Turning Points

[CRHeel94]

I'll add another one that I've mentioned here before -- Katrina. I firmly believe Republicans viewed that disaster as the result of social dysfunction and political corruption in a blue city full of black Americans, and they could not understand why most people blamed Bush and his administration. The takeaway was that if Pubs will be blamed and called racists for a problem of the Dems' own making, there's no point trying to cooperate with the Dems on anything. This scorched earth mindset came to full bloom with the emergence of the Tea Party two years later.

Personally, this was one of the three most incredible events of my lifetime in terms of US vulnerability. Never had imagined something like that could happen in a major American city....perople stranded in the Superdome, breakdown in the streets, futility of the federal government, etc.

 

[superrific]

These are inflection points, by the way.

 

[ChapelHillSooner]

Past 45 years, in addition to events mentioned above:

• 1980 election of Ronald Reagan
• Iran-Contra
• Rise of Rush Limbaugh
• Appointment of Clarence Thomas to SCOTUS
• 1994 midterm elections and ensuing “contract with America”
• FOX News
• Monica Lewinsky scandal and Clinton impeachment
• Appointment of John Roberts to SCOTUS
• Appointment of Sam Alito to SCOTUS
• Citizens United v. FEC
• 2010 elections
• 2014 midterm elections resulting in Republicans taking control of Senate
• McConnell’s/GOP’s handling of Merrick Garland
• 2016 Election of Donald Trump
• Appointment of Neil Gorsuch to SCOTUS
• Appointment of Brett Kavanaugh to SCOTUS
• Death of RBG and ensuing appointment of Amy Coney Barrett to SCOTUS
• 2020 election of Joe Biden (in that he was at a very advanced aged, lacked charisma, and struggled to effectively communicate, setting up issues for the following presidential election)
• Inflation (this could also fall under Covid, which was was mentioned by the OP)
• Biden’s 2024 debate performance
• Trump v. United States immunity case

Too many to name in the last year.

I will add a couple more that Democrats completely f’ed up on.

Democratic led senate confirming Clarence Thomas. That is why Bush chose a black man, because he figured Democrats couldn’t vote him down.

Biden talking about border security as if it is inherently evil. This was an overreaction to Trump’s immigration rhetoric and set democrats up for failure in 2024. Biden should have stated that we need strong border security and continued to push for a path to citizenship for people already here. Instead the rhetoric was very open border-ish, more so than the actual policy.

 

[Icky Mettle]

This discussion makes me wonder how much Bill Clinton’s decision to engage in sexual relations with Monica Lewinsky altered the course of history. The Clinton years were, generally speaking, good years for America and Americans were generally happy. Clinton touted “peace and prosperity” and he could back it up. Based simply on the state of the country, one would think it should have been a slam dunk for his VP to succeed him in office.

But the Lewinsky scandal, his subsequent perjury, and the resulting impeachment tainted Clinton’s legacy and likely tainted Al Gore’s presidential campaign as well. Gore was put in a difficult place where he had to figure out how much he wanted connect his campaign to the Clinton presidency and tout its successes vs. separating himself from Clinton and his scandals. He pretty much chose the latter, and having to make that choice may have cost him the presidency. Who knows how history would have unfolded had he won the election? And I think the really big question is, had he won in 2000, would he have been re-elected in 2004, as it was during that term that John Roberts and Sam Alito were appointed to SCOTUS, and those appointments have been extremely impactful.

 

[HandsonFire]

Tea Party movement and the NC bathroom bill fiasco

 

[superrific]

I 100% agree that the Bork nomination was a turning point but for completely different reasons.

Prior to Bork Supreme Court nominations and confirmation hearings were, for the most part, non partisan, collegial and essentially non events. Ted Kennedy and the Dems' treatment of Bork was the game changer. It's never been the same since. Bork, followed by the Thomas confirmation, issued in the new era of hyper partisan nomination battles lead by special interest groups. It's now so bad (particularly on the Dems side) that I recall remarking to a colleague when Kavanaugh was nominated that he better be prepared to defend his 5th grade lunch room behavior because the Dem special interest groups are going to stop at nothing to defeat him.

