Zinn’s chapter, “Unreported Resistance” along with the Ezra Klein show podcast really made me interested in the divide we have in this country. Such a large group of Americans are let down by our country’s government over the years, this has been happening all throughout history. The leaders of our country, like Bush and Reagan, keep going against the majority opinion of Americans. Making decisions that only benefit a certain group of Americans, usually the rich white Americans. But during the time these two presidents were in office there seemed to be a lot of resistance from Americans. The people were sticking up for themselves and fighting to get what they deserve.
Zinn, as he usually does, talked about different civil disobedience acts that I never learned about in any of my history classes in school. Americans protested for numerous reasons, like in the 1980s they went against Reagan since he was focused on producing nuclear weapons. And no American wanted to be apart of a nuclear war, just because Reagan wanted to assert his dominance during the Cold War. Reagan also adopted an economy position that resulted in the reduction and elimination of social services. The cuts in social services had a lot of Americans angry, because it left many Americans unable to take care of their needs which was vital. The last thing Zinn talks about his how democrats and republicans are not that different and the real divide comes from class differences.
This is such an important thing to understand in today’s political climate. There needs to be a change of mindset from the president, and we are seeing Biden attempt to make the change. Biden has said many times that he is just as much a president for liberals as he is conservatives, and he is doing everything in his power to unite the country.
I like how you mentioned Zinn’s distinction between true ideological polarization and class polarization. It makes me think about how divisive social classes really are and how this can translate to political beliefs or affiliation. This also plays into the idea of individualism and that people will hold beliefs that will be in their best self-interest rather than the lower classes’ best interests.
Reagan cutting social programs definitely left lower income Americans out to fend for themselves. Yet, he still won by a landslide. I find that very interesting, how Reagan was able to completely screw over lower income Americans and still win. Just shows how the political system favors the rich and powerful.