Last night wasn’t just a victory for tolerance; it wasn’t just a mandate for progressive change; it was also, I hope, the end of the monster years.
What I mean by that is that for the past 14 years America’s political life has been largely dominated by, well, monsters. Monsters like Tom DeLay, who suggested that the shootings at Columbine happened because schools teach students the theory of evolution. Monsters like Karl Rove, who declared that liberals wanted to offer “therapy and understanding” to terrorists. Monsters like Dick Cheney, who saw 9/11 as an opportunity to start torturing people. [My emphasis, to note Cheney's Wyoming roots.]
And in our national discourse, we pretended that these monsters were reasonable, respectable people. To point out that the monsters were, in fact, monsters, was “shrill.”
Four years ago it seemed as if the monsters would dominate American politics for a long time to come. But for now, at least, they’ve been banished to the wilderness.
Thursday, November 06, 2008
Paul Krugman hopes for "the end of the monster years"
Sometimes other bloggers say things better than you ever could. This comes from a Nov. 5 post on the New York Times blog of Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman:
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2 comments:
"Four years ago it seemed as if the monsters would dominate American politics for a long time to come. But for now, at least, they’ve been banished to the wilderness."
This is the mistake we made last time. The monsters aren't dead, or even in hiding, they're just biding their time, playing in their Starr chambers with with Monica-gate and Whitewater.
We (the group we as well as the individual we) need to put our foot down when the haters rear their ugly heads and shun that type of behavior.
I received an email this morning noting that the "muslim" "antichrist" and "godless" are still being thrown around, in another conversation yesterday I heard "he starts at zero with me, that (bleep) has to earn my respect.
No sitting on our laurels, time to get to work.
nancy s.
That's part of the pact we made when we signed on with Obama, right? We're in this together.
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