Things are this long ago now.
One half-century ago was 1972, the year the English band Yes released their prog-rock masterpiece Close to the Edge. It was also the year when controversial U.S. President Richard Nixon won his landslide re-election victory over George McGovern. The narrative then was evil, racist, stupid Southern bigots voted for Richard Nixon because of a Southern Strategy cooked up by evil, racist Southern mastermind Lee Atwater.
As a South Carolinian in the sixth grade at the time, I can tell you that the ordinary suburban folk I knew didn’t need to be scared or “misinformed” (to use today’s Orwellian term) into voting for Nixon. The Democratic Party was the party of violence in the streets, of “civil unrest,” the party that had their children standing at the bus stop in the freezing dark so they could be bussed to a school across town, because equality, you racist bigot.
If you’ve never heard of the bussing issue of the early 1970s, it’s because it was that big of a public relations disaster. It’s telling that today’s Republicans don’t exploit it. My point is, those flesh-and-blood human beings I knew in '72 felt they had no choice. Not that anyone cares, because that was 50 years ago already. What are we in danger of repeating anyway?
Well, certainly not another three-song long-form masterpiece of guitar, Mellotron, percussion, bass, and heavenly vocals like Close to the Edge.
Forty-five years ago was 1977 and disco would reach its apotheosis with the soundtrack to the film Saturday Night Fever, which was arguably the high point of the hapless Jimmy Carter’s single term as president. (Star Wars, which also premiered in 1977, doesn’t feel very Jimmy Carter-ish.) Forty years ago was 1982, when Ronald Reagan occupied the White House, and we were all stoked into a fine paranoia over being nuked by the USSR. Thirty years ago was 1992 and the year our first post-Cold War president, Bill Clinton, was elected.
One quarter of a century ago was 1997. This would be the last year I would fill out a tax form by hand. Upon returning from Japan that year I was delighted to learn that my Internet wasn’t metered and I could pay most of my bills online. Not all progress is bad. I don’t miss writing checks and sealing envelopes.
Twenty years ago is now securely in the 21st century. A.D. 2002 was mainly about the changeover effected by the catastrophe of 11 September 2001, with the subsequent immiseration of air travelers at the gropey-grabby hands of a new governmental agency folded into a larger new governmental agency dedicated to protecting the United States from terrorism.
The real terrorists, of course, were the same people who murdered innocent U.S. citizens at Ruby Ridge and Waco, but it’s a tired old twist by this point and no one cares. Again, that was 20 years ago.
Fifteen years ago was 2007 and a major year for me personally, as that’s when my family arrived in Colorado. This is the state where my wife and I finished raising our children, where I wrote my first novels. Ten years ago at this time on 2012 I was in the process of writing my prototype, the prequel to which became Bleeding Kansas the next year.
Five years ago in 2017 I’d not been in the San Luis Valley for six months when a reality show host prepared to take the oath of U.S. presidential office. Only of my favorite bloggers, the Zman, recently wrote this most poetic and apt eulogy for the Donald Trump years:
The Trump phenomenon was like that one amazing summer you had in your youth. You have fond memories of that time, but there is no going back. That chapter is closed. We have serious issues facing us now and his frivolous brand of self-promotion seems out of place.
In light of this, it’s amusing how Trump still lives on in people’s heads as some kind of boogieman who, although banished to the shadows, may yet return to wreak his terrible vengeance and Destroy Our Precious Democracy. (That last part always cracks me up.) No, President Trump was fun for his first three years when he was trolling the media thought-minders on Twitter. Then came the Wuhan Bat-Soup/Coronavirus/COVID 19 scamdemic two years ago, and nothing was funny anymore.
One year ago this week we kept hearing how Trump was going to “cross the Rubicon” and invoke the Insurrection Act, but on 6 January, Vice President Mike Pence finked out on Trump and that was the end of it. It wasn’t the first time a presidential election was stolen before our very eyes, but now a lot of people, maybe 80 million, understand that the country they loved is not just gone, but probably never was, and now what?
2021 was a long year. I don’t know if I’ll attempt a retrospective. It’s sufficient to know we’re nowhere near where we were this time in 2020, when the big news was the devastating wildfires in Australia. 11 March 2020 is the day “15 Days to Flatten the Curve” went into effect and nothing has been the same since. Nor is there any going back. Nor should we want to go back. All roads have led to here.
The only way out of this is through it. Preferably to somewhere else.
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