If I had to pick another time in America’s political history that most closely resembles today’s, I would have to say the 1890s, of course. Without equivocation.
The 1890s were a time of great economic crises. The panic of 1893, brought on in part by a burst bubble in railroad speculation markets, did much to create what many historians believe to have been the worst economic recession America faced prior to the Great Depression. Some modern estimates say the downturn brought about unemployment rates as high as 12 percent in the mid-1890s. Cries went up from the populace for a reform of America’s business and political cultures. “Eastern” banking interests, especially in New York City, were vilified for being schemers bent on amassing stockpiles of wealth to no one’s benefit but their own. Farmers in the Midwest urged that the government inflate the currency by using silver in valuing the dollar,which would in the short term help in paying backbreaking debts on farm loans.
Regarding the political landscape, the previous several election cycles had seen power in Congress swing back and forth between Democrats and Republicans, every two years, seemingly.
Added into the fray of American politics at this time was the People’s or “Populist” Party. While not representative of an overwhelming portion of America, the Populists succeeded in organizing a mass of distrustful Americans that sought change in the scene in Washington. They were a force to be reckoned with, a legitimate third party for a time. Democrats eventually extended their party and took in the Populists. Beginning in the mid-1890s, the spokesman for Populist sentiment was William Jennings Bryan, an iron-willed, visceral, religious man, and soon-to-be perennial presidential candidate, who preached for aid to the beleaguered farmers and working poor against the wealthy financial interests of the nation.
To draw a litany of parallels, in present-day America, we find ourselves immersed in economic stagnation. Unemployment is at its highest in decades and people are wildly distrustful of the banking and financial services industry.
The last two election cycles have been viewed as representing the fact that Americans wanted significant change to the political scene in Washington, as something in the status quo was not right with government. The year 2006 witnessed the Democrats’ takeover of Congress after a decade of Republican control, and 2008 saw the enlarging of Democratic majorities to points not seen in decades. With it seeming more and more likely that Republicans will gain control of the House again, as well as make significant gains in the Senate, another wild swing in the opposite direction may be expected.
The Tea Party movement has emerged to direct the manifold opinions held by a significant and discontented portion of America. Among the issues they raise are the nation’s staggering debt and intervention of government into areas they believe unsuitable. The methods the Tea Party suggests to combat the government’s ills include mixed calls for tax cuts and decreasing government spending, and each “populist” calls to remove the strain that many believe the government has put on the people at large.
The Tea Party has a national figurehead and voice, a person of strong conviction who claims to speak for the interests of the movement, Sarah Palin. Her influence among the Tea Party cannot be denied, as her endorsements have been significant in the nomination of some underdog Republicans in primaries already.
To Robert Frost, the following is attributed: “In three words I can sum up everything I’ve learned about life: It goes on.” From these comparisons, I only wish to show what some may already be well aware of, but is nevertheless important to understand about the current state of American politics finds itself in at present: This has happened before. I do not mean this in a skeptical way. Instead of being inundated with the repeatedly stated line that we are in times of great change, Americans should look to their past and see how events comparable to the times at present were handled. We have a wealth of information to fall back on in our own very short history that at the very least can encourage us. It can assure us that throughout all of American history, controversial movements and polarizing issues have threatened to tear apart consensus and desire to reason in America.
Dangerous men entrusted as leaders in politics, business, or any number of positions of social import have threatened to bring ruination to our country through failed policy or selfishness. Yet, in spite of all of these trials, great and small, the nation has made it this far, the nation has survived. We have faced similar times like our current predicament – a massive debt. We have been tried by war. We have seen in our past periods when our governing bodies were so wrought with political division that our political process was at an impasse. And then these times passed. To be sure, other crises sprang up and demanded new solutions, yet on and on we’ve gone. When thinking of the present, remember the past, for in doing so we might gain confidence in knowing how the nation has made it here to begin with.