Our lives in the 20-teens are starting to eerily mimic the lives of those in the sixties and early seventies. On a light note, flower power is working its way back into fashion, many popular songs are taking on an older sound, and, with the legalization of marijuana in some states, smoking is becoming more accepted in culture. On a more serious note, we are on the brink of nuclear war, race riots roar in our streets, and a controversial man is in office.

For much of our lives, we have sat in history classes, viewing with horror the actions of those before us. We’ve vowed to try to make sure that history never repeats, but it’s clear these wishes haven’t lasted. As George Santayana once said, “Those who do not remember the past are doomed to repeat it.” Many seem to be forgetting the atrocities of those before us, and it’s starting to show.

Our generation and many others have sworn “never again”, but there are those filled with hate who parade through the street with swastikas and heiling. Our grandparents lived through the terror of daily school lessons on how to duck and cover, but it now seems like we are aggressively pushing ourselves towards a nuclear World War III. Tricky Dick made himself a name as an untrustworthy and widely disliked leader of the U.S., and Trump’s approval rating has dropped lower and lower since he took office. Martin Luther King Jr. told the world of his dream, and, yet, there remains a great divide between the American people. It feels like the United States as a whole just hopped in a time machine and went back a decade.

It’s not all death, destruction, and hatred though. Floral patterns are starting to work their way back into fashion as well as more natural makeup. We are growing more appreciative of simpler things as vinyls have taken the nation by storm. A long dismissed form of music, it’s made an unexpected revival from near extinction. Music that is being released, while still heavily autotuned, is starting to make way for more simplistic, acoustic music. While it can be debated whether it’s a good thing or not, marijuana is far more commonplace and is in the process of being legalized throughout the United States with masses of support.

Don’t hate me for having this view because I balance the sources I read: some liberal, some conservative, and some from other countries looking in. America is still great and has, in my opinion, always been great, but that doesn’t mean we are immune to having stains on our nation’s past. In our past, we’ve overcome this by pressing for equality and trying to learn from mistakes. I believe that there are far more good people than bad, and, as long as those who love and accept stick together then nothing will break us. We are one nation under God, united and ready to face anything.