While I agree, what would it mean for these to be “dealbreakers”?
Bill Clinton gave tax rates for the rich, but he didn’t run on that – he ran on expanding the Middle Class. Barack Obama ran on a platform of fixing healthcare, and he sorta did. Citizens United v FEC was decided in 2010. The next election, Bernie Sanders’ common-sense social safety nets were wildly popular among Democats and purple state voters – not enough to beat the entire Democratic line-up that gave their delegates to Hillary Clinton, but still very popular.
On the debate stage, Donald Trump called out the same ridiculous Republican warmongering and perils of the USAmerican people that Bernie called out. In doing so, Trump sweeped out Jeb Bush, Ted Cruz, and every other preferred neo-conservative candidate – while being a billionaire rapist fraudster who owned a gold-plated apartment. Trump continued that diagonalization campaign strategy in 2024, to great success. He’s naming real issues, and rallying up support with it, because people are exactly as fed up as you presume they should be. This is why MAGA voters are so aggressive. This is what the Jan 6th insurrectionists thought they were fighting for.
While I curse out the generation before me who allowed this country to get this way, I can’t really say what they should have done differently. It’s not like there weren’t massive anti-war protests. It’s not like the USA populace wanted to be deployed in Iraq, or Afghanistan, or Iran. Bush hid the facts. It’s not like people want these massive medical costs and unreasonable student loans… but what do we do? Changes were being teased in Congress; there was hope in the Supreme Court; presidential campaigns promised prosperity and ease, and USAmericans clung to that hope.
So did we sleepwalk through it all? Yes – But I don’t see how people could have been persuaded differently with anything short of foresight of exactly this reality of the year 2025. Reformists aren’t going to burn down the Capitol when Congress is debating Medicare For All, even if it’s the 40th year debating this issue; even after the vote fails.
You touched on it; Citizens United. Change that and we’re back to a coherent timeline.
I also think the consolidation of media outlets into massive billionaire-controlled mouthpieces of industry alongside with Cambridge Analytica opening the flood gates on social medianl propagandization were crucial, but Citizens United will always be the death of the USA for me; it just took a few years for the corpse to start really stinking up the place.
While I agree, what would it mean for these to be “dealbreakers”?
Bill Clinton gave tax rates for the rich, but he didn’t run on that – he ran on expanding the Middle Class. Barack Obama ran on a platform of fixing healthcare, and he sorta did. Citizens United v FEC was decided in 2010. The next election, Bernie Sanders’ common-sense social safety nets were wildly popular among Democats and purple state voters – not enough to beat the entire Democratic line-up that gave their delegates to Hillary Clinton, but still very popular.
On the debate stage, Donald Trump called out the same ridiculous Republican warmongering and perils of the USAmerican people that Bernie called out. In doing so, Trump sweeped out Jeb Bush, Ted Cruz, and every other preferred neo-conservative candidate – while being a billionaire rapist fraudster who owned a gold-plated apartment. Trump continued that diagonalization campaign strategy in 2024, to great success. He’s naming real issues, and rallying up support with it, because people are exactly as fed up as you presume they should be. This is why MAGA voters are so aggressive. This is what the Jan 6th insurrectionists thought they were fighting for.
While I curse out the generation before me who allowed this country to get this way, I can’t really say what they should have done differently. It’s not like there weren’t massive anti-war protests. It’s not like the USA populace wanted to be deployed in Iraq, or Afghanistan, or Iran. Bush hid the facts. It’s not like people want these massive medical costs and unreasonable student loans… but what do we do? Changes were being teased in Congress; there was hope in the Supreme Court; presidential campaigns promised prosperity and ease, and USAmericans clung to that hope.
So did we sleepwalk through it all? Yes – But I don’t see how people could have been persuaded differently with anything short of foresight of exactly this reality of the year 2025. Reformists aren’t going to burn down the Capitol when Congress is debating Medicare For All, even if it’s the 40th year debating this issue; even after the vote fails.
You touched on it; Citizens United. Change that and we’re back to a coherent timeline.
I also think the consolidation of media outlets into massive billionaire-controlled mouthpieces of industry alongside with Cambridge Analytica opening the flood gates on social medianl propagandization were crucial, but Citizens United will always be the death of the USA for me; it just took a few years for the corpse to start really stinking up the place.