America's current situation is just chickens from the '80s coming home to roost

[misanthrope]

For years, my wife and I have entertained a friendly disagreement. She looks back on the 1980s fondly while I revile them. Her feelings are steeped in the delusion of nostalgia, a perception of carefree youth and music to which she still clings.

Aside from hating most of the Big '80s' pop music and recalling all the personal heights and nadirs of the time, my distaste is based in what I saw happening to my nation then. The burst in materialism, the worship of greed, the demonization of unions, government and the New Deal, the greater marriage of fundamentalist religion with politics, the rationalization of bigotry, the Reagan era was undergirded by dangerous trends I recognized as detrimental to the health of our nation. When radio and TV began to crackle with a livid and hate-filled kind of programming, I feared for America's future.

Few personalities from that era embodied the superficiality and avarice like Donald Trump. The upstart braggart and self-absorbed huckster deserves the mantle of the 1980s as much as the 40th POTUS. Reagan might have lent his veneer to the decade, but Trump was its essence.

Now all these years later, we live with the fruit it has borne. Reagan's obvious flaws were ignored as he was canonized. We allowed politics to become even more entangled with right-wing religion, aiding in the rise of reactionary bodies like the Tea Party. We have open propaganda networks operating across our airwaves. The tax base has all but disappeared and corporate control of politicians at all levels is as tight as it has ever been.

The GOP's rightward nosedive even pulled portions of the Democratic Party with it, with welfare reform, crime bills, telecommunications consolidation and healthcare reform taking their cues from previously conservative policies and positions.

So the next time someone waxes wistful about "the good ol' '80s" ask them to look around us and take it in. Point to our crumbling infrastructure, to our ballooning debt, to our military gravesites, to our divided society, to our widening wealth gap, to gated communities and disheveled public schools, to our moronic and fantastically corrupted chief executive, to our deteriorating biosphere and tell them to thank the '80s for all of it.

[wryter2000]

1. Agree

Raygun gave racism, greed, and the celebration of ignorance a kindly face. He was the first to get away with blatant lies. Without him, Bircherism could still be in the shadows.

[gtar100]

2. Careful using that phrase, "Chickens coming home to roost".

Republicans have an unusually negative and often hostile reaction to it when they hear it.

Can imagine why... a slight tinge of guilt perhaps? As if they know deep down all the troubles we face really are of their own making? And that the shine on their St. Ronnie statues is wearing off revealing a dark, cheapskate interior? Indeed.

Very insightful post. I've had similar thoughts about the 80s, though not so clearly stated. Thank you.

[FiveGoodMen]

91. "a slight tinge of guilt perhaps?"

The sort of beings that remain in the GOP today must necessarily be incapable of guilt.

We're not doing ourselves any favors by pretending they are in any way like us.

[Solly Mack]

3. The 80's were awful.

Simply horrible.

[Alice11111]

61. Yes!

[nini]

4. that's what I tell people all the time.. this didn't happen overnight

and it's not going to be undone overnight.

Reagan and the religious right put this nightmare on the road and we're at our destination and it sucks.

[certainot]

67. all we have to do is fix the fucking radio now

waiting for it to fall apart on its own will guarantee the alt reality trump and the modern republicans live in hangs over for many years more.

americans will be amazed at how fast democracy can start functioning again when it is discovered that limbaugh is taking money from trump and/or putin, for instance, and rw radio falls apart.

americans are whining and fucking around with SYMPTOMS of ignoring talk radio. the progressive orgs can't get their ipods out of their asses long enough to notice they're getting their internet butts kicked by a few hundred think tank scripted liars on the radio and wasting our donations. protests on ANY major issue should be including talk radio stations and the many universities that broadcast sports on them.

while it dominates messaging and buzz in 40 states with 80 senators talk radio is the ONLY major medium that is completely isolated from challenge from the other side of the political spectrum.

as long as the left ignores it we're fucked. liberals have to figure out that, for instance, much of the russian trolling would have gone nowhere without decades of clinton/dem swiftboating, the benghazi/email shit was all talk radio, and that trump is all talk radio.

turn on the local rw station and hear the excuses and blaming of clinton, comey, obama etc.

when dems start complaining about their university mascots being used by hundreds of trump putin radio stations to bring in advertising advertisers around the country will flee republican radio, the monopoly psyops will fall apart, and liberals will be amazed at how fast the country will go 10 pts left.

[BigmanPigman]

5. My first election was in 1980 and I was 18. I do not have fond memories.

I wrote letters to Reagan, couldn't find a summer job or any job to save my life even with a brand new BFA degree. Labor unions were dead. If I did get a job I was let go due to the economy. The religious zealots hated and controlled everyone. Minorities had no rights, etc....then four years of Pappy Bush. 12 straight years of crap!

[progressoid]

44. And he took away my Pell grant.

Asshole.

[mopinko]

6. the texas textbook commission- the beginning of the dumbing down of the u.s.

For decades, a handful of extreme conservative activists have dominated the process that determines what textbooks will be used in Texas schools.

Led historically by local East Texas activists Mel and Norma Gabler and Phyllis Schlafly's Eagle Forum, these groups aim to re-shape books that will end up in classrooms across not only Texas but the country -- books they insist should teach more about Christianity and traditional gender roles, cut "unpatriotic" content about slavery and discrimination, and eliminate environmental issues that reflect poorly on the free enterprise system.

These activists have demanded alarming changes to textbooks over the years:

· Censoring a photo of a woman with a briefcase saying goodbye to her child
· Criticizing a text on slavery for "overkill of emphasis on cruelty to slaves"
· Insisting that the African-American family depicted in a section on 'The American Family' be replaced with Anglos.

http://historynewsnetwork.org/article/922

continues today-
http://www.salon.com/2012/10/24/the_revisionaries_texas_schoolbook_battle_—_crazier_than_you_thought/


ushered in teaching to the test, which was the death of critical thinking in schools.

