I’m a child of the sixties now in my own sixth decade. I came of age in and about the Summer of Love while the nightmare of America’s insanity in Vietnam still awaited January’s coming Tet Offensive, ushering in 1968’s turning point of that interminable conflict. That turning point, however, was still a long ways from ending nightly television’s iconic body bags and Americans pitted against Americans over our conflicted involvement in somebody else’s civil war. It wouldn’t be until the summer of ’69 that “bombers riding shotgun in the sky” would turn into “butterflies above our nation,” at least for a few days in upstate New York.

Larger than life and many municipalities, the Woodstock musical festival was a huge organically energized spontaneous sign of the times proclaiming that people could come together and create a muddied but adventurous redefinition of community and tolerance. It’s impromptu counter-culture city-state overcame all odds, succeeding by fortuitously reconciling the logistical challenge of balancing the capacity of our humanity with the capacity of porta-potties.

Its open-ended artistic expression of profound rebellion against everything the status quo represented was a watershed moment, a sea change in American politics and culture.

I experienced Woodstock a year later by way of its film documentary’s Establishment presentation at a drive-in theater outside Norfolk, VA., where the unprecedented epic musical event was vicariously enjoyed atop a flower powered VW bus intimately shared with several other free spirits having to return to an outwardly uniformed life that next morning at nearby Portsmouth Naval Hospital.

I’ll never forget the most momentous moment of my O.R. training there. Between “routine” surgeries treating freshly medevaced “in-country” to our country war casualties, the locker room radio announced the even more pointless carnage of the Kent State shootings. Student protesters gunned down by their own National Guard. That profound perversion of patriotism quickly triggered Neil Young’s haunting dirge. “Four Dead in Ohio” remains a deadly musical snapshot of how extreme our discord can become, how unexpectedly and uncontrollably America’s acceptance of hatred can spill over into violence.

That was long ago. Another tumultuous time, but one when even popular mainstream song styling dared to question America’s dark side by openly addressing gun violence. Before “gun violence” was even part of our political lexicon. “Abraham, Martin and John” was a disquieting yet optimistic lament of premature loss. Loss of a tormented believer in the “better angles of our nature.” Loss of a heroic civil rights dreamer, and a Camelot president asking not what “ your country can do for you” but “what you can do for your country.” And also “Bobby,” the even more idealistically hopeful younger brother. Four tragic but inspiring victims of a growing assassination of America’s innocence.

It was nevertheless a time full of hope when race, gender, sexual orientation and environmental advocates all raised their voices and won surprisingly sound victories in changing “hearts and minds” right here at home. Before “social media” was even a distant concept. Before technology took over and “Don’t trust anyone over 30” was still valued advice.

I look back on all that has transpired since and have a hard time figuring out exactly what happened between then and now that tripped the reset button on so many progressive causes, setting them back to what in my military service would be called their “one-one” day. Maybe it’s because we somehow convinced ourselves that those fights had been sufficiently won. Maybe it’s because justice will always be a recurring uphill battle in a culture where strength’s valued more than reason or compassion.

When I hear “Make America Great Again” being bandied about I wonder if I missed something others experienced but which somehow escaped my own awareness.

For as long as I can remember, the American experience has been an ongoing two steps forward one step backwards struggle to overcome continued injustices undermining a greatness America is totally capable of but unwilling to pay the price of an admission that requires looking into the mirror, stepping up to the plate, and deciding that constant bunting isn’t a winning game plan.

Winning is perhaps the most fundamental American ethos. The trouble with that cherished concept is the accepted belief that someone must thereby be the loser. The possibility that we can all do so much better if we do away with competition that divides us is still beyond most of the public’s political comprehension. And so it goes. Even though the capitalistic lottery system that remains our economic model serves the majority of hard working Americans very poorly. Those on Wall St. depend on most of us living on Chump Change Street.

True American greatness can weather Donald Trump. The real threat remains an electorate that repeatedly succumbs to the misguided belief that America’s about sustaining the abusive power of the elite few in undermining the humanitarian precepts of our Constitution.

Money has become the bottom line of politics and the juggernaut of our electoral process. Black Friday’ ruthless paean to consumerism is now harmonized by Black Tuesday.

Someone needs to write a new song.

Gary Anderson Bath lives in Bath.