Mary Schmidt Marketing Troubleshooter

As always, with our 24-hour news cycle – we’re being bombarded with doom, woe, and end of civility. Many an columnist and pundit is bemoaning that we’ve become a nation of disheartened, cowardly do-nothings. It’s hopeless. America is doomed, etc. etc. etc.

Here’s a quote that sums it up nicely:

“Courage disappeared from American public life in xxxx, and has been absent now for x years. There have always been cowards in our politics, there has always been an uncertainity of leadership, but never before has the whole nation become cowardly and remained cowardly over so long a space of time, never has it dodged every vital question that came up, and never has there been such a dismal lack of leaders – or at least one leader at a time – to whom it would listen.”

Think this was written by someone gazing back fondly at – say – the Reagan presidency? Maybe an unrepentant Kennedy fan? Well, there’s a reason I put those “x’s” in there (Jill – if you’re reading, I’m sure you’re way ahead of me…;-)

The above is from an article, Wanted: Political Courage, by Charles Willis Thompson…in the November 1932 issue of Harpers Magazine. He believed courage disappeared in 1919, “13 years ago.”