“Turning and turning in the widening gyre, the falcon cannot hear the falconer; Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold.
William Butler Yeats’ classic poem “The Second Coming” is better known for its closing lines than the opening ones, but it says so much about all that’s wrong with our country these days.
If you look at the glory days of the last century, the thirty years or so after World War II, both of the two major parties were fairly close to center, Democrats slightly to the left and Republicans slightly to the right.. In fact, the opposing candidates in 1960 made a point out of saying both parties essentially wanted the same thing for America.
The goals were essentially the same, the differences were in the methods used to get there.
That was when both parties covered the spectrum from left to right. Southern Democrats were conservative and Northeastern Republicans were liberal. Little was accomplished without at least some support from both parties, unlike now when very little gets done.
At least part of the problem is that one of the parties — you know which one — only seems to believe in government when it comes to regulating people’s behavior and making defense contractors richer.
The last Republican president who saw the federal government playing a leading role in running the country was a guy named Nixon, and he left office nearly 50 years ago.
Since then we’ve had Ronald Reagan, who said the scariest words in the English language were “I’m from the government and I’m here to help.”
Then the Bushes — Poppy and Dubya — who took us to war in the Middle East and sent the Supreme Court careening to the far right.
When Democrats held the White House, Republicans got even worse. Former Ohio Senator George Voinovich said that after Democrat Barack Obama was elected president in 2008, Republican Senate leader Mitch McConnell told his caucus they must oppose everything Obama proposed, even if they were good policies.
Things fall apart.
The centre cannot hold.
Which brings us to the most famous part of Yeats’ poem.
“The darkness drops again; but now I know that twenty centuries of stony sleep were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last, slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?”
And oh boy, did he come.
And he wants to come back.