A time of unusual tension and tumult
The Congress is divided as seldom before. Donald J. Trump is remaking the profile of the presidency. The press is under attack. The notion of free speech on campus is under siege. By month’s end, serious questions will be raised about the independence, and perhaps even the survival, of the Federal Reserve Bank.
Indeed, not since the 1960s — perhaps since the 1930s — have so many of the governing assumptions and established institutions of the United States been under such stress and strain.
The 1930s, the Stanford historian David M. Kennedy wrote, “tested the very fabric of American culture.” The 1960s, the Brown University historian James T. Patterson said, “unsettled much that Americans had taken for granted before then.”
The crisis of the 1930s was prompted by the Great Depression, when economic despair caused faith in capitalism to wane and appeal for communism to rise, at least in some blue-collar and intellectual circles. The crisis of the 1960s was as much one of credibility as content, as American leaders and their institutions struggled with civil rights, and young people rebelled against consumerism, sexism and the Vietnam War.
Just as there was no clear resolution to the American malaise in 1932, nor to the American upheaval of 1967, there is no clear path out of the turmoil and turbulence of this decade. But nearly every foundation stone of American life is on the defensive today:
— POLITICIANS. Two out of three Americans, according to an Allegheny College poll last fall, characterized the 2016 presidential campaign as very or extremely uncivil. Only 3 percent of Americans — potentially no Americans at all, if the margin of error is employed — have a great deal of confidence in Congress, according to the Gallup organization.
— RELIGION. About two Americans in five have confidence in organized religion today, a steep drop from 1973, when about two out of three Americans felt that way. Three decades ago, only one in 10 adult Americans said they had no religious affiliation, according to the Pew Research Center; today about a quarter of Americans feel that way. And about one out of three millennials say they are “nones” — that is, without any religious affiliation at all.
— THE PRESS. President Trump has mounted an all-out assault on the mainstream media, an attack even stronger than the one mounted by President Richard M. Nixon and Vice President Spiro T. Agnew at the end of the 1960s and the beginning of the 1970s.
— BUSINESS. Here’s a radical departure: A Republican president has criticized business executives for callousness toward workers and for exporting American jobs. Public support of banks, at 60 percent in the Gallup study in 1969, has declined by more than half to 27 percent. Fewer than one-fifth of Americans have confidence in big business, though small business wins the support of two out of three Americans.
— THE PARTY ESTABLISHMENTS. Trump assailed traditional Republicans during his primary campaign, painting these figures — in short, the establishment figures of the establishment party — as ineffective and self-serving.
Gallup recently reported that public worries about race relations are at an all-time high, with two out of five Americans worrying “a great deal” about race relations. And what is the institution that Americans respect the most? The military, winning the confidence of about three-quarters of the public — up substantially since 1973, when the nation was divided by the Vietnam War.
Bottom line: We are in a historic period not only of transformation but also of national introspection. We think this is an era of invective and insult, and there is some truth to that. But underneath the anger — beyond the shouts — are serious questions about how our society and culture are structured, and about the nature and use of power.
That is one of the principal lessons of the 2016 election, lost amid the controversy over President Trump’s style and manners. Like the 1930s and 1960s, this is a period of resentment and rebellion.
But the questions raised in both those earlier periods helped the United States win, in turn, World War II and the Cold War. We ignore these questions, and put off addressing them, at our peril.