Only a Harry Truman could give us what we need these days

"America needs you, Harry Truman ..."

It was hardly one of Chicago's best songs, but it was one that really hit home with Americans in 1975 in the wake of Richard Nixon, with Gerald Ford in the White House and Jimmy Carter yet to come.

It was a horrible decade in many ways, a decade that destroyed the faith of many people in the government, a loss of faith that Ronald Reagan rode all the way to the White House in 1980.

It was a decade that destroyed the civic consensus that had existed in the U.S. since the end of World War II. Both political parties were in agreement that the government had a role to play in our lives, with only those on the far right believing the government should butt out of things.

But after Nixon's mendacity, Ford's goofiness and Carter's inability to adapt to Washington politics, Americans turned to a man who said that government itself was the villain much of the time.

The '70s changed everything, little of it for the better. When Reagan took office in 1981, his top two priorities were a massive tax cut for the rich and a huge military buildup to challenge the Soviet Union. Two results of that were wildly increasing federal deficits and the beginning of a shift of wealth to the top 1 percent that is continuing today.

The consensus that existed for 35 years was disappearing. Republicans began working to destroy programs like Social Security and Medicare, and Truman's statement about charity only stood true on one side of the spectrum.

In that sense, the '70s ruined our country.

We certainly never got over them, and regardless of what conservatives may say about Democrats these days, there really is no meaningful left in this country anymore.

Bill Clinton himself said it a few years ago.

"We are all Eisenhower Republicans now."

Yes, America needs you, Harry Truman. We need a president who will stand for what's right, who won't compromise just for the sake of getting along and who isn't afraid to call a spade a spade.

More than ever.