[hatrack]

7. I think of the 80s as "The Great Abdication" . . .

We abandoned what we should have learned in Vietnam. We could have learned that there are situations when other people and nations will fight to the bitter end rather than do what we ordain, and that no amount of money or firepower will change that. Instead, we invaded a tiny island portrayed as a veritable Barad-Dur of horrific Communist power, and paraded that mole-scalp of a victory as "proof" that America was "back" (whatever that meant, while ignoring the deaths of more than 200 Marines in a fumbled intervention in the Mideast - and of course ignoring the deaths of tens of thousands at the hands of our "allies" in Latin America, Asia and the Middle East).

We abandoned what we should have learned from Watergate. Instead, those at the very highest levels of power walked away largely unscathed for multiple, major violations of federal law. Oh, and the traitorous cocksucker at the center of it all became a national hero, thanks to his ability to peer moistly into the camera during televised hearings.

We abandoned even the pretension that we should try to be decent to one another. Instead, we began the decade with a successful presidential campaign kickoff at a murder scene with ear-splittingly loud dog sirens to every inbred, resentful, racist fuck in America, and ended the decade with hushed, horrified "discussions" about "super-predators" spawned in urban jungles of crime and depravity.

We began to abandon any sense of reality at the fall of the Warsaw Pact, and not long afterwards completed the process after the collapse of the USSR. America, triumphant by God's divine plan, with assists from Adam Smith and William F. Buckley, was the culmination of all human thought and desire, and the End Of History was at hand! We got to do anything we wanted, because there was only one way of doing things, and that was OUR way. And we all know how well that turned out.

At every point when we could have learned, we abdicated our collective responsibilities as adults. Instead, we chose the emotional buzz, the flag-waving fix, the quick, satisfying hit of bullshit over the lessons of science, history and reality. And here we are.

Oh, and the hairstyles SUCKED.

[Mr.Bill]

9. Even Dennis Miller

when he was doing weekend update on SNL Referred to the Grenada invasion as when we "used a carrier task force to knock over a fruit stand."

Hunter S. Thompson in Rolling Stone said the island could have been taken by the press who were there to cover it armed with baseball bats.

[lastlib]

13. I once said that my Boy Scout troop could've taken Grenada....

It was no conquest worth spit, except in the minds of brain-dead right-wingers who hated Commies, or anyone else who didn't suck up to Milton Friedman.

[misanthrope]

28. Well, we can't have people focusing on 220 dead Marines in Beirut can we?

Because Republicans love the troops, they swept them away the greatest loss of USMC troops since Iwo Jima as quickly as possible.

[Cosmocat]

52. People forget just how much this country indulges republican fuck wittery

220 marines killed holed up in hotel in fucking beiruit was completely swept under the rugs by the glorious victory over Grenada ...

But, an dimplomatic outpost that got overun and 5 lives lost in Benghazi is the biggest scandal in america history (ignoring this same basic thing happening nearly a dozen times when W was POTUS)!

[misanthrope]

27. Very well said!

It was a conjunction of both political and cultural corruption.

[0rganism]

39. well said, noble hatrack

ship it!

[certainot]

66. the reagan bush treason was discovered but they killed the fairness doctrine

and 1000 radio stations with limbaugh as pt man helped them gin up 'popular' support for their versions and enable intimidate and cover up to escape real justiceon iran contra/october surprise and central american atrocities. talk radio made reagan into a god, bush and his son into presidents, and north into a talk show host and tv star.

then we let it lie us into iraq and generated the illegitimate 'public' pressure that got bush/cheney off.

all because the left liberals dems ignore talk radio. now we have trump for exactly the same reason. and the last 8 years putin's probably taken over control of limbaugh talk radio from rove/MIC through sources like breitbart etc.

now we're giving it a free speech free ride to generate the 'public' pressure/outrage/intimidation from a few dittohead teabag racists amplified by 1500 radio stations to get trump off, or force enough compromise by enabling republicans to go after obama and clinton and rice etc., that most of them get a slap on the wrist and then liberals will blame democrats again for not sticking their necks out far enough.

democrats have to stop crying and whining about the symptoms of letting a few hundred think tank -scripted liars on 1500 radio stations short circuit democracy with corporate/authoritarian-friendly made-to-order constituencies have their way and stop ignoring republican talk radio.

[BeyondGeography]

8. Reagan tripled the national debt and the cons called him a hero

He was Keynes on steroids. It was the beginning of the total disconnect between what they supposedly stood for and what they did, and they got away with it. ("Reagan proved deficits don't matter.&quot I don't think they realized how easy their base was to manipulate until then. Stick it to the poor, demonize government and nonwhites, pump up the defense budget and fight like mad for tax breaks that tilt upwards. That was Reagan, and ever since.

[Mr.Bill]

10. And don't forget

pretending AIDS did not exist.

[BeyondGeography]

12. And the ascendancy of the so-called Religious Right

The same people who voted 81-19 for Trump.

[hatrack]

60. Yeah, the 80s debacle in science, environment and public health . . . .

Statement above would have ended up in the TLDR file.

We started the decade with James Watt, who said that it didn't matter all that much to preserve a liveable habitat for future generations, since "I do not know how many future generations we can count on before the Lord returns."

Near the end came James Hansen and the first, clear and unequivocal warning that something was very possibly wrong with the climate (and to this date, we're waiting for a real response).

And through it all flowed a river of death, as Sainted Reagan couldn't even say the word "AIDS" until 1985, when more than 5,000 had already died, and only then because an old Hollywood friend was dying. He wouldn't give a speech on the topic for another two years; at around the same time, "The Good Bush" spoke on the topic and was publicly jeered for calling for mandatory antibody testing.

