232 years ago, the first penny was minted in the United States. And this November, the last pennies rolled off the line, the coin now out of production.
“A penny for your thoughts.” This common idiom, an invitation for another to share what’s on their mind, may go the way of the penny itself, into eventual obsolescence. There are increasingly few who really want to know what’s on anyone else’s mind, unless that mind is in sync with their own.
To discover what another is thinking and feeling would require us to put down our phones, stop watching “our feeds,” and give up espousing our views and justifying our opinions, at least long enough to actually listen to, or read, from reputable news sources.
It would also require empathy, which is in short supply lately.
One of the great ironies of our age is that although we are more connected, we are less so. Yet, communication is essential to human interaction. Its structural weave incorporates the mores and principles of a society, and it can even be a critical factor in the making or breaking of great movements and ages. Staying informed is essential to us personally and as a nation.
Monetary systems, like communication, are also necessary to modern civilization. The penny no longer makes sense, any more than returning to a primitive trade exchange does. Much as we might like to pay our dentist with a loaf of banana bread instead of a credit card, our complex financial world cannot accommodate such bartering. Yet, a vital monetary system and journalism as a means of communication are critical to our success as a country. The basis of both must be sound.
Since 1793, when pennies were first minted in the U.S., we’ve had a one-cent denomination. Then, of course, the value of a single cent was much higher and could buy much more. The first pennies, large coins called Lady Liberties, were of pure copper. One such coin in “mint” condition is worth millions of dollars today.
So, too, is the increased worth of the principles of that nascent age, when our country was discovering its values and forging its future. Striving to incorporate intrinsic concepts of truth, as well as ensuring our liberty to express ourselves, were powerful components in formulating our democracy.
The now-novel altruistic idea of politics as public service was prevalent in that bygone age. The first leader of our nation did not want to be a king. Washington accepted the presidency only as it incorporated a balance of power, with the legislative and judicial branches equal to the executive.
Who hasn’t been ambushed, when turning on the morning news, by an onslaught of the latest projectiles from our tweeting current president’s favored platform, “Truth Social?” But, is it “truth,” or opinion, or hyperbole? And isn’t “social” a misnomer, unless it refers to a party of just one, or possibly a group of far-right devotees? This is not communication; it’s ranting.
Nostalgic as we may be for ethical journalism and verified sources, we cannot go backwards and deny the effects of social media and its pervasiveness in our culture. Need proof? Where else can “Surfer Girl” meet “Beach Boy” and they both reside in Iowa? True story, and they’re now married.
Too often, opinions are presented as facts and hidden in anonymity. Communication nose-dives when laced with threats, or is simply a drivel of personal beliefs and conspiracy theories, or worst of all, overtly radical. According to social scientists, those caught in this net of light-speed communication, especially younger people who have not yet learned the idea of dissection before dissemination, are experiencing increased radicalization. Discretion is essential.
“Just the facts, ma’am,” is not only a catchphrase from the television series “Dragnet.” True journalism, the “fourth and unregulated branch of our government,” strives to report verifiable facts and emphasizes fair reporting. Editors, fact-checkers, and readers scrutinize a “story” to make certain it is accurate. Plus, journalists are accountable for what they write or say. Those who publish erroneous news are eventually exposed, their work devalued as “not worth the paper it was written on.”
There are many reputable news organizations in existence (you are currently reading a piece in one.) But we now live in a digital age, and publication is as easy as hitting “send.” Thus, rumors, innuendos, falsehoods, and exaggerations fly about as freely as drones in our skies, hurled like flaming spears into media feeds.
So much of today’s so-called “reporting” is divisive, derogatory, and even dangerous. And not worth even today’s penny.
Whereas good journalism is verifiable, informative, and aspires to be engaging and enlightening, and very often is. It is priceless.
Amy Lockard is an Iowa resident who regularly contributes to regional newspapers and periodicals. She is working on the second of a four-book fictional series based on Jane Austen’s “Pride and Prejudice."
