“Make America Great Again.” It is 2016, and Donald Trump is the Republican nominee for the US Presidency. He has the media in a frenzy with his preposterous statements. More jokes are made about Trump than all of the other presidential candidates combined. His plan for immigration and defense consist of building a wall on the Mexican border and banning all Muslims from the US. If Hillary Clinton had made these outrageous claims, she would not have made it more than a month into her campaign. Despite all of the negative feedback towards Trump, however, he somehow has become the Republican nominee and a recent survey even has him ahead of Hillary in national popularity. How is any of this possible? How could Donald Trump, who is so infamous he has even attracted the negative attention of citizens from other countries, potentially become the next President of the United States of America, the most powerful country in the world? The answer lies in the 1970s, where political turmoil along with the Vietnam War caused a series of chain reactions which bring us to today. FDR may have incited a four-term Democratic presidency in his time, but the 1970s are a complete mess where one side promises to fix the failures of the other, only to be upended in the next election. In 1945 following the conclusion of WWII, the US was the strongest industrial power in the world. We have just defeated both Germany and Japan, build the strongest navy in history, as well as built more airplanes than both sides of the war combined. Much of Europe was bombed into oblivion, so there was no industrial base there. In fact, the Germans had bombed out so much of Russia that the rubble they created impeded their movement. Additionally, we had just dropped two nukes on Japan, so it was safe to say that they had no industrial base either. After the war, Japan ends up selling toys, which are so cheap they are famous for breaking on Christmas day. And with the 80% of all industrial goods on Earth being made in the US by 1950, it was a good time. Wages were higher than ever, and 16 million veterans got a free college education with the GI Bill of 1944. Nobody has ever before been as prosperous as America is in this time period. Then come the 1970s. Smack dab in the middle of the Vietnam War, the most unpopular war the United States had ever fought, the 1970s was a steep fall from the glory days of yesteryear. In 1973 was the Yom Kippur War, a war between the Israelis and the Arabs. When the Israelis lost the war, we meddled by simply giving them another army, since theirs was completely obliterated in the war. The Arabs were not at all happy with this, and thus began the OAPEC Crisis, where the Arabs proclaimed an oil embargo against the US. Automobiles had become extremely popular in the US, and the most common engine was the V8. This engine was unbelievably inefficient at only 8mpg. The price of oil had gone through the roof, and gasoline was a record $1.2 a gallon by 1979. Ford Motors had the brilliant idea of shaving off the back of a car in an effort to reduce the weight of the car so people
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There was a break-in at the Democratic National Convention in 1972 and Nixon’s administration attempted to cover it up. The negative impacts of this incident still resonate today, reminding us to perhaps not trust our elected officials and giving American government a poor reputation so that its citizens could never look at it the same way again. The final (and most major) insult was the Vietnam War. This war was incredibly unpopular at home, and we had lost by pulling our troops out in 1975. It was the first war the US had ever lost, and that really resonated at home. We had lost the war against Communism. Due to the extreme spending for military development during the war, inflation was a staggering 21%. This meant that people weren’t buying homes since the interest rate would be astronomical, hurting the economy even
There was a break-in at the Democratic National Convention in 1972 and Nixon’s administration attempted to cover it up. The negative impacts of this incident still resonate today, reminding us to perhaps not trust our elected officials and giving American government a poor reputation so that its citizens could never look at it the same way again. The final (and most major) insult was the Vietnam War. This war was incredibly unpopular at home, and we had lost by pulling our troops out in 1975. It was the first war the US had ever lost, and that really resonated at home. We had lost the war against Communism. Due to the extreme spending for military development during the war, inflation was a staggering 21%. This meant that people weren’t buying homes since the interest rate would be astronomical, hurting the economy even