By this time tomorrow, we can all safely state that we have "dodged a bullet" in rejecting the Trumpster...of that many of us have no doubt.
But what has made this country so divided, as many right wingers on this microcosm of a forum clearly shows?
I have lived through the turbulent 1960s, felt heartbroken over the many assassinations of our leaders, and have marched against useless and bloody wars that costs us so many lives and treasure. Yet, the meanness that this forum has often shown is unprecedented.
For myself, I "blame" 3 factors that in my long life seem to have precipitated this huge division among our fellow Americans:
1. The proliferation of social media, coupled with the anonymity that such media allow, has given a "voice" to the most strident fringe of our electorate.
2. The whole impeachment process of Bill Clinton also showed us how vengeful politics have become (and I'm not exempt form this because I would readily admit that I simply hated the GWB administration.)
3. Most of all I blame the factor that a mere 16 years ago, we had to have a supreme court appoint a president for us, where a cabal of just 5 people told us who would lead us .
I'm not even going to bring out that the Obama election also brought out the latent racism that fermented in some people hearts, since I believe that many who resented Obama were not necessarily racists, although many certainly were and are.
I sincerely hope that Wednesday we will witness a peaceful transfer of power; a factor that has made us great as a country and as a paragon of how other countries should behave in the political arena; sure there will be disappointments and bitterness in many minds that wanted a different direction for our country...but, once the electorate has spoken in a majority voice, the results MUST be accepted.
Let me offer my perspective.
1. First was the rise of talk radio which started to take off in the very same year that GHWB took office. I started listening to it in 1993 and couldn't believe the sheer nonsense being passed off as erudition. And since controversy gets attention, the hosts of these shows were often not motivated by anything more than high ratings and money. Therefore, it shouldn't have surprised anyone that the truth was sacrificed in the process.
2. The rise of Newt Gingrich and his hyperbolic and destructive statements which lowered the level of discourse while also raising the volume of people speaking past each other instead of to one another in an effort to score political points while winning nothing in the process except increasing division and resentment.
3. The fact that elected representatives stopped living in Washington and interacting with each other. Instead, they left to go back to their districts every weekend and consequently didn't have much in the way of any meaningful personal relationships with members of the opposing political parties.
4. While both parties shifted right over the years, both parties increasingly lost the moderate middle (conservative Democrats and moderate Republicans) who could ultimately be counted on to come together to make deals when the more extreme wings of each party were unable to work together. This ultimately led to the nonsensical notion that compromise was a bad thing. That only led to increasing gridlock which frustrated everyone, none more than the American electorate itself.
(As an aside, I once heard a conservative say that he would not compromise with Democrats. Instead, Democrats would have to compromise with him. That's truly a nonsensical statement if I ever heard one.)
5. The rise of social media which too often pushed paranoid conspiracy theories which some politicians were too often willing to exploit to get the base to the polls in election years.
6. The fact that conservative talk radio hosts eventually turned on the leadership of the Republican Party when they were unable to live up to an absolutist all-or-nothing approach to governance.
Enter Trump...
