Is America coming apart at the seams? History gives a clue

As we approach our nation's 246th birthday, the United States feels like a difficult member of your immediate family: You know you love them, but you wish they would behave better. And you're not sure how long they'll make it.

It sometimes feels like things are coming apart. If it's not the unparalleled political hostility, it's a worldwide pandemic. If it's not arguments over a virus that killed 1 million Americans, it's a series of Supreme Court decisions that feel designed to increase the tension in the nation. Every day it's something new.

At the midpoint of 2022, are the best years of the great experiment of democracy are behind i? Are we starting a slow (or rapid) descent into strife and division? Are really the Divided States of America? Is the American dream a nightmare?

Maybe not.

Perhaps I'm overly optimistic, but if you think this is the end, realize that we can sometimes be a prisoner of the moment. We forget that things often feel like they're coming apart – until they come back together. To illustrate, think about the history of our nation, going back one generation at a time. Or at least the past few generations. Thirty years is as good a definition of "a generation" as any, so look back 30 year to 1992 and compare it to life today. Seems like things are worse now, right?

Consider the events between 1992 and 2022 that rocked our national confidence:

The Rodney King riots were in 1992. Nine years later, terrorists flew airplanes into the Twin Towers, the Pentagon and a Pennsylvania field in the worst terrorist attack in American history. Seven years later, we began the worst recession since the Great Depression, as the economy tanked and millions of Americans lost their homes. That was followed by the election of Donald Trump, the COVID-19 pandemic and the Jan. 6 Capitol attack. Along the way, there were countless mass shootings. To many of us, each of those events felt like the end may be near.

We survived. So far.

We always seem to survive.

Go back another generation, to 1962. John F. Kennedy was in the White House and it was the era of Camelot.

Then we had the Cuban Missile Crisis, the assassination of Kennedy, the assassinations of Malcolm X, Martin Luther King Jr. and Bobby Kennedy. We had 1967 and 1968, when American cities burned and antiwar protests turned ugly. We had the Vietnam War and Watergate and the inflation/stagflation of the late 1970s. Then we had the AIDs epidemic and Chernobyl and Iran-Contra.

They all felt traumatizing. But we survived. Life was better in 1992 than it was in 1962.

Go back another generation, to 1932. A simpler time, when (if we believe the movies), families were closer and values were shared.

Except it was the height of the Great Depression and unemployment was 24.9%. Over the next three decades America endured the attack on Pearl Harbor and World War II. The Korean War followed seven years later. The Red Scare made Americans distrust anyone who was different. The fight for Civil Rights amped up because we treated people of color atrociously and many political leaders in the South were their worst selves. Kids practiced hiding under their desks in case of nuclear war.

We survived. Life was better in 1962 than in 1932.

Are we coming apart at the seams? It sure feels like it at times. But maybe a healthy perspective is that this is American life. We fight – with one side usually seeming absurd within a generation. We suffer from economic problems or viruses or social distrust.

We survive.

If history is a guide, things in 2052 will feel like they're coming apart. We will suffer through some issues that are unimaginable now. Hopefully, we survive.

Happy birthday, America. You could do a lot better, but I am still (somewhat) hopeful for the future.

Reach Brad Stanhope at bradstanhope@outlook.com.