Classroom – 2050
It’s 2050. A high school Advanced American History class is studying the “Trump Era” (historians lost the “label” battle – they wanted to call it the “Era of Insurrection”). Classes still meet in a school building, by the way. Educators discovered during the 2020 pandemic; “remote computer” education wasn’t the answer to everything that the early 2000’s thought it could be. Somehow, human direct interaction: seeing, feeling, hearing and sensing each other in a group, improves educational outcomes.
But schools still use all sorts of technology. While the fundamental truth of education is that it works best face to face, technology continues to improve the experience. This history class is assembled, circling a holographic image of a ninety-four year old man in a straight-backed chair. He’s a “local”, a retired teacher from bygone days when classes had chalkboards and kids had pencils. The old man is very much alive, interacting with the class from his home. At ninety-four, it’s more convenient to use technology than make the great physical effort of getting to the school and into the actual classroom.
Primary Sources
And why is this old teacher talking with the students? In the “Trump Era” (2015–2030) he already was retired from teaching. But during that time he wrote thousands of essays about what was going on. The essays had no pretense of impartiality, the old teacher was clearly against the most controversial figure in American History. Now some of his essays are used as “primary documents”. The students analyze, criticize, and evaluate them from the distance of twenty years after Trump finally left the scene. The old man likened it to talking about McCarthyism when he was in high school.
Why Trump
The most significant question the students asked was how did so many Americans seem to blindly follow a man with so few qualifications to be the leader of the “free world”? The slightly shimmering holograph had a complicated answer. First, he said, they needed to understand what Americans looked like in 2015. We were on the cusp of becoming the multi-cultural society we are in 2050, with no one race or religion a majority. We even elected a Black man as President of the United States in 2008, a result that few thought was possible even two years before.
And that made a lot of Americans, particularly male, white, Christian Americans, scared. If a Black man could be President, what other societal changes might impact their lives? Issues like gays serving in the military or getting married (the military policy was the infamous “Don’t ask – Don’t tell” and marriage was set by individual states), or transgendered folks being accepted into society, or the growing Hispanic population gaining political power; all threatened the cultural, religious and political status quo.
Add to that the growing economic inequality in America. In 1989, the top 10% of income earners held 61% of the total household wealth, while the bottom 50% held 3.7%. By 2016, the top 10% held 69%, the bottom 50% only 1.3%. The phrase “the rich get richer and the poor get poorer” was truer than ever, creating a general feeling of frustration. The economic upheaval of the Great Recession of 2008, when millions of lower income Americans lost their homes, savings, and retirement investments; only made things worse (Wiki).
Insecure Future
So many Americans saw a rapidly changing future and were unsure where their place would be. They felt insecure financially, morally, and politically. Add to that a massive change in information sharing. Until the mid 2000’s, Americans had two mass information platforms: broadcast and print media. But with the growth in internet information sources, and the ability to access information individually on a pocket phone, America changed.
Any and all messages could be seen on the internet. There were few controls on how things were said, who told the truth and who lied, and what audience was targeted. Social media found that creating and inflaming controversy generated income. The billionaire owners like Zuckerberg at Facebook and Instagram and Musk at Twitter, where all about making more money.
History Rhymes
So three factors: changing demographics, economic uncertainty, and unlimited access to propaganda led many Americans to seek a mythical earlier time “…when things were better and simpler”. The holograph smiled, and said “Remember your history. America was there before. As Mark Twain might have said, ‘History doesn’t repeat itself, but it often rhymes.’”
The hologram talked about the American South after Reconstruction ended, when most of the hard won rights of the newly free people were taken away by Jim Crow Laws, or the post-World War I era with dramatic media changes (Birth of a Nation), tens of thousands marching in the robes of the Ku Klux Klan, and America solving its social problems with Prohibition. The racism and cultural unrest of the 1920’s continued throughout the Great Depression.
After all of the social changes of the early 2000’s, and all of the economic upheaval, many Americans were insecure and looking for stability. In 2015 Donald Trump glided down a literal golden escalator, a mythical billionaire who had “all the answers”. As Trump himself said, “I alone can fix this”. And many Americans believed him.
The classroom teacher stepped in: “We are out of time for today, but Mr. Dahlman will be back tomorrow. Meanwhile, your homework assignment is to look up the following American political characters: Woodrow Wilson, Charles Coughlin, and Joe McCarthy. Briefly explain how they hoped to change America.”
The holograph carefully raised his coffee cup in farewell – and shimmered away. He’d have said it looked like a Star Trek transporter – but none of the kids would understand. Star Trek was eighty-five years ago.
