Good Friday, 2019-04-19

【Aiden in English】

        Recently I’ve been diving into politics. Obviously, if there’s ever a time to get interested, the Trump administration is as good an opportunity as any. While everyone is going ballistic over the allegations and frantic scramble between parties, I look back using my Advanced Placement United States History (APUSH) knowledge and say to myself… 

        … nothing has changed.

        The presidency has never been dealt with anything as horrifying as Nixon’s Watergate. Oddly, at the time of writing this, the Mueller Report recently opened the doors of the White House, and I have no interest in reading over 300 pages of legal, political, wordy jargon. Once in a while, an amusing section of 8^th-period history is set aside for recent events and the connections with past examples. Trump’s actions of forcing his Attorney General to resign matched Nixon’s pressure on his attorneys. 

        While the Mueller Report essentially clears Trump, tampering with the presidency is nothing new. The Corrupt Bargain (1824) was the first largely known tamper directly affiliated with the presidency, and it’s made itself into textbooks nationwide. Nixon’s election showed the effects of international action. Promising to end the war, Nixon prolonged Vietnam through secret meetings with South Vietnam to continue the fight until he won the presidency.

        Neither of these examples is extremely similar to Trump’s current predicament, but it’s not the circumstances that matter. Over the course of time, each new age of Americans provides a new sense of exceptionalism, and with good reason. A new generation brings higher education, shifting culture, and a great change in mindset. Yet, the exact same issues appear inflation, over-speculation, job displacement. 

        Even with a precedent, accurate predictions of the future are hard to come by. Regardless, it’s the basic idea of specialty per generation that consistently gives me headaches. If an omnipotent being were to look at Americans today, it would see a society of many races, but one still struggling with racial issues. Every generation leading up to the present has the notion of being “the one” to end racism, and while we have taken amazing steps from slavery, the new generation faces new problems. Another example can be said about poverty, and, for crying out loud, Lyndon B. Johnson campaigned on this very issue (a large part of his presidency was waging a “war on poverty”)! Yet poverty rates and unemployment seem to be back on the news every year, with scary statistics and reporters crying wolf.

        Modern America wants to be that special age; currently, we state that we are the pioneers of technology and the future. True enough, our advances in previous years are amazing (most label the last decade as the 4th Industrial Revolution), but there were always times of great technological change. With every tech boom in the past, people lost jobs, but new jobs were formed off of these advances.

        I suppose all I want to prove in this thing called an article is that nothing is new. America isn’t in unprecedented waters; someone just spilled food coloring and now the water’s green. 

【紅霞譯文】

        最近我一直在琢磨政治，顯然，但凡涉獵這個議題，恐怕都跟川普政府脫不了干係。鑑於共和黨與民主黨之間唇槍舌戰互不示弱，我憑藉《美國歷史大學預修課程》傳授的知識談點個人看法…

        …一切如常。

        美國總統官位沒有一個像尼克松的水門事件被鬧得雞飛狗跳。無巧不成書，在撰寫此文時，恰巧趕上近日特別檢查官公開白宮內幕，我毫無興趣閱讀長達300多頁集法律、政治及冗言於一體的《穆勒報告》，只是隔上一陣子，我們第八節歷史課（註：北賓州高中每天學生有八節課）的娛樂部分少不了談論這類時事經緯，川普迫使自己任命的司法部長辭職跟尼克松擠走手下檢察官的做法真是如出一轍。

        儘管《穆勒報告》基本上還了川普清白，但覬覦大位絕非什麼新鮮事物，1824發生的“腐敗交易”首次將撤廢總統任職之舉載入史冊，並由此編進全國教科書。尼克松競選總統深受國際局勢影響，原曾承諾結束越戰，卻通過密會南越硬把武力爭端延續到連任成功為止。

        雖然上述例證與川普目前所遇到的麻煩風馬牛不相及，但這並不重要，隨着時間推移，各個時代的美國人都提出非同尋常的例外論，而且理由充分。年輕一代帶來高等資質、文化轉向以及理念深化，當然還要面對完全相同的問題：通貨膨脹、過度投機、裁員失業。

        即使再有先見之明，也難以準確預測未來，偏偏這個放之四海而皆準的基本觀念常常令我百思不得其解。今天在聖人眼裡，美國也許堪稱多民族社會，其中不乏個別族裔仍在為種族問題作鬥爭，到目前為止，每一代都有結束種族主義的“那個人”，當我們早已從奴隸制中邁出可喜步伐，新生代又面臨新障礙，貧困便被視為另一代表，林登·約翰遜曾大張旗鼓地為貧困問題四處遊說（他的總統任期很大程度忙於推行“與貧困作戰”）！然而，貧困率和失業率好像年年都因危言聳聽的統計數據及記者狂呼亂叫狼來了而登上頭版頭條。

        現代美國想要轉入那個貌似特殊的時代；眼下我們聲稱自己是技術與未來的先驅。沒錯，前幾年我們的確進步卓著 (大多數人將過去十年比作第四次工業革命)，但重大技術變革時有發生。過去每一次科技繁榮，人們解僱下崗丟掉飯碗，好在新興產業結構得以應運而生。

        我想這篇所謂的文章寫到這裡就是要證明沒啥新穎玩意，美國並非處在前所未有的水域之中，有人剛灑了食用色素，結果水現被染成綠色。

Today in History(歷史上的今天):

2015 GHCS Field Trip @ Green Lane Park(光華綠蔭公園春遊日)

2014: Spring Soccer Game I(春季足球之一)

Crosslink(相關博文):

10th Grade(高中二年級)