The last couple of election cycles in the US really haven't been anything special in US history. Vote stealing, gerrymandering, a jingoistic press and an electorate - or parts of same - with the cognitive skills of dead sheep have been standard issue in US politics since the end of the Civil War.
What changed - partly as a result of wishful thinking - was the realisation that better choices were possible. The earlier labour movements were powerful but reactive. The DFHs were proactive but not nearly as powerful. Even so - there was an understanding that a better reality was possible.
That's still around, but it's been marginalised as an extremist view in the US.
Given what's likely to happen next, I wouldn't be surprised if there were parts of the US where it's about to become mainstream again.
...the most advanced democracy in the world.
How can this phrase be made to drip with sufficient irony, sarcasm and venom to convey the pathetic standard which it describes? If sanity be culturally normative, then by the norms of this culture I claim insanity.
What?? Why're you looking at me like that? It does sound like an empty slogan, and I've just been travelling for seven hours straight...
- Jake Ceterum censeo Chicago esse delendam
