Does anyone else feel this all started with Sarah Palin?

[redstatebluegirl]

I continue to blame Steve Schmidt for the Trump presidency. Once the underbelly of the US found some power with Palin, they found Trump.

[TreasonousBastard]

1. You do have a point there.

[FM123]

2. Yes, I think you might be right about Palin. I blame Bannon too...

[link:https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/11/steve-bannons-first-pick-for-president-214482|

[lpbk2713]

3. Dumbya proved anyone could be president.

Trump entered the primaries because he thought he had a good shot
based on Shrublet's being elected (that could be argued) twice.

[Thor_MN]

43. #AnyFuckingBody.

When they told me in elementary school that anybody could be President, I didn't think they meant #AnyFuckingBody.

[livetohike]

4. I think it started with Ronald Reagan. The dumb ass part

began with him.

[jberryhill]

5. +1

[fantase56]

9. yep......

[NewJeffCT]

14. While Eisenhower was a gem compared to modern Republicans

he did rail against "eggheads" and the intellectual elites, if I recall. I think it's a post WW2 thing where a lot of Americans started going to college via the GI Bill and those that did not felt left behind.

Reagan took it to another level, as did Bush Jr. and Trump is the nadir of dumbassness.

[Neema]

46. Christ on a cracker I HOPE Trump is the nadir.

I cannot imagine how we could go any lower and I don't want to find out.

[FakeNoose]

65. Eisenhower wasn't stupid, and he wasn't really a politician

...but he did run against Adlai Stevenson twice and beat him both times. During those years the Democratic Party was more representative of educated people, many with college degrees and professional jobs. Adlai Stevenson himself was quite intelligent, and often he was considered the "smartest guy in the room," as my parents used to tell me.

I think the "dumbing down" of the GOP really did start with Reagan. Gerald Ford wasn't considered very bright, although likable, but he was a special case because of Nixon's Watergate problems. Supposedly Nixon selected Ford as his VP because he preferred a man who wouldn't be seen as a "great replacement" in case Nixon was impeached. Well we all know how that ended.

[GoCubsGo]

28. Yep. Him and Lee Atwater.

What we're seeing from Trump is straight out of Atwater's playbook, only on steroids.

[ProfessorGAC]

51. You Bet

A B actor with zero knowledge of anything in particular, then a second term as a doddering old fool
Palin was a logical extension of him and Silverspoon 43!

[livetohike]

56. You made me smile. My Dad always referred to Reagan

as “that B actor”. He also always called W - Dumbo. He never said his name.

[FSogol]

57. +1 Exactly. n/t

[Hortensis]

6. No. Back in the 1970s when the centimillionaire and

billionaire classes started growing and becoming more extreme and started resenting regulation and taxes. This group was pre-warned by what happened in the 1940s-70s and set themselves to moving the nation ideologically right and dividing the electorate and turning the right on the left.

[LanternWaste]

7. I believe it began 27 years ago with with Gingrich, DeLay and Hate Radio.

I believe it began 27 years ago with with Gingrich, DeLay, et. al., and Hate Radio.

Much to their surprise, their Faustian bargain eventually resulted in a creature without any controlling mechanisms.

[hexola]

73. Yes - The GOP Mesmerized the Religious Right - until Terri Shaivo died.

Remember Bush had to come back from vacation because Tom Delay was trying to get congress to save Terry Shaivo?

Bush stopped him.

Terri Shaivo died.

Ever since then - the relationship has unraveled...they disowned Bush before the end of his second term.

[kairos12]

8. Began with Raygun.

[wryter2000]

15. Yup

That's when we started revering stupidity.

[octoberlib]

10. Nope , it started with Newt Gingrich.

[Wwcd]

19. Ahh yes . Newt's Contract for America put the poor in slave labor camps

while their children would be sent to live in orphanages run by Newt's pathetic, cruel vision of socialism.
Govt will feed, clothe, & provide for your children if you are poor, but the provisions will be scant & your future hoplesssly bleak.

Surfdom.

[Leith]

11. Reagan, Ford, Bush I, and Nixon Sucked, Too

Each in their own way.

There hasn't been a halfway decent rethug prez since Eisenhower.

[loyalsister]

12. Not sure what you're referring to

If you're talking about the racism, as with Trump she was a symptom of something that has been hiding in plain sight for a long time. When I've talked with people of color about my observations that racism has gotten worse over the past 10 yrs, they have set me straight. It was always there, white people just didn't see it.

When it comes to anti-intellectualism, unfortunately we fed that beast all through the Bush yrs. by attacking his intellect whenever possible. It goes along with the Democratic neoliberal emphasis on higher education. People were left out and there is unfortunately something to the "liberal elite" criticism because higher education has been accepted as status. We are now in the predicament where student loans seem like a scam to kids coming of age and seeing their parents still struggle to pay them off. Sadly, the coal workers aren't the only ones who have seen their opportunities dry up. Instead of just making it easier, job training was offered and they were judged and blamed. At least some of skepticism that led to the "burn it down" mindset is rooted in government abandonment. Welfare reform and unemployment restrictions made things much harder for people. Meanwhile it worked out well for the traditional small government low tax GOP. They painted a different picture of what it meant and who was responsible when government services were limited.