[misanthrope]

85. The warnings about Greenhouse Effect had been out

Sagan tried to make the public aware of it in his PBS "Cosmos" series and that was at the beginning of the decade.

You're spot on with the rest, too.

[jmowreader]

17. Except Keynes would have kicked him in the balls for doing what he did

Ronald Reagan did NOT believe in the commons. He had a three-step plan to get rid of them, and unlike the underpants gnomes he actually has a Step 2.

Reaganomics in a nutshell:

Step 1: Cut taxes to the bone.
Step 2: Spend money on useless military projects (like the Sergeant York Anti-Outhouse Gun) until the nation's bank account is completely empty.
Step 3: Get rid of all social spending, privatize all government services, and sell off all public property to make the budget balance.

[misanthrope]

30. That changed in the years preceding Reagan's election.

After Nixon's Southern Strategy seeped through and combined with the rise of the Moral Majority, their base became decidedly easier to manipulate. The GOP just didn't fully realize it until the 1980s.

[HughBeaumont]

57. Not to mention . . .

. . . America not throwing the book at the Reagan Administration and Oliver North for high treason (in fact, considering the crime, they got off with relative wrist-slaps) or their various other scandals led to the Free Market Capitalist Governments of the future to get away with pretty much anything they wanted without any consequences.

Wealthy people want more money? Let's manipulate the tax code to make it easy on the poor productive dears.

A bunch of brown people aren't bowing before our absolute want of their resources? Let's start wars. "Reasons"? Hell, we'll just make up shit and wrap it in a flag.

"Universal Health Care"? That commie shit isn't happening on OUR Freedom and Apple Pie watches!

[katmondoo]

11. I remember the 80's as the beginning of the assault against women

I even wrote a letter to Reagan telling him to leave women alone and to mind his own business.

[meadowlander]

108. Well, the beginning of the backlash against whatever feminism had been able to accomplish in the 60s

The assault against women started in pre-history.

[VermontKevin]

14. The 80's should be a lesson for everyone who thinks that "Burn It Down"

is the answer.

It all got burnt down. And gave us Reagan.

[mgardener]

15. 70's, We were not much better...

For " the good of the country" we let Nixon be pardoned.
The Republicans NEVER paid a price for that transgression.
Don't let them get away with it again.
And never let republicans say, For the good of the country, again.
It means for the good of Their party.

[The Wizard]

16. Ronald Reagan

Was a secret Muslim.

[Alice11111]

63. Thank you

[MiddleClass]

18. You're exactly right, I love the eighties, why wouldn't a 19-year-old

I can do it all by myself, not need healthcare, Social Security, unemployment, zoning laws, to help with anything, government regulations forbade freedom, no social safety net, FICA was something that took 100 dollars a week away for nothing, Medicare took another chunk, I would never need. I bought into the whole, it won't be there for me when I get older.

By the time Bush senior was running, I was like, this Reaganomics destroyed society gave the rich everything, but senior called it voodoo economics, so he was okay. By 92. We were living the results of Reaganomics, so Bill Clinton was a breath of fresh air.

Sadly, we are still living through Reaganomics and the results. The modern-day Republican Party are all dreaming, not of a flourishing middle-class like we got from the new deal, fifties, sixties, seventies, yes, unions, workers rights, and protections for the minority, but a man love of Reagan. Yes, I'm talking about you. CNN's Jeffrey Lord, the economist, who told Brownback, tax cuts for the rich will spur 5 or 6 percent growth in Kentucky, Stephen Moore.

Ignorance was bliss

The Gilded Age is right now

[misanthrope]

31. "Bill Clinton was a breath of fresh air"

Depends on how much oxygen you need. Granted, he balanced the budget but I knew plenty of people whose fortunes didn't skyrocket or even improve much in his terms. Those who felt the brunt of his crime bill or welfare reform might even argue against his iconic status among many Democrats. The changes to telecommunications oversight in his time certainly didn't help matters.

Better him than Poppy Bush or Bob Dole, but he was no FDR.

[MiddleClass]

33. You had to be convicted of a crime, to be hurt by that

Yes, innocent people are convicted, but few were totally innocent.

While I thought the welfare reform was needed, I think it went from legitimate to punitive.

If you remember crime had run out of control, I remember when deaths by crime in New York surpassed 2400. I think it was 89. Under David no arrests, let them blow off steam Dinkins,

it just didn't go to the park after 4 o'clock, you didn't park your car out of sight of the restaurant/bar

that is if you didn't have the taxi company's number and a quarter/dime.

I purchased so many pioneer super tuners to keep them in business for years.

It was so bad I wouldn't even screw them into the dashboard.

Hoping they would just push them through, cut the wires, and just take the radio

[Dawson Leery]

99. America did not want an FDR at the time.

Clinton tried and lost congress.

He was better than anything the Thug party had to offer.

[democrank]

19. Sometimes the ugly truth pops up and stops me in my tracks.

Your post is one of those times. Thank you for that.

You're correct about the Reagan-led rightward march. He loved leading the crowd, including some Democrats who didn't want to be "unpatriotic", "anti-religion", "soft on crime", or fail at any other Republican-owned set of values. Probably more than half the nation pondered whether or not ketchup was, as Reagan claimed, a vegetable. After all, we didn't want to go too crazy with those free school lunches.

To this day many Americans talk about Reagan tearing down "The Wall" like he did it with his own hands and there wasn't an ounce of sacrifice or bravery there until he showed up. It may have been the beginning of bullshit swallowing, wrapped in a flag with a dozen John Wayne signatures.

