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David Browne's avatar

Jeff, like you I was born in the 50’s and well remember a time where Democrats and Republicans were both grounded in reality. Both parties acknowledged the problems facing our nation, but differed on solutions. Democrats favored direct government action while Republicans favored market solutions (albeit with government incentives for private actors).

This all went sideways when Republicans realized that increasingly people favored the Democrats’ approach. Under Gingrich, et al., the Republicans decided that, if people didn’t like their solutions to problems, the winning strategy was to deny that problems existed. (Racial discrimination/what racial discrimination? Global warming/what global warming?) At the same time, they started making up problems out of whole cloth that lent themselves to their favored approach.

From this, it was a short step to the current situation where Republicans and their followers create an alternate reality comprised of alternate facts, as Kelley Anne Conway so disingenuously put it.

From this, it was an even shorter step to a style of governing devoid of policy, and dedicated to attaining and retaining power for its own sake. This is fascism, or as you put it in the title to this post, because fuck you, that’s why.

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RV maxima's avatar

Amen. and.the how was Gingrich turning Congress into a casino and Allies via Reagan creating a would never have Nixon/Watergate with FOX as propaganda media. And wow, that sure worked to distort what people liked about Dem political solutions & instead feed them doubt,fear & anger.

Good commentary.

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