The Time of trump is the logical extension of what the Reagan Revolution wrought.
Reagan played the role of president, putting a jocular friendly face on some pretty nasty racist tropes, and targeted unions for destruction starting with the Air Traffic Controllers. His 87 Amnesty had nothing to do with the people; rather, he saw an opportunity to severely weaken the trade unions and took it.
Reagan divorced deficits from GOP's fiscal conservatism. Deficits matter only when Democrats hold the nation's credit cards. By the time Shrub was in office, lying us in to a war from which we've still not been extricated, he's pandering directly to the evangelicals, and Cheney can openly declare "deficits don't matter." Bush puts the entire war on the credit card and does not raise taxes in support of the war effort. Meanwhile, he cleverly dupes us with the Texas Miracle into a testing regime that benefits....Texas based textbook and test prep publishers. Who needs critical thinking?
As deplorable as he is, 45** was a natural result of the GOP's getting in to bed with evangelicals who can't compromise on their faith, lest they not have faith, and flinging the door wide open for the formerly fringe racist, white supremacist, white nationalists and armed 'militias' comprising today's GOP. They are not grand, they are not conservative. They are radical reactionary extremists.
I fear we are at the beginning of an ugly, bloody period in American History, perhaps worse than any in my Gen X lifetime. I expect there to be stochastic skirmishes carried out by Right Wing Extremists until the perception they can get away with passes with convictions and hard prison terms. They view the failed Coup d'etat as a success and breaching the Capitol as a win. Remember, they're being played, and they're playing in a live action video game, albeit a deadly one.
The tone is set from the top. President Biden brings back decency and honor. JUst as the bullying and bullshitting and lawlessness trickled down from the top under 45**, so to will the sense of decency as Biden and his people shift the tone.
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