TriSec's blog yesterday got me thinking, and I decided to write a sort of "companion piece" to it from my own personal point of view and experience. I will echo his overall gist: our current balkanized political morass is untenable. The sheer venality and oligarchic stance of the modern Republican party has resulted in a government that cannot get anything done, as the Republicans refuse to budge at all - even on issues they've always supported.

That "how did we get here" question was given some context (for me) yesterday upon hearing of the passing of Senator Max Cleland (D-GA) at the tender age of 79. We'll get to that in a minute.

When Nixon was unceremoniously run out of town on a rail, he was universally reviled for his attempts to use illegal and strong-arm tactics to maintain his control on power. Save for a handful of loyalists and party uber alles types, no one was sad to see him go. That was probably the last time the Republicans acted with any sense of fealty to the Constitution.

Once Reagan got in, the whirlpool into the abyss began. He ignored AIDS. He cultivated an "us -vs- them" narrative when discussing inner-city residents (you know... black people), relegating them to 2nd-class status. He pushed for tax cuts for the rich, forcing those at the bottom to suffer even more.

It's been mentioned many times in this blog, but we can't be reminded enough that midway through Papa Bush's one term, Newt Gingrich made an overt push to poison the dialog. His GOPAC list of words continued to debase the discussion, focusing on personal attacks rather than defending policy. This is where it went from casual individual use to a full-on party platform tactic.

With the Clinton administration, the right-wing found a lightning rod for their regressive social tenets with Hillary Clinton. In their minds, a strong smart woman is the worst thing possible (they prefer their women dumb, white, and heavily armed). It was midway through the Clinton administration when the aforementioned Max Cleland appeared on the national political scene.

Senator Cleland was a military veteran, who had both legs and one arm blown off while in Viet Nam. He had several positions in the GA state government and was Administrator for the VA under president Carter. He ended up winning one of the GA U.S. Senate seats in the 1996 election. I vividly remember the 2002 election cycle when he ran for re-election. His Republican opponent was Saxby Chambliss, a good ol' boy southern businessman who was a total prick (and managed to avoid the draft because of "football injuries"). He put out ads that dared to question Cleland's patriotism. It was gross then, and it's gross now, and completely revolting that he had the gall to put out an ad like that (there was also some questionable hinkiness with the touchscreen voting systems that felt like a trial run for the 2004 election).

The ad worked, and the Republicans have used it as a model since. They did the same thing to John Kerry (a decorated war veteran) when he ran for president in 2004 when Bush The Lesser was trying to get re-elected (and let's not forget that it was Bush's original election in 2000 when the Republicans first planted the seed of "Democrats trying to steal the election").

More recent history has shown a Republican Senate that had one goal in mind: obstruct. They simplified (aka: dumbed down) their approach to just being contrary to Democrats. They refused to vote for ANY legislation brought to the table by Democrats. Even to this day (literally), the party is shunning their fellow party members in the House who voted for the infrastructure bill.

Every election they lose, they blame on voting irregularities. Every election they win: *crickets*. I've never understood how they can claim ballot irregularities in a state that went for Biden, with House and/or Senate seats going to a Republican.

With TFG, they got a Christmas stocking full of permission slips to be as obnoxious as they wanted. Modern social norms have been replaced with schoolyard taunting, bullying, and ganging up on the perceived weaker among the class. The AOC video tweeted out by Rep Gozar (R-AZ) is yet another extreme example. The response from the Republican party? once again - *crickets*.

I don't know how we step back from this. Every year, I think we've hit rock bottom, but the pit keeps getting deeper. It may take some seismic event to bring us back to respecting each other because of our differences (although I'd settle for "in spite of"). What that event could be, I can't imagine, but I suspect we'll only recognize it in retrospect. The attacks on 9/11 worked for a short period until it became a cudgel against those who ostensibly didn't hate Muslims enough. Here's hoping the next uniting event doesn't come with a built-in scapegoat - and arrives before we end up in another (un)civil war.