This is when the flux capacitors on the internet time machine heat up. Partisanship has always existed in politics. Even in Lincoln’s or Teddy Roosevelt’s time campaign’s were dark and nasty. But JFK’s 1961 inauguration came in the middle innings of an era when both major ideologies, among their differences, still bonded themselves, and all of us, to common roots in the founding of our nation or at least the fundamental principles of it.

Kennedy made it very clear, with great reverence and respect, that we were all sons and daughters of the American Revolution with extensive individual rights divined from God or from within ourselves or at least not from the state. And for good reason, it matters. It mattered then and it matters now.

We don’t have enough plutonium in the tank to rewind all the way to 1776 but just think for a moment what that period was really like and what that first generation of Americans really did. Because, that is how you must read history. History must be framed in its own time, not judged by current standards. 

The Constitution of the United States, The Declaration of Independence and other works of the founders are nearly religious documents. Their rebellion is one of the greatest leaps forward in all human history. The price paid to advance, defend and preserve the notion of self-government, self-determination and core inalienable individual human rights has been immense. Our resolve was often horrifically tested be it in civil-war or the Great Depression.

As a decorated veteran of World War 2, Kennedy was tested in the waters of the Pacific. Many of our future leaders were, like a heroic Navy pilot by the name of George H.W. Bush. Perhaps their commitment to a foundation of similar ideals was somehow forged in battles abroad and at home.

Today’s brand of partisanship is much different. We are legitimately polarized and for justifiable purpose. Divisiveness rightfully grows because one side has busted its constitutional moorings to the extent that its leaders refuse to even give lip service to core principles such as due process. Instead of reverence for our grand but challenging past they often vilify it. Their trend is no longer towards mere extreme interpretation of our magnificent constitution. Rather, they have quickened their roll towards surrendering the individual to some vaguely defined collective run by the political class. This is the great undoing in the eyes of anyone with fondness for the promise of our original revolution and especially troubling for anyone who paid a personal price to protect it. Cries for a cordial tone, calls for unity and handshakes aren’t going to mend this divide, commonality will. 

If you listen to Kennedy muster the citizenry for the tumultuous 1960’s to come, he preaches the likely source of our once and future commonality is the American Revolution, not as a historical event but as a big bang of creation which set a course we are not done sailing. 

With exception of raw body count, the following 15 years may have been the most sustained atmosphere of crisis and confusion our country ever faced. While not everyone agreed with JFK’s management, undoubtedly most were charmed by the romantic facade of his “New Frontiers” Camelot.  A rifle bullet killed that fairy tale along with our charismatic young president before completing his first term. His popular brother Robert would be murdered while campaigning for the office just five years later. Along the way, civil rights leader Martin Luther King would also be assassinated. Our muddy, escalating war in Vietnam turned deadly sour, eventually wounding our trust in government which would further be bled by the Watergate crimes that forced the resignation of President Nixon. Race riots would set parts of Detroit, Los Angeles and other cities on fire. The 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago would broil in an environment best described as a police state with activists being beaten and television reporters being arrested. National Guardsmen would soon shoot and kill students protesting the war on the Kent State college campus. Resource rich Americans would get their first taste of scarcity in generations as something called an energy crisis hit and cars simply ran out of gas on the streets. 

It had to seem like it was all falling apart when you mix in mega shifts in culture propelled by hippies, the sexual revolution, and generational animosity. The Fall of Saigon was maybe the last note played in that movement of history.

Oh. And one more thing. That alarming collection of events took place under the threatening skies of nuclear brinkmanship with the Soviets. We were still telling elementary school children deep into the 1980’s that at any moment the sirens could sound, the Russian atomic bombs would fall and if they ran out into the hallway to hide with heads tucked they may have a shot at living. The icing on our cake of concerns was destruction of all living things. Great.

Yet there we were, stumbling into 1976, bloody but not beaten, ready to celebrate the bicentennial anniversary of our country led by Gerald Ford, a humble President and our only chief executive no one outside of Michigan ever casted a ballot for. Somehow, we reached back 200 years, to the original Spirit of ’76. We still had enough faith in our constitutional course to stand tall under the stars and stripes, not as empty patriotic symbolism but as a tangible set of core beliefs that we could hold on to together with pride.  

Heck, we were even optimistic enough to disco dance our cares away and proclaim, “Black is Beautiful”. We were still taught the future held better days and our Yankee ingenuity would bring all the answers we needed as it always had.

Only those ignorant of history who say uneducated, incendiary, or irrational things would suggest our current troubles and challenges measure to those of generations past. Only the myopic and selfish would elevate their personal feelings and desires to be analogous to our true epic struggles. Regardless, if our founding principles served us then, they can serve us now. Our solutions lie in a re-commitment to our original revolution, not departure from it. If we are going to be able to unify under anyone’s words and ideas our lot should be cast with Thomas Jefferson and John Adams long before considering anything proposed by Senators Elizabeth Warren or Mitch McConnell.

It seems Kennedy knew the mutual respect for each other needed to move forward as a cohesive nation required a group of individuals empowered to manage their own affairs but also drawn to a high calling as stewards of our shared inheritance of liberty earned by those far bolder than us.