Reply to Are we truly headed to hell in a handbasket?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I'd love to offer my two cents, but OP didn't ask for that, so I'll just toss in some historical perspective.

The current period is FAR from unusual by American historical standards.

In the 20th century alone, you had the labor wars of the early 20th century, the violent anarchist movement (Galleanists?), and the Civil Rights Movement and Vietnam War.

I'm probably overlooking some others.

What we're seeing today is nothing new.[/quote]
That’s not true.

Today suffers from billionaires, corporations that are now “people” according to the Roberts Court, dark money, a media complicit in right wing extremism (sorry to burst your bubble, OP, but your friends are right. This is a one sided problem). Hearst’s yellow journalism didn’t really hide what it was trying to do. I also can’t think of a historical parallel of the GOP’s “cozy relationship,” let’s call it, with Russia and a few other countries.

The reason that this feels worse, even though it is arguably less upheaval, is that it feels, to me anyway, like it’s a play being staged.

Read Dark Money by Jane Mayer to start. [/quote]

Details may be different, but the division is quite similar (if anything, probably less significant than at some other points in history).

If you really want to quibble over the details, I'd argue that billionaires influencing politics, "dark money", complicit media, and foreign attempts to influence US politics are all familiar problems.

The only "new" factor at play is social media/the internet, which IMO is grossly exacerbating the problem. 
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