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THE DAILY ASTORIAN • FRIDAY, JUNE 10, 2016
AP Photo/Robert F. Bukaty
AP Photo/Jay Reeves
AP Photo/Robin McDowell
Wood stove and antique dealer Rodney Kimball speaks
during an interview in May at his shop in West Bethel, Maine.
“America is great but it could be a lot better if the politicians
weren’t fighting all the time like they are now,” he said.
Musician “Deacon” John Moore holds his guitar in New
Orleans in April. At 74, he remembers a time when Amer-
ica was headed in the right direction, when everything
seemed to be coming together.
Craig House, 32, stands in front of his home in St. Louis
in March. He lives with his grandmother in an area with
burned-out buildings and abandoned schools not far
from a hip, trendy part of town.
AP Photo/Mike Householder
AP Photo/Brennan Linsley
AP Photo/Teresa Crawford
Mike Poling, 58, tends to cows at his farm in Delphos,
Ohio, in April. The agriculture consultant and farmer ex-
pects good governance and leadership “and nothing less.”
Syrian-American poet Amal Kassir recites her work during
a gathering where immigrants from hostile environments
spoke about their lives at the YWCA in Boulder, Colo., in April.
Kimberly Jung, 29, poses for a photo in Chicago in May. A
veteran of the war in Afghanistan, she believes, “... great-
ness is a responsibility.
America: ‘Whatever greatness I’m capable of comes from being in this place’
Continued from Page 1A
he will “make America great
again.” Hillary Clinton count-
ers that America “has never
stopped being great.” But what
does that even mean? And
who gets to deine greatness?
A billionaire businessman, a
former secretary of state —
or an aging musician in New
Orleans?
What about the woman in
Illinois who served in the U.S.
military in Afghanistan?
Or the industrial worker
worried about his job in
Alabama?
The Associated Press inter-
viewed a wide range of Ameri-
cans to get a sense of what they
think about the nation’s great-
ness in the twilight of Pres-
ident Barack Obama’s eight
years in ofice. The responses
were as different as Ameri-
cans themselves, yet a theme
emerged: Compared to other
nations, the United States is
at least good, probably even
great. But there’s a lot of work
to be done.
“Yes, America is great. It
could be a lot better if the pol-
iticians weren’t ighting each
other all the time ...,” said
Rodney Kimball, a 74-year-
old stove dealer in West
Bethel, Maine. “The gov-
ernment needs to start doing
what’s right for the people.”
A country divided
America is divided by polit-
ical party, choice of media,
income, gender, race or ethnic
group, religious faith (or not),
generation, geography and
general outlook on the coun-
try’s future. Pundits have pro-
claimed the electorate angry
and wondered if the nation can
ever recover the sense of unity
experienced in the immedi-
ate aftermath of the Al Qaeda
attacks that took place 15 years
ago this September.
The current dearth of con-
idence in the nation’s poli-
tics and government is strik-
ing. Recent polling by the AP
and the NORC Center for Pub-
lic Affairs Research shows just
13 percent of Americans are
proud of the 2016 election, and
55 percent feel helpless. Only
10 percent have a great deal of
conidence in the overall polit-
ical system, with 4 percent
having a great deal of coni-
dence in Congress, 15 percent
in the executive branch, and 24
percent in the Supreme Court.
Few Americans see either
political party as responsive to
ordinary voters.
Although their America
is still a land of shining seas,
spacious skies and majestic
mountains, many express a
deep sense of disenchantment
and uncertainty in their own
lives.
“I think that America as an
idea is one of the most beau-
tiful ideas that the world has
ever known. I think that Amer-
ican opportunity and inge-
nuity has built some of the
most incredible technologies
and innovations today,” said
Allene Swanson, 22, of Chi-
cago. “And still, when I look
around, I see a country that
seems like it’s crumbling. I
see people who are hungry and
broke and who are struggling
a lot.”
For some, real success has
always seemed out of reach.
The old textile mill across
town is a reminder, dark and
empty because labor was
cheaper in Southeast Asia or
Latin America; the manufac-
turing plant on the outskirts
of the city uses steel imported
from China.
Employment has rebounded
since the great recession, but
wages are stagnant. Forget
saving for a home — millions
work more than one job just to
keep food on the table and the
lights on. What happened to
the American dream?
That’s what is being asked
in places like inner city St.
Louis, home to 32-year-
old Craig House. He’s lives
with his grandmother in a
sea of burned-out buildings
and abandoned schools not
far from a hip, trendy part of
town.
