Has Change Come Too Fast?

Michael Gerson

Center-right Washington Post columnist Michael Gerson writes, in "The issue that is — unfortunately — uniting Americans on the left and the right," that Americans are mostly of one accord today ...

... in their belief that the United States is dominated by corrupt, self-serving elites. They are united in their call for radical rather than incremental change. While disagreeing deeply about the cause, they see America as careening off course. Little wonder that Americans consistently say their country in on the wrong track by a margin of more than 2-to-1. Disgruntlement is our nation’s common ground.

I think the disgruntlement stems from progressive changes happening too fast over the course of the last few years or decades.

I say this as a progressive Democrat who likes the progress we've made during the 70 years I've been around. To paraphrase Barack Obama: "[Each] successive generation [has indeed looked] upon our imperfections and decide[d] that it is in our power to remake this nation to more closely align with our highest ideals." Among the good things that have happened:

• We've seen African Americans and other people of color get a fairer deal, in large part because of federal laws banning discrimination and ensuring voting rights.
• We've witnessed women's gains in self-determination in our once-patriarchal society, due primarily to the liberation movement that began with the rise of second wave feminism in the 1960s.
• Our world is now one in which the once generally mandated restrictions on individual sexual behavior have been lifted, thanks largely to the Sexual Revolution of that same decade.
• We've progressed from a society of LGBT intolerance to one in which gays, lesbians, bisexuals, and transgender people don't have to hide their sexual and gender identities.
• We now have a society in which everyone is truly free to practice the religion he or she prefers, or no religion at all.

These and others like them were epochal changes that happened stunningly fast.

Too fast, I think. There has been backlash. When epochal changes follow one another too rapidly, the culture gets indigestion. There are now just too many dyspeptic citizens who feel cruelly trampled over. They are the ones who voted a candidate like Donald Trump into the White House. Some of them even show their disgruntlement by painting swastikas and rallying for white supremacy.

So I think progressive change now needs to take a long nap. That's the only way we can bring people back together over something positive, rather than just over shared disgruntlement. It's the only way the center of our culture can begin to hold once more.