For those who need the tag, this is an op-ed, not a news piece.
Once in a while, as I peruse the morning headlines, I can’t help but ask myself: What would I have thought if I’d seen these stories 10 years ago? I’m always shaken by what it looks like from that perspective. It’s not as if shocking events hadn’t taken place in the decade before that. The 9/11 attacks came as a total shock and the financial crisis of 2008 was as close as I’d ever come to experiencing cataclysmic economic dislocation. But those, at least, were on par with historical world events like Pearl Harbor and the Great Depression, so there was a sense that they were not entirely unprecedented.
On Thursday I read headlines that former President Donald Trump was turning himself in to be arrested for the fourth time, two of those arrests stemming from his attempt to overturn the election in 2020, another for stealing classified documents and yet another for illegally paying hush money to a porn star with whom he’d had an affair. Other headlines tell me that the first Republican presidential primary debate was held without the frontrunner in attendance — that frontrunner being Donald Trump, the man with the four felony indictments. Today that seems like just another day in American politics. In 2013, I would have laughed at the sheer absurdity of the entire premise. But ever since Trump won the Republican nomination in 2016, nothing has ever been normal in American politics — and it’s getting weirder every day.
…nothing has ever been normal in American politics…
American politics have been pretty boring most of my life (I’m 50). Shit got weird with the “hanging chads” but we moved on fairly well. Newt Gingrich and crew were pretty nasty but nothing crazy. Then shit went off the rails with the Tea Party and MAGA.
Shit got weird with the “hanging chads” but we moved on fairly well.
That’s an understatement! People think that Jan 6 was the only coup attempt in the United States since the Business Plot in 1933, but nope: not only should the Brooks Brothers riot count as a coup attempt, it was a successful one!
not only should the Brooks Brothers riot count as a coup attempt, it was a successful one! °
Not really an “attempt” then is it?
Thank you! I thought I knew the whole 2000 election story, but here’s a detail I didn’t know.
The supreme court decided the outcome of a Presidential election and no one batted an eye lash.
That was pretty weird, IMO, and a hint of what was to come.
Yeah, that’s what I meant by the “hanging chads”, but we recovered without going crazy.
Oh, I think it encouraged the Republicans a lot more than you’re giving credit for.
So it may feel like things didnt go crazy, but I’d argue everything about 9/11 would have been different if Democrats were in office. Probably would not have invaded Afghanistan, for example. Probably wouldve had better handling of the economy leading up to the 2008 crisis.
But with that said, I do understand that for many, it didnt feel like it had a big impact.
You…didn’t see how Gingrich and company led to Bush and the 2008 financial crash that then led to the Tea Party which is currently rebranded as MAGA?
The way the republicans devoted the entire 90s to trying to crucify Clinton was notable. Then insane BS like Rush Limbaugh and the various angry sneerers on Fox. But also, Reagan…. and then back to Watergate, and JFK, and so on. So it’s been nutty for a while.
I didn’t say we weren’t in a slow moving train wreck, but it was all very boring. You know, a definitive lack of insurrection and treason.
Ah, in the context of the lack of insurrection, yes. I’m not sure about the lack of treason, given the way Bush & Company blatantly lied to send us to war in Iraq. But I guess one man’s treason is another man’s free speech, right?
But I guess one man’s treason is another man’s free speech, right?
And we’re going to see that same argument in court within the year…
Oh, they’ve already made it. And it’s not going to fly.
Seems like the US is going through its phase of fascism. It’s not a mistake that the US has much domestic experience with* (unlike most of Europe) so looks like the lesson sadly hasn’t gotten through to a sizable part of the population yet
*I am ignoring a lot of shady 20th century stuff here, but I mean like full on Mussolini fascism
It would be nice if it were one and done, but what’s happening in Italy again is concerning.
That’s a fair point. I haven’t been watching it closely, but hopefully it’ll pass eventually. Because the populist waves have already passed in a ton of countries, like the UK (soon to come) Poland (again probably soon) Slovenia (already passed), Czechia, Spain(?) or even Brazil. Hopefully they don’t manage to dig their teeth into the system like they did in Hungary.
We never should have reopened that black sarcophagus.
Or shot that gorilla
The moon is an ancient alien graveyard. We’ve been cursed since the landing. Moon’s haunted.
Pandora should’ve never made that TikTok unboxing video.
What the hell country is this, says the headline as if criminals in office was new and unheard of for the u.s