Not unlike today, left-leaners were basic outcasts. They didn't go to church, didn't teach their children values or patriotism, and they all wanted something for nothing. THEM vs. US was the name of the game. Today? Same old, same old. Only thing missing is Ollie North on tv every 15 minutes. Now we have Trump tweets. Same church, same pew.

[bucolic_frolic]

20. Agree with your analysis

I knew we were in big trouble when certain events occurred. The popularity of the movie
"Wall Street", the flop of the movie "Bonfire of the Vanities", the S&L Crisis cleanup
fizzled, and 60 Minutes' glorifying interview with Rush Limbaugh (I could be wrong on the
timing, that might have been early 90s).

[MiddleClass]

22. Greed, for the lack of a better term, is good

That part of the movie portrayed the eighties.

Bonfire was a great movie, Tom Hanks, trying to get away from his life and John McClain

[kairos12]

21. In the 80s we got Raygun. It all began there.

[ms liberty]

23. John Lennon murdered in Dec.1980.

Reagan survived assassination attempt in Mar. 1981. You just knew it was all going to hell with that kind of beginning.

[Honeycombe8]

24. The 80s was a desert, as far as music. I'm unfamiliar with a lot of the...

happenings of that decade, though. I was young and wrapped up in my own life and issues.

I'll read up on it, though. I do know that the music from that decade sucked. Almost nothing from that decade is regarded highly.

In reviewing a list of hits from that decade, though, I am reminded of some Michael Jackson hits like "Billie Jean," which is a good song & video. That was the decade of Tina Turner's comeback. And some other notable artists. But it was I think a bit of a "me" decade. Nothing like the 60s, as far as music is concerned. Or even the 70s ("Imagine" and "My Sweet Lord" & "Maggie May" & "Killing Me Softly" & "Bohemian Rhapsody&quot . Also, I know disco is hated, but I actually loved the Bee Gees and the disco songs they wrote...not the least of which was "Stayin' Alive." The rise of the Bee Gees, talented songwriters and singers.

The 80s? Not so much. But Michael Jackson did emerge in that decade as a super-entertainer. "Thriller," "I'm Bad," etc. Still, nothing like the 60s.

Here's another artist who cont'd to rise in the 80s (thanks to Michael Jackson):

[Alpeduez21]

53. I respectfully disagree

Appetite for Destruction
Stop Making Sense
Touring with the Grateful Dead

Don't care what anyone says Thriller was some kickass shit
Little Red Corvette, rip Prince
The Pretenders
Eric Clapton
I'm Hot for Teacher
David Bowie was on tour
REGGAE, hell yeah.
Bela Fleck and the Flecktones, mind blown

[Honeycombe8]

73. Most of those you name who ARE relevant...

are from the 60s (Bowie, Grateful Dead, Clapton). I mentioned exceptions like Prince & Michael Jackson.

The others you mention are not music for the centuries. Popular in their day. I love The Pretenders. Even have a CD. But most people don't know who they are, now. And they certainly won't 50 years from now.

Music for the centuries: Beatles, Dylan, Bowie, Sinatra.

The ones you list are sort of like Rudy Valee was in the 1920s. Very popular and a swooner at the time. We still know who he was, but his music was very stylized for the decade and relevant to that decade...but no more.

That's what I mean. You and some others loving it aren't the judge of time.

Reggae isn't a group. It's a genre of music that was developed in the 1960s.

[Coventina]

59. Wow, you have missed a lot!!

You need to stop whatever you are doing and listen to the following albums:

1. Clash - London Calling
2. Prince - Purple Rain
3. U2 - The Joshua Tree
4. REM - Murmur
5. Public Enemy - It Takes A Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back
6. Midnight Oil - Diesel and Dust
7. Prince - 1999
8. The Smiths - The Smiths
9. X - Los Angeles
10. Roxy Music - Avalon

[Honeycombe8]

72. 50 yrs from now, most people won't know who those people are or those songs.

Excepts are Prince & U2. The others were passing in the night.

Consider: Bob Dylan popular for almost 60 years, his songs are still considered awesome and relevant. Janis Joplin - still regarded as one of the best pop female stars of all time; her music is still highly regarded. Peter Paul & Mary - historically popular folk group. The Beatles - named on a list of people who had a large influence on the world; their music is of course still more popular than most in the list you gave.

That's what I mean by a desert in music. It's relevant for the decade, and popular at the time. But people won't be listening to it years from then. Look up the sales for The Smiths, X, Roxy Music, Midnight Oil. It's been decades since those songs came out. Compare those sales with sales of, say, 2 decades of The Beatles, 2 decades of Bob Dylan, 2 decades of Frank Sinatra, 2 decades of Janis Joplin (the first 2 decades after their popular songs came out).

Consider: Frank Sinatra and Tony Bennett, whose music you may not like. But almost a century later, they are still highly regarded and their albums sell well.

It's not whether you liked them or not. I'm speaking of lasting, relevant, highly regarded music for the centuries.

One of my favorite songs from the 80s was Come on, Eileen. Loved it. But it's not a song for the centuries, and the artist was a flash in the pan. Liking it is not the issue.

[Coventina]

74. All righty then.

You clearly know nothing about popular music of the punk and post-punk generations.

I'm not even going to bother to try and correct you because clearly you have no interest in educating yourself.

REM, passing in the night!


You are adorable!!

[LanternWaste]

87. More prophecy.

"most people won't know who those people are or those songs..."

More prophecy. Little else. Consistent. We all like to -pretend we're clever and knowledgeable... but prophecies don't illustrate either.

[Honeycombe8]

95. I'm not criticizing people & music you like to hurt your feelings.

There is music in that decade that I like, too.

Just post some of the sales for the 20 years after the songs were issued, to see if sales are still strong 20 years later, and comparable to Dylan or Beatles or Presley songs 20 years after their hit songs were released.

