When was America great?

Trump's inane slogan, which nearly half of the populace bought into, was that he was going to make America great again. Obviously, he made our country far, far worse, and nearly destroyed it by trying to subvert our democracy and politicizing every aspect of our government. He and his blind followers tried like hell to make him dictator.

So, when was America great? What decade?

• 2010s? Not a chance. Probably the worst decade in U.S. history, with Trump as president. We were kind of on the right track with Obama, but Republicans prevented any major accomplishments, so no... not great.
• 2000s? No way, dude. Military intelligence blew it when they missed the 9/11 attack, and then Bush and Cheney lied us into two unwinnable wars. Plus, we had the deepest recession since the Great Depression.
• 1990s? That was a pretty good decade. Massive economic growth, balanced budgets. We even won a war (Kosovo)! Plus, there was the invention of the Web and the development of affordable PCs. Downloadable music and videos. On the negative side, that's when the Democratic party became conservative-lite, and Republicans impeached a president for lying under oath about his sex life. With the help of talk radio and Fox "news," that was the beginning of the severely destructive polarization of our nation.
• 1980s? There was the fall of the Berlin Wall, the invention of the PC and the VCR. That was also the beginning of burgeoning debt from "trickle down economics" and the notion that "deficits don't matter."
• 1970s? That was an incredible decade for music, movies, and literature, and sports including boxing and auto racing. We got out of Vietnam. On the other side of the spectrum were the serial killers...

I have to go eat dinner. I'll pick this up later.

 

We seemed great at the end of WW I, entering the roaring 20s, but then the Great Depression hit us and knocked us down.

Then at the end of WW II we seemed even greater, but slowly we encountered the Cold War, McCarthyism, Vietnam and Watergate.

Ronald Reagan made us believe we were great again and it was capped with the fall of the USSR, but later we hit road bumps with George W. Bush and Donald Trump.

Yes America has fucked up considerably in its short existence but has always managed to regroup and rebound. Perhaps that's what makes us great is our resilience.

 

The argument could be made that the way we dealt with the Great Depression was what a great country would do. FDR implemented many programs such as the WPA that helped struggling people and made our country better.

 

... decades, cont...

• 1970s (cont...)? We had the Watergate scandal, but we dealt with it and Nixon resigned in disgrace.
• 1960s? This was the decade Johnson got us deep into Vietnam and all the assassinations tilt the scale to the negative side, but then there were the civil rights laws passed, all the great music and concerts, and the landing on the moon! I'd give us a rating of great for the 60s.
• 1950s? More great music, cool cars, but there was the Korean War and the McCarthy Era, which was a total disgrace to everything this country supposedly stands for.
• 1940s? Yeah, we -- along with our allies -- won WWII. That's enough to be great.
• 1930s? Like I wrote it my previous post, the way we dealt with the Great Depression was what a great country would do. FDR implemented many programs such as the WPA that helped struggling people and made our country better.
• 1920s? Sure, the roaring 20s! But that whole prohibition thing must have really sucked.
• 1910s? We won WWI, which put the U.S. on the map. We also completed the Panama Canal, which was a major undertaking and showed we could do great things.
• 1900s? Teddy Roosevelt created several national parks. I forget what else he did.

 

Of course America being great is all about the journey, not about returning to some mythical destination. People used to talk about the “gay nineties”...nothing gay about it for workers ground up by monopolies and children working long hours in dangerous jobs. So we have made some progress in labor laws and OSHA; in other areas like racial and sexual justice, not so much. Moreover in some areas like income inequality the, situation is getting worse. Perversely, T——-, the Republicans, and the wealthy have been trying to roll back the clock on things that make America great for the overwhelming majority of us while promoting those things that make America un-great.

 

in order to answer the question it would need to be defined, as what is great to one may mean nothing to another, "one man gathers what another man spills"

 

I think that would rather depend upon who you ask. First Nations, African-Americans, Latinos, LGBT's, women, poor & working class; they'd all probably have different answers than straight, cisgender WASP males or millionaires.

 

U.S. is worst among developed nations for worker benefits

 

I guess you could look at relative "greatness." When was America at its best?

It would be easy to make the case that there was a steep decline in goodness after 9/11. A lot of people who were decent before that, all of a sudden became assholes. A great country is made up of good people, and when people stop being good, the country is no longer great.

 

When it became an empire.

 

Imo..... America has always been great, but then again I'm a caucasian male.

I'm sure if I was another race, I'd feel differently.

 

Indeed, 1491, nough said

 

We do have that pesky colonial problem...

There are so many who are disadvantaged and I'm not sure how you remedy taking the land of our original native population.

However what's done is done - we aren't going to undo it. As such, it may be necessary to approach reparations. That and the slavery conundrum absolutely deserve, in time, monetary discretion.

