• TinyPizza@kbin.social
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    15
    arrow-down
    1
    ·
    1 year ago

    Honestly I think it’s all the neo-liberal echos of Reagan. Something broke in the minds of Dem strategists and politicians when he so handily swept the entire country. For them it was a sign that the waters were rich if they could just wiggle a little more to the right economically and shake off the remaining vestigial support of Keynesian economics. Once both parties saw that you could feast on the corpse of America for decades without having to deliver anything outside of photo ops and being likable that was it.

    Maybe it’s all just that thing where people look back on George Bush and say they’d want to have a beer with him. It’s identity politics and we’re made to look through a prism at these people and see how our personalities would intertwine with theirs. I think we need to find a way to start trusting the boring and awkward candidates, or forcing our boring awkward friends to run for office. We need politicians who are visibly uncomfortable speaking at a podium.

    You’re right. The cereal can only be “Oops, all berries” so many times before you know that machine was built to only make berries and lie about it.

    • StrayCatFrump@beehaw.org
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      12
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      1 year ago

      Maybe. The Democrats had already spent decades helping to kill the labor movement, build up the carceral state, and rampage across the world in imperial war-making prior to Reagan. So while he may have been a catalyst for further open embrace of reactionary ideology (see: Clinton), I can’t quite buy that he was the absolute beginning of it.

    • Canadian Nomad@beehaw.org
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      2
      ·
      1 year ago

      To quote Douglas Adams

      it is a well-known fact that those people who must want to rule people are, ipso facto, those least suited to do it. To summarize the summary: anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job.