Ask some music afficionados. They'll tell you. The 1960s was the heyday of creative genius in music in our country and produced scads of music and talent that have become part of our history and will stay relevant for decades to come.

Bear in mind that there are more people now than in the 60s, so just to be equal, sales for 80s music would have to be more than those for 60s.

You really think most people know who The Smiths are or head their music? Really?

Because someone points out a reality does not mean it's a personal insult. It's just a reality. This is objective, and not subjective.

[misanthrope]

86. I dig a lot of that list and others in this tangent

Clash, Talking Heads, REM's first couple of albums, PE, X, yeah there was good stuff made in that decade like there is in every decade. However, most of those were outliers and not the music we were surrounded by in public settings or when we dialed up the radio.

[Coventina]

92. I think the quality stuff (as discussed here) will be durable, however.

I fully believe that 50 years from now people will be listening to every album I listed (and the Talking Heads). They were not "flash in the pan" acts. None of them.

[TomCADem]

25. Yup. Its not our fault. It is our parents' fault.

[Doreen]

26. I do see the reality of what was going on in the world in the eighties.

I saw the entire American and world war against humanity on all fronts continuing at a more fierce and faster pace in history since world war 2 from what I have learned from it from both reading and personal accounts from those involved in it or are children of those involved. In absolute truth however this was going on before the 80's it is just that the pace picked up with particularly Reagan.

I am the age that lived through the music and movie scenes from the 80's and I enjoyed. It was the only escape that was there for some of us. The music did have meaning to it about what was going on and I think the 80's music was a lot more blunt about what was going on politically. It did not have the soft sad sound of the 70's flower child protests ( not that that music wasn't good. ) The 80's music was hard and to the point and that is what turned most people off from it. A good deal of the music also made one more aware of what was going on at the time. The 80's was also a mixture of different kinds of music. I learned to like all kinds of music because of the 80's. If you name a type I more than likely familiar with some of it at least.

Yes, the movies were ridiculous but if you really think about it so are movies from any generation. The only thing that has truly changed for movies is the technology. Most of the movies had a point to them as far as what was going on in the world in some fashion or another.

As I said, I was in no way blind to what was going on and was concerned except I was to young to do anything about it. I was trying to survive and move on from an abusive father ( in all ways that abuse can be done ) after my mother turned him in. I also had learning disabilities to deal with that the Reagan era tried to take any help for away. We had a couple of breathing years with Clinton and Obama but the damning of our country was already in a deteriorating downfall.

I am scared that trump is going to finish Reagan's vision but at a much more vicious and damning level.

[displacedtexan]

29. For me, it was the Nixon pardon.

I honestly don't believe the Repukes would have become so brazenly evil, had Nixon gone to prison.

[ThoughtCriminal]

32. We also came dangerously close to a nuclear war

more than once. It was not diplomatic skill or MAD that saved us. Mostly dumb luck.

And if anybody thinks we are "Safe" now, I have some bad news - we ain't.

[Skittles]

34. Reagan made greed and idiocy fashionable

America has never truly recovered

[Sen. Walter Sobchak]

35. Someone's relationship with a period in time is pretty personal

My life in the 1980's was great, I lived right on the beach, had a Disneyland annual pass and Reagan was just somebody my father made crude jokes about. On the other hand the late 90's through early 00's were a perpetual shit storm as I paid the price for bad career and relationship decisions that I never seemed to learn from.

I have plenty to be nostalgic about when I contemplate myself at fifteen, I was really happy.

The tyrannical reign of Barack Hussein Obama though were the best years of my life, much wealth was redistributed to me from Chick-fil-A franchise owners.

[spanone]

36. yuppies.

[BadGimp]

37. Great writing! Spot on.

[Dawson Leery]

38. America chose greed.

Oil caused stagflation in the 70's. Carter asked us to be adults.
Americans wanted it now and wanted it cheap.
He opened up the spigot and ran up the public and private debt.

We are still getting over that.
Americans are moving away from the supply side bullshit.

With that said, "Dynasty" sealed my distaste for Aaron Spelling.

[misanthrope]

41. Yep, I thought it took guts to deliver his "malaise" speech

as it was obviously political suicide. I've learned over my life that denial and rationalization are incredibly powerful. Tell most people what they "want to hear" as opposed to what they "need to hear" and they'll eat out of your hand. They just don't desire the objectivity or critical thought required to do otherwise.

If I meet someone and they start off with praise for me, my internal guard goes up. The more flattering, the worse. I filter everything they say through a malarkey screen.

Most of the time it takes really dire times to move Americans away from supply-side philosophies and beliefs. Too much of our culture is built on a foundation of greed and materialism and it's been noted since the early 1800s.

[NBachers]

62. Yes, the 80's were a belligerent repudiation of Jimmy Carter and the direction he laid out for us.

Reagan came in and immediately destroyed PATCO and removed the solar water heaters Carter had installed on top of the White House. And everyone wanted a monster gas-guzzling SUV.

[misanthrope]

84. In all fairness, I think the SUV trend revved up in the 1990s.

Folks were still into big sedans in the 1980s. And of course the yuppies with their imports.

[oberliner]

40. How did you like the 90s?

Step in the right direction?

[misanthrope]

42. In some ways

On a superficial level, we pulled greed down a notch or two from its previous perch, at least in rhetoric.

I think pop culture grew a little more introspective. Bigotry became less excusable.

The internet's emergence and effect was so monumental it can't be overstated.

Other parts of the '90s continued down the path we were previously on. The drug wars, the foreign entanglements, the funny games in finance, the degradation in broadcast news agencies, the move toward monolithic corporate power was all there.

