General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: A question for older DUers and those who study history: Were repubicans always this nuts? [View all]BeyondGeography
(39,370 posts)Just trying to explain how one of two major political parties has gone completely off the rails while still having a hold on huge numbers of people. What we're seeing in our own country from today's GOP is the rejection of historical progress and too much complicity from all but those who are either directly affected or have the political consciousness to object.
What do you make of the systematic attempt to suppress the minority vote? This is not something a "relatively enlightened" country would ever attempt 45 years or so after the Voting Rights Act. It's a naked grab at power, but it's also an effort, conscious or not, to deny that America was ever stained by anything immoral at all. It's a child's view of history. "Those people" are frauds, they don't deserve to vote because they always vote against "us." They are cheats, inferiors in every sense of the term, denying us our destiny as superiors. The same treatment is accorded any group that doesn't go along with a simplistic and/or ignorant view of economic rights and social historical wrongs.
What we are proving, and what your own post illustrates, is that we are just another country with a messy history. But our brand is unique. Every country fights about its own history, but what other civilized nation has a national conversation about what constitutes rape in an election year? This is backwardness on a grand and awful scale and, unfortunately, it's nothing new.