This is the fifth of five newsletters tied to the 250th anniversary of the birth of America. Each newsletter summarizes and explains key events during a 50-year timeframe.
The fifth half-century of America’s existence has been a time of growing partisanship and, sadly, hatred.
It also has been an era of exploding advancements in technology – from personal computers to the internet to social media to artificial intelligence.
Unfortunately, these two developments fit together in a way that has been damaging for our society. More about this later.
The technological advances have virtually defined the past 35 years in America, enabling a lot of things to be accomplished a lot faster than by hand. Computers and the software that goes with them are all about speed and productivity. They can calculate Pi to 100 places in less than a second. A human working with pencil and paper would need anywhere from a few days to a few weeks to do that – depending in part on how many mistakes are made that need to be corrected.
The early office computers of the late 1970s that prevailed at the beginning of this most recent half-century were enormous machines, often the size of a refrigerator and weighing hundreds of pounds. They also were limited in what they could do by today’s standards.
The early personal computers, like the boxy Apple IIe, and later, the Macintosh, which looked like an early small-screen TV set, are dinosaurs today, replaced by easily portable laptops that have many times more power. Moreover, the computer most people carry in their pocket today, a cell phone, would have been beyond imagination at the turn of the 21st century.
Partisanship and hatred have been around for a very long time. What is different today is that many people have chosen to act out their anger through violence.
America was not very far into its fifth half-century when the feelings of hatred and the power of the internet came together to produce the most deadly and consequential attack against America, in America, in history.
The 9/11 attack by Islamic radicals on September 11, 2001, was the first time in American history that a foreign entity had executed such a violent, destructive, and murderous attack within the U.S. Within a few hours, 19 terrorists hijacked four large U.S. passenger planes en route to their destinations. The planes were redirected toward predetermined targets. Two planes headed toward the World Trade Center in New York and crashed into the towers, destroying them. One headed toward the Pentagon, where it crashed into the building. The fourth, heading to Washington, DC, crashed into a field in Pennsylvania after passengers rebelled and overcame the hijackers. Almost 3,000 Americans died in the attacks, which were orchestrated by the Islamic extremist network al-Qaida, led by Osama bin Laden.
The attack was facilitated by computers and the internet to a significant degree, according to reports in the Army War College Press. Al-Qaida operatives in Afghanistan used computers and the internet to research and collect intelligence on their targets. Planners and cell leaders used the internet to send encrypted messages to team members and planners across continents, thus facilitating the coordination of the attacks.
Nine-eleven was the ultimate expression of hatred, specifically hatred against America.
Hatred — often against a particular class or group of people — also has emerged as a major factor in the growing number of mass shootings in America during our fifth 50 years, another unfortunate event of significant consequence.
There were 37 mass shootings (three or more people killed) with 230 fatalities in the U.S. in the first 10 years of the most recent half-century, 1976-1985. The increase during the half-century that ends this year has been startling. During the past decade, 2016-2025, there were 121 mass shootings with 853 fatalities. The number of mass shootings has roughly tripled, and the number of fatalities has almost quadrupled.
The perpetrators in such shootings often are people with some kind of grudge against a particular group or institution.
How did we get to the place where it is the norm for dislike to become hatred, which, in turn, translates into violence?
The FBI examined this question for a 2001 report:
“International and domestic violent extremists have developed an extensive presence on the internet through messaging platforms and online images, videos, and publications. These facilitate the groups’ ability to radicalize and recruit individuals who are receptive to extremist messaging.”
The pivotal technology events of the past 50 years that created the current situation were the invention of the World Wide Web in 1989, the personal computer becoming common in large numbers of homes in the 1990s, and the arrival of social media – Myspace in 2003 (no longer a social media website), Facebook in 2004, YouTube in 2005, Twitter (now X) in 2006, Instagram in 2010, and TikTok in 2018. These websites have provided a previously nonexistent way for like-minded people to find and connect, including people who want to act out their hatred or become encouraged to do so.
The first president to face all of this coming together was George W. Bush, who served from 2001 to 2009. He was president when the 9/11 attacks occurred and took the U.S. into foreign wars as a result of these attacks, first in Afghanistan, then in Iraq. The war in Afghanistan lasted for 19 years, and 3,700 Americans were killed. The Iraq war, launched because Bush believed the Iraqis had weapons of mass destruction — which they did not — lasted eight years with 4,400 U.S. fatalities. In the end, the U.S. simply walked away from both wars.
Unfortunately, in Iraq, the war also resulted in about 116,000 civilian casualties, which, coupled with the length of the war and the absence of weapons of mass destruction, turned many U.S. citizens against the war and against the President who started it.
Bush’s approval rating dropped from 71 percent at the beginning of the Iraq war to one of the all-time lows of 31 percent near the end of his presidency in 2008.
Barack Obama, the first black President, 2009-2015, and his wife, Michelle, also faced criticism and anger of a partisan nature that was fueled by the internet. Some of it was clearly racially based, and some of it was based on “facts” that large numbers of people believed, but were manufactured untruths, such as not having been born in the U.S., which would have made him unable to serve as president.
Donald Trump, however, has hit a new high in being the target of partisan anger, and he has been targeted by would-be assassins eight times. But he also has produced an unequaled volume of commentary and comments that invite such anger, using words and phrases that presidents never have used before in attacking critics, adversaries, or people they don’t like.
He has made a particular effort to insult and degrade women, addressing them as ugly, nasty, piggy, obnoxious, and more.
In addition, he has done something else that is unusual, if not unprecedented, in attacking his opponents and perceived enemies with the full resources of the federal government, including the Justice Department, sometimes going as far as frivolous or unsupported prosecution.
Finally, he has helped fuel the hatred against him with thousands of lies.
The founding fathers had been exacting and precise, both in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, in specifying the kind of country they were trying to create. The words Freedom, Independence, and Right, as in having a right or rights, appear 18 times collectively in the Declaration of Independence. The word Tyranny appears twice; both times in reference to the King of England and the kind of government the colonies did not want.
Today’s America, however, is facing one of the most serious threats in its history, with such foundational pieces of its founding principles as freedom of speech, separation of church and state, and the right of peaceable assembly under attack. Hundreds of thousands of U.S. citizens have died to protect the founding principles as well as the refinements that have been added over the years – the Fourteenth Amendment (birthright citizenship), the Civil Rights Act, the Voting Rights Act, and more.
It is unimaginable that today’s United States of America is the kind of nation envisioned by Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, and Ben Franklin when they drafted the document creating this country on July 4, 1776. (See Part 1 of this series.)
As the nation proved in 1776 and in many situations later, as great achievements in America overcame crises and laid new foundations for future success, this nation is a work in progress.
Now, we are fighting to preserve the unique framework that has served so well for 250 years. It is a fight we must win.
. . . part of the Iowa Writers’ Collaborative, which represents more than 60 professional writers with Iowa roots. My goal today was to provide an enjoyable, informative, or worthwhile reading experience – ideally, two or three of these things. Although my subject matter is widely varied in an increasingly specialized Substack world, I hope you may view this diversity as an added value that promotes thought about a wide range of issues. But I digress. This newsletter is free. Which makes me all the more appreciative of those who choose to contribute. I am deeply grateful for such entirely voluntary financial support. In response, I will contribute net proceeds from paid subscriptions to nonprofit organizations that promote freedom of speech or cover local news in the Midwest. As a paid subscriber, you are thus encouraging me to continue writing so that both of us may effect some overall good for our society. Best wishes and happy reading. You can subscribe or upgrade to paid with the button below.
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