A deep look at how "All in the Family" remains a striking mirror of American politics, class tensions, and cultural manipulation—proving its relevance decades later.
All in This American Family
There are a few shows that have aged as eerily well as All in the Family.
It’s not just that it’s still funny and has the feel not of a sit-com, but of unpretentious, working-class theatre. It’s that, decades later, it remains one of the clearest windows into the American psyche. Archie Bunker’s living room has been, as it were, a small stage on which the country has been working through the same contradictions, anxieties, and unresolved traumas that still shape our politics today. The manipulation of the working class, the pitting of neighbor against neighbor, the scapegoating of the vulnerable, the quiet cruelties baked into everyday life—all of it is still here with us. We like to reassure ourselves that we’ve progressed since the early 1970s, but watching the show now forces an unsettling recognition: The structural forces that shaped Archie’s world have barely budged. The same tactics of distraction and division deployed by elites back then are still deployed now, except more efficiently, more sleekly.
Archie himself is the perfect vessel for this continuity. He is bigoted, blustery, reactive, but he is also wounded, anxious, and constantly misled by forces above and beyond him. Norman Lear created Archie not as a monster to be hated (Lear’s genius was to make Archie lovable despite his loathsome stands), but as a man trapped by the political economy of his era: A union worker who feels his country slipping away, yet cannot see the hands that are actually moving it. His anger leaks sideways, onto immigrants, women, “hippies,” and anyone with less power than he has. The real villains—the wealthy, the connected, the manufacturers of grievance—remain safely and comfortably offscreen. That’s part of the show’s key insight: It reveals how elites thrive by making sure working people turn their frustrations against each other rather than upward.
Edith, often dismissed as naive or scatterbrained, functions as the show’s quiet moral center. Her compassion exposes the emotional void in Archie’s worldview and, in doing so, highlights the costs of the divisions that powerful interests cultivate. Meanwhile, Mike the “Meathead” represents a generation trying to break free from those divisions but often trapped in its own loud self-righteousness. Their clashes are not just family arguments but collisions between competing visions of America’s future. And those visions, tellingly, have yet to resolve themselves.
The political context of the show only sharpens its relevance. Premiering in 1971, All in the Family emerged during the Nixon years, when the “Silent Majority” strategy was weaponizing racial resentment, cultural panic, and working-class anxiety to cement power. Archie was a fictional embodiment of the very demographic Nixon sought to mobilize and manipulate. The show exposed, often bluntly, how economic insecurity was being rerouted into cultural hostility. Watching the show today, it’s impossible to miss how closely that logic mirrors the present, from right-wing media ecosystems to politicians who openly rely on stoking grievances rather than addressing root causes.
What makes the show unsettling today is that its satire feels less like a relic and more like a mirror. The demagogic impulses it spotlighted have simply found new platforms. The working-class anger it dramatized has been harvested by political operatives who, like their 1970s predecessors, depend on division to maintain power. The very cultural debates that fueled Archie’s tirades — about immigration, gender roles, race, and national identity—are still being used as tools to distract from wealth concentration and political manipulation.
If anything, the divisions are sharper now because the mechanisms of manipulation are more sophisticated, for much has been learned by The Machine. The same emotional raw material Lear mined for comedy is now algorithmically optimized for outrage. The same social fractures that played out around Archie’s kitchen table now play out on a scale he couldn’t have imagined. But the underlying dynamics haven’t changed at all.
That is why All in the Family feels so contemporary. The country Lear dissected never healed or meaningfully evolved: It simply changed wardrobe. The tensions, prejudices, and insecurities remain, not because individuals failed to grow but because the economic and political forces that thrive on division have only become more entrenched. Until we confront the political economy that kept Archie and Michael locked in an endless loop of circular bickering, the show will remain painfully relevant for another fifty years.
Ahmed Bouzid is the co-founder of The True Representation Movement.