The decade in which I was born was unique the way it unleashed some unabashed barbarism, with it's cults and serial killers. Jim Jones and David Berkowitz showed up on the nightly news almost daily. The former's wake, spotted by myself with commentary by Dan Rather, kept me up for several nights. It wasn't just the horrific nature of Jones' hideous accomplishments that bothered me, as it was the fact that people could find themselves enthralled by someone to the point that they'd be willing to do the unthinkable at their bidding. Berkowitz, as well as Bundy, Richard Ramirez, and the Zodiac had people living in fear in major metropolitan centers across the United States. These dark villains activities unspooled across the screen on the news, leaving me disturbed motionless, staring at the grainy and disturbing images that represented their despicable handiwork. Astonishingly awful knowledge.
The book also highlights the other things that made the 70's infamous. Pornography managed to push itself into the mainstream, an oil crisis caused fuel rationing and long lines at the filling stations (this was the underlying factor in the downfall of the unfortunate youths at the center of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre's storyline) and of course Richard Nixon resigned in disgrace at the culmination of the Watergate scandal.
Now we face the most heinous viral threat since the Spanish Flu in Covid 19... We have a president who is without a doubt far more of a criminal than Richard Nixon ever was, but remains in place due to the backing of a Republican senate that is devoid of all of the values and love of the constitution that their predecessors displayed 40 years ago. This man continues to spit out scandals at a dizzying rate, and say things that would have ended previous presidencies.
This fatigues the country, weakening it's load bearing beams.
His presence has furthered the ideological divide this country was closing thanks to 60 years of equal and civil rights blood, sweat and tears. Violence reminiscent of the Civil Rights era has begun to appear in the mainstream media at a stomach churning rate from Charlottesville to Ahmaud Arbery. Behavior emboldened by an apathetic and possible racist government.
I think we are in this generation's 70's. Surprisingly, it wasn't the Coronavirus that made me think of this element, it was more the shouting. If you look at the strife in the 60's that bent into the 70's, particularly in relation to Vietnam or Roe v. Wade, protesting was thick and vivid at the forefront of all of it. Protesting has been permeating into the public mainstream in a way I haven't seen in my lifetime. But instead of young liberals who have had it up to here with the inaction of their elected representation (and trust me there is plenty of protest in that regard, mind you, The Women's March comes immediately to mind there) but the far right has gathered in disturbingly reminiscent fashion.
Not since the days the Klan burned wood down southern streets have we seen the ideological right cluster together at top volume. Charlottesville is a sickening specimen of this, complete with a murder. Now gathering together to protest the stay-at-home regulations spawned by Covid-19, they do this in defiance of their hero Donald Trump's own guidelines, (oxymoronically egged on by the man, the thinking here can twist your brain into a pretzel) and quite possibly spreading the disease further in the process. The internet has fueled the ideological vocal athletics from both sides to a level unseen since American temperaments bubbled over in the 70's.
Carter was hardly a detrimental president, and is now a humanitarian icon. He may have been overmatched, but at least he gave a shit. But at the turn of the decade, as we wound into 1980, America saw Reagan as a steadying hand, and love him or hate him (and there's reasons for both) he did seem to inject a balancing agent into the country as a whole. Now? It feels like the country is in race car that has lost the ability to manipulate the controls with a madman at the wheel and an indifferent or partially asleep cheering section in the back seat.
It's not hard to see the storm clouds on the horizon. I don't know what's coming, but it scares the shit out of me.
