What in the name of all that is good and holy has happened to my country???

[malchickiwick]

I was born in 1968; I turn 50 in December. That was a rough year for the Republic.

My earliest memories of political events were the Watergate hearing, which were omnipresent in my early years.

I grew up to be a history professor.

I get that political power in our country has always skewed toward the rich and powerful. But I never envisioned that fascism could actually infect our system.

Call me naive, but I thought at the end of the day, the opposition, despite being the opposition, nevertheless embraced the fundamental values of our system. Now it turns out that they would sell out our brilliant country to a foreign power simply for the chance to rule.

If sanity regains the day, history will lump these people with the worst figures of the past, as in Benedict Arnold and Joseph Mccarthy.

I'm just ranting because I can't believe we have come to this...

[renegade000]

1. The confederates were smarter this time...

They made sure to secure foreign assistance before making their move. Plus they decided to subvert the Republic from within instead of attacking from without...

[lovemydogs]

2. We suffer from cult of personality, from fascism and from

white privledge gone amok.

[Garrett78]

3. The GOP started down this road around the time you were born.

There was the white backlash to the Civil Rights Act, Nixon's Southern Strategy and The Powell Memo. It's been all downhill since then for the Republican Party. Trump and his base is the almost inevitable result of what Republicans have been pushing hard for the last 5 decades. Dog whistling galore, jingoism, anti-intellectualism, a "liberal media" narrative, the undermining of trust in government, etc.

The GOP created this monster, which they started assembling in the late '60s.

[MrPool]

4. Surprisingly Joseph Mccarthy.

would be considered a patriot today with all the Russian apologists on the left and right today.
And unlike back then there is far more evidence of members of Congress being in league with Russia.

[whathehell]

5. Who are

the "Russian apologists on the Left"?

[MrPool]

6. The ones who follow on Glen Greenwalds

every word and love Julian Assange.. Nina(Nobody cares about Russia) Turner for starters.

[pnwmom]

16. Jill Stein, and those who support her.

She's been spouting off rightwing lies from the book "Clinton Cash."

Link to tweet

?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.mediaite.com%2Fonline%2Fjill-stein-responds-after-bill-clinton-says-she-was-the-preferred-alternative-of-the-russians%2F

Bill Clinton called me the “preferred Russian alternative”. He knows Russian preferences, having made $500K for a single speech from the Russian bank promoting the Uranium One deal that awaited HRC’s approval.
Unlike Bill, I paid my own way & my speech was about making peace.

[Snackshack]

7. Agreed.

I was born the same year and have some of the same memories.

The republican partie has violated its oath to defend and protect the US. They have not checked trump once. Emoluments violations, Nepotism, Obstruction, Collusion with a foreign power that attacked our elections, ZTE...the claim of self pardon power...the list goes on and on. They are accomplices now, they are literally the driver of the get away car and should be viewed that way. They have forfeited their right to exist as a political party that can be trusted to protect the United States and it’s Citizens when in the majority of any branch of government let alone all three.

Dems need to win the House back in Nov and investigate properly what has gone on and shine a very bright light on what trump and co. have done and how republicans have aided and abetted him during these 2 years.

[Kablooie]

8. Trump may go at some point but the conserves that worship him won't.

They have gotten a taste of fascism and they love it.
I'm afraid for the rest of our lives we will have a significant portion of America actively trying to destroy our democracy and install facist dictatorship.
We are lucky that Trump is such a buffoon.
If they ever elect someone with real intelligence and charisma in that position we are doomed.

[Funtatlaguy]

15. Which is why Pence scares me

He is more polished.
Doesn’t scream, cuss, rant, rave, or insult people.
He is a closet case Christian Dominionist that hates himself for secretly being gay.
So, he marries his Mother and loathes himself while trying to pray away the gay and bring on Armageddon in the process.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

9. I was born in August, 1948. I'll turn 70 in a couple of months.

Which means I remember very well the year you were born, all that happened then, and lots before.

I think we are living in a time that is a lot like Germany in the 1930s. Now we can all understand how Hitler came to power, how the Holocaust came about.

