Are We Entering a New Era of Sustained Paranoia?

It's no secret that paranoia often goes hand in hand with economic stagnation and as a result, suspicion of America's institutions is increasing. The bank bailout, the scam that was cap and trade, the obvious fraud that congress calls “financial reform,” there's certainly good reason to be cynical, but it hasn’t always been this way.

Throughout most of the 1950s and 60s, the vast majority of Americans considered themselves “liberals.” Historians called it the “liberal consensus,” but it only resembles our current concept of liberalism in a few, very modest ways.

Although definitions vary, generally a member of the liberal consensus believes: (1) In the free enterprise system, (2) that America is primarily a force for good in the world especially when pitted against enemies like the Soviet Union, and (3) that the government can and should be used to promote positive social change. In essence, it was a very optimistic time where Americans essentially believed in their nation and its ability to stand up for justice.

However, the 1960s took a terrible toll on the American psyche. From the costly war in Vietnam, to the assassinations of President Kennedy, Senator Robert Kennedy, Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X, Americans began to view their society, and by extension their government in a very cynical way. Yes, it was the government that put a man on the moon, but there was a growing sense that it had largely failed in its mission to promote social justice and to halt the spread of communism in the third world.  In the 60s, the Soviet Union had the fastest employment growth of all major industrial countries, while the U.S. was suffering from high unemployment, inflation and labor strikes.

The Watergate scandal in the early 70s all but killed any remaining optimism and lead to America’s first decade of sustained paranoia directed not at foreign powers, but at it's own leaders. The result is clearly seen in the popular fiction of the period. Consider these films: Klute (1971), The Parallax View (1974), The Conversation (1974), Chinatown (1974) Three Days of Condor (1975), All The Presidents Men (1976). All were incredibly cynical (although perhaps more realistic) than most films that had come before.

Yes, there were movies with conspiratorial themes before like The Manchurian Candidate (1959) and Dr. Strangelove (1964), but the threat in The Manchurian Candidate was still based in foreign influence corrupting our political leaders. As for Dr. Strangelove, it was largely disparaged upon its initial release for “giving moral support to the Soviets.” America still firmly believed in its government’s fundamental moral nature. What a difference ten years can make!

Confidence in the government’s ability to get anything done hit an all time low in 1980. We had out of control stagflation, skyrocketing oil prices, Iran was holding 52 American citizens hostage and the government was forced to bailout Chrysler. Pundits defended President Carter's failures by asserting that the problems facing the United States was so large that the country had essentially become “ungovernable.” Carter even briefly considered calling for a constitutional convention to fix the nations problems.

But all of that went away when Ronald Reagan won election that year. Americans were tired of hearing Carter talk about “the erosion of our confidence in the future,” they wanted to hear about America's strengths, that it was “morning in America.”

Partisans can argue about whether any of that confidence was justified, but clearly the mood of the country had changed. The hostages were freed, inflation was down, and the economy was booming by 1984.

Consider the times we live in now. Inflation is guaranteed to rise significantly, probably much higher than the Federal Reserve has publicly predicted, we're stuck in an endless (and pointless) war in Afghanistan, unemployment is at 10 percent which won't go below 8 percent until 2013 and the meme that America is ungovernable is back.

Its sometimes difficult to see a particular era for what it really is until a few years have passed, but there's good reason to think that public distrust has returned and it's here to stay for the foreseeable future.