Looking The Other Way

The 1985 book America by Andy Warhol.

 

Wednesday, November 5, 1980— Düsseldorf—Baden Baden—Stuttgart

I woke up at 3:00 in the morning and I heard the sad news of Carter losing so desperately to Reagan. It was the first time a president conceded so early. He had tears in his eyes.

I couldn’t sleep and I took a Valium. - Andy Warhol from The Andy Warhol Diaries

Artwork by the late Keith Haring.

I was writing a lengthy essay about the election, the sanctimonious behavior of the Democratic Party over the last several years and what it all meant for the good ol' U.S.A., but political obsession is a pointless luxury. I do not much enjoy writing about politics and whining about it is not something I indulge, as I have already shared my opinion on political whiners of all stripes. The 90s version of me in my youth was interested in sitting in cozy rooms discussing politics over coffee, board games and Nirvana with friends. The fifty-something version of me typing onto a screen, still drinking coffee by the gallon, listening to post-punk music and sitting in my house is much less interested in modern political dialogue that intrudes on and divides EVERYTHING. Politics went from a hobby in the 90s to a way of life for far too many people in the world.

Besides, neither party appeals to me. I am not a third-party person; I am an independent. Oligarchs and religious types prop up the Republicans and the Democratic Party is the NPR of political parties that relishes shitting on its audience and wonders why fewer are listening. I stopped listening to NPR years ago and for good reason - I have too much self-respect to be made to feel like I am supposed to be guilty for all of humanity's crimes. Fuck that noise.

Four days after the election, I scrolled past the scorched earth Democratic meltdowns and conspiracy theories on Facebook from the reactionaries and rolled my eyes. My first thought was, where were they in the eighties and nineties when people like me were ostracized for being gay, denied basic human decency, lost jobs, were attacked, were dying of AIDS or could not find a place to live? Up until now, some people have been spoiled and never faced loss or hardship until their middle age and somehow they looked the other way until it personally affected them. I take no satisfaction in their plight, but pardon me for looking the other way and having little sympathy.

Even in the Democratic stronghold of Athens, Georgia Trump signs were evident. Trump received 30 percent of the vote there in 2024, up from 28 percent in 2020 and 2016. Photo by me, November 2024.

The outcome of the election was obvious if you were paying attention and did not believe the polls or the media or the online pundits who all claimed it was going to be close. The predictions of a close race were good for subscriptions to Substacks, newspapers, Youtube channels and for television ratings. Through various sources, people injected the drama straight into their necks and believed anyone regardless of their lack of credibility as long as they told them what they wanted to hear. Reality turned out to be an anticlimactic Electoral College blowout, a downright stomping for Democrats. The majority of the 2024 voters were fed up with the illegal immigration problems and abuses, held the perception that the economy was bad and made it sparkling clear that a change was needed.

August 2024 in Athens, Georgia. Photo by me.

The result was no surprise for those who get out of our bubbles and traverse the back roads. I felt it coming like my southern accent coming on when I am tired. I grew up in rural Georgia in the 1970s and 80s and have lived most of my life in this state. Though most of my adult life has existed inside the city of Atlanta, I still know it from end to end like a long-ago lover in a Paulding County tunnel. In the months leading up to the election from one end of the state to the other down the two-lane and sometimes one-lane back roads of the countryside and even on suburban Atlanta streets, I saw more Trump yard signs, flags and campaign materials strewn in yards than I did for Harris. Forget any notion that Trump voters are shy. I have found that public displays of support are a better barometer of voter enthusiasm than some dude making Youtube videos in his spare bedroom in his underwear or paid celebrity endorsements.

 

Left to right: Keith Haring, Andy Warhol, Jean-Michel Basquiat. Generra Clothing, Max Headroom and 80s MTV.

Hillary Clinton's loss was a stunner, which can still be felt today, but Harris losing was not. However, this is not 2016. Shall I consult the Swatch around my left wrist? 

 

My bangs cover my eyes. I am wearing Bugle Boy pants and a Generra sweater. The dystopian cyberpunk television show Max Headroom has been canceled and George Michael, Terrence Trent D'Arby and INXS cassettes are burning up my Sony boombox. It is dark. It is late 1980s dark. Warhol died last year, Basquiat will die of a heroin overdose this year, Robert Mapplethorpe will die next year and Keith Haring will be dead in two years. AIDS is the cold, misty fog that glistens on the surfaces of my thoughts. Always there, always dampening the mood and ready to snatch me. The country has had two terms of Reagan and now it is time for a sequel with George H. Bush. The country elected its nostalgia candidate.

 

It is 1988.

 

What is the explanation for this? I suspect there are several reasons, but one of the primary drivers is the cultural changes in the country and not economic anxiety. Generation X has reached a point in life where they believe the past was better than the present. It seems to happen with every generation that nostalgia for youth and rose-colored glasses are handed out with AARP cards. 