I wasn't far off.

Republicans are tough on Dem SC nominees but there's never been a last minute special interest lead torpedo firing against a Dem nominee similar to Bork, Thomas and Kavanaugh.

1. How would we know? Merrick Garland didn't even get a hearing.
2. The hyper-partisanship was not the opposition to Bork. It was the nomination of Bork. First off, are you aware of Bork's role in Watergate? For that reason alone, he should have been disqualified. Second, he was the ur-reactionary, the OG Scalito. Dude belonged nowhere near a federal judgeship let alone the Supreme Court.
3. The Senate approved Thomas, did it not? The Dem Senate? Also, given what we now know, there's no doubt that Anita Hill was telling the truth. Clarence is the most unethical justice since the 19th century.
4. Subsequent reporting has established that Kav almost certainly did the things of which he was accused (minus the Avenatti allegations). It's an open question whether the actions of a drunk 17 year old should be disqualifying for the Supreme Court, but the lying about it certainly was.
5. In terms of special interests, are you serious? You're familiar with Leonard Leo, right? You're familiar with the GOP pipeline to the bench, right? They've spent hundreds of millions dollars grooming little mini-fascists.

 

[StrangePackage]

This was also a long time ago but needs to get its due:

Southern strategy - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

A lot of the current state of the white evangelical movement - now largely synonymous with MAGA - can be traced back to this moment. The process accelerated in the last 15 years, but this is the foundation of the present-day white evangelical movement that now prizes political power, and the imposition of its goals via force or fiat, over faith or any religious mission of the church.

Edit: to give a little more detail, the southern strategy led directly to this:

Moral Majority - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Falwell's movement is really the direct ancestor of the current white evangelical political power bloc. It was the first movemebt to really fully understand the power being able to direct, from the top down, a huge bloc of white evangelical voters through the imperatives of their religious leaders.

These are sort of foundational moments rather than turning points. It's why I didn't choose the Powell memorandum- Because it's not a defining moment, But it still is the wellspring of most of our sorrows.

 

[8992Tiger]

It seems to me like things started to turn sour with the Christian Coalition, then Linbaugh and Fox News, then the reaction to Obama, and then the Tea Party Movement. That culminated in the election of Trump, which was the end... the move of the GOP as "the party of 'individual rights' to the party of unfettered executive power, and the evolution of our nation from a flawed liberal democracy to a thriving kleptocratic autocracy."

Speaking of the Christian Coalition, even though I was a Pub at the time, I remember telling people I was a Christian and somewhat conservative, but not a "Consercative Christian." That seems so quaint now.

 

[superrific]

Good one.

I couldn't believe that the Dems/media/celebrities, etc. were successful in placing 100% of the blame on FEMA and Bush. Nagin and Blanco were straight up incompetent (delayed evacuation, refusal to allow national guard to be federalized, waited 4 days before requesting the assistance of the military, the empty school buses, etc.) yet they initially escaped almost any blame or criticism.

The Katrina effect did cause Republicans to back up in a corner and to decide to go scorched earth on their political opponents in the future.

You're blaming Katrina for the Tea Party and Trump? GTFOH. You want to know why the president was blamed? Because the president always gets the credit or blame. Because we recognize that mayors are limited in their abilities. Was Ray Nagin an expert at hurricane preparedness? He was not. In related news, he was the mayor of a city of half a million people. Being mayor is the lowest run on the political totem pole. If you're expecting the country to blame the mayor for the colossal fuckup, I just don't know what to say.

People pay taxes to the federal government, not to New Orleans. The federal government controls vastly more resources than any locality.

Besides, the reason that everyone blamed Bush was "you're doing a heck of a job, Brownie." We were in the middle of the debacle known as the Iraq War, and there were serious questions about the competence of the administration, and its focus on the real issues plaguing the country. So when Bush stood up there and praised the nepo baby/patronage hire who had fucked up beyond belief, it was a giant middle finger to the country not only about New Orleans, but about Iraq as well.

 

[superrific]

I'll add another one that I've mentioned here before -- Katrina. I firmly believe Republicans viewed that disaster as the result of social dysfunction and political corruption in a blue city full of black Americans, and they could not understand why most people blamed Bush and his administration. The takeaway was that if Pubs will be blamed and called racists for a problem of the Dems' own making, there's no point trying to cooperate with the Dems on anything. This scorched earth mindset came to full bloom with the emergence of the Tea Party two years later.

Two years? In 2007?

What actually happened was that Bush started trying to be more bipartisan after Katrina. He initially refused to nominate Leo's favorite candidate to Supreme Court (Alito) in favor of Harriet Miers. In retrospect, Katrina was when Bush realized that he was being played by Cheney and Rummy, and the Miers nomination is best viewed, I think, as a signifier of Bush's loss of trust in the people around him. Miers was retracted when the GOP legal establishment made sure that she wouldn't have been confirmed.

The GOP went scorched earth because they had no ideas. The financial crisis of 2008 lay bare the bankruptcy of the de-regulatory, trickle down approach that the GOP had been peddling for so many years. By 2009, the GOP was underwater on all issues. Americans wanted health insurance. They were tired of war. They hated the bailouts. And the GOP saw Obama saving GM, and decided that radical non-cooperation was their only way forward.

It was not Katrina that made McCain nominate Palin. It was not Katrina that made McConnell say on TV or radio that he wanted Obama to be unsuccessful. It was the fact that the GOP had nothing but obstruction. That hasn't changed, of course.

 

[donbosco]

Most All the white people down in #DeepChatham went crazy when Obama won...still crazy down there. Trump jumped all over that racism and played it...some of those people had already showed themselves with the Tea Party mess. The GOP tied John McCain down with Sarah Palin, dooming him (though Obama was an exceptional candidate in his own right).

 

[superrific]

Most All the white people down in #DeepChatham went crazy when Obama won...still crazy down there. Trump jumped all over that racism and played it...some of those people had already showed themselves with the Tea Party mess. The GOP tied John McCain down with Sarah Palin, dooming him (though Obama was an exceptional candidate in his own right).

Yeah, all these attempts to distract from what is in plain sight are so pathetic. The story of politics in the 20th and 21st century is pretty simple in broad brushstrokes.

Virtually all of the Confederate states have, since the Civil War, voted for the most racist of the political parties. It was the solid south in 1865, 1896, 1932, 1960 and 2016. The reason for this solidity is not difficult to comprehend -- it's a vast region with different economies, different local needs, different environments. What would possibly unite them for so long? Duh, they hate the same people.

I'm very far from a "everything is about race" guy, but some things are in fact about race. The popularity of Duke basketball in the 1980s and the whole "Duke student athlete" bullshit. The elimination of the black dude with a mohawk on that reality show where INXS was picking its next singer. And the Tea Party/MAGA movement. I mean, I shouldn't say it's only about race; it's a generalized bigotry that operates on many dimensions, but race is the biggest one.

What particularly incensed the right-wing was Obama's integrity. He was a better man than any president had been for a very long time, with more integrity. It wasn't only that he showed up Bush in this regard (though the contrast between Bush and Obama was incredibly stark, both in terms of integrity, ethics and intelligence); he also showed up Clinton in this regard. It was the failure of the expectations that Obama was going to be some corrupt, inept fool that caused them to be so angry.

 

[NYCBlueBlood]

There are a number of them. And I'm confident most will get detailed on this thread, But in my mind there is on big one that best represents the first step down the road we are on today.

In the run up to the 1980 presidential election it was George Bush Sr. running vs. Ronald Reagan for the Republican nomination that year. During his campaign, Reagan floated the idea "hey let's just give tax cuts to millionaires (we didn't have Billionaires at the time, that was a direct outcome of the story I'm telling) and pesto-chango the middle class will thrive as a result". That was patently absurd on the face of it, and George Bush, who, at the time was an actual little "c" conservative, rightly called him out on it, calling his plan "voodoo economics". Anyone with a true conservative bone in their bodies knew precisely that Reagan's idea full of shit and solely designed to trick dumb people into letting the rich get richer off the back of the middle class. GEORGE BUSH SR. KNEW THIS, HE SAID AS MUCH. Most other prominent conservatives at the time agreed with Bush Sr.!

Well, long story short, Reagan, due to his nascent populism (not, notably due to his bullshit economic platform), wins the Republican nomination. The precise turning point was when George Bush Sr. let his personal ambition override his moral compass and in order to secure the VP slot, swallowed his dignity and duty to country and started parroting the voodoo economics bullshit. At one point he even went so far as to lie to reporters that he had never made the Voodoo Economics remark (he did, it's on tape).

Three extremely consequential things came of George Bush's moral failure. #1) Tax cuts for the rich became permanently enshrined as Republican orthodoxy. #2) Swallowing and parroting the "Big Lie" for the sake of achieving political power became Republican orthodoxy #3) And perhaps most consequentially, big "C" Conservatives were finally and permanently liberated from the need to be small "c" conservatives.

From there is a straight bright line to the Republican party becoming the party of channeling the tax burden onto the middle class and off of millionaires (and later, billionaires), becoming the party of parroting bald face lies as a party loyalty test as well as a tribal identifier, and ultimately, in it's end stage form, fascism.

EDIT TO ADD: The moral of this story is that it is never the evil doer that gives away the game. There have been evil doers in every age throughout history, and there always will be. They will constantly assail us. Our one true weakness, is the failure of the supposedly principled leaders we depend on... their failure to make that principled stand when it would cost them personally.

It's not the Rush's, the Miller's, or the Trumps. It's the McConnels, the Tillis', the Collin's, the Justice Robert's, the George Bush Sr.'s, etc. etc. ad nauseam, that have failed us.

In the run up to the 1980 presidential election it was George Bush Sr. running vs. Ronald Reagan for the Republican nomination that year. During his campaign, Reagan floated the idea "hey let's just give tax cuts to millionaires (we didn't have Billionaires at the time, that was a direct outcome of the story I'm telling) and pesto-chango the middle class will thrive as a result". That was patently absurd on the face of it, and George Bush, who, at the time was an actual little "c" conservative, rightly called him out on it, calling his plan "voodoo economics". Anyone with a true conservative bone in their bodies knew precisely that Reagan's idea full of shit and solely designed to trick dumb people into letting the rich get richer off the back of the middle class. GEORGE BUSH SR. KNEW THIS, HE SAID AS MUCH. Most other prominent conservatives at the time agreed with Bush Sr.!

 

[donbosco]

Yeah, all these attempts to distract from what is in plain sight are so pathetic. The story of politics in the 20th and 21st century is pretty simple in broad brushstrokes.

Virtually all of the Confederate states have, since the Civil War, voted for the most racist of the political parties. It was the solid south in 1865, 1896, 1932, 1960 and 2016. The reason for this solidity is not difficult to comprehend -- it's a vast region with different economies, different local needs, different environments. What would possibly unite them for so long? Duh, they hate the same people.

I'm very far from a "everything is about race" guy, but some things are in fact about race. The popularity of Duke basketball in the 1980s and the whole "Duke student athlete" bullshit. The elimination of the black dude with a mohawk on that reality show where INXS was picking its next singer. And the Tea Party/MAGA movement. I mean, I shouldn't say it's only about race; it's a generalized bigotry that operates on many dimensions, but race is the biggest one.

What particularly incensed the right-wing was Obama's integrity. He was a better man than any president had been for a very long time, with more integrity. It wasn't only that he showed up Bush in this regard (though the contrast between Bush and Obama was incredibly stark, both in terms of integrity, ethics and intelligence); he also showed up Clinton in this regard. It was the failure of the expectations that Obama was going to be some corrupt, inept fool that caused them to be so angry.

One dook fan when I was growing up...very Methodist guy.

They're all over the place now.

 

[Ddseddse]

This discussion makes me wonder how much Bill Clinton’s decision to engage in sexual relations with Monica Lewinsky altered the course of history. The Clinton years were, generally speaking, good years for America and Americans were generally happy. Clinton touted “peace and prosperity” and he could back it up. Based simply on the state of the country, one would think it should have been a slam dunk for his VP to succeed him in office.

But the Lewinsky scandal, his subsequent perjury, and the resulting impeachment tainted Clinton’s legacy and likely tainted Al Gore’s presidential campaign as well. Gore was put in a difficult place where he had to figure out how much he wanted connect his campaign to the Clinton presidency and tout its successes vs. separating himself from Clinton and his scandals. He pretty much chose the latter, and having to make that choice may have cost him the presidency. Who knows how history would have unfolded had he won the election? And I think the really big question is, had he won in 2000, would he have been re-elected in 2004, as it was during that term that John Roberts and Sam Alito were appointed to SCOTUS, and those appointments have been extremely impactful.

Mmmm.... yes and no on Clinton. The sex scandal aside, he left us with a balanced budget and a thriving economy...

BUT...

I think the pigeons have come home to roost in the "I'm tough on Crime" deal with the Devil he felt he needed to do to win his second term. Those crime policies as enacted had a disproportionately negative impact on young black men leading to wide spread disillusionment of said young black men about whose side exactly the Democrats were on. We are reaping as we have sown right up to this day.

 

[sringwal]

"Pesto chango" sounds delicious.

 

[Ddseddse]

"Pesto chango" sounds delicious.

spelling has never been my strong soup.

 

[Icky Mettle]

Mmmm.... yes and no on Clinton. The sex scandal aside, he left us with a balanced budget and a thriving economy...

BUT...

I think the pigeons have come home to roost in the "I'm tough on Crime" deal with the Devil he felt he needed to do to win his second term. Those crime policies as enacted had a disproportionately negative impact on young black men leading to wide spread disillusionment of said young black men about whose side exactly the Democrats were on. We are reaping as we have sown right up to this day.

That first paragraph was my point. There was plenty to tout from the a Clinton presidency, but the Lewinsky scandal surfaced late in his presidency and became a defining moment in the end. Due to that, Gore really tried to separate himself from Clinton. Absent that scandal, Gore is probably using Clinton every chance he gets and riding those coattails.

 

[sringwal]

All of this is valid. But I'd argue that a growing number of "young" conservatives (particularly those under 30) aren't even aware about what those events are, or what their impact on the American consciousness is. I will continue to stress that the primary issue is how well the right has capitalized on social media addiction as a way to spread 24/7 propaganda.

 

[Ramrouser]

You're blaming Katrina for the Tea Party and Trump? GTFOH. You want to know why the president was blamed? Because the president always gets the credit or blame. Because we recognize that mayors are limited in their abilities. Was Ray Nagin an expert at hurricane preparedness? He was not. In related news, he was the mayor of a city of half a million people. Being mayor is the lowest run on the political totem pole. If you're expecting the country to blame the mayor for the colossal fuckup, I just don't know what to say.

People pay taxes to the federal government, not to New Orleans. The federal government controls vastly more resources than any locality.

Besides, the reason that everyone blamed Bush was "you're doing a heck of a job, Brownie." We were in the middle of the debacle known as the Iraq War, and there were serious questions about the competence of the administration, and its focus on the real issues plaguing the country. So when Bush stood up there and praised the nepo baby/patronage hire who had fucked up beyond belief, it was a giant middle finger to the country not only about New Orleans, but about Iraq as well.

You ignored Blanco. That was whom I was mainly placing the blame on. Blanco is the governor of a state in the Gulf of America (f/k/a Mexico) - in hurricane alley. Hurricane preparedness and response is one of the MAIN duties of a governor in that region. All you have to do is compare her lack of action to Haley Barber in Mississippi or DeSantis (or Crist to be bipartisan) in Florida. Yes, NO presented unique challenges but those challenges were well known to the State prior to Katrina.