[oberliner]

43. It was exciting to finally have a Democrat in the White House

After twelve long years.

[Lyricalinklines]

46. I thought bigotry was less excusable as well.

Now look at the surge of racism and I hear "we had to live through 8 years, now we're in charge and it's changing". This when white racist people are talking about why trump was elected. I know people who were harboring racism yet didn't see it until 1 or 2 years ago. These people told me they were done keeping quiet. They were done being victimized by 'reverse racism'. They Newberry talked about it before. They answered me questions "Or was politically incorrect to say how I felt. I wasnt allowed to say it. " THIS, I believe, is the reason the economic collapse 2007-8 was lumped together as a war on workers and poor. Fake information intentionally disseminated to skew understanding of those who didn't understand how government truly works.

Racism.

It's how corporate welfare spending messages became lost in the last 2 election cycles. Because enough people were/are convinced the person working 2 part time jobs and who's making ends barely meet while accepting SNAP or subsidized housing or qualify for medicaid are "taking from the working people of this country."

Racism.

"They got more than I do and it's not fair. Someones to blame, who do I point the finger at" so I feel justified.

[Cosmocat]

56. NOPE - it got worse

the OP is accurate that Reagen normalized a lot of things and that was a launching point.

But, the 90s was when conservatism burst into extremism - this was when AM radio and Fox News really took root, when Nwet Gingrich, Joe Scab and company burst into congress and blew up the collegial atmosphere.

The 90s was when the conservative media and these scumbags in congress set the country on fire politically - they spent tens of millions of dollars and endless investigations before bumbling on to the blue dress, then passed articles of impeachment for a POTUS lying about a blow job because, this bullshit and that bullshit. But, it was pushing the envelop to the point where they coopted government as an active platform for advancing their extremist political agenda.

The 90s laid root the evil liberal boogyman - which is at the heart of the virus that has taken over this country.

[Lyricalinklines]

45. I agree with your timely, well written post. I'd like to add...

...the divorce law changes brought their own set of challenges economically (as a nation). Republicans fought against changing divorce law with arguments it would "make it too easy for women to leave their families" and "who's going to mind the children of women are working" as well as other such RW BS. Geez, repugnants are heading toward reversing no fault divorce because of the economics is brought to our country. Of course, they couch it in religious dogmas/belief, but it's still about men controlling women/economics/children etc.

I advocate leaving divorce as is, revamping support.

But I digress....

Repubs are about control and power. Hierarchy and patriarchy. Otherwise we'd not see the rise in racism and misogyny we're witnessing in America.

[BainsBane]

47. Maybe it began with the invention of television

and politics becoming entertainment fodder.

Your point about Trump as a production of the financial excess of the 80s is an interesting one.

Still, there are certain characteristics of the population today which led to the population today which led to Trump's election. I don't think it's simply a matter of a shift to the right. It goes far beyond that. Plenty of people who call themselves progressive or leftist either voted for Trump or otherwise contributed to his victory by refusing to vote for Clinton, not because of disagreements about policy--because to the person they remain willfully uninformed about what she proposed--but because of their egos. The result is a narcissist in office that came to power because a considerable portion of the public refuses to care about the well-being of its fellow citizens, particularly the poor and vulnerable who are suffering most under this administration.

I see troubling characteristics in our political culture today that won't go away when Trump leaves office. I see an effort to replace the rule of law with the rule of men. Favored politicians are held above citizens and above the law. Any information that doesn't prop up that man's is dismissed as "fake news" and investigations as political witch hunts. Truth is defined as that which is convenient rather than evidence-based. News, science, and information is either denounced, ignored, or marshaled to promote an existing narrative. Truth is what people "feel," not what they come to learn through evidence. While journalists and academics engaged in the production of news and knowledge are treated as the enemy, targeted for retribution. Note the enemies lists of journalists and Twitter users circulating on the web.

None of these characteristics are unique to the right. They have suddenly come to the fore in this particular point in time, and I fear they will be the undoing of American democracy.

[Yavin4]

48. The 80s was the start of the class war against the middle and working class.

After Vietnam, the powers that be learned that in order to pay for wars around the world, they had to inflate the currency, but they had a major problem. In the 1970s, American labor was largely unionized and any inflated currency meant that labor would get automatic pay hikes. This lead to hyper inflation.

So, the answer was to go after labor and destroy their ability to put pressure on wages, and the best strategy to do that would be to use race as a cover for class.

[MiddleClass]

81. I never understood runaway inflation of the seventies

I understood the oil embargo triggered higher living costs, which in turn meant labor was expensive.

An oil cartel, Saudi Arabia, Ratcheting up the cost of life all around the world.

And now I understand the whole dynamics of out-of-control seventies inflation.

It wasn't just Paul Volcker breaking the back of inflation. It was actually Prudhoe Bay oil discovery.

I remember when the economy finally turn around in 83, OPEC complaining about the price of a barrel.

What you said about a massive unionize workforce, raise the expense of living, wages follow.

Destroy unions, more profit for corporations

[workinclasszero]

49. Yup that scum Rayguns started the ball rolling

and made the party of stinking traitors and pResdient Dump possible.

[chwaliszewski]

50. Well written, sir!

I don't necessary blame the '80s for what I think has been the biggest downfall of our country but it did bloom during that decade. I'm talking about television or more specifically, cable television. When I was watching TV during the '70s as a teenager, you pretty much had 3 channels, PBS, and the occasional fuzzy channel on UHF. When cable started to become popular with 13+ channels, there was more opportunity to start ramming the propaganda. We've been going downhill since, IMO.

[madokie]

51. The fall of nixon

the rise of raygun set us on this path we're on now. tRump is so far out there that not even some of the 'CONs can continue to support him so maybe, just maybe, we're on track to get back to square one.


