On JFK

 Today is the 60th anniversary of the assassination of John Kennedy. 

That assassination has been a subject of morbid fascination and collective trauma for those who lived through it. It touched off a decade of turmoil in America that saw additional assassinations, massive civil unrest and ended with Nixon's resignation. It is natural to see the event as a great calamity. What is was, undeniably, was a great tragedy for the Kennedy family and a shared national trauma.

Historically, however, it's possible to see his death as the trigger for a great deal of public good.

Kennedy was not a popular president while alive. The White Protestant South was not happy with a Catholic who tolerated Martin Luther King. That's why he was in Dallas that day. His re-election was anything but secure.

His death ushered into the White House one of the most complicated and complex men to ever work from the Oval Office. Lyndon Johnson was an asshole, but one of the most successful assholes the presidency has seen. Backlash over the assassination and the tragedy of a relatively young man's death led to a massive landslide for LBJ and Democrats 11 months later. That landslide brought us, in no particular order:

- Medicare
- Medicaid
- The Civil Rights Act of 1964
- The Voting Rights Act of 1965
- The Immigration Act of 1965
- Head Start
- PBS, the NEH and the NEA
- the Department of Transportation
- increased support for the poor
- economic development in the rural South

It's doubtful all of that happens without Kennedy's death. Maybe a few things happen, but the Great Society would never have been launched without Kennedy's assassination. (As for Oliver Stone's suggestion that JFK would've kept us out if Vietnam, Bissh please.)

The reason I offer this is that we are going through tumultuous, unsettled times ourselves. From the perspective of history, Kennedy's death made possible incredible reforms that transformed this country in myriad ways. 

Doomerism suggests that Trumpism is the death of American Democracy. Perhaps. It is scary. Yet, it might also usher in a countermovement that advances the cause of equality in the same way that the Great Society did.

You simply can't discern the sweep of history while you're in it.