There's No Way To Poll This... So I'll Just Ask, And Invite Your Input...

[Warpy]

17. I'd say the late 60s

Young people were starting to join Young Americans for Freedom and The Ripon Society while their elders were mostly liberals of one form or another.

Some of it was a reaction to the scruffy hippies and some of it was because they thought the country had been radicalized and had been offended that civil rights had been extended to blacks and women, at least partially. They were all bent out of shape because the Southern Baptists were no longer allowed to proselytize to school children during school hours.

The rise of the reactionary conservative movement started then and they're the ones who triggered the present Unraveling by allying themselves with the rich and giving up the New Deal to get all the things they wanted back.

Well, they managed to gut the New Deal but few of their social ideals have been put into operation.

What we have now is simply not sustainable, a well funded, vocal minority trying to force their will on the majority and the majority finally waking up that they got screwed without getting kissed.

Will we get out of this one non violently? I have no idea. I hope so. We don't have clear battle lines drawn between states in certain geographic areas, so we're unlikely to have a civil war like the 1861-1865 war, although some hotheads can always be counted upon to take pot shots at their neighbors.

I know how we got here and I have a hazy idea about how to get out of it but no one sensible is going to listen to me.