A Theory of History

These are, in fact, the good old days

Dear Friends,

Iris and I are in Paris this week. With the likely return of Trump and the rise of the Far Right in France, it feels like the end of the world. Doesn’t it always?

In the 1990s, we feared we’d all die of AIDS. As the new millennium approached, Americans built bunkers for Y2K. Terrorism, now a distant memory, became the new normal during the 2000s: 9/11, the Moscow theater hostage crisis, the Madrid train bombings, the London Tube bombings.

And those were considered the good old days! I recently rewatched Obama roasting Donald Trump at the 2011 White House Correspondents Dinner:¹

Obama opened his speech with a recording of the Hulk Hogan theme song “Real American” and his birth certificate pulsating on the video screen.

“Now, I know that he’s taken some flak lately, but no one is happier, no one is prouder to put this birth certificate matter to rest than The Donald,” Obama said. “And that’s because he can finally get back to focusing on the issues that matter — like, did we fake the moon landing? What really happened in Roswell? And where are Biggie and Tupac?”

“But all kidding aside, obviously, we all know about your credentials and breadth of experience. For example — no, seriously, just recently, in an episode of ‘Celebrity Apprentice’ — at the steakhouse, the men’s cooking team did not impress the judges from Omaha Steaks. And there was a lot of blame to go around. But you, Mr. Trump, recognized that the real problem was a lack of leadership. And so ultimately, you didn’t blame Lil Jon or Meatloaf. You fired Gary Busey. And these are the kind of decisions that would keep me up at night. Well handled, sir. Well handled.”

Roger Stone said it was the night that cemented Trump’s decision to run for president.²

I rewatched the clip filled with nostalgia for simpler times when an articulate, intelligent president led the country with optimism about the future.³ I easily forgot we were in the midst of a foreclosure crisis and that it would take another decade for real income and household wealth to recover.

Looking around, Paris is brimming with impossibly stylish, attractive, and diverse groups of friends at every corner brasserie. Somehow, they have enough money to live here. Tomorrow, they vote in the first round of France’s unique two-round election system, which concludes next Sunday. Here are some recent headlines from Le Monde:

• Macron could end up a loser. How did he get there?

• 'People hate you': The French are increasingly rejecting Macron

• 'Remaining silent, abstaining from the next elections means endorsing hatred'

• The French left's hopes and fears: 'It's no longer far-right voters who stay silent, it's left-wing ones'

• Preserving our democracy

The Wall Street Journal profiled Macron, a competent leader who guided France through turmoil but comes off as globalist, elitist, and out of touch to voters who are increasingly upset about immigration, inflation, and rising rents. (Even if they are earning more money — adjusted for inflation — than ever before.)

Americans can relate to French politics: fiscal conservatives have been co-opted by a far right party that promises to end immigration and return to simpler times. France’s divided left, meanwhile, can only agree on two things: 1) a far right win is an existential threat to democracy, and 2) they must all be racists.

There is some evidence that the French are indeed slightly less tolerant today compared to a few years ago. In its annual tolerance survey, France’s Human Rights Commission found a slight decline in feelings of tolerance toward specific minorities. However, France is far more tolerant today compared to the 1990s or early 2000s. 79% of the respondents agreed that “a vigorous fight against racism is necessary in France."

This is my theory of history. In the present, we feel surrounded by threats. The state of the world seems dire and getting worse. But viewed in retrospect, we experience the warm glow of the good old days.

You can’t beat Parisian cafe culture

In the 1990s, rap music and video games were blamed for gang violence. Now, Street Fighter II and old school rap remind of us simpler times.

Subway scenes

That’s not to say that humanity never descends into darkness: The Inquisition, Fascism, Stalin’s Great Purge, Mao’s Cultural Revolution, Latin America’s military dictatorships. Maybe the catastrophizing writers at The Atlantic and Le Monde are right and this really is goodbye to democracy in the US and France, the end of our last shot to address climate change, or even the beginning of a nuclear World War III. But I doubt it.

What will I find when I re-open the Time Capsule ⁴in 20 years? Contrary to my (yes, I admit) overly optimistic prediction, I now assume that Trump will win the election and govern until he is 83 years old. Hopefully, the Democratic Party finds common ground and purpose in opposition. I expect that Macron will have to share power with the Far Right, which will follow Giorgia Meloni’s path toward moderation.

Subway scenes

I expect the state of the world will continue to improve. We will make more money, live longer, and take new conveniences for granted. But come 2043, we’ll look back on 2023 with warm nostalgia for the good old days when life was simpler and we didn’t have so much to worry about.

Sorbet in a park, every day

These past few days, while admiring Paris’ architecture and public spaces, I thought of a different theory of history described in Roman Krznaric’s book, The Good Ancestor. “We are all the recipients of gifts from previous generations,” Krnzaric writes. From the laborers who built the train tracks and sewer systems we now take for granted to the researchers who found cures for smallpox and rabies, we continue to benefit long after they passed.

Most Saturdays I ride my bike by a tree that is 2,000 years old. I wish I could talk to it. I wish I could ask it, so, when were the good old days?

I don’t know if someone intentionally planted that tree two millennia ago, but I like to think that they did. I’d like to think that someday I will plant a tree and it will last for 2,000 years too.

Yours,

David

1. Just before he took the stage, Obama had secretly authorized the raid that took out Osama bin Laden.

2. Others disagree.

3. Back then, it was considered racist to describe Obama as “articulate,” but compared to today’s politicians of any color, we were just stating the obvious.

4. Jake Seliger: “I recently read “The Optimists Ended up in Auschwitz.” As you can infer from the title, the people who looked on the bright side didn’t flee Germany in the 1930s, and the people who were less convinced of the goodness of the mob ran, survived, and passed on their genes. Optimism is often but not always warranted, and pessimism exists because bad things do in fact happen, and, if we ignore them, we can die.”