Goodbye America
In 1959, the same year I graduated from high school in a small Minnesota town, Philip Roth published Goodbye, Columbus, a story about shedding illusions—youthful ideals, cultural myths, and a version of America that no longer fits reality.
Today, I find myself saying goodbye not just to illusions but to the America I once knew.
The America That Was
That America—the post-WWII beacon of democracy—was far from perfect. Racism, inequality, and injustice persisted. But it was an America where progress seemed possible. The GI Bill lifted veterans into the middle class. Unions secured fair wages. Free enterprise supported rather than strangled democracy. Under President Eisenhower, the richest Americans paid a 91% tax rate—and still thrived.
We had survived the Depression, unified in WWII, and found cohesion through the New Deal. Our country inspired the world, grounded in the rule of law and slowly inching toward justice for all its people.
The Cracks Appear
But even in those days, the seeds of decline were being sown. McCarthyism stoked fear. Corporate conformity crept in. The Cold War shifted our moral compass. And by the 1960s, the fault lines split open: assassinations, Vietnam, mass protest, and rising inequality. Nixon’s election marked a turning point—the economic elite reclaiming power, beginning the long erosion of democracy.
The Watershed We Lost
In my books—Saving Democracy: The 2016 Presidential Election and its 2025 update, Saving Democracy: From the Warnings of 2016 to the Urgency of 2025—I wrote about America’s historical crossroads: the Revolution, the Civil War, the Depression, and Trump’s rise. In each case, democracy fought back.
But not this time. Now, it feels as if we’ve lost them all. The Revolution, the Civil War, the New Deal—all undone. The economic aristocracy has captured everything: government, media, courts, tech, education. We’re living under a regime where legality is optional, and opposition is dangerous.
A New Dystopia
Grover Norquist once said he wanted government shrunk to where it could be drowned in a bathtub. That vision has come to pass. Public services gutted. Wealth funneled upward. Billionaires rule. The ordinary citizen foots the bill while being stripped of protection.
This is a militarized police state in the making—unaccountable detentions, masked kidnappers, disappearances without due process. People live in fear. We’re subsidizing not just domestic authoritarianism but foreign atrocities—ethnic cleansing and recolonization carried out with American tax dollars.
What Comes Next?
The American dream, once shared by rich and poor alike, has fractured into a tool of the powerful. Our value is measured by how we serve the economic machine. What personal wealth remains will be siphoned off. What rights once existed are already in retreat.
And yet—even now—we are not without hope. We must rediscover survival outside their system. Build communities rooted not in power but in principle. Trust our instincts, our decency, our shared humanity. Reject the cult of personality and reclaim the spirit of democracy, one connection at a time.
Goodbye, America—but not goodbye to the dream. Not yet.
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Hello, Bob - After reading your essay, I could not resist rolling back the clock to when I joined the St. Paul Junior Chamber of Commerce (JayCees). Here's the creed that we would recite at the beginning of each meeting:
The Jaycee Creed, written by C. William Brownfield in 1946, is as follows:
"That faith in God gives meaning and purpose to human life."
"That the brotherhood of man transcends the sovereignty of nations."
"That economic justice can best be won by free men through free enterprise."
"That government should be of laws rather than of men."
"That earth's great treasure lies in human personality."
"And that service to humanity is the best work of life."
That was in the early 1970s.
This reinforces the message in your essay.
All the best - Rob Scarlett