When Did the Madness Start?

Sometimes it takes a while for a retort.

Maybe as much as two decades ago, in response to global warming, a conservative church parishoner made a joke to other conservative parishoners, deingrating Al Gore by making fun of the so-called claim that "he invented the internet."

Of course, Al Gore made no such assertion, but I couldn't figure out how to challenge it without making a big brouhaha.

So, I let it go. But I never forgot.

A couple of weeks ago, it came up again in a brief conversation about something else involving the perpetrator of the joke. This time, I was comfortable reminding them that Al Gore's claim was not about the invention of the internet but about paving the way legislatively that helped the internet become what it is today.

Victory was sweet, but mostly went over the head of the person who said it two decades ago.

This came out along with some points about the damage Trump is causing. But it mostly swept over the head of whom the message was aimed at, and went careening against a distant wall.

That person was cognizant enough to know that something had gone off track - that our politics had devolved dramatically.

Then he stated when he thought that "off-trackedness" had started.

The answer? 9/11!

I'm like wtf? 9/11?

The assertion was that 9/11 is when "extremism" came out and divided us.

Huh?

What I remember from that period was the Patriot Act, and the potential to be thrown into the Gulag without any constitutional protections, if it connected to "terrorism". What I remember is not being able to say WORD ONE to object to the Iraq War. I remember celebrities, like the Chicks, being vilified and expelled from the airwaves.

So, if that was not when our politics turned nasty, when was it?

It is a nesting egg of brutal decisions, tracing back to the original European settlers of this land.

What led us to this moment where our government is in the hands of an orange conman and his bigoted allies? How did we come to this?

Could it be Newt Gingrich when he led Republicans to treat the Democrats not just as colleagues to negotiate with, but as enemies to vilify and demonize?

Or when Reagan spoke his silly nine-word phrase that has ever since made it difficult to get the government to work together to solve anything - "I'm from the government, and I'm here to help!" Ever since that phrase was uttered, people have gleefully voted against their own interests, and even Democrats are scared to employ government as part of any solution.

Or it could be when President Hayes ended Reconstruction in 1877, and the South quickly reasserted itself, reversing whatever civil rights progress had been made, and returning blacks to a state that was slavery by another name. At that point, without firing a single shot (at least shots aimed at white people), the South in essence won the Civil War. And that status, with some wavering here and there, has essentially held up all the way to today.

Maybe it began at the time of the formation of the Constitution, whose compromises handed an inordinate amount of power to the slave states.

There have always been two threads in American History. One is of bigotry and exclusion, wanting power to remain with a few, and for those of the right skin tone and ancestry to dominate. The other interprets American History as a journey towards more inclusion and participation, a greater move to democracy, open to all who live here.

There has always been a tension between these two. Even in expansive times, there are setbacks. The same President, FDR, who improved the social safety net, increased unionization, and fought the fascists, also interned Japanese-Americans just based on their ethnicity. LBJ brought long-overdue progress in civil rights, but also led the senseless war in Vietnam. On the other side, Bush Jr. brought us the misdirected Iraq War, but also stood up to people who wanted to vilify Muslims. And Trump has...

nah, can't play that game. Trump is not mixed. He's entirely on the wrong side of the agenda, more than any other figure in our history. This is the nightmare we are now facing, and my Gore-dissing friend needs to understand that. Yes, we're divided. We always have been.  

But the authoritarian fascists, the oligarchs, have complete control now.

This is not one set of extremists vs. another set. This is democracy vs. fascism.

I do not know all that we need to do about it. But it starts with recognition of the situation we're in.

There is another, more recent reason we're in the mess we're in, and yes, Democrats are primarily to blame. But I'll save that for another blog story.

Today, let's learn to stand together against that wayward thread of American History.

Let's stand with our better angels instead.

E Pluribus Unum.  Out of many, one.

T. M. Strait

AOC '28.