Good Friday, 2019-04-19
【Aiden in English】 Recently I’ve been diving into politics. Obviously, if there’s ever a time to get interested, the Trump administration is as good an opportunity as any. While everyone is going ballistic over the allegations and frantic scramble between parties, I look back using my Advanced Placement United States History (APUSH) knowledge and say to myself… … nothing has changed.
The presidency has never been dealt with anything as horrifying as Nixon’s Watergate. Oddly, at the time of writing this, the Mueller Report recently opened the doors of the White House, and I have no interest in reading over 300 pages of legal, political, and wordy jargon. Once in a while, an amusing section of 8th-period history is set aside for recent events and connections with past examples. Trump’s actions of forcing his Attorney General to resign matched Nixon’s pressure on his attorneys.
While the Mueller Report essentially clears Trump, tampering with the presidency is nothing new. The Corrupt Bargain (1824) was the first largely known tamper directly affiliated with the presidency, and it’s made itself into textbooks nationwide. Nixon’s election showed the effects of international action. Promising to end the war, Nixon prolonged Vietnam through secret meetings with South Vietnam to continue the fight until he won the presidency.
Neither of these examples is extremely similar to Trump’s current predicament, but it’s not the circumstances that matter. Over the course of time, each new age of Americans provides a new sense of exceptionalism, and with good reason. A new generation brings higher education, a shifting culture, and a great change in mindset. Yet, the exact same issues appear inflation, over-speculation, and job displacement.
Even with a precedent, accurate predictions of the future are hard to come by. Regardless, it’s the basic idea of specialty per generation that consistently gives me headaches. If an omnipotent being were to look at Americans today, it would see a society of many races, but one still struggling with racial issues. Every generation leading up to the present has the notion of being “the one” to end racism, and while we have taken amazing steps from slavery, the new generation faces new problems. Another example can be said about poverty, and, for crying out loud, Lyndon B. Johnson campaigned on this very issue (a large part of his presidency was waging a “war on poverty”)! Yet poverty rates and unemployment seem to be back on the news every year, with scary statistics and reporters crying wolf.
Modern America wants to be that special age; currently, we state that we are the pioneers of technology and the future. True enough, our advances in previous years are amazing (most label the last decade as the 4th Industrial Revolution), but there were always times of great technological change. With every tech boom in the past, people lost jobs, but new jobs were formed off of these advances.
I suppose all I want to prove in this thing called an article is that nothing is new. America isn’t in unprecedented waters; someone just spilled food coloring and now the water’s green.
【红霞译文】
最近我一直在琢磨政治，显然，但凡涉猎这个议题，恐怕都跟川普政府脱不了干系。鉴于共和党与民主党之间唇枪舌战互不示弱，我凭借《美国历史大学预修课程》传授的知识谈点个人看法… …一切如常。 美国总统官位没有一个像尼克松的水门事件被闹得鸡飞狗跳。无巧不成书，在撰写此文时，恰巧赶上近日特别检查官公开白宫内幕，我毫无兴趣阅读长达300多页集法律、政治及冗言于一体的《穆勒报告》，只是隔上一阵子，我们第八节历史课（注：北宾州高中每天学生有八节课）的娱乐部分少不了谈论这类时事经纬，川普迫使自己任命的司法部长辞职跟尼克松挤走手下检察官的做法真是如出一辙。
尽管《穆勒报告》基本上还了川普清白，但觊觎大位绝非什么新鲜事物，1824发生的“腐败交易”首次将撤废总统任职之举载入史册，并由此编进全国教科书。尼克松竞选总统深受国际局势影响，原曾承诺结束越战，却通过密会南越硬把武力争端延续到连任成功为止。 虽然上述例证与川普目前所遇到的麻烦风马牛不相及，但这并不重要，随着时间推移，各个时代的美国人都提出非同寻常的例外论，而且理由充分。年轻一代带来高等资质、文化转向以及理念深化，当然还要面对完全相同的问题：通货膨胀、过度投机、裁员失业。
即使再有先见之明，也难以准确预测未来，偏偏这个放之四海而皆准的基本观念常常令我百思不得其解。今天在圣人眼里，美国也许堪称多民族社会，其中不乏个别族裔仍在为种族问题作斗争，到目前为止，每一代都有结束种族主义的“那个人”，当我们早已从奴隶制中迈出可喜步伐，新生代又面临新障碍，贫困便被视为另一代表，林登·约翰逊曾大张旗鼓地为贫困问题四处游说（他的总统任期很大程度忙于推行“与贫困作战”）！然而，贫困率和失业率好像年年都因危言耸听的统计数据及记者狂呼乱叫狼来了而登上头版头条。
现代美国想要转入那个貌似特殊的时代；眼下我们声称自己是技术与未来的先驱。没错，前几年我们的确进步卓著 (大多数人将过去十年比作第四次工业革命)，但重大技术变革时有发生。过去每一次科技繁荣，人们解雇下岗丢掉饭碗，好在新兴产业结构得以应运而生。 我想这篇所谓的文章写到这里就是要证明没啥新颖玩意，美国并非处在前所未有的水域之中，有人刚洒了食用色素，结果水现被染成绿色。 Today in History(历史上的今天): 2015 GHCS Field Trip @ Green Lane Park(光华绿荫公园春游日) 2014: Spring Soccer Game I(春季足球之一)
Crosslink(相关博文): 10th Grade(高中二年级) |