“America has always been
great, just not for me and my
people. For us it’s been the
worst ever,” said House, shak-
ing his head as he takes a long
drag off his cigarette. “People
come from all over the world,
Arabs own this, that. Black
man don’t own nothing.”
Known as “Deacon” in his
native New Orleans, 74-year-
old guitarist John Moore
remembers a time when Amer-
ica was headed in the right
direction, when everything
seemed to be coming together.
It was in the 1960s, when black
people like Moore were see-
ing an end to racial segrega-
tion; when women were gain-
ing equality; when politicians
were taking a stand to end pov-
erty despite the turmoil of pro-
tests over the Vietnam War.
“Those were the best
years,” said Moore, tears well-
ing in his eyes in the living
room-turned-recording studio
of his shotgun house. “And
then they were destroyed right
before my very eyes when they
assassinated all of our leaders.
Robert Kennedy. John Ken-
nedy. Martin Luther King.
AP Photo/Robin McDowell
High school student Dana Craig, 15, stands at her locker
in River Falls, Wis., in May. Craig says America is a great
place built on the idea that everyone should get an equal
opportunity, a chance.
Malcolm X. All of our leaders.
And, you know, that was the
end of hope. We had no more
hope.”
More unsettling
than uplifting
Hope returned, at least
for some, in 2008 when a
mixed-race lawyer with a for-
eign-sounding name won the
White House. Obama’s elec-
tion seemed to prove that any-
one could accomplish any-
thing in America.
Yet the years that followed
have seemed more unsettling
than uplifting to many. Today,
some people want more from
their government. Others just
want it to go away as much as
possible.
“I expect less government,
less regulation,” said Russ
Madson, 45, a steel indus-
try worker looking for bet-
ter opportunities in Birming-
ham, Alabama. “Our country
was built by people like the
Rockefellers, Edison, Henry
Ford — pioneers. And today
they couldn’t do what they did
because of regulation.”
But others expect more of
government. Agriculture con-
sultant and farmer Mike Pol-
ing of Delphos, Ohio, expects
good governance and leader-
ship “and nothing less.”
“That’s what got us to this
point and that’s what made
America great,” said Poling,
58. “What made America great
is its people. That’s what built
the country. Our forefathers
had the foresight to draft the
Constitution, the Bill of Rights
that has laid the groundwork
for (the) nation carrying on
for 200 years and continues to
guide us.”
Yet American greatness
isn’t just about words scrawled
on yellowed paper and kept
in a vault at the National
Archives. A veteran of the war
in Afghanistan, daughter of
immigrants from Hong Kong,
29-year-old Kimberly Jung
sees it as something deeper, a
challenge to every citizen.
“I believe greatness is a
responsibility,” said Jung,
of Chicago. “It’s a dual state
of mind in which you know
your power or you know what
resources you have but also
your weaknesses. And you
harness that set of strengths
and weaknesses to work with a
group and form a team and do
great things.”
That striving for the com-
mon good is somehow AWOL
in America right now, people
say.
“If there was one thing I
could change about this coun-
try it would be to sit here and
get us focused back on the
country itself and not on our
own self-interest,” said Pol-
ing, the Ohio farmer. “I think
we’ve lost track of what built
this country, and that is the fact
we came together as a body
of one to build it and make it
great.”
A sprawling country
In a sprawling country
of 319 million people, it’s
easy for most anyone to tuck
themselves away in suburbia,
the rural heartland, an urban
ghetto or a gentriied neighbor-
hood and see only those things
outside the front window or
just down the street. People
can turn on the echo chamber
of cable TV or the internet and
forget what high school stu-
dent Dana Craig says America
really is: A great place built on
the idea that everyone should
get an equal opportunity, a
chance.
“Throughout history (I am)
not sure we did the best job in
keeping up with these princi-
ples and reaching those goals
in the way that we want to, but
I think what deines our great-
ness is our ability to continue
working toward these goals
even if we are not necessarily
perfect in them,” said Craig,
15, of River Falls, Wisconsin.
Whether they opt for
Trump, Clinton or someone
else this November, Ameri-
cans say the state of the union
isn’t good enough. Amal Kas-
sir sees her own future caught
up with the chance the coun-
try has right now to make itself
into something better.
Kassir, a 20-year-old col-
lege student in Colorado, was
born in Denver to a father
from Syria and a mother from
America. A poet who also
works in her family’s Mid-
dle Eastern restaurant, Kassir
describes her own life as being
intertwined with that of the
United States.
Is America great? Yes, she
says. And it’s also her best
chance.
“No doubt whatever great-
ness I’m capable of comes
from being in this place,” she
said.
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