There's a backlash and complicated cultural and political forces that drive that.

[marylandblue]

13. It started with Nixon

People knew he was a corrupt creep, but voted for him anyway because of the Civil Rights Acts and to protect themselves from those damned dangerous hippies.

[bonemachine]

35. Nixon's The One!

[jmowreader]

55. He intentionally used a picture of Nixon throwing a foul ball, correct?

The ball of his foot was on the foul line.

[VOX]

72. Precisely. Reagan's foot soldiers all came out of the Nixon administration...

And they were determined to "even the score." They all crop up again in Bush II -- Cheney, Rummy, the lot.

You're spot-on with Nixon as the well-spring of extraordinarily dirty politics.

[NCTraveler]

16. As the alt-right was growing.

She was someone they could publicly rally around. I don't necessarily think it started with her but she was a seriously important part and the timing was key.

[genxlib]

17. Chicken and egg

I would reverse your statement to say they promoted Palin because the underbelly had power.

I agree with many posters here it started a long time ago.

Personally, I put the timing on the rise of RW radio and Fox. With acceleration at discreet time points such as Obama Election, Citizens United and 9/11.

[Wwcd]

18. Palin's Tea Party is funded by the Kochs.

Says it all.
They despise democracy & a democratic gov't.
They despise our Constitution & have made it their lifelong mission to destroy & remake the US govt in their image.

Libertarians, Greens, Tea Party.
These are the fringe extremes that the Kochs have funded to this day.
The division in the great democratic party we see today is the Koch mission making inroads to their long sought goal.

They are as dangerous today as in the beginning with their extremist John Birch Society.

They are a hate group intent on destroying the US govt from the inside by division.

They never went away.

[guillaumeb]

20. Ronald Reagan was just as ignorant and racist as Trump.

But he was a slightly better actor.

[RainCaster]

32. Exactly! He was stupid enough to promote the Religious Right in the first place

[theaocp]

21. I don't see anyone blaming

the guy who put his stamp of approval on palin: mccain. Maverick, my ass. He unleashed this bullshit on us and deserves to be scorned because of it. Thanks for nothing, motherfucker.

[Hayduke Bomgarte]

22. "Does anyone else feel this all started with Sarah Palin"?

Actually I think it began with ronnie raygun who, I am convinced, was the first modern age "puppet president", then accelerated with Boy george bush, went into hyper drive with Caribou 'Bonehead' Barbie and now, with drumpf, we have a complete shit show.

To my recollection the systematic dumbing down of the Nation began during the raygun era with education cuts, mostly to classes that taught or exercised critical thought. The high school civics course that was required when I was in school was an elective when my son was in the same school. I'm told now it isn't even offered anymore.

All that is a big part of where this all started, IMO.

[AlexSFCA]

23. palin paved the way for bannon

[Vinca]

24. I think it started with Reagan. The St. Ronnie cult grew and grew and grew and

eventually spawned the far, far right and that delivered the racist, ignorant pig to us. Apologies to pigs.

[yallerdawg]

25. For me, it started in 1974...

when my mother put an "I'd Still Vote for President Nixon" bumper sticker on our car.

My first taste of tribalism!

[LisaM]

26. As far as putting a completely unqualified candidate on the ballot - to some extent.

Which means John McCain is culpable too.

[DBoon]

40. Don't forget Dan Quayle

speaking of completely unqualified VP candidates

[crazycatlady]

41. AKA Mr. Potatoe

I remember I was in 5th grade when that happened (same age as the kid). I came home from school and my mom asked me to spell potato.

[kydo]

27. No, it was way before that. More like nixon, who begot raygun and so on and so forth.

LBJ gets some blame too. Before the 1964 Civil Rights Act, racists and bigots were equally represented in both parties. JFK helped start the racist migration from dem to repug. LBJ sealed it. By raygun we had a complete reversal of poles. Having a race baiting word salad candidate was just a matter of time.

[byronius]

29. It really started with the early reptiles.

That's where this crap all resides. The Lizard Brain.

[Kali]

34. !

[Corvo Bianco]

54. Yeah.

I was going to say it's not like America invented stupid forty years ago or ten years ago. Stupidity invented America. Manifest Destiny blowhard murderers wrapped up with a pretty Christian bow. Palinesque stupidity is the country's lifeblood.

[democratisphere]

30. How's that drumpf thingie workin' for ya?

[marybourg]

31. Newt.

[Guy Whitey Corngood]

33. Reagan. He lied like a mo' fo' and the press (even some Democrats) covered for his

senile ass.

[Kali]

36. another vote for ray-gun

[3catwoman3]

37. Having her on the ticket certainly contributed...

...to the coarsening of dialogue - or in her case, monologue. She made it OK to be common and cheap.

[Journeyman]

38. It started in earnest on March 30, 1981, at a few moments after 3 pm EST . . .

When Ronald Reagan was wheeled into the emergency room at GW University Hospital, an foiled-assassin's bullet in his chest, and he found it "humorous" to check if all his attending doctors were Republicans.

