America is now highly politicized
After the 1970s everyone went to sleep for 40 years. But the public is now awake. Why?
In most of my essays, I have an answer. But not this time. This time I only have questions.
In 1967, The Six-Day War resulted in more than 20,000 fatal Arab casualties, while Israel suffered fewer than 1,000 fatal casualties. I don’t think anyone in the USA cared much, but perhaps that is because we were distracted by our own war in Vietnam.
The 1982 Lebanon War is the first I have any memory of. My parents were very political, they discussed the news every evening at dinner. I recall my parents felt that the USA public had been completely supportive of Israel until the 1982 war, but there was a feeling the mood was starting to change. This despite the fact this was some of the fiercest fighting that Israel had faced:
An Israeli armored battalion then probed past Joub Jannine to the town of Sultan Yacoub, and was ambushed by Syrian forces lying in wait. In the Battle of Sultan Yacoub, the Israelis fought fiercely to extricate themselves, and called in reinforcements and artillery fire to cover the withdrawal. After six hours, the Israelis managed to retreat, having lost 10 tanks and 3 armored personnel carriers. In addition, another major air battle erupted in which the Israeli Air Force shot down 25 Syrian jets and 4 helicopters.
…On 11 June, Israel and Syria announced that they had agreed to a cease-fire at noon, which would not include the PLO. The cease-fire was to come into effect at noon. Just before the cease-fire was to take effect, the Syrians moved a column of T-72 tanks so as to position it against Israeli forces in the valley. Israeli infantry teams armed with BGM-71 TOW anti-tank missiles ambushed the Syrian column, destroying 11 tanks. Another air battle also occurred, with the Israelis shooting down 18 more Syrian jets.
…On 13 June, less than twelve hours after the Israeli-PLO ceasefire had gone into effect, it fell apart, and heavy fighting erupted around Khalde. As the fighting raged, an IDF armored unit struck northeast, attempting to bypass Khalde and advance on Baabda, which overlooked the airport and could be used as another staging point to cut the Beirut-Damascus highway. By 14 June, Syrian forces were being deployed to Khalde.
The First Intifada lasted from 1987 to 1993 and I don’t recall anyone in the USA paying attention to it (I assume Jews and Palestinians paid attention to it, but I lived in a college town during some of this, and no one on campus ever mentioned it).
The Second Intifada lasted from 2000 to 2005. I don’t recall anyone in the USA caring about this war, though after 2002 we were distracted by our war in Afghanistan.
The American public was politically active in the 1960s and into the 1970s, with massive public protests on many issues. After the mid 1970s it is well known that the American public retreated from public life. They actually retreated from civic life of all kinds, as Robert Putnum documented in his book, Bowling Alone.
Participation in religion declined.
Participation in hobby organizations declined.
Participation in political parties declined.
Participation in labor unions declined.
After the 1970s the joke was that Americans were tired of politics so they went home and focused on shopping and Steven Spielberg movies. I can recall, when I was a kid, there was the feeling that caring about politics was the least cool thing you could do. Politics was for dweebs. There was a question of why you’d waste your time on issues when you could be having fun or making money. I was always political but I recall that being a very niche interest, even when I was living in college towns. There were decades when it was thought to be natural that college kids were careerist: interested in making money but not interested in politics.
I lived through a lot of that, so I got used to Americans being apathetic about most issues, especially international issues.
Since 2015 the American public has once again become political. Bernie Sanders energized the left and Donald Trump energized the right.
Initially the public was energized around domestic issues, but was still apathetic regarding international issues. Even in February of 2022, when Russia launched a full scale invasion of Ukraine, the American public had a limited reaction. Though Russia clearly endangers all of the Western democracies, only a part of the American public seemed to care about the issue.
This last month has been different.
People are emotional about the war between Israel and Hamas. It does leave me curious, why was the American public so apathetic for 40 years? Why is it so activated now? Some of the people having an emotional reaction to the current conflict know very little about the history of the conflict. It is possible that I’m jaded because I’ve seen all of the disappointing failures of the peace process that have played out over the last 40 or 50 years.
But where is this emotional intensity coming from, and why was it missing for 40 years?
I’ve no confident answers about this. Economically, our rural areas are facing an economic transformation. Our rural areas first went into economic decline during the 1920s, but during that time agriculture was still a big industry, and during the 1930s the Federal government put in a place a system of agricultural subsidies that stabilized the situation. Nowadays our rural areas are getting a lot of outside investment. In a sense, they are being gentrified by people who make a lot of money in the cities. So the rural areas are losing their independence. And this seems to be setting off a new set of political and cultural conflicts. Perhaps this is some of the energy that powered the Trump Presidency.
Meanwhile, some of our cities have seen high levels of immigration, and the arrival of a younger generation of leadership that is comfortable leading a multicultural society. This is providing some energy to progressive political causes.
But I’m just guessing. The USA has always had high levels of immigration, so it’s not clear why that issue would be a sudden trigger in recent years.
Some people would argue that the difference is how people get their news. By this understanding, YouTube and TicTok are sparking political interest in the young. But YouTube has been around since 2005, and political content was not especially popular during the first 10 to 12 years, so, again, why did things change?
Cultural change remains a mystery. We can look at changes in the economy and in various technologies, but in the end, we will never know why the public is sometimes political and other times asleep.
I don't believe that elections tell us nothing but they don't tell us as much as we're led to believe.
https://theintercept.com/2022/06/20/elections-media-chesa-boudin-america/