In many respects, F. Scott Fitzgerald’s 1925 novel, The Great Gatsby, tells a brutally true tale. At one point in Chapter 6, narrator Nick Carraway tells Jay Gatsby that one cannot repeat the past. To which Gatsby responds, “Can’t repeat the past? Why of course you can!” Carraway knew it was a delusion 99 years ago. And it’s still a delusion now.
But, basing a political campaign on that idea, flawed as it is, certainly can work.
It’s no secret, as former President Obama pointed out in recent podcast I heard, that people don’t like change, especially change they didn’t initiate. It’s also no secret that millions of Americans have been screwed over by the companies they’ve worked for and the politicians they’ve elected. It’s no wonder that the draw of recreating the better past in the present is so damned powerful.
But there are nagging problems about the past that are often forgotten.
First, the past in many instances was more dangerous. That danger could range from driving a car, to getting non-treatable cancer, to breathing the ever-present second-hand smoke just about everywhere.
Second, if you were a minority, a woman, LGBTQ or any other disenfranchised group, the promise of self-actualization, if it wasn’t a pipe dream, was one long slog laced with artificial barriers.
Any campaign based on recreating a false idyllic past to be “great again” is a false narrative, especially if it’s based on disenfranchisement, willful ignorance and blind hate. Or think of it another way: What’s easier, driving a car in reverse for miles and miles, or driving that same distance going forward?