"I hope you are all Republicans," he quipped.

Some thought it funny. I believe it marked the moment the "partisan divide" became an acrimonious contest, and the day the possibility of our nation working together going forward began to become a forlorn hope.

[Efilroft Sul]

39. Powell Manifesto. There's your initial blueprint.

[kacekwl]

42. No , It started when the fucking MSM covered and

treated the tea party like they were some patriotic group of citizens who had something to offer. Possibly the idea had some merit but was soon taken over by the racist , second amendment crowd. Palin and others saw a group she could exploit and game on. Like trump the media pumped them up constantly with daily coverage . Sad !

[Proud Liberal Dem]

44. It was seemingly the moment where GOP ultimately decided

that anybody, no matter how ignorant/clueless, could be POTUS and that they needed to pander to and serve the far right-winger fringes to survive politically. Might be able to argue that it went back to "W", but the Palin/Trump/Tea Party-era GOP just seems even worse/different somehow.

[DFW]

45. I think the roots of the modern problem were with Joe McCarthy

Trey Gowdy is just a whiny wannabe version of McCarthy, and Trump's early guru, Roy Cohn, was a McCarthy understudy.

The fact that McCarthy got away with his reign of terror as long as he did gave inspiration to guys like Nixon, who figured they could do a better job, but ended up just a disgraced in the end--as will Trump if we manage to survive that long.

[Raine]

47. I see it starting with Raygun the hand puppet

stupid worked so well for that bunch they keep putting in dummies each one stupider then the last one.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

48. NO. Started with Birchers & fluoridation & Nixon & tanks & Gingrich & Fox & W & Palin. In other

In other words, it is the culmination of a long effort by Republicons.

John Birch Society members had that same crazed conspiracy anti-gubmnt gleam founded on some racism and a lot of nonsense. They overlapped with the fear-mongering anti-fluoridation nuts.

Nixon brought in the Southern Strategy because he agreed with Johnson's assessment of the costs of his Civil Rights legislation.

Johnson reportedly told associates of his concern that signing the bill had lost the white South as voters for the Democratic Party for the foreseeable future. -- Wikipedia

https://cehdvision2020.umn.edu/blog/conservative-think-tanks/
How Conservative Think Tanks Helped Create the Age of Trump
Fri Aug 12, 2016 by Jason Stahl, Ph.D.

The Heritage Foundation was founded in 1973 by Paul Weyrich, Edwin Feulner, and Joseph Coors.[6] Growing out of the new business activist movement inspired by the Powell Memorandum,[7][8] discontent with Richard Nixon's embrace of the "liberal consensus" and the nonpolemical, cautious nature of existing think tanks,[9] Weyrich and Feulner sought to create an organization that would supply policymakers with concise, timely position papers. With $200,000 from Coors, the Analysis and Research Association was created in 1970. New supporters and board members joined, including petroleum executive Edward Noble and Richard Mellon Scaife. Eventually, the organization split into a public interest law center and a separate public policy foundation, the latter of which was incorporated as The Heritage Foundation on February 16, 1973. Weyrich was its first president. -- Wikipedia

Think tanks developed the idea of framing the language, a way to dumb down political debate. Gingrich embraced this. Republicons started talking about "death taxes" instead of estate taxes and "pro-life" instead of anti-abortion rights.

George Lakoff: https://www.berkeley.edu/news/media/releases/2003/10/27_lakoff.shtml

Karl Rove very explicitly preferred to win by a more secured slim majority than going for a possible larger majority. This greatly increased polarization in the country which reduces debates to shouts of "commie" and "fascist".

Fox News pushed a faux viewpoint and the rest of the mass media generally obliged because they like horse races for increased viewership leading to increased advertising sales leading to increased profits.

Palin was the "dumb as rocks" flint arrowhead, not the wood behind the arrowhead. A wedge and a "Caribou Barbie" to appeal emotionally.

So, no, Palin & Schmidt were not the cause or the first.

[The Wielding Truth]

59. Your post says it the best for me. The greedy and deceitful have always

been with us in America. They came from the trade companies and the slavers.
Roosevelt had to fight the wealthy to save the economy from those who foolishly and shortsightedly ran crooked schemes for an easy profit. Then the arms traders and the oil barons pushed any action for power and money.
Deals were made in back rooms until enough money flowed into congress for Boehner to pass out checks before the Tobacco bill.

There has been a strong idea of a noble government that has righted our ships, but it has been made weak by a clever technique of right-wing propaganda that has been unstopped by the forced necessity to have luxury, and to have familiar coddling to protect us from the imaginary other, the stranger, the different religion or language.

How do we stop it? We get brave because we are brave. We will
institute the common good and the individual freedoms we know to be just.

[dembotoz]

49. The transition in the gop from Ford a decent man to Ronnie a fucking asshole

[jaysunb]

50. Newt Gingrich n/t

[NanceGreggs]

52. To some extent, yes.

I think that when Republican voters rallied around the idea of Sarah Palin being a heartbeat away from