What America teaches me is that persistence, the lean of the majority, overcomes the passion of a minority.
Read any newspaper from the 1850s. Many northerners had sympathy for the South. In the South, Union sympathizers had to either keep quiet or pretend toward Confederate sympathy to survive. We all know how that turned out.
But the same thing happened in the 1890s, and the 1930s. Populists were always more passionate than progressives. Those opposing FDR were always louder than his supporters. Majorities are slow to move, and for those passionate on the majority side it’s frustrating.
The best lesson from my life was the 1960s. Those opposed to Vietnam were far more passionate than the “silent majority” who saw it as a Cold War activity. The War side won. It kept on winning for a generation. Pundits came to assume it would always be that way. Most still do.
I’ve tried to explain the back-and-forth in terms of what business needs. Cash crops like cotton represented the highest value of the 1840s. Railroads replaced them. Then utilities replaced the railroads, manufacturing replaced utilities, and resources replaced manufacturing.
Throughout my working life, technology has been rising. It now dominates. Politics is leaning toward what technology needs. That means immigration and education. It means climate activism and social equality. Clouds can leverage a single great mind to the value offered by thousands of mediocre ones.
Trump and his allies were never a majority. They have always been a passionate minority within American politics and culture. That’s why they’re inclined toward violence. That’s why they never back down, no matter how ridiculous the position they feel they must defend.
American history teaches us that this movement will lose. The less-passionate majority rises slowly, but persistently. As the minority becomes radicalized, the majority is aroused, eventually crushing it.
Unless America itself dies (and that is always the risk) this will happen again. Taking the long view should be reassuring. But it’s not a replacement for being in the game. There’s all to play for.
