There is a nostalgia, particularly in the party of Trump, for what used to be. “Make America great again” implies that America was better off in those good old days, before women left the kitchen to work at paying jobs. If we could turn the clock back to pre-Civil Rights years when White men ran the country, we’d be better off. If our children didn’t have to go to school with children who have come from other countries or study history that tells us slavery was brutal, America would be great again.
I tend to be nostalgic, too. I remember riding my bike all over my small town without fear. Neighbors looked out for each other. The whole town turned out for high school ball games, and my school friends were church friends, too.
But it is not possible to go back to that time. For one thing, we can never reverse what technology has done to our world and to us. Even if we could, Americans would never give up our computers, smart phones, and social media to go backward.
Another thing that the party of Trump glosses over: The past was not all rosy.
Not for those who lived under Jim Crow laws, who had to ride in the back of the bus and were denied even the most basic rights, like the right to use the bathroom unless it was labeled “Colored.” Such cruelty is hard to even imagine today.
The past was not all rosy for women, either.
Not for the woman in my town whose husband said, “I’ve come to vote her,” and stood beside her at the voting table to make sure she did what he said.
Not for women who were not allowed to pray out loud in the presence of men. A friend told this story: A group of men and women from his church got together to pray for a woman dying of cancer, and the elders threatened to “defellowship” the women (not the men) if it happened again.
Not for women who could not have a bank account or credit card unless their husbands co-signed, or hang on to their jobs if they got pregnant. Women could not serve on a jury or take legal action for sexual harassment. Women’s health insurance cost more than men’s.
Those were the “good old days.”
Trump promises to take America backward, but what he is selling is a lie. He has seduced his followers into believing there was a “great” America that has been spoiled by “others.” He paints a picture of the way we were, only we weren’t. We were never the idyllic America that worked for everyone. Trump is counting on nostalgia for a Mayberry fantasy that existed only in Opie’s world.
Just as we shake our heads at injustices that seem unconscionable now and at “Christian” behavior that is unthinkable to most of us, we can be sure that someday our grandchildren and their children will shake their heads and say, “Can you believe there was a time when women could not make decisions about their own bodies?”
Phyllis Gobbell lives in Nashville, TN., and is a frequent contributor to the Nashville Tennessean. She taught college English for 20 years in Nashville and has published 6 books, with another scheduled for release in 2024.Among her writing awards in fiction is the Tennessee Individual Artist Award in Literature.