Thursday 11 June 2020

Is America Great Again Yet?

The question ‘when was America ever great’ has been posed so let's take a look and see if we can answer it.
America became America in 1776 so we have a pick from 244 years although the criteria isn't easy to nail down.
George Floyd's niece was obviously looking at it through the eyes of race and America with a history of Slavery, the KK and it's all round terribleness towards anyone not white, the easy answer is it's never been great, always been awful.
Donald Trump, the man who started the whole make America great again buzz, is probably looking at things through an economic viewpoint and the US Bureau of Economic Analysis shows that the only year there was no national debt was 1837 during the presidency of Andrew Jackson and the lowest ever unemployment was under Dwight D. Eisenhower in 1967 at 2.50% and the lowest poverty rate came during Richard Nixon's Presidency in 1973 with a record low of 11.1% of the population in poverty. 
Regarding wars and conflicts, in its 244 years America, wikipedia shows that it has not been involved in a war or conflict somewhere for only 18 years, at peace for a paltry 7.4% of it's existence and none of those years chime with the years of the best economic measures so we still can't nail down when America was great.
The final measures would be approval of the President and when the voters were most happiest with their lot and that would be Harry S Truman who had the highest approval rating of 91 in 1945 and as 1945 was also one of those rare years when America wasn't actually at war with someone, that would make 1945 the year that America was last great, at least in the eyes of Americans.
Not very scientific but with race protests filling the streets, a current debt of $24.95 trillion, 13.3 unemployment rate, 12% poverty rate, conflicts ongoing in Syria, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Somalia, Iraq, Yemini and Libya and a President with a record low approval rating of 45, America certainly isn't great again just yet.

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