We were reminded by Robert Samuelson in yesterday’s Washington Post that America has made amazing progress in the last half century.
Consider that in 1960:

• Men and Women held rigid gender roles.
• African-Americans were restricted by legal segregation in the South and informal segregation almost everywhere else.
• Homosexuality was virtually under the radar.
• There was little environmental regulation.
• Immigration was not an issue.
• Defense made up 52% of government spending.

  

Think about all the (mostly) positive changes which have taken place in the meantime:

• Women have taken paying jobs by the millions.
• Racial segregation has been outlawed.
• Gay rights have been established.
• Environmental regulation has exploded.
• Immigration, both legal and illegal, has increased.
• Social spending has soared.
• Defense is down to 16% of the federal budget in 2015.

Consider how our national politics is now stalemated:

• The political system favors extremes.
• Minorities live largely in big cities where they produce Democratic super-majorities.
• Rural areas produce Republican super-majorities.
• Incumbents are insulated from general election challenges which might pull them towards the center but are perpetually vulnerable to primary challenges from extremists who pull them towards the fringes.
• Ideological purity trumps pragmatism. In the internet and cable-news era, politicians are constantly reassuring their constituents that they haven’t sold out.
• The center sags and paralysis prevails.

Meanwhile serious national problems are getting much worse and not being addressed. Our public debt (on which we pay interest) is 74% of GDP, the highest since WWII.  The U.S. economy is growing only slowly at the rate of 2.1% per year ever since the end of the Great Recession seven years ago.  Neither presidential candidate has a credible plan to deal with these two most aggravating problems.
As a country we are in a huge mess.  How do we break out of it?  I wish I knew!

Follow me on Twitter
Follow me on Facebook