2018 should be remembered as a rude awakening

If there’s one thing most Americans can agree on, it’s that 2018 has been a long year.

Like many years past, this one has had its share of ups and downs. But few periods in recent memory have been as uncertain as the one now continuing into 2019.

That’s enough to make many of us experience some major anxiety. Flipping on the TV, or scrolling through social media, often makes it all the worse. The messages we receive, even through personal filters and feeds more narrowly crafted and curated than ever, threaten to distort our view of our world, our country, our neighbors — even ourselves.

So it’s all the more crucial to keep in mind that, despite all the great uncertainty, the turbulence that defined 2018 didn’t lead to any of the apocalyptic scenarios that competed this year for prime real estate in our heads and on our screens.

That’s no excuse for complacency or a misguided stab at blissful ignorance. The challenges we face are real and plain, and only a relative few are willing and able to look past them.

But there’s no question that, even banged up and bruised as we are, things could have been far worse. And there’s still good reason to be optimistic that doom is not around the corner.

Even some of the scariest of scares from this year have all but vanished in the rearview. Take North Korea. There’s no question that President Trump’s approach to North Korea’s nuclear armament program has yielded little in the way of concrete achievements. The regime in Pyongyang is, by all accounts, forging ahead with its missile program.

On the other hand, before Trump’s seemingly crazy plan to strike a sudden peace deal with the country, some inside the Beltway believed that the Pentagon saw no option but war. Horrific visions of massacres on a scale unseen since World War II swiftly seized media attention. Our troops stationed in South Korea would be wiped out; Seoul would be bombed into oblivion. That didn’t happen. Any of it.

Similarly, the Trump administration has rightly left critics agog at its managerial bungling, its amateurish staffing and truculent policymaking. But it’s easy to forget how alarming it seemed at the time relative to how we now process the day’s events. Loud voices proclaimed with certainty that Trump would crash the economy. Instead, America hit record employment while the rest of the world entered a protracted economic slowdown.

It seemed unthinkable that such an untested and mercurial person could oversee such steady growth. Now, we’ve begun to accept that things don’t always work — or malfunction—the way we had thought.

True, disaster could strike. The financial markets’ downturn of recent days is extremely bearish. Trump’s willingness to rattle markets and shut down the government over his beloved, ill-advised border wall has some investors spooked. But there are strong counter-indicators too. Unemployment is still low, the dollar is still a better currency to hold than others and foreign countries have poor fundamentals and often dire political instability of their own. Concern is well-justified. Panic? Not at all.

The list goes on. Street battles between Antifa thugs and neo-Nazi gangs did not lead to widespread chaos and destruction. Neither did the continued spread of legalized marijuana — or the ongoing drama surrounding immigration policy.

We’re adapting to a messy, changing world. That’s no reason to dump our principles or lose our moral compass. It is, however, a reason for some sober-minded appreciativeness.

Instead of a catastrophe, 2018 was a rude awakening. While others around the world are spiraling toward a dark future, Americans are keeping clearer heads and looking to our better angels. We’re not perfect. But we’re learning. And we’re headed into a new year with a new understanding of how resilient and resourceful we are.

— Southern California News Group,

Digital First Media