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THE VIEW FROM HERE - Sad to relate, feelings are not readily transferrable. Thus, Baby Boomers like myself are the only significant percentage of the population who can truly grasp the 1950's Politics of Hope, except maybe for more recent immigrant groups such as the Vietnamese. Hope arises when a people have suffered deprivation and then opportunity opens for a new era of prosperity.
The 1950's Era of Hope started right after WW II in the late 1940's and lasted until it dissolved into the Vietnam Era of Betrayal. The Great Depression formed the economic reality of all Americans from 1929 until the beginning of WW II on December 7, 1941, when the nation was shocked into a world war. With the GI Bill and a huge industrial capacity which could be retooled to domestic consumerism, America was poised for a great leap forward. As vital as the domestic scene was, the Marshall Plan was crucial to the Politics of Hope. The Marshall Plan recognized that Japan and Europe including Germany had to become prosperous in order not to replicate the disaster of the 1919 Treaty of Versailles. The treaty’s harsh anti-German provisions were foreseen as laying the groundwork for more war, not peace. John Maynard Keynes was a major critic of the Treaty; his correct diagnosis no doubt played a role in his General Theory of macro-economics becoming the architect of the post WW II prosperity both in America and Europe. Credit for Japan’s post war success should also be shared by W. Edwards. Deming, who established the Deming production system which Gen. MacArthur forced the Japanese to adopt.
While Americans living under today’s Politics of Revenge can never experience of the pervasive aura of Hope of the 1950's, they might gain intellectual insight into the disasters to befall us in this Era of Revenge if they learn about the Marshall Plan, Keynes, and Deming.
Vietnam Ended Our Era of Hope and Altered Our Political Landscape Forever
The great promise for the Baby Boomer generation was a bright, easily attainable future of unfolding prosperity. This was particularly true for college educated who were raising families in the new suburbs. Then, the government started drafting the best of the best who had joined ROTC to die for no sane reason in the rice paddies of Southeast Asia. While college educated Whites were officers, with a horrific death rate, the Blacks were drafted in huge numbers. The anti-Vietnam War revolt, however, came for the White college students who felt betrayed. The entire ethos of the nation had promised them the good life, while in reality, they were being shipped off to death. The fact that the drug culture followed upon the end of the Era of Hope should surprise no one.
The Politics of Revenge
The current Era of Revenge has two main causes: (1) the repeal of Glass-Steagall which allowed investment firms to own commercial banks along with the legitimization of Credit Default Swaps, which gave rise to the Crash of 2008 and (2) rise of Wokeism. This article only has room to discuss Wokeism.
Revenge is The Essence of Wokeism
It postulates that the only reason Black poor outcomes in education, business and finance is White racism. It bases itself on absurd falsehoods such as the Declaration of Independence was written to perpetuate slavery. Similarly, there is one and only one reason Blacks have a lower standard of living than Whites, that is White racism. The behavior of Blacks plays no role and if statistics show that Black culture had delf-defeating aspects, .e.g., anti-intellectualism, inability to control violence within its own communities, all fault is due to Whites who had made life so horrible that Blacks had no choice but to be low achieving criminals.
Nancy Pelosi was the Piped Piper of Wokeism, which she originally termed “Identity Politics.” Her politics was pure revenge. She claimed that when minorities were the majority of voters, they would then appropriate for themselves the wealth of the Whites. Since Blacks comprise only about 14% of Americans, Pelosi tried to recruit other minorities to join her Politics of Revenge. Everyone, except White males and Jews, had been terribly abused, and the time was approaching when all the abused people who take their fair share of American wealth. All the minorities had to do to realize this revenge was to support Democrats at the ballot box.
Unlike Trump who is transparent about his revenge, Pelosi was quite secretive, and she sold her political agenda to Whites on the basis of White guilt and the need to make American society open to Diversity, Equity and Inclusion. Pelosi’s theory of America was based on group rights and was hostile to the Declaration of Independence’s individual inalienable rights. Rather, life’s goods would be doled out on the basis to which group one belonged. Thus, universities had to reject White, especially Jewish, applicants in order to admit more Blacks who scored lower on all traditional admission criteria. (This anti-White and anti-Jewish policy began in President Johnson’s Poverty Program, even though the Program originally was truly color blind and helped anyone who wanted help. Again, this article cannot explain the transformation of the Poverty Program into racist public policy which plagues us today.)
It took decades for the racist group rights agenda including DEI and Critical Race Theory to become the official policy which all universities had to teach or loose federal money. (Trump is merely following Pelosi’s pattern in defunding Woke DEI programs, but Trump insists on shouting from the rooftops, while Pelosi was silent about her purge of Whites, Jews and Asians from higher education.) The first shocker for most Americans was Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard, 600 U.S. 181 (2023) where the Supreme Court ruled that Harvard was anti-Asian and Affirmative Action was unconstitutional. See Harvard Case Few people notice that The Harvard Case tracks perfectly with Martin Luther King’s I have a Dream Speech. King spoke solely about individual liberty with no hint of group rights such as Woke DEI.
Revenge Politics Seize the GOP
Law enforcement warned Pelosi to stop her American version of the Great Replacement Theory directed at White Supremacists. White Supremacists were violent and included many dangerous anti-government militias. As such they were a criminal problem, not a social movement. Pelosi plowed ahead created her relentless attacks on the Far Right ultimately resulted in MAGA including the January 6th insurrection. The first right wing response to Pelosi’s anti-White Identity Politics was the Tea Baggers’ 2010 flood into Congress. In 2016, Hillary Clinton invoked the anti-White theme by calling Whites in the Rust Belt, “Deplorables,” handing the White House to Trump.
After the vicious anti-Semitism of Woke DEI on college campuses was revealed by the three college presidents’ testimony during the Congressional hearings in December 2023, the existence of Wokeism in government, business and education became prime news. It took some time for Americans to realize that Wokeism required supporting Hamas against its victims, both Jewish and Gazans. While the Main Street media never gave up its anti-Jewish slant in almost every news cast about Hamas, which was often euphemistically called “Palestinians,” Americans came to loath Wokeism. See Americans Hate Wokeism Trump won in November 2024 because enough Centrist Independent voters sided with Trump against the Dems’ insistence on more Wokeism.
Trump, However, Suffers from Serious Mental Liabilities
Trump suffers from two personality disorders – Histrionic and Narcissistic with paranoid features. Since his loss in the 2020 Presidential election, his paranoia has come to dominate. Trump’s variant of paranoia is marked by systematic delusions of persecution and/or grandeur. Trump has both in spades! His Tariff Speech on Wednesday, April 2, 2025 (Liberation Day) finds that the entire world is against America including not only Canada but also Penguins living near Antarctica, and only Donald Trump can save us through Tariffs against everyone, except Russia. See Trump’s Speech My condolences to anyone who cannot see Trump’s delusions of persecution and grandeur.
All of Trump’s tariff policies resolve down to one thing: Revenge. The GOP is too cowardly to remember the lesson of the 1919 Treaty of Versailles which taught us that seriously abusing people can provoke a huge negative reaction. Trump’s delusional tariffs attack the world including innocent penguins.
Let’s also realize that Trump’s domestic Politics of Revenge including Elon Musk’s attacks on Social Security and other federal programs like Medicare on which millions of Americans rely will provoke a huge backlash even if many MAGA’s will readily drink the Kool-Aide.
(Richard Lee Abrams has been an attorney, a Realtor and community relations consultant as well as a CityWatch contributor. You may email him at [email protected])