 

Baby Boomers before us were served up their nostalgia beginning in the 80s with movies like Dirty Dancing and The Big Chill. Nostalgia is a big seller for advertisers. Now the music from our youth in the 70s, 80s and 90s is the soundtrack to commercials and movies. The present version of an "oldies" radio station is alternative music, including the 90s grunge era. When I was a kid, an oldies station, like say Fox 97 in Atlanta at the time, played music from the 1950s and 60s. 99X in Atlanta, which played new rock in the 90s and plays "classic alternative" today, is the modern version of an oldies station.

Corey Haim in that terrible movie Dream A Little Dream and Molly Ringwald in The Breakfast Club.

The eighties were not a bad time to be a kid, roaming wild with lax parental supervision, watching Saturday morning cartoons, playing Atari, hanging out in malls, zoning out to MTV, school shootings did not exist, a gallon of gas was less than a dollar where I grew up and there was the comfort in knowing that mommy and daddy were going to tuck us into fresh sheets every night. Generation X felt safe, comfortable and free to be kids without social media and cell phones logging our every moment and robbing reality from us. We were the last of a kind that had a childhood where technology had its place but did not consume our every moment. Sure, every so often and for a second I would not mind being fourteen again, nurturing my severe crush on Corey Haim or admiring Molly Ringwald in everything, but I do not want to take the country back to that time.

 

The eyes of middle-class children did not much see or experience the bad aspects of the 80s under Reagan. Many among my generation, Generation X, believe without a doubt that Reagan was a great man, a god to worship. I intensely disagree for a plethora of reasons. They believe that because they lived through the eighties with the perspective of children when mommy and daddy took care of everything. As kids in the 80s, Generation X did not have a care in the world and of course life was easier. It warped some into having a false sense of security about what the eighties were like. They imagine Reagan wrapped in the red, white and blue as a surrogate father and they view Trump as a throwback to that era. Trump captured that powerful drug of nostalgia in them and gave them an overdose. What was the 1980 campaign slogan for Reagan? It was the extremely familiar phrase, "Make America great again." 

 

It is a disputed quote, but it is often attributed to Mark Twain that he said, "History doesn't repeat itself, but it often rhymes." None of what is happening now is original. The major difference is that my generation is not kids in 2024 and should know better. The consequences are going to be worse than coming home late after curfew. Yet, here we are and where we have been has not been the best either, if we are intellectually honest. Generation X got their nostalgia fix in this election, but governing a country is not the same as organizing a twenty-five-year high school reunion. Who the hell wants to attend one of those anyway or watch Reality Bites ever again?

The gas station scene from Reality Bites in 1994.

Though the gas station scene in Reality Bites is funny. That scene captures so much of the essence of the stupid fun we had without feeling like the world was watching our every move for some accusation of cultural appropriation or a microaggression in which to cancel people. We had the basic freedom of fun. We were an unserious bunch and that was one of our better traits. Political correctness was on the rise in the 90s but it was mostly something argued over on talk shows and in magazines. It was not something that existed in daily life unless it was being mocked. In the strangest twist since, both leftists and conservatives want to police and control speech and ban books. It has become an upside down world where people walk on eggshells and there is such a job in publishing known as a sensitivity reader.

You're right from your side
I'm right from mine
We're both just one too many mornings
And a thousand miles behind. - Bob Dylan 1964

Conservative Senator Jesse Helms left and gay photographer Robert Mapplethorpe on the right. In 1989 Helms used Mapplethorpe to attack NEA funding of artists.

In this deeply divisive era, which has been growing for over the last two decades and coincides with the rise of mass cell phone usage and social media, there are cynical calls for unity, which no one believes as it would require one side to admit it was wrong. Partisans from both sides claim the moral high ground or to be on the right side of history and they can cheer or cry, but it makes no difference to me. I could never trust a Republican having grown up in the times of Reagan, Bush, Jesse Helms and Newt Gingrich. I cannot trust the Democrats either with illiberal ideologues who think a country should not have borders, enforce fundamental laws and want to divide and conquer based on demographics. I have no allegiance to either party. It is country over party for me and not the other way around.

 

This is a watershed moment in the United States that will transform the cultural and legal landscape for years if not decades to come. Hope is all I have that it will not be as bad as I expect and that maybe there will be a few unintended good consequences from it. It is unfair to blame Generation X for all of this election, as most every age group and demographic showed gains for Trump. Enough voters across the spectrum chose him and everything he represents and entails over Harris. This essay for me was my analysis of what I believe is going on with my generation. On second thought, maybe I did write a lengthy political essay. Now I can be a good consumer and buy a tee shirt or hoodie adorned with the art of Haring, Basquiat and Warhol.

Somewhere out there in January 1989 I am fifteen years old. I am walking down the sidewalk in Midtown Atlanta on my way to the Fox Theater to see Duran Duran's Big Thing tour with a friend. It will be my first concert. It will be a special moment in the darkness, like a searchlight through the fog. Thirty-five years later, I will have kept going and will again look for that light. It is what can be done. Or, as Warhol would have done, one could pop a Valium and go back to sleep.

David Wojnarowicz . Gay artist and activist. Died in 1992 of AIDS.