive Democrats time to lead and let History write the story when it's all over.
For all of our sakes I hope that after four years of this Presidency we feel the same united hope and good feeling that Carol and I felt back in 1984 when we were just 26 years old, with one young child and a very bright future ahead of us. I desire that for this generation of young people also - the chance to feel good about what's happening and what's going to be happening in their future.
@ 2009 Joseph Ricciardi Jr
