Trump could tie loose ends of the 60's: Judge Harvie Wilkinson III

The recent presidential election was probably the last that will feature two candidates out of the 1960s. True to form, the rancorous spirit of that decade was resurrected in the contest, leaving the question of whether the ghosts of the ‘60s will come to haunt these next four years. If they do, our sense of nationhood will be at even greater risk.

“I come from the ‘60s, a long time ago,” Hillary Clinton has remarked. “I get a little annoyed when people denigrate the ‘60s and kind of characterize it as drugs, sex, and rock and roll — it laid the groundwork for the success of our civil rights movement, for the continuing equality of women.”

President Trump is much less obviously identified with the 1960s. He says he was focused on finishing his education and beginning his real estate development career. So while he did not support the Vietnam War, for example, “I was never at the protest level, either, because I had other things to do.”

The decade, however, left few people neutral. Many associate the 1960s with dramatic events, either the March on Washington or the march from Selma to Montgomery, which helped inspire the great Civil Rights Acts. Others see those years as ones of assassinations, urban riots and a deeply unpopular war.

We must now for our own good look beyond the dramatic happenings and come to terms with the dual nature of the decade. We may appreciate the long strides the 1960s made toward human dignity and equality and still fear for what the decade unleashed on this country — high destructive winds which blow with renewed force in our present day.

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For years I was blinded. I overlooked the role the Sixties played in making America a nation for all, not just some. If I stand guilty as charged, is it not possible Sixties enthusiasts do as well? Among the Sixties’ continuing casualties:

• Higher education, where the insistence on impossible dogmas of incontestable truth threatens to topple universities as citadels of disinterested inquiry.
• Marriage: The sexual revolution of the Sixties weakened personal commitments and family bonds to the point that marriage today has become more exclusively an upper middle class estate.
• The rule of law: The urban riots and police rampages of the Sixties have now made law less and less a force for social cohesion and personal restraint.
• American history: The Sixties’ one-sided assault on the American past and the admitted flaws of the founding generation still lead us to overlook so much of what is good about this country and weaken our attachment to America as home.
• National unity: The tragic war in Vietnam helped fuel the disdain of affluent students for the “clods” who wore the hardhats and the “pigs” who were in uniform. It intensified the class divisions which reverberated in the elections of 1972, 1980, 2016 and beyond.
• Religious faith: The cynicism inculcated by the 1960s and Watergate shook not only the institutions of business and government but the pillars of religious faith as well, as though faith in a divinity could not survive the jaded absence of faith in so much else.

Those of us who came of age in the 1960s have faced repeated reminders this past year that the divisions of our youth have only deepened. Our adolescent adversaries then seem our adult adversaries now. It will not be the ebb of elections and flow of legislation that binds our wounds. No, the civility of our discourse and the inclusiveness of our dialogue will offer the best chance to Make America Great Again.

It seems almost naïve to think that any president, so besieged at home and abroad, would have time to ruminate on social divisions then and now. The beleaguered presidency alas is nothing new; many nineteenth century occupants of the office complained that all they ever had time to do was deal with patronage.

And presidents typically come to the office after campaigns that demand more reaction than reflection and from careers, whether in business or politics, consumed by calculated risks. It is altogether understandable, therefore, that presidents might not be temperamentally given to reflection. Yet it was Lincoln’s ruminative depth that helped make possible the memorable Lincoln-Douglas debates, the Cooper Union speech, the Gettysburg Address and the magnificent Second Inaugural with its promise to “bind up the nation’s wounds.”

The flurries of these past few weeks have left the impression that there is scant interest in a conciliatory course. But as the headwinds mount and the crises come and the problems grow, the president’s thoughts may turn from the short term to the legacy of his time in office.

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What kind of land will he leave? Neglect of the persistent fissures in our land set in motion by the 1960s will leave Americans more vulnerable to a repeat of those years and more irreconcilably at odds than ever. The president could have no greater legacy than cooling those still boiling antagonisms and helping the old adversaries of the 1960s lay down arms before our tumultuous generation leaves the national stage and life itself for good.

Notwithstanding the president’s recent tiffs with judges, might the judicial process ironically provide a pathway to real progress? This is one branch of government that functions collegially despite deep differences of opinion; I have seen it for more than thirty years up close. Although judges do not always agree on the final outcome, hearing arguments from both sides and discussing the issues with opponents before judgment ensures that losing does not mean alienation and that compromise remains a living art.

Impossible now? But not forever. What greater gift can he and we give America than helping at the end to bring together the nation we did so much in our youth to drive apart?

Judge Wilkinson sits on the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit and is the author of the new memoir All Falling Faiths: Reflections on the Promise and Failure of the 1960s.

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