I enjoyed an article in the LA Progressive that appeared online on January 16, 2025. The article, by Andrew Bacevich, was titled, "Could History Be Trying to Tell Us Something?" If you click that link, you should be able to read the entire article for yourself. I don't think there is any paywall.
Almost more than the article, I enjoyed the graphic that came with it, which I have incorporated into this blog posting, above. The graphic depicts our new president as playing out an observation from "Macbeth," generating a great deal of "sound and fury, signifying nothing."
In summary, the Bacevich article takes on the idea that the dissolution of the Soviet Union marked the "end of history." Not so, he says:
Allow me to suggest that those who counted History out did so prematurely. It’s time to consider the possibility that all too many of the very smart, very earnest, and very well-compensated people who take it upon themselves to interpret the signs of our times have been radically misinformed. Simply put: they don’t know what they’re talking about.
Viewed in retrospect, perhaps the collapse of communism did not signify the turning point of cosmic significance so many of them then imagined. Add to that another possibility: Perhaps liberal democratic consumer capitalism (also known as the American Way of Life) does not, in fact, define the ultimate destination of humankind.
It just might be that History is once again on the move—or simply that it never really “ended” in the first place. And as usual, it appears to have tricks up its sleeve, with Donald Trump’s return to the White House arguably one of them.
More than a few of my fellow citizens see his election as a cause for ultimate despair—and I get that. But to saddle Trump with responsibility for the predicament in which our nation now finds itself vastly overstates his historical significance.
Let’s start with this: Despite his extraordinary aptitude for self-promotion, Trump has shown little ability to anticipate, shape, or even forestall events. Yes, he is distinctly a blowhard, who makes grandiose promises that rarely pan out. (If you want documentation, take your choice among Trump University, Trump Airlines, Trump Vodka, Trump Steaks, Trump Magazine, Trump Taj Mahal, and even Trump: the Game.) Barring a conversion akin to the Apostle Paul’s on his journey to Damascus, we can expect more of the same from his second term as president.
Yet the yawning gap between his over-the-top MAGA rhetoric and what he’s really delivered should be instructive. It trains a spotlight on what the “end of history” has actually yielded: lofty unfulfilled promises that have given way to unexpected and often distinctly undesired consequences (emphasis added).
Bottom line? History has not "ended," and that means that each one of us, individually, and all of us, collectively, continue to have the ability to do something "new," and "unexpected," and to tell a "new story," one that has never even been thought about before.
"Possibility" is our category, and because we continue to have the ability to "act," we continue to have the ability to change the world.
Considering the day on which this blog posting is scheduled to appear. Let me say this: "No Fooling!"
Better get to it, too. That's my advice!!
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