POLITICAL TURMOIL IN AMERICA: 2013 TO 2019, YEARS OF DISORDER, DECAY, AND DECLINE IN AMERICA

                                      INTRODUCTION TO COMMENTARIES

The 21st Century began with a great deal of optimism in the United States.  The nation was alone as the sole superpower in the world, the Soviet Union had collapsed a decade earlier, and no other country now rivaled its overwhelming military and economic strength.  The nation had survived an extremely close, contentious election that was essentially decided by the Supreme Court, and a new administration assumed office without further dissention. The optimism and clear sailing was not to last long, however. The al Qaeda attacks of 9-11 woke the nation up fully to the viciousness of the long-smoldering resentment and hatred that had been breeding in the Middle East for decades, in fact for centuries, as a result of foreign domination, leading to gross inequality and sectarian rivalries that had escalated and often been reinforced by foreign meddling that continued as a carryover from the earlier centuries of Western Colonialism.  The US had obviously underplayed the seriousness of this resentment, and Middle Eastern terrorists unleashed the full venom of their hatred against our country, as the leader, and strongest, of the Western nations seen as so oppressive. To make matters in the Middle East worse, the new Bush-Cheney administration gravely miscalculated their power to mold Middle East realities to their desires, deciding to attack and overthrow the government of Iraq, which had not been involved in the al Qaeda attacks.  This warfare further destabilized the Middle East, added to anti-Western hostility, and triggered the later creation of ISIS from disaffected Iraqis and others wanting to rid the region of Western influence.

As if our Middle East problems were not enough, the US economy collapsed in 2008, wealth creation and property values having risen excessively during the past two decades of economic boom and unpaid-for military spending in the Middle East. The US economic collapse quickly spread to consume much of the world economy, as some banks failed, jobs were lost, and businesses closed.  In this context, Barack Obama was elected president, offering real change, hope, a positive vision for a better, brighter future for a nation in need of change. Almost immediately, however, his Republican opposition in Congress, led by Mitch McConnell, vowed to ensure that the optimistic endeavors of the Obama administration would fail, and a pattern of gridlock and stalemate developed in Congress that, after the passage of the Affordable Care Act, doomed many of its desires for the nation.  The economy did gradually begin to recover, limited however by the harsh reality that most of the recovery benefits were effecting  corporations and the more wealthy among the population, not extending down fully to help the middle and lower income groups recover.  The nation stayed enmeshed in the Middle East, with Iraq and Afghanistan torn by sectarian rivalries necessitating continued US presence, ISIS developing into an even more potent anti-western terrorist organization, Iran's desire to join its rival Israel in possessing nuclear power, and the Palestinians need for a viable homeland on the West Bank all problems remaining unresolved.

 In this context, Obama was reelected president in 2012, setting the stage for the writing of these commentaries. They were written by Bill Hessell, PhD, a retired clinical psychologist with a life-long interest in politics, world history,and international relations, with a special interest in conflict resolution as applied to interpersonal relationships and to foreign affairs. The commentaries were written between 2013 and 2019 for posting on the political blogsite, fortheleft.blogspot.com, managed by a friend, Keith Shirey.  They remain available on that site, and are reprinted here for ready accessibility as a collection. They give, then, one person's perception of some of the very key events and developments during this very seminal, critical period of time in our nation's political history.