In a tumultuous time, a potentially life-changing election

Cycles of turmoil, prosperity and political extremism have shaped America before — and they’re shaping our choices again.

Every election season brings the familiar refrain, “This is the most important election of our lifetime.” Of course, they can’t all be the most important — but some truly do mark turning points. This November’s will be one of them.

I’ve been around long enough to see tremendous changes in our society and in the way we live. As an early baby boomer, I grew up in the shadow of the Cold War. We practiced duck‑and‑cover drills under our desks, as if a wooden seat could protect us from a Soviet bomb. Fallout shelter signs can still be found in the basements of old New York City buildings — relics of a time when patriotism and fear lived side by side. In school I learned to recite the preamble to the Constitution and the entire Gettysburg address by heart. (I still can!) Civic identity was something we carried with pride.

Then came the 1960s and early ’70s, when it felt as if the country was being pulled apart — and in many ways, it was. The Vietnam War escalated, political assassinations shocked the nation, and bombings and hijackings by extremist groups became disturbingly common. Cities saw unrest, campuses erupted, and many believed America was on the brink of unraveling. Yet even through that turmoil, institutions eventually stabilized, and society found its footing again.

The decades that followed brought extraordinary prosperity. Americans lived longer, earned more, and gained access to technologies that transformed everyday life — from personal computers to smartphones, and now artificial intelligence. Yet every period of rapid change creates both opportunity and anxiety.

History shows that rapid change creates winners and losers — and the disaffected are often the easiest targets for demagogues. The formula is always the same: identify an enemy, blame them for every problem, and promise to redistribute wealth and power to “the people.” It never ends well, and it always follows a predictable cycle.

In New York City, we are watching this pattern re‑emerge. The rise of self‑described democratic socialists — whose platforms often resemble the redistributionist promises of earlier eras — reflects a growing appeal to those who feel economically or socially displaced. We now see candidates promising an impossible list of giveaways — free transit, artificially low prices, the elimination of prisons, and even foreign policy stunts far outside municipal authority. Some go further, using inflammatory rhetoric targeting Israel and Jewish communities to rally supporters — a tactic with a long and troubling history.

We’ve seen this script before. Economic dislocation in the 1970s helped fuel New York City’s fiscal collapse, when the city nearly went bankrupt in 1975. Crime soared to record levels — more than 1,600 homicides a year by the early 1990s. Landlords abandoned buildings, neighborhoods deteriorated and the tax base shrank. Policies that sounded compassionate or idealistic on paper often produced devastating real‑world consequences. I remember seeing entire neighborhoods in the city turned into no-go, burned-out areas reminiscent of the aftermath of a war.

We can’t vote for New York City’s mayor, although what happens there inevitably spills across municipal lines. We do, however, have a voice in the statewide leadership that shapes what happens beyond the city limits. History offers no guarantees, but it does offer lessons. A governor can serve as a firewall against reckless policy — restraining harmful mandates and protecting regional stability — or act as an enabler. Unfortunately, our current state leadership has too often enabled the very policies that threaten our public safety, fiscal health and quality of life.

This November, we have a chance to choose leadership that safeguards our communities, preserves our quality of life and avoids repeating the destructive cycles we’ve already lived through. History doesn’t have to repeat itself — but only if we have the wisdom to learn from it.

Howard J Kopel

Legislator, Nassau County District 7