I think some of the showcase moments for the United States were with the implementation of the New Deal - a bold maneuver meant to stave off depression. Also, electing an African American president speaks volumes; though the Obama presidency pales in comparison with the Roosevelt in historical glory - at least for now.

I believe in this country, and I think that's important to realize. I pledged allegiance to the flag every day for many moons, and it grew in me and meant something. I said that pledge, thought about its words, and made its meaning part of my own ethos. It's a part of who we are - republican and democrat alike.

And without division we are one thing: American. So we are the United States of America. That's nothing to blow snot at! Even though at times we may be less proud to be American, we need only pick ourselves up and stand together. That's all. We are America. Nothing more, nothing less. And we have accomplishment! What we made out of nothing but a few colonies is rather phenomenal.

 

It depends on what you define as ‘great’ and for who?

The British (or rather English) Empire was one of the biggest and wealthiest in history and many on the right of UK politics us that to bolster ideas of English exceptionalism and greatness (many claim that this English nationalism and ideas of exceptionalism was and is the driving force behind Brexit).

But when you look more closely at what the empire was based on and who benefited from it and it becomes more difficult to defend it and the time it was around as ‘great’. What underpinned the founding and to a great extent drove the expansion of the empire was exploitation, both within Britain and its holdings. The great amount of money that came from slavery, both in the selling of people and in working them. In India as just the largest exemplar millions died due to British neglect or mismanagement and the country impoverished by those whose only desire was to squeeze as much money as they could from their position and the native peoples to send back home.

As to the British Isles it should be remembered that this was the time of the works of Dickens, with its work houses and child exploitation and that in the time of the English empire millions of Irish and Scots fled the country in search of better lives.

Wealth was confined to a few the majority of Britain’s lived in poverty (it has been argued that one reason why we didn’t import large numbers of African slaves into the UK was because it was cheaper to exploit the British poor).

Much is pontificated by right wingers on Britain been the home of the mother of Parliament as if Britain had somehow always been ‘democratic’ and its governments had always work in the interests of the British people, that is far from the truth.

A survey conducted in 1780 revealed that the electorate in England and Wales consisted of just 214,000 people - less than 3% of the total population of approximately 8 million and even after agitation for reform by 1831 it had only increased to 366,000 in fact at the time of the third Reform Act in 1884, Britain was less democratic than many other countries in Europe. It wasn’t really until the empire was declining and beginning to cost more than it made that the British people got the voting power to actually gain from its existence even if they had wanted to, in other words the English Empire was never a great thing for the British people.

 

So what is great and who thinks it great and why?

Those in politics that serve the interests of wealth or ethical groupings often seem to praise those times when those groups had power, instilling an idea of exceptionalism that the reason for having power is due to those people being special. Those that have wealth or gain wealth are special, those that conquer are special, those that gain the advantage are special and those times when these groups had the greater power therefore must be especially great.

So on the right in the UK you get those that praise or are apologists for the age of the English Empire and in the US there is similar view on the right for the myths of the founding and the manifest destiny driven expansion west or of the 1920’s that they call ‘The gilded Age’ and for many a romanticised version of the 1950’s before the 1960’s progressives came along and ruined things.

On the right there is a rose tinted view of the Reagan era in the US and that of Thatcher in the UK.

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However many on the left base their ideas on bringing about the greatest good for the greatest number of people so reject the idea of celebrating times when only a relative few received the good.

Most ordinary people never really experienced the boom of the 1920’s but got badly hit by the bust and the same again for the boom in the 1950’s and the problem of race in the US is still on going. I wrote above about how things were so hard in the time of the English Empire that millions of Irish and Scots fled the country in search of better lives, well between 1920’s and 1950’s millions of black people fled the south of the US with its suppression segregation and harassment (and resultant poverty) of black people in search of better lives in the north.

I think countries can and do great things I think they can strive for greater but I think no country has ever achieved greatness.

 

Columbus?

 

It feels like we're starting to head in the right direction -- that we've turned the corner, but it's only been two weeks since Trump left office. The people responsible for all the harm caused during his four years need to be prosecuted or at least ostracized and Democrats need to put in place some safeguards so something like that can't happen again. We nearly lost our democracy. We need to use that as impetus for major change.

 

The US conducted a rampage in the Philipinnes.

 

Columbus was in 1492

I'm talking any time pre-Columbus.

Here in Massachusetts there's a 10,000 year history of occupation by the indigenous population

 

"Great" for me is a strong middle class with equal opportunity for everyone. What many Americans don't understand is one group's success has always depending on another's failure. Who built the rail roads or picked cotton in the fields? An American made money on those things and it was off the labor of someone who "did not deserve" to be a full American. Even the Irish, a white Christian country were outsider a century ago. Now an Irish American could proudly say that and be a MAGA Republican because they are white and speak English. The goal posts always move.

We need to address racism, and the rigged economy. Those two things cause every generation to suffer. Half of America wants to talk about it and the other claims talking about creates more of a problem.