[murielm99]

17. I am the same age as you,

born in August 1948. I sometimes wonder if I will live to see seventy. Trump could destroy us all in a fit of pique.

I don't know about you, but my health has suffered in the last year. I am sure it is due to the orange menace.

1968 was indeed a year of turmoil. Now is much worse. I will keep going and working to overcome this mess as long as I can. I know you will, too.

[LastLiberal in PalmSprings]

10. What went wrong? Ronald Reagan.

Not him personally, but all the evil he represented. I've been around longer (69 years young) and life kept expanding (civil rights, women's rights, environmental awareness, man on the moon, the Great Society, the New Deal) and with Reagan it came to a screeching halt. Real attempts to treat drug problems became, "Just Say No." Reagan's first act was to remove Carter's solar cells from the WH roof. The social safety net began to be shredded. Profits took precedence over the environment. Ketchup counted as a vegetable for school lunches.

When the Dems had power, things would get better or at least hold steady. When the Repukes were in charge, it was a race to the bottom, with each successive Repuke president accelerating the process until we have Donnie Two Scoops, who is committed to destroying the world (except for Russia, of course) and the nation as fast as possible.

Actually, the assassination of JFK probably is the turning point. The triple blow to liberalism -- the assassinations of JFK, RFK and MLK -- felt like a body blow to hope. By the time we had gotten a handle on our grief, the Republicans were in control and the long slide downward had begun.

[byronius]

12. I remember that Dark Day.

Fucking awful. Pardon my French.

[Raine]

14. Agree, I count Raygun as the beginning of the end

of this country ... no Raygun, no Trump.

[Cosmocat]

21. What I dont understand

Is why does this country Time After Time After Time After Time and dold public and f*** wary. As you noted every time they've had the presidency with the exception of Herbert Walker they've been out and out criminal to push the boundary further towards fascism, but with each president consequences or less and less. And when Democrats are in office they lose their minds and Jen up completely fake controversies which the media and Country by extension treat is infinitely worse than the actual s*** that they do.

[colorado_ufo]

11. Just turned 71

Agree with all, but to me the pivot point was when W kept changing the story about why we were invading Iraq, and yet people did not seem to care that the reason kept changing. People bought into anything, if it justified their own inner fears.

History keeps recycling it's problems, because change has to start within us.

[Funtatlaguy]

13. White patriarchs and the Stepford women who follow them

Racism, sexism, homophobia, etc. etc. is all back in fashion now.
Formerly closeted bigots can now come into the light of day and express their true feelings instead of being bound by “political correctness”.
That’s what you hear from them.
No longer will white Christian heterosexual males (and the women who believe in traditional patriarchy)have to be persecuted for their hatred of anyone that doesn’t look or sound or act or worship like them.

[VOX]

18. The assassinations of JFK, MLK, Jr., and RFK tilted everything rightward, and it's never recovered.

Those shattering events occurred during my lifetime, and as I get older, I believe that butchering of a generation of strong, charismatic, liberal world-movers really began the country's descent onto the ever-sinking path it's on today. (I'm not getting into whether nor not those killings were orchestrated in some way; I'm just focusing on the ripple-effects they caused, no matter who acted/or not and may have conspired/or not.)

The erasure of those three leaders gave us an escalated Vietnam (for big private profit), turmoil and understandable rage in our inner cities, corruption in the highest levels of government, unrest on campuses and within families, etc. There was a brief stopover in the insanity when Jimmy Carter served, but Nixon's old boys knew how to get Ronald Reagan into office.

I'd go on, but you get the idea. It's damned disheartening at times. Gotta keep the faith.

[DFW]

19. What Jim Morrosin wrote that year about the earth could also be said about the country

What have they done to the earth?
What have they done to our fair sister?
Ravaged and plundered and ripped her and bit her
Stuck her with knives in the side of the dawn
And tied her with fences and dragged her down

[TimeSnowDemos]

20. As a history teacher..

Last edited Thu Jun 14, 2018, 08:53 AM - Edit history (2)

You can't be THAT surprised... Or at least I'm surprised that you're surprised.

