It takes time to turnover the incumbents.
I guess. Mitch McConnell didnāt take over Republican Party leadership until 2007ā¦ he was second fiddle to Bill Frist during the Clinton administration. Iām sure that had a lot to do with it.
Itās been a process.
I think we started to jump the shark when Newt Gingrich got the Speakerās seat in 95, even if total insanity wasnāt achieved until the Obama years.
I think a reasonable person might be able to point to some Democratic attitudes immediately prior as fueling the run upā¦but itās the Republican revolution of the mid-90s that I point to as the start of the cascade failure of the federal political system.
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including rape
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Yeah, Newt may have been an inflection point on the road to insanity.
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We can try to find markers in govāt actions.
We can also look for markers in information (media).
The Fairness Doctrine came down in 1987. Libaugh got a national syndication deal in 1988. Fox News launched in 1996. MSNBC ā¦ launched about the same time, but I think it took them longer to get clear political lean. Reddit, Facebook, and Youtube got big around 2010? I donāt have dates (or even names) for all the phone-based social media but Twitter started about then.
Iāll guess Breitbach and the Daily Caller started about that time.
My thought is that political fracturing followed media fracturing.
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Nooooā¦ CNN launched in 1980.
Hereās the tie between Nixon and Trump.
It is hard to punish someone who you already excused for treason.
Iāve heard Republicans took a majority in Congress in 1995 and passed a bunch of laws that President Clinton promptly vetoed. That must have been a motivating factor for refusing to work with Democrats.
Iām not trying to justify anything here.
Read that as āexecutedā but I guess it works both ways
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Not to mention all the shit that Nixon did with his Dept of Justice. I hope no one is forgetting that illegal shit or, worse, using it as a blueprint.
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For McConnell, a big turning point was the Democrats rejection of the Bork nomination. But Bork was factually waaaay outside of mainstream legal theory and believed that the executive branch had ridiculous powers. For example, during the Bush administration he wrote op-eds excoriating some 9-0 and 8-1 SCOTUS decisions that curtailed the excess reduction in liberties from the war on terrorism.
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Again, Nixon and, in fact, many if not most Republicans agree with this.
Bork was a right wing Nixon hatchet man. Thank god he wasnāt confirmed.
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Fortunately itās not like one of the leading candidates for the Republican nomination is actively criticizing the idea that the FBI and DOJ should be independent of the President.
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It is possible, btw, to have conservative beliefs and still support the rule of law.
Like all Americans, Mr. Trump is entitled to the presumption of innocence. The government has the burden of proving its charges beyond a reasonable doubt and securing a unanimous verdict by a South Florida jury.
By all appearances, the Justice Department and special counsel have exercised due care, affording Mr. Trump the time and opportunity to avoid charges that would not generally have been afforded to others.
Mr. Trump brought these charges upon himself by not only taking classified documents, but by refusing to simply return them when given numerous opportunities to do so.
These allegations are serious and if proven, would be consistent with his other actions offensive to the national interest, such as withholding defensive weapons from Ukraine for political reasons and failing to defend the Capitol from violent attack and insurrection.
https://www.romney.senate.gov/romney-statement-on-reports-of-indictment/
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I thought that was EXACTLY what conservative beliefs included.
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Oh yeah: āRule of Law for thee, not for me!!ā
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Oops, I checked MSNBC but not CNN. I didnāt know the Turner connection.
But, Iām not trying to trace ābalancedā news outlets. Iām thinking about those that have a clear lean one way or the other. I think of the current CNN (or pre-Licht CNN) as having a left lean.
With that correction, do you agree that the fracturing of news sources is closely tied to the fracturing of formal politics?
Absolutely. I believe that Roger Ailes has explicitly said that part of his goal with Fox News was the idea that if a network like that had existed during Watergate that Nixon wouldnāt have had to resign.
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