Historical February–March 2021 article. Dates, prices, services and contacts describe the source period; current availability has not been established.
Are these crazy times, or what?
I don’t know about you, but it feels like I am living an American History class. Wherever I turn, I hear about the constitution, the Electoral College, protests (formerly known as riots), and impeachments.
The cable news stations are worried that their number of viewers will decline dramatically once the political machinations and rhetoric diminish. Actually, I don’t think they need to worry because this isn’t going to happen in the foreseeable future. At every level, most of the reporting seems to be looking forward. Nationally, inquiring minds wonder if President Biden will put Harriet Tubman’s picture on the $20 bill. Symbols count! Those same inquiring minds ask which country without an extradition treaty to the U. S. will become the home of ex-President Trump. (The list of choices is actually quite long, including Moldova, Mongolia, Montenegro, Morocco, and Mozambique.) From a state perspective, we are curious if Senator Josh Hawley will move to Alabama from his Virginia home before or after his next election.
These political forecast questions are almost endless, and that doesn’t include the most important issues like whether the National League will adopt the designated-hitter rule and when will the Loop Trolley extend east to the Arch. And don’t forget to ponder when the City and County will merge and how elections outcomes will change when recreational marijuana is available at Schnucks.
But I’m weary of looking ahead. Who cares if there’s a Trump Tower in Moldova and Rudy Giuliani becomes their premier? For me, it’s much more fun to look backwards and speculate about what if. Consider, for example, how our country might have evolved differently if any of the following had happened: What if instead of the first invaders – oops, I mean settlers – coming from England in the 1600’s and landing on Plymouth Rock, MA, had come from Asia and arrived at San Jose, CA? How would the country’s west to east settlement have differed than the Westward Ho movement? Would government and governing be different if framed by the teachings of Confucius instead of the Magna Carta? Would the deserts and Rocky Mountains have precluded the formation of one seato-shining sea country, and would separate countries have evolved from the Pacific and Atlantic, both ending at the Mississippi River? What if citizenship and the right to vote had been given to everyone age 18 and over in 1789? What different legislation would have passed?
With a far wider voting pool than just white guys who owned property, would we have many more social support programs in place, such as universal health insurance, and maternity and paternity leave? Would the child-labor act have passed before 1906? How would this have changed who was elected? What if slavery had not come to this country in 1619? Of course, there would have been no Civil War and many subsequent acts of segregation legislation would not have been passed. (Richard Rothstein’s book, The Color of Law, offers a painful report of this.) But how much more equitable, integrated and productive would our society be today? What if we had lost the Mexican-American War in 1848, and thus would not have the land that today constitutes New Mexico, Utah, Nevada, Arizona, California, Texas, and western Colorado?
In what ways would the presence of a larger Mexico on our southern and western borders have influenced us? What if the North had not won the Civil War and, instead, the North and South became separate countries? Would the territories to the west of Missouri have joined the Union or the Confederacy? Might they have become a third country? Or could these lands have become many smaller countries, similar to Europe? (Europe, according to Dr. Google is 3.931 million square miles, while the 48 contiguous states and D. C. cover 3.119 million square miles.) What if Lincoln had not been assassinated in 1865?
To what degree would he have been able to provide leadership to avoid the continued dichotomy of the north and south and the passage of Jim Crow laws? What if JFK had not been assassinated in 1963? Would he have kept us out of Viet Nam and, if so, how would that have affected future policy decisions and foreign entrapments? Who would have replaced him after his second term ended in 1968? What if the U.S. had not orchestrated the ascendency of Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, the Shah of Iran?
With no Iranian hostage crisis (52 Americans held for 444 days) in 1979, would Reagan have defeated Carter in 1980? What if Reagan hadn’t convinced so many voters that the government is the enemy? How might politics and life be different today? Would Bill Clinton have been elected in 1992 if Ross Perot hadn’t run as a third-party candidate?
The what-if possibilities are infinite and they’ve all actually happened in some parallel universe, but that’s fodder for another column.
I hope you enjoy kicking around some what if possibilities. Feel free to shoot me an email (trhoerr@aol.com) with your thoughts. I’ll respond – as long as I can get Internet service in Moldova.
Originally published in The Times of Skinker-DeBaliviere, February–March 2021.
Read this article in the original newspaper issue.
Original source: SD_Times2021_02.pdf, printed page(s) 8; PDF page(s) 8.