It's like in a million movies... The main character thinks that THEY are the special one that can e.g. time travel with no consequences... Their friends beg them not to do it, but they do, and it kills them.

The US has been doing this to other countries for generations. It has propped up dictators and strongman, funded and planned and orchestrated far fight coups to protect anti-democracy militias, etc. etc

It was naive to think that the US could behave like this forever, without it eventually happening to us. That's magical thinking.

This - some version - was always going to happen.

We are just so used to lying to ourselves about all the lousy things we do to ourselves and others. And when I say lying I'm including schools, which deliberately excuse and gloss over and hide vast American crimes. And why?

Well just two nights ago Chris Matthews said what we've all heard a million times: America is the best country on the planet, everyone knows it, and the entire world is desperate to come here because it's the best. Period.

None of that is true, but it's a mantra that is drilled into the head of every American since they day they're born.

That has two immediate and apperent outcomes. The whole country, more or less, has long believed:
- you don't need to fix the best country in the world
- if we're the best country in the world, and we have e.g. tested WMDs on our own citizens, then testing WMDs on civilians is just something the best country in the planet does. And it's justified.

You can see the legacy of this everywhere though.

We could end gun the epidemic of gun violence in a year - after almost 100 years of school massacres - if we wanted to... But the best country in the world won't change to fix its problems. It won't even admit it has them.

We could end poverty, fix Healthcare, fix schools and make universities universally accessible for those who qualify academically.

We do none of it. And still claim - as if in a trance - to be "number one".

So this slide towards what we've long supported elsewhere in no shock. It was as predictable as the tides and sunset. This is the consequence of many generations living in and perpetuating national delusion and amnesia.

And guess what, this is just the beginning. You know what solves this: vast civil engagement, trusted gatekeepers in the media, honesty about America's behavior on a national scale, a change in foreign policy - away from doing what Americans have suddenly decided is immoral behavior (when it happens to them, naturally) - etc.

The alternative is essentially the end of the American dream, as in the dream of the Founding Fathers, replaced with nothing more than a corporate vassal state run by the most corrupt and least qualified.

Anyway, I'm shocked your shocked.

[Dave Starsky]

25. Well said.

Depressing as fuck, but well said.

[colsohlibgal]

22. It's Alarming

My hope is that sane rational people can prevail but we’ll see starting in early November.

Our Narcissistic “Leader” has in the last couple of days ripped the leader of Canada while lauding a brutal dictator.

Something is seriously wrong right now in the USA. The scholar in me sees us in a recurring cycle that seems to crop up every 70-80 years once collective memory of 70-80 years ago vanishes.

[MFM008]

23. Something bad and unholy

I mean it.
Its his birthday today.
Today would be a good day for it to be his last.

[colorado_ufo]

29. June 14, Flag Day.

I wonder which flag Trump really salutes?

[Mr. Ected]

24. Divide and conquer

There is now a complete wall of separation between so-called conservatives and progressives. We know they're corrupt and they BELIEVE we are. We are shown their transgressions and act to counter them. They are informed of our excesses, mostly imagined, and they counter us like locust plague.

I'm sure if a poll was taken right now among FOX viewers as to who poses a greater threat to American democracy, Hillary Clinton or Vlad Putin, they'd choose Hillary by an overwhelming margin. Such is the state of political opinion in the USA in 2018. It's hard to overcome an electorate that has been conditioned over many decades to disbelieve a free press and to accept theory as fact, like Pavlov's dog and the ringing of a bell.

[pangaia]

26. No. Not Benedict Arnold and Joseph Mccarthy.

They were nothing of the sort....


Stalin and Hitler and Pol Pot and Idi Amin....

[donkeypoofed]

27. Fascism comes to America wrapped in a flag & a bible

That's exactly what's.happening right now. Not enough people are waking up to this fact.

[Orsino]

28. Laziness, ignorance, fear and the concentration of wealth and power in a few hands.

Democracy cannot survive all that.