The Patriot Post® · Is the U.S. Reliving the '70s?
Is the U.S. repeating the political and economic pattern of the 1970s? In a sense, yes. As historian Neil Ferguson said in an interview: “The ingredients of the 1970s are already in place. The monetary and fiscal policy mistakes of last year, which set this inflation off, are very like those of the late ‘60s. And then in 1973, you get a war. But this war is lasting much longer than the 1973 war, so the energy shock that it’s causing is actually going to be more sustained.” Add racial strains and environmentalism to Ferguson’s list of our mirrored tensions with the 1970s and it starts to look like we are indeed giving that disastrous decade a second chance.
What are the specific pieces in play that are like the 1970s?
Self-induced inflation was a common theme. In the 1970s, inflation reached double digits and at its highest it was 14%. Our current inflation is 8.3%, but the U.S. is not in a vacuum. If our economy is suffering, there’s a good chance our trading partners are also suffering. In Europe, some countries are already facing double-digit inflation rates, and it’s going to get worse before it gets better.
That inflation problem both in the 1970s and today was made worse by wars. In 1973, the U.S. ended its involvement in Vietnam, but the Yom Kippur war between the Israelis and a coalition of Arab states began. Currently, the Russia-Ukraine war is still going hammer and tongs. Both in the '70s and today, war seriously disrupted the energy sector.
Racial tensions in the '70s were very similar to today. According to the White House Historical Association: “Racial tensions were high in 1970, as blacks became frustrated with economic conditions that did not improve despite advancements in civil rights. The Nixon administration addressed the underlying problems of bigotry and economic empowerment by putting teeth in anti-discriminatory laws, boosting the budget of civil rights enforcement, and sponsoring minority business initiatives.”
Our own racial tensions were fanned into raging flames under the tender care of President Barack Obama and reached a new boiling point after the death of George Floyd. The current fervor for racial reparations and spate of fake hate crimes are troubling to say the least.
Ferguson went on to predict that this time around, it is much more likely that things will get a lot worse. As Spectator writer Gilbert Sewall points out, “There are new uncertainties too.”
What are some of the new problems that make it worse?
There has been a steady rise of the elite and welfare classes at the expense of the middle class. With each new handout (like college debt forgiveness and rent moratoriums), the incentives for the poorer to strive for their own gains wains. Then there is the infamous monopoly of the mainstream media and Big Tech, both of which are under the control of one particular political party. With that control, the Democrats are able to censor conservatives and rewrite inconvenient events (i.e., memory-hole them). Perhaps the most dangerous new development in our current political era is the rise of intersectional politics and its unholy marriage with socialism. The adherence to the hierarchy of victimhood represented by intersectional politics only serves to further divide the country.
How does the U.S. rise up like a phoenix, reborn?
There are several possibilities both good and bad that can arise out of how this country weathers these political and economical challenges. On the bad end, you get societal collapse and civil war and probably a descent into tyrannical government. The idea of the America as the land of the free and the home of the brave dies a sudden, horrible death.
But if we weather this storm, as we have in the past, the renaissance that could emerge could be as triumphal as the 1980s. It could facilitate an American people who understand they have more in common with one another than they do with their enemies. It could bring our society and rhetoric back to a kinder, gentler time. These are ideals worth striving for.