There are many issues regarding COVID-19 and whether it will affect America in the long run. There is a clear answer from American history because there are some very interesting case studies we can review including the Civil War, the Pandemic of 1918, the Depression, World War II and Vietnam. I am going to focus here on the Depression but the others would each have their own story to tell. The Depression is particularly noteworthy because it was a prolonged disaster, it affected everybody, and I have some personal stake in the matter.
The short answer is this: the effects of the Depression were profound for those who lived through it, but tended to go away over time as new people entered the world who had not directly experienced it. Until today, its most notable expression are some fascinating art and infrastructure projects that have remained behind to baffle, uplift and mystify us.
My father told me stories about his time during the depression. It was very hard to relate to, and ultimately I found them colorful but not necessarily applicable to my experience. In that, I was wrong, because when I realized that I had, unwittingly, taken chances with my own economic survival because I thought I was, somehow, exempt, I blamed myself even more. Why? Because I had been warned and I had not listened.
Ultimately, everything about the Depression was ignored by our various right wing governments as unions were attacked and financial institutions and procedures deregulated. The common people may have an excuse for this, but our elites never.
And yet, now and then one sees something like the Hoover Dam, or these fabulous remanants of the WPA and one has to wonder, how is it that our corrupt and crass government(s) went out of their way to sponsor such interesting art and architecture?
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