If you'll remember the CONs and some of the Dems too treated Carter like a red headed step child too. It was all because he was a southern boy, not a northeastern elite so they did everything they could to keep him from getting anything done. Plus President Carter literally had Honesty and Goodness dripping off him in droves. Not good for the moneyed interest

Teddy sunk Carter long before the hostage situation that was what the CONs bludgeoned him with ever happened

I'm like an elephant, I forget nothing.

[Zing Zing Zingbah]

54. I can't despise the 80's because I was a child then.

To me, those were good times. The 90's were the best because I was a teenager then, plus I loved the Clintons.

[crazycatlady]

100. same

To me when I think of the 80s I think of when I was little. I couldn't tell you about current events at the time but I can remember the day that I got a Pound Purrie and the Cabbage Patch Kids that Santa brought me.

The only thing news related I slightly remember about the 80s was the 1988 election and deciding then that I was a Democrat. I was the 3rd grader debating in school on behalf of Michael Dukakis. I also remember asking my 2nd grade teacher what the difference between a liberal and conservative was.

[Zing Zing Zingbah]

105. Yeah, I thought the 80's were good times

Cabbage patch kids, pound puppies... I had those toys too. I remember riding my bike all day long in the summer time, just going wherever I wanted. In the winter, I'd go all over the place cross country skiing. I felt like I had a lot of freedom then and I loved just being outside and exploring. That's still one of my favorite things, I just don't get to do that as much as an adult.

I remember things like the Challenger explosion because they talked about it a lot at school. It was big deal because Christa McAuliffe was a school teacher and also from the about the same area. She was from New Hampshire. I grew up in Maine. Also, I think because she was about the same age as a lot of my teachers at the time. It seemed like it was a really big deal for them and so it was very sad that ended in tragedy.

I remember also when they brought the Berlin Wall down and when Regan met with Gorbachev. There are other things that I just wasn't aware of until I was older, like I wasn't aware of the Chernobly incident until I was a teenager I think.

[crazycatlady]

106. I don't remember the Challenger

I know I was in kindergarten at the time, and my mom remembers where I was when it happened but I have no recollection of it.

I never had Pound Puppies. I refused to jump onto the bandwagon until there was a cat equivalent. My screen name was true for me even as a child. I remember the adult Pound Purries came with a velcro collar with a bow and I would wear them to school. I actually still have one of them (one adult and a kitten). I still have a Cabbage Patch Kid too. I was absolutely not allowed to have Garbage Pail Kids- my mom wouldn't even let friends bring them over.

You must be a few years older than me (I'm 37) or not the firstborn in a sheltered family.

[alarimer]

55. The 80's were when I realized how soulless and empty this country really is.

Of course I lived in a suburban hellhole with a bunch of (mostly) white Republican and super-"Christian" assholes. There was nothing good about it. Not the music (with some exceptions like R.E.M.), not the beginning of the effort to turn every single place into some boring big-box-store monstrosity. Miles and miles of freeways going nowhere.

I think Todd Snider said it best.

[Boomerproud]

104. We had a president who asked nothing of us and blamed all ills on "the other".

Pretty easy to be popular with that agenda.

[Javaman]

58. yes and no...

yes, it's all been a work in progress to get us to this point, but I can point to one single moment that either sped things up or was the actual real cause for what we are in at the moment: the supreme court naming george w. moron* president.

that one single ruling (which was beyond unconstitutional) was accelerated the right wings program.

Without that, Gore would have been president.

And more that likely, I believe, Obama still would have been the follow up.

there would have still been a right wing movement, but I think by that point they would have been effectively been cut off at the knees.

that is why, to this day, I will never ever forgive all those justices who chose to decide to install the dimwit* as president. nor will I never forgive sandra day o'conner. she knew exactly what she was doing was wrong and still did it.

[misanthrope]

89. Without Reagan, that SCOTUS doesn't exist.

O'Connor, Rehnquist, Scalia, Kennedy, all Reagan appointees. Hell, Kennedy wouldn't have made it had Congress let Reagan let carry through with the quid pro quo served to Robert Bork for agreeing to carry through Nixon's Saturday Night Massacre.

[byronius]

64. I remember it too well.

[shockey80]

65. Greed is good.

The government is the problem. The return of trickle down economics. We turned our backs against the New Deal. Deregulation. Just put it on your credit card economy. It was a turning point, we went backwards.

[zentrum]

68. Trumpism is

...Reaganism covered in vulgar gold gilt.

[TygrBright]

69. I remember election night, 1980.

I was simply gobsmacked that the dude with the weird hair had won.

I remember a song floating up out of my subconscious... can't remember all the words, but it went something like this:

"Welcome back, Joe McCarthy,
Welcome back, Cotton Mather,
Welcome back to the barons of the mills
Let's go to El Salvador
And start ourselves another war
Let's bring back
The good old days again."

I wish I hadn't been so prescient.

sadly,
Bright

[Egnever]

70. Meh the 80s we're awesome

I was a kid in high school in the 80s could not have cared less about politics the time.

[FairWinds]

71. Please, please do not forget Reagan's vicious . .

Central American wars in which hundreds of thousands died,
torture ruled, and the religious were targeted.

And of course the creation of Al Qaeda in Afghanistan.

Veterans For Peace

[mdbl]

75. Well said

I couldn't agree more.

[YOHABLO]

76. Totally in agreement with the exception of music.

Yeah, like every era of music there was a lot of crap coming through the airwaves .. there was no internet, no smart phones, no MP3 players.etc. But some of the most fantastic Brit bands made it a fantastic era for music. So it depends where during the era you were either looking or listening.

