In Proust's iconic novel, A la Recherche Du Temps Perdu, the taste of a madeleine is the triggering memory that recalls a childhood the author thought long dead. But memories are slippery things, gateways to the past perhaps but highly susceptible to manipulation by our fears and our desires.
The memory of times past and the desire to recreate the world in its guise plays a significant role in our present political divide. This invocation of a past in which our country was 'great', laws were respected, peace reigned, men and women married for life, families prayed and stayed together and there was a proverbial chicken in every pot is, sadly, more invention than reality. Those who embrace this vision of a better time have chosen to adopt familiar tropes of our country's exceptionalism that were no more representative of reality in their day than they are at present.
Despite careful editing, and repression of our disturbed and disturbing struggles over the past several hundred years, our country's greatness--in the eyes of the world was never based on American diplomacy. Our history is littered with wars, repression, enslavement both personal and economic, and subjugation of people in other lands for our own benefit. America's vaunted greatness was based on belief in a country that cherished freedom, accepted --however reluctantly--immigrants from less fortunate nations, sustaining a dream that one could live here free of tyranny and make one's way to a better life.
But we should be reminded, that America was not what it seemed, it was not the first country to abolish slavery and when at last it did, it took a civil war to do so. It replaced the institution with a de facto form of political and economic enslavement the legacy of which persists to this day.
Nor was America the first to give women the right to vote, and when it did it treated women as second class citizens with laws and customs that discriminated against them and abridged their rights. It continues to do so today, especially as it pertains to reproductive rights and economic equality.
Neither was America the first country to abolish child labor laws, and in some states today protective laws are being rolled back allowing corporations to exploit children for profit.
America does not provide free higher education for its citizens even as it preaches the necessity of a degree as the minimum requirement for a job. It does not provide free or even low cost healthcare for its citizens, its costs exceed most western nations. Those who oppose this most basic responsibility of government label free healthcare socialistic and claim the complexity and cost of providing it unsupportable, but American citizens spend billions of dollars to support what 33 other countries have been able to provide their citizens for generations.
America, which prided itself on raising a lamp of freedom to immigrants from every land has a sordid history of rejecting each and every group of immigrants that believed in its promise, Irish, German, Polish, Jewish, Asian and more recently Latinos as an undesirable class, fit only for the most menial of jobs, and subjected to endless discrimination. Despite this it is those very same immigrants who embrace the family values and hard work that are extolled by those who claim the past as future even as they are disparaged for their desire to contribute to a greatness they may never obtain.
Those that seek to recreate a past that never was are not fashioning a fantasy world in celebration of their childhood, but embittered, angry and selfish people whose unmet expectations lead them to venerate leadership by dictate. They worship a myth.
For one brief moment in time, America represented a dream of a new nation, a respectful and respected land governed by justice and freedom loving patriots. It could still if it rejects the false memories, restores its passion for law and humanity and opens its arms to all who pledge their resources to move beyond the present impasse. Here's to a Great America --the one that never was but yet could be.
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