Yesterday. . . Oh I believe in yesterday.
The Big Lie isn't the biggest lie.
The biggest lie is MAGA, an imagined past.
People believe lies because they want to believe them.
Both Joe Biden and Donald Trump promised a return to a better past. Trump caught a wave of public discomfort with the pace of social change coming out of the 1960s' liberation movements. Some felt it was too much, too fast, too disruptive. It isn't the 1950s anymore, and old power structure was changing. Old habits and prejudices were forbidden and driven underground, awaiting Trump to give them voice and legitimacy. Biden's imagined past was simpler. It was the world before Trump, who was too much, too fast, and too disruptive a president. Voters thought once we were rid of Trump's manic divisiveness, America would go back to a better, low-drama normal.
Trump's imagined America is past. The internet and container ships have ended America's economic isolation, and women aren't giving up their jobs, ethnic minorities aren't going away, and homosexuals are not going back into the closet. Biden's imagined America is past, too. It turns out that a great many Americans like Trump's brand of ethno-nationalism. Democrats will slowly win the culture war which will cause them to lose elections. This is an era of turmoil.
Rick Millward is a singer-songwriter and music producer. Songwriters know all about the appeal of songs of heartbreak. There was something special, but now its gone, gone, gone. Millward's reverie about old cars is a songwriter's insight. It is pointless or pathetic or humorous when 70-year-old men squeeze into old Corvettes and little deuce coupes, but they do it anyway. They remember what they wanted. They remember the feeling. Memory and desire stir dull roots.
Millward worked in Nashville where he produced over 30 projects, including two Emmy-nominated soundtracks. He now lives in Medford where he is part of the local music scene. His newest project, Loveland, is available on streaming platforms. Local readers can hear him live on Friday at 5:00 p.m. at South Stage Cellars in Jacksonville, Oregon.
Guest Post by Rick Millward
It’s a guy thing. An older guy thing.
American automobile manufacturers marketed their products relentlessly in the post WWII era. The goal was two cars in every garage, and we started seeing houses built by the millions that could accommodate them. As the 50s and 60s progressed car designs became sexier, engines more powerful, and Americans completely succumbed to the call of the highway, with 50,000 miles of interstate built during the period.
For many young men during this time it was a rite of passage to get one’s driver’s license and eventually one’s own vehicle. For most of us it wasn’t a shiny new Chevy or Ford, it was a used car, a little beat up but running ok. What we did to jazz these old jalopies was to add decoration to make them look fancier, and buy parts to “soup up” the engines for more power, starting with a louder muffler, (or removing it all together). In those days school letting out was a cacophony as all the boys peeled out of the parking lot and roared off to the Hasty Freeze. Good times.
Most of us couldn’t afford a new car until much later, and usually it was our first experience with credit. Even so, it wasn’t the Corvette or Mustang we pined for as a teen, more likely a sensible Honda. As time went on, depending on how our finances and careers progressed we moved on to nicer models, but with an emphasis on comfort and practicality, not flash.
Fast forward to the present. What we find with many “boomers” is now that they are at a point in their lives with some disposable income and free time, the mobile passions of youth actually never completely faded. Cars from the 50s and 60s are highly desirable as collectables and there is a multi-million dollar industry restoring them to their showroom glory. The price tags for these old babes can hit six figures, and the market is robust.
It’s a testimony to the power of marketing, that decades later the message still has resonance and can motivate behavior. It doesn’t matter that there is virtually no substance in it. To some it’s a bit sad to see an older gent cruising down the road to the Rite-Aid in his chrome encrusted status symbol, seemingly entranced in the distant past.
Yet, I have to admit I feel the same pull, the adolescent yearning shaped by all those ads and even though I can see how silly it is, and have been able to resist the urge to fulfill my own hot rod fantasy, sometimes I still push down just a bit harder on the gas pedal of my sensible sedan and marvel at how susceptible we can be to a lie we desperately want to believe.
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Here is a link to one of the songs in Loveland: "Stowaway":
"I am lost on an ocean of memories. I'm a stowaway on a ship of love."