The America I knew and now

I was a student in America in 1957 during the time of President Dwight D. Eisenhower and later President John F. Kennedy. The first was a Republican and the second a Democrat. The first a decorated General, the second a Senator. I consider this period as a milestone of change, more than of approach. 

Many may recall of the time of Secretary of State, John Foster Dulles, of “Reds under the bed,” and later during the Kennedy Administration, a breath of the “New Frontier,” the dawn of Space exploration, the Peace Corps and the Cuban Missile Crisis, among others. 

Wherever I visited in the U.S, I was introduced as a student from where the tea comes from. I qualified it by stating, I am a product of Ceylon, the other products are tea, rubber, and coconut. I loved travel and I was lucky to visit many states during my stay. 

I remember very well, President Kennedy’s mesmeric words; “Ask not what the country can do for you, but what you can do for the country”. The ripple of his message reached many a shore, with a bubble of enthusiasm and a wave of challenge, around the world. 

After leaving America enroute to my homeland, I had the opportunity of visiting many of the capitals of Europe and particularly each of the capital cities in the far flung U.S.S.R, in March 1962, an experience with lingering memories! 

I could sense that I left a different America, to the one I had come to know. This was reflected in the untimely assassination of President Kennedy, by Lee Harvey Oswald, 24, a disenchanted, white veteran marine soldier, in Dallas, Texas on 22 November 1963. 

What is America today? 

If you fast forward today, we see a not too different America in some ways. Yet, in many other ways we have a vivid and varied contrast. Today, after some 63 years later, I find a new era America, with the election of a new President, a Democrat, who was 7 years old in 1963. We have a Senator of Irish ancestry, Joe Biden, another lanky American, another liberal thinker. 

Yet there ends the similarity, or the correlation, euphoria mingled with relief. 

Perhaps, Biden, is the last politician to oust an elected President. Before that it was Bill Clinton. He defeated George W. Bush, Snr. in 1992, with a bit of help from a third-party candidate, Ross Perot. 

What follows as day follows night, was the cycle of slump followed by boom. With the election of President Clinton it was the long boom of the 1990’s. During this time, unemployment came down, the Stock Market/Wall Street soared. U.S. Tech companies were at the forefront, this became the Second New Frontier of the Digital Revolution, a Budget deficit was turned into a surplus. 

We are near a similar situation today, perhaps, not quite. This may be due to an unforeseen pandemic. President Donald Trump’s, so called disastrous last year, means he is on course to be the first occupant of the White House, since the World War II, (some 100 odd years later) to preside over a net loss of jobs. 

Besides, the pandemic has caused a health catastrophe as President Trump has seen the economy shrink and more than 240,000 Americans die of Covid-19. 

History may record his time as President, as an era of tweet, sign talk, misinformation and “fake news” and manipulation, and a period of division and attributed to him? 

Where the similarity ends? 

Biden inherits a likely gridlock Congress impacting ideas of a stimulus package that can boost consumer confidence or spending in 2021. Some analysts state, it will not be the President of the United States, but the Chairman, Federal Reserve Bank, Jerome Powell, who will lead the economy out of this quagmire. 

Why does America change colours every so many years? 

“Wars begin in the minds of men, it’s in the mind of men that defences of peace have to be constructed.” 

When I was in America, it was after the Korean War, when I left America, it was during the Vietnam War. 

These cycles of international conflict had repercussions on the lives of ordinary American citizens. The GI’ effect was one, the anger in the minds of many was another, the Peace Movement and Marches, were still another. 

All in all, the cost of the wars abroad had come home to roost. 

Today, one thing the Presidential election has shown is that America has nearly become, “The “Divided States of United States”. There are millions of angry, discontented people, among them the poor, both at heart and in spirit, mostly from White communities, who seem unconvinced by Biden. They were prepared to give Donald Trump a second chance, despite his record. Besides, a great many Black and ethnic minorities like the Hispanics who did not vote for Biden, but voted tactically, many for and some against Trump. 

America today is a different country, it will take a lot of persuasion, agonising patience, and continued perseverance on the part of both President Elect Joe Biden and Vice President Elect, Kamala Harris, to turn the mindset of America around. The two issues, I believe, which will be uppermost in the mind of President Biden are:

1.Inequality of opportunity.

2.Rough injustice.

If anything, President Biden may have learned from JFK diplomacy and tact. He has used these traits before as Vice President. There is nothing stopping him now to use them again to fight the long fight, to unite the nation.

Victor Cherubim