[misanthrope]

90. As I explained to another poster, the good stuff was mostly underground

It wasn't the music we were exposed to in the course of everyday life, in the stores or the malls or looking for stations on the radio. And my wife was working in the office of a Top 40 radio station then so I know what she's referencing when she talks about it. She wasn't listening to college radio.

[broadcaster90210]

77. Bingo. This coup started with Reagan.

nt

[Democrats_win]

78. Reagan's trick, bad decisions and poor educations are the roosting chickens.

By the 1970s Americans were understanding that European and Japanese children were spending a lot more time in school. Meanwhile, Americas were asking, "Why can't Johnny read?" (TV, poor parenting, divorce, leadership missing etc.) Americans understood that we wasted a lot of money on wars and the military. Instead of building a truly "great society," we squandered most of the advantages we had following World War 2. Additionally, the middle class was becoming more selfish and foolishly more conservative. They didn't like the "help" that the government gave minorities and they took on some of the characteristics we see in Donald Trump today. Reagan was elected.

Reagan was indeed the beginning of a bad era for working Americans. Reagan's trick was to make the working class ALONE, pay for the mistakes made in the previous decades. Not only that, the wealthy, who presided over America becoming less competitive, were REWARDED! America had problems, but everyone didn't pull together. In lost wages, benefits and opportunities, the working class paid! The 80s were the beginning of the great separation that led to today's oligarchy. We need to understand that with such tremendous inequality, we loose freedom and our democracy. It is really sad, but that's the way it is 7/17/17. And a selfish, foolish, greedy, crooked billionaire is going to make it worse!

[suffragette]

79. Great rant! Also, Reagan colluded with Iran to manipulate U.S. election and in doing so kept

American hostages in a dire situation longer and helped prop up the most extremist elements of the Iranian revolt.

Carter, who actually served in the Navy and deeply understood the military, made unprecedented strides toward peace in the Middle East, Reagan remilitarized the United States, pumping money into overt and covert warfare, generally supporting the the worst dictators and autocrats in the world.

[niyad]

80. k and r!!!!!!

[Burma Jones]

82. I grew up in the DC Suburbs, went off to College in 1978, came back in 1983

I went to College in the Midwest.

When I left Montgomery County, MD in 1978, the Population was about 570,000.

By 1990, the population had grown to about 760,000.

Now, we're about 1.1 Million

This was repeated throughout the DC Metro Area and continued through the 90s up to this day.

What Uncle Ronnie brought to the US was an enormous transfer of wealth from the rest of the Country to the Capitol.


The 80s ushered in the idea that Fuck You is a perfectly reasonable response to your fellow citizens, in fact, probably better for them, it'll help them pull themselves up by their own bootstraps..

The Fairness Doctrine was abolished in 1987.

The 80s began the organized push back against the idea that the US is for all its citizens - it took the right wing some time to organize themselves and start to normalize the idea that we are not all in this together.


The 70s was Anita Bryant and Pat Boone
The 80s was Reagan and Falwell

[pansypoo53219]

83. and the teevee gnewz still sucking raygun's balls.

[Hekate]

88. Very good analysis

[robertpaulsen]

93. I usually find Bill Maher obnoxious, but he accurately nailed Reagan for our problems today.

"He wrote the playbook for them on every issue of consequence."

Original Teabagger indeed.

[misanthrope]

97. Precisely

First time I saw that I just sat on my couch nodding my head.

[underpants]

101. Thanks. Watching it later.

[GetRidOfThem]

94. Completely agree with your assessment

I have held the same view and even posted it on this board: You have the left-overs from the sins of the 1980s. Drexel Burnham Lambert, Ivan Boesky, Michael Milken and all that. Trump was part of that culture. The only two that did not somehow end up in serious legal trouble were him and his friend Carl Icahn. But it was a despicable period.

[joanbarnes]

96. I agree 100%

[kerry-is-my-prez]

98. This is when the Republicans began really using propaganda - Newt Gingrich's "Contract With America

Liberal became a "bad" name. "Greed was good."

[underpants]

102. Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous

I agree with your whole post. The music was mostly crap. My wife and I have the exact same situation as well. I listened to what had just been called "classic rock" and a lot of actual alternative music.

That TV show with Robin Leech - even as a high schooler at the time (totally swept up in the Reagan fest) I had a weird feeling about that show. Am I supposed to be jealous? Envy? See them as superior?

[Awsi Dooger]

103. This was my father's theme toward the end of his life

He was born in 1933 and died in 2012. He taught middle school civics for many years before becoming a college professor.

Throughout his later years he described the eras he had witnessed and invariably he would pinpoint the Reagan '80s as the turning point, the decade all the meaningful declines began. Most was covered in the OP. My dad before he died told me several times that he worried about myself and others in the family because he was sure the Reagan trends would only continue, that he hadn't seen close to the bottom.

I visit the grave sites of mom and dad every Sunday. I sit there and talk but seldom mention Trump or anything politics. I don't believe in life after death but just in case I don't want to subject them to all the ongoing atrocities. Dad despised Trump based on the birther crap but he would never believe this.

[misanthrope]

109. Good for your father in dedicating his life to education

My father is tilting at windmills in his later age, fighting hard to bring awareness and change to education in the state of Alabama. Talk about quixotic.

Sadly, too many of my family's older members are too much a product of their time and place. Born and bred in the Deep South and all its idiosyncrasies, the religion, the politics, the racial attitudes, they are too comfortable with what has happened and is still unfolding. Their dire lack of self-awareness threatens to drag everyone else down with them as well.

[kerry-is-my-prez]

107. That is when Newt Gingrich came up with his propaganda tools - used to this day. It was cited

in one of my Psychology Textbooks as an example of propaganda. Just google "Newt Gingrich propaganda. Try it in Google Scholar and will probably see scholarly, peer-reviewed articles.