Summer of Shove

The title here is not original. Writer Michael Tomasky coined that phrase in 2009 in a N.Y. Times article outlining the aggressive agenda of a then-freshly-installed President Barack Obama. Addressing a variety of issues including health care, climate change and a fast-track nomination of Justice Sonia Sotomayer to the U.S. Supreme Court may have had heads spinning at the time, but at least each issue was clear, regardless of what side one took.

It’s now similar to that time in 1967 when a cultural shift began to take shape centered around opposition to the Vietnam War. Our participation in Vietnam – or any was for that matter - was the palpable enemy. It produced everything from head scratching to bemusement to anger, but it pales in comparison to today.

This year’s version of questioning America’s values is a careening version on steroids that would drive a pin ball wizard to drink. A clear-cut case of police misconduct and brutality in the death of George Floyd has quickly morphed into a sledgehammer question: Is the U.S. a legitimate entity? A rising multi-cultural movement threatens to successfully wipe away much of 244 years of history.

Toppled statues of various figures ranging from those who fought for the Confederacy to those who championed the abolishment of slavery provide a truly dizzying picture of resistance.

And then there’s the fury over Columbus, our historically favorite symbol of exploration who just happens to be – like virtually every explorer through a certain portion of history – a nasty conqueror who vanquished populations to find treasures.

So, we tear them all to the ground and drag them off. Forget about the teachable moments, the ones in which we can learn about the entire history of a person. What a novel idea to objectively examine all sides of those figures throughout the ages and the issues that carved their mindset and actions.

Closer to home and present day, we have an equally inebriated view of how America should work. There is no better example than the scattershot notion that police departments should be defunded. Even the further explanation that it means in most instances that departmental budgets should be slashed has the whiff of last-call stupidity that goes no further than a punitive take away. Up to this point, no proper budgeting is considered. No determining needs for a world where police have less negative interaction with the public and then affixing a cost based on those needs. Logic seems to be fleeting like a shiny county fair balloon slipping from a child’s grasp and floating away, never to be seen again.

All this would be difficult enough in a “normal” summer. Now slather all of this with Covid19’s cataclysmic swirl of health and politics and you have a 2021 that cannot come too soon.

Or maybe this is a Summer of Love redux, a beginning of continued social upheaval ripe for redefining who we are – this time served with a side of viral mortality.