Twilight of American Politics: Mapping the Journey Toward Stagnation

This summer, I took a bus to Indiana and abandoned New York City’s bustling urban environment to drive pastoral Appalachia. Yet, despite the locations’ vast differences, residents of both areas agree: the future of the U.S. is grim.

A Marist poll finds that 68 percent of adults believe the country is on the wrong track, and not without warrant. The U.S. economy is sluggish: 2004 is the best economic year this millennium, meaning the economy has not had a year that good in 12 years. The family structure, which is the building block of any society, has collapsed; the census reports 43 percent of children live without their fathers.

In the book, “Lost in Transition,” sociologist Christian Smith documents the difficulties facing emerging adults, and concludes that adolescents lack firm direction in life. The cultural effect of drifting in youth is already seen in soaring suicide and drug overdose rates. While there may be reasons to rejoice at the events of the past decade, the sluggish and broken state of our society ultimately leaves many pessimistic about the future.

Faced with societal pessimism, many long for a return to normalcy: a country where hard work produces a comfortable life. Yet, the options offered by current politicians give little hope for such a future.

For one thing, both major parties envision the best future for America as a return to the past. Democrat Bernie Sanders campaigned to extend FDR's New Deal and LBJ's Great Society, intending to end economic inequality by expanding welfare; democratic nominee Hillary Clinton has adopted the same tone. The Republican Platform, meanwhile, calls for a glorious return to the 80s: economic freedom and pervasive religiosity. Moreover, Republican Donald Trump markets himself as a president who can restore America’s greatness, nodding to former president Ronald Reagan.

These policies are the mainstream political options the U.S. faces, which speaks to nostalgia’s grip on society. The grip is tight because in their time, those policies helped Americans felt the nation was on the right track, fulfilling the American dream of success and opportunity. However, it is unlikely that this return will enable America to face its current problems; these policies are contradictory at their core, and the reason for their success is their historical context. To see this, we must analyze the history of current Democrat and Republican platforms.

Modern political, economic, and social lines began to emerge during and after the second world war, and that is where we begin this historical analysis. During the war, the federal government’s role in people’s personal lives expanded dramatically. From New Deal programs to corporatism, U.S. government took control of the economy. Rugged Individualism was replaced by national solidarity as New Deal programs were implemented and war raged on. The government also worked with the media to unite families and workers for the war effort. In short, the social, cultural and economic policies of the federal government promoted social cohesion.

This unity continued into the 1950s. The nuclear family, with the breadwinning father and housekeeping mother, was the social norm. Economically, Social Security became integral to American life. Political parties had minimal differences in policy. It was from this highly cohesive society that the U.S. began to unwind. Scholars, academics, and professionals began to attack the culture of conformity.

For example, the play, “Death of a Salesman,” criticized the emptiness of conformist culture. The protagonist, Willie Loman, struggles as a salesman for success and acceptance, but ultimately commits suicide in his emptiness. “Catcher in the Rye” depicted adult life as phony.

The efforts of scholars and artists would result in drastic cultural changes: Against the cultural stability of the nuclear family of the 50s, the 60s were characterized by the sexual revolution, which repudiated the cohesive nuclear family in place of authentic romantic relationships. This started a process of cultural fracturing that would continue to be marked by increasing drug use, broken families, and sexual promiscuity.

Economically, however, the U.S. was still highly regulated. The decade was marked by inflated wages, high taxes, regulated business, and unionized workers. Despite this, the U.S. was still economically prosperous because of its success during World War II, and despite the social upheaval of the era, the culture was not completely fractured because it had only just begun to unwind. LBJ’s Great Society embodied the dichotomy of economic solidarity and cultural liberalization.

This dichotomy is the goal of contemporary liberals. However, the combination of government policies, global circumstances, and cultural dynamics that led to this era—the restraints of World War II and the U.S.’ success during the war—cannot be replicated today.

In fact, the programs generated by the Great Society remain largely unchanged and have become dysfunctional because of their inability to adapt. Medicare, for instance, suffers from a massive bureaucratic structure that creates huge inefficiency. Additionally, the social fracturing started by the 60’s has continued to present, resulting in the cultural problems before us today—high suicide rate, rampant drug abuse, and fatherlessness. A return to the Great Society cannot work because its very policies contributed to our current problems.

On the other hand, conservatives see the Reagan Era as America’s prime. This time was marked not by cultural liberalization, but economic liberalization: price controls on petroleum were lifted, federal income taxes decreased, and budget cuts to social programs were implemented. Republicans also sought to restore the social order; action groups like the Moral Majority fought cultural liberalization by mobilizing the Christian Right. This attempt failed as the divorce, abortion, and out-of-wedlock birth rates continued pulling the family structure apart. While Republicans thought this was the best path to recover from the frenzy of the 60’s and 70’s, it only created temporary economic prosperity amidst continuing social decline.

Moreover, economic liberalization drove economic inequality, which furthered social fracturing. As people became more detached from each other, they found it harder to cooperate and instead focused on sharp distinctions between each other. In the case of free market policies, it is the rich who get richer, and the poor who get poorer; the middle class is hollowed out in the process. The poor become more detached from the workforce and eventually stop looking for work. We are seeing this process play out today in labor participation rate of 62.6 percent, the lowest since the 70’s.

The conservative dichotomy of economic freedom and cultural conformity is unstable, and the conditions conservatives idolize are what created the same stagnant economy and broken culture they hate.

Today, America is trying to find a balance amid a half century of rapid economic and social change. Attempts to fix society by returning to past policies fail because those very policies created our fractured society. Therefore, what we need is not a right wing reply to the left, but a rejection of current political categories altogether. To face the current challenges we have today, we need to take a different approach to politics compared to the current unstable dichotomies. This new politics must seek to find a way to unite our social architecture and yet not revert to the government’s dominance in the 50’s. It must be a solution that finds a balance between the poles of consolidation and individualism.