This is my attempt to figure out what happened to get us here.
1996: Rupert Murdoch launches Fox News to support the conservative project of delegitimizing liberal institutions like journalism and government. Don't skip that link to Gaslit Nation: part of my newfound free time was spent researching for this and a few other articles on the way. That particular episode is a collection of excerpts from past interviews on the same podcast and fills out connections in history I only touch on here.
I'm not sure I would have found that in the world tech barons prefer where "podcast" no longer means audio or video delivered in an enclosure in machine-readable XML called RSS you can subscribe to wherever you get your podcasts. Part of regrouping here on my own blog, hosted on open source by the nice folks at Magic Pages (affiliate link) is an effort to hold the line and promote a better future through open systems.
2001: Millions turn to the internet for news and discussion as 9/11 unfolds while mainstream news struggles to keep up.
2008: Obama's election solidifies the internet as normal political infrastructure.
The internet seems obvious and inevitable now, but there were serious articles in serious publications suggesting the internet might be a fad in the same year.
2009-2010: the Tea Party "movement" takes over the Republican party with the support of Fox News and its endless coverage.
2014: GamerGate provides a model for internet-native misinformation campaigns.
Old, white, wrinkled and angry, they are slipping from polite society in alarming numbers. We’re losing much of a generation. They often sport hats or other clothing, some marking their status as veterans, Tea Partyers or “patriots” of some kind or another. They have yellow flags, bumper stickers and an unquenchable rage. They used to be the brave men and women who took on America’s challenges, tackling the ’60s, the Cold War and the Reagan years — but now many are terrified by the idea of slightly more affordable healthcare and a very moderate Democrat in the White House.
My father said something to me before the interview that struck me. He said I’m wrong about Fox News. “Fox didn’t warp me,” he said. “I created Fox News so I’d have something to watch.”
Though from the people I listen to on Dean Withers' call-in show, this is not representative: people really do get duped who might otherwise take a more reasonable position.
Uncle Phil was, after all, written as a 90s Republican. Fox News existed to turn a less grounded version of someone like him, or Carlton, into someone for the party and movement it is today.
2016: it is now all but required to have a supermajority in the Senate to get anything done.
2020: Democrats fail to notice history happening around them, meet the moment, and build a coalition that can survive past an election. Instead, it's back to brunch.
The right certainly noticed with this rhetorical body-slam:
Speaking to viewers, the Democratic congresswoman from New York said with a smile, “I’m sorry to tell you you’re not going back to brunch, we’re not going back to brunch. That’s not happening.” What she’s missing is that gathering with friends and breaking bread is the basis of all of our most important traditions, in every religion and in all our national holidays.
Where "don't just go back to brunch" is folded into the broader "Democrats don't understand humans are social animals" attack. It's bullshit, but it's effective bullshit.
2024: The contradiction between the Democratic party's delusion that Trump was a fluke and the reality of his win drives the party mad, leading it to regress through its stages of being against something before they pretended to always be for it. Trans people are the first target. Democrats fully internalize Republican attacks on the party and externalize it as a phantom "leftist" that is somehow both frighteningly powerful and influential, but completely ineffective.
2026: I've voted pretty consistently for as long as I could. I'm going to keep doing it, but I can't tell others to with any kind of conviction. Politics happens outside the poll booth but the Democratic Socialists of America is the only coalition on this side that seems to get it. The progress is tangible and the candidates are vastly superior, but it's not quite enough yet. And what happens if it gets there? Our system is obstinate by design and coalitions tend to break against that obstinacy once they get within sight of power.