EDITOR’S NOTE: The following is a column published in “The Medium” on line by 1972 Wayland High School graduate and retired history teacher Michael Johnston. He barely missed being elected Kent County Commissioner from the Kentwood area in 2012. He spends some time as a Benjamin Franklin re-enactor.
by Michael Johnston
President Donald Trump is the result of a number of forces that have weakened democracy.
One is the organized destruction of organized labor, beginning with the symbolic act of a U.S. President crushing and blacklisting a labor union in 1981. It sent a message to public and private employers, it’s OK to destroy workplace democracy and empowerment.
The highly skilled white collar union, the Professional Air Traffic Controllers Union, publicly supported Reagan for President. Reagan supported the air controllers and their need for dramatic changes to gut wrenching health and safety issues sending them a personal letter. The former military veterans who made up the bulk of PATCO membership were in shock when he turned on them during their strike.
The middle class has been shrinking since then. No unions, no sustained wage growth, no upward pressure on amoral capitalism’s constant need for growth and more profits. No restrictions on out-of-control CEO salaries. No checks and balances on big biz. No labor counterweight to vast sums of biz money used to elect and influence government.
Reagan’s repeal of the Fairness Doctrine, long used by government to balance and regulate the worst excesses of corporate owned media, allowed the rapid rise of heavily ideological radio and later TV.
What is now known as “hate,” reich wing like propaganda radio began with pioneer broadcaster Rush Limbaugh. Single handedly, Limbaugh revived moribund AM radio. He gave a voice to the anger, and despair of millions of mostly older white males thrown into the trash heap of declining industrial America. His open mic broadcasts quickly morphed into a forum for racism, sexism, bigotry, and demonizing anyone who disagreed with Limbaugh’s extreme political ideology.
“Dittoheads” spawned the first “me too” movement, except the victims were the creation of a vastly changing economy. Women, (femi-nazis, Hilliary Clinton) people of color, immigrants, unions, liberals, democrats, etc. . . were the villains. Rush became an instant millionaire “shilling for the shilling.” His success spawned clones Laura Ingraham, Sean Hennity, Michael Savage, Fox TV channel, and over 1,000 regional and local clones today.
Suddenly, what was privately held vitriol and spewing found a thousand cheerleaders with megaphones on national and local media. Because of Rush and his disciples using all the time tested techniques of propaganda, citizens no longer can tell what is truth or fake news. Thirty years later propaganda media is deeply entrenched in the listening habits of up to 36% of the population.
Clinton’s decision to align himself with Wall St goals at the expense of Main St, and his disgraceful behavior in the White House began a wide scale backlash against the Democratic Party from blue collar workers who saw their livelihoods, and middle class security disappear with millions of jobs lost to globalization and automation, and white evangelicals who loathed Bill and Hillary’s lifestyle.
Broader social forces of technology (texting, cell phones) rise of suburbia,(isolated communities only reachable by cars) decline of cities, car culture linked to super highways, and cable TV of 100’s of channels, decline of movie theaters, mainstream TV fragmented into Netflx, Hulu, etc . . . , rise of charter schools, rising numbers of people who work out of the home, others who subsist on part time jobs, collapse of malls, and on-line shopping. All this, and more has contributed to the splintering of Americans into fragments and tribal like groupings. We share little in common anymore except our greatest holiday Superbowl Sunday.
We are increasingly fragmented and a tribal society, rich never mingling with the poor, lower middle class in public schools, affluent in private charters, the money living in gated, wealthy suburbs, the rurals areas shrinking and dying. Those with tech and communication skills earning big bucks while the rest struggle with gig jobs. One need only read the great sociological study “Bowling Alone,” which came out in 2000, to be shocked at how far the country has exceeded the worst predictions of this remarkable study.
Fascism rises where people no longer trust or believe in one another. It rises where hatred of “libtard baby killers” clashes with “gun worshipping Republicants.” If a nation can no longer find common ground to solve problems, a strong man will step in and do away with our ability to rule ourselves. Democracies, historically, have only lasted about 300 years with the exception of the United Kingdom.
Sir Winston Churchill, the great conservative, WWII, Prime Minister of Great Britain once re-worded an unknown quote, “many forms of Government have been tried, and will be tried in this world of sin and woe. No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed it has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.…”
P.S. or B.S., above? You decide! The following are my credentials and hopefully establish my credibility factor. I was born in the North and raised there as well as the South. I lived in six states, 32+ addresses before age 18 and went to both private and public schools, 15+, one or more different schools every year of my life. At age 15, I became a political geek to survive my PTSD producing non-home life of five foster homes and two orphanages. I needed to read people and my surroundings well to adapt quickly to constantly changing caregivers and places I had to live.
I met thousands of people in numerous communities growing up. I come from a fine, poor white trash pedigree but lived with people of the upper middle class. It took 19 years of working in too many factories and other jobs and going to night classes to earn my degree in history, and political science in college. I was married with a child. It took many more years to earn my Masters of Humanities.
I taught U.S. history, world history, international relations, high school journalism, debate, forensics, Model U.N., English lit, and mostly life and how to think to high school students for 19 years. I was an editor of a monthly labor newspaper of 28,000 readers for twenty years.
For two years I had the honor of being the promoter of the Fifth Great Grandson of Thomas Jefferson, Rob Coles III (now deceased, this gentle, humble man shared with me wonderful family stories of his great ancestor.) and for two years I worked for five dollars a week and a place to put my sleeping bag with about 2,500 volunteers from all over the world for the Hispanic Martin Luther King, labor leader Cesar Chavez. A pistol held to my face, point blank, from a well dressed white person in a nice car, (who I presume hated Chavez) changed my life’s trajectory.
In 2008, I accurately predicted Obama’s election with accurate, relevant stats and Trumps in 2016. “Opinions can be powerful, yet life experience supporting opinions can turn an empty “O” of “pinions” into full “oh’s” of would be scholars.” Frankly speaking. Been Franken. ©2018
