We’ve elected an iconoclastic, womanizing president who’s filled his cabinet with friends and associates, racking his administration with scandal. On top of this, we’re living in a world newly reawakened from a pandemic, causing a unique and controversial youth culture.
I, like many, have tried to draw my own surface-level conclusions based on commonalities between the 1920s and the 2020s.
They are less of an exact lens or one-for-one comparison and instead more of a funhouse mirror of our current administration and socio-cultural environment. We are at once more and less debaucherous than we think and thought, and at the same time revert to basic instincts to cope with alarmingly similar and absurd times.
It’s reassuring to know that, in many ways, absurd times have a precedent for being met and matched culturally.
Our historical imagination and collective memory have failed to capture the true nuances of the era, leading us to mimicry and reenactment unbeknownst to us. A closer examination is necessary to ensure we don’t fly blind.
Our linkages to our nation just a century ago may be more informed by misinterpreted satire and gossip, leading us to miss the conclusions staring us right in the face.
The ‘20s marked a shift from Victorian ideals, yet most people did not abandon these until later. This plays a pretty significant role in our misremembering of the era.
A figurehead for this misremembrance is former President Warren G. Harding.
Drawing parallels between him and President Donald Trump is almost overkill. It’s low-hanging fruit, even. The two have had some of the most controversial and scandalized administrations in our nation’s history. From the appointment of close associates with disputed qualifications in cabinet positions to sex scandals, these two seem to be most similar in their salacious public personas.
However, under any critical lens, Harding doesn’t seem to even come close to Trump in that regard.
Jayne Kinney, a fifth-year history PhD student at the University of Minnesota, said that while Harding’s personal life made some clutch their pearls in the 1910s, it wasn’t nearly as sensational as some may think.
“His scandals are that he has mistresses and that he drinks, and that his wife was divorced and has a child from her previous marriage,” Kinney said.
Trump, on the other hand, has scandals on that level every news cycle. He’s had three wives, one of whom he buried on his golf course, was found liable for sexual abuse and has been impeached twice.
It seems as if Harding and Trump have more in common on the policy front, which isn’t nearly as interesting. Both presidents had heavy involvement and support for the implementation of tariffs.
Scott Laderman, a history professor at the University of Minnesota-Duluth, said Harding built upon the pre-existing tariffs during his time as president, skewing the economy in favor of the wealthy.
“He used tariffs as a means of bringing in revenue, and in doing so, cutting taxes,” Laderman said.
Laderman also said there are comparisons to be drawn between Trump’s and Harding’s views on taxation, which both favored the wealthy.
“Harding oversaw the taxes for businesses and wealthy individuals,” Laderman said. “And Trump, of course, is attempting to do the same. He did it during his first term with the tax cuts, which were his major achievement during the first term. And of course, is setting the ground for something similar.”
It seems as if we only remember the most sensational aspects of history. This is a common thread as far as public perception of the 1920s goes.
This misremembering of history is in no way uncommon and may stem from a marked significance of the subcultures that dominated the period aesthetically. The iconography of the 1920s has transcended its time, leading to a legacy and impact that is almost overstated. The average American was not a flapper, to put it simply.
Kinney said we often forget the flappers and the Gatsby-esque glamor was a countercultural movement and wasn’t the mirror to the culture it’s sometimes attributed to.
“When we look at the musical ‘Chicago’ image of the ‘20s or like the ‘(Great) Gatsby’ movie that really focused on the glitz and glamor of that story, we forget that for your average person, that’s not the case during the ‘20s too,” Kinney said.
A large part of the satire behind Gatsby specifically is forgotten, according to Kinney.
“The writers and the things that endure, like Fitzgerald and stuff, both idolize that culture because they’re part of it, but also critique it,” Kinney said.
These sub and countercultures operated in opposition to the middle American, agreed-upon ideals for decency, as all sub and countercultures do.
However, youth culture should in no way be discounted.
Kinney said the ‘20s, in some element, originated a lot of the consumer culture we’ve become familiar with today.
“Yeah, we today have the ability to get just about anything at the tips of our fingers,” Kinney said. “In the 1920s, coming off of the war, there is a level in the U.S., a level of prosperity, that allows people to have a consumer culture.”
In addition, one of our many generational cognitive dissonances is in no way unique to us.
Kinney said that both the 1920s and 2020s youth exhibited a simultaneous disillusionment as reflected by absurd humor and surrealist aesthetics, paired with emerging consumer cultures made possible by emerging technologies.
“I’d say that’s one of the big similarities, both at hyper-consumption and also cynicism and nihilism,” Kinney said.
It’s reassuring to know that on so many levels, we’ve been here before.
It’s nice to think of history as an enclosed feedback loop or a hundred-year circuit. Parallels can be drawn, but upon further inspection, we should be mindful of the gaps between our collective memory of this time in our country and now.
The devil is in the details, which we often seem to forget in the larger composite image of our nation’s history.
On closer inspection, we should all take a closer look at what really defines our time, so what matters most to us may not be lost to the sands of time.
