The present is better than ever

Threats are inane individually, worrisome en masse

I spent my early childhood in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, a short drive from the spot on the Delaware River where George Washington crossed on Christmas night to attack the British forces at Trenton.

My father worked as a reporter at newspapers in New Jersey during the eight years we lived there, first at the Trentonian and then at the larger Newark News.

This was the 1960s, and his beat was education and civil rights. While I and my three younger siblings were running around the Pennsylvania countryside under the loose reins of 1960s parenting, Dad was covering the integration of school districts and the subsequent white flight out of the cities, the departure of freedom riders from New Jersey bus stations, Civil Rights protests and race riots. 

Mom, when she wasn’t chasing us around, got admitted to Temple University law school in Philadelphia and started commuting there for classes.

Dad was sent on assignment to national events such as the August 28, 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom and, later in the decade, to campus protests against the Vietnam War, some of which became violent.

Crime rates soared during this time, reaching a peak in the 1970s before starting a decades-long decline.

“It really seemed that the country was coming apart,” Dad says.

He bought two small papers in the Adirondacks in 1970 and our family moved to Saranac Lake in 1971, before Mom had finished her law school studies. Both she and Dad assumed his ambitions took precedence, which was the pattern of the times.

I wonder what people mean when they hearken back to some golden age in America — a time within their memories or, at least, the memories of their parents, when everything was great?

Seeing the postwar period of the late 1940s and 1950s as a time of wonder and peace requires a lot of squinting. Jim Crow was in force throughout the South, and Black people were being assaulted and murdered by white people with impunity.

Black citizens not physically violated were nonetheless dehumanized in myriad ways. No era is a paradise, but for many American citizens, the postwar era was hell.

So when was this time when things were so much better? The 1980s? Is the MAGA movement just a continuation of Ronald Reagan worship?

“Make America Great Again” doesn’t offer an actual comparison but uses the glow of nostalgia to cast the present in a negative light.

Our times, like all times, are a mashup of good, bad and in-between. A strong argument can be made, though, that 2023 is a lot better than 1953 or 1963.

Ask yourself this: Would you rather have a college-age daughter now or then? 

This is a good time, and we can make it better, too, but not by looking back with longing at an era that never was.

Threats

Bella and I ran into this man at Centennial Circle the other day. He didn’t want to identify himself or say where he lives, because, he said, he’s worried about being harassed. I asked if he has ever been harassed during his protests, and he said that once an older lady rolled down her car window and swore at him. That sounded more humorous than threatening, and he laughed about it.

Much has been written about the threats people have attracted by serving in roles that antagonize Donald Trump. Judges, prosecutors, Republicans with integrity like Liz Cheney and many others have been insulted and threatened. The vast majority of this activity has been online or phone threats, often promising terrible things but with no intention by the threatener of moving out of his chair.

I’m of two minds about all this — on the one hand, the cowardly threateners should not be empowered by being taken seriously. On the other, we have seen in the Jan. 6 attack and the 2017 Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, that, occasionally, and especially if supported by a mob, cowards can hurt and kill innocent people. 

It’s good to see that this man at Centennial Circle is willing to speak out and have his photo used despite his worries.

Ringo says hello to a man with a sign of the times at Centennial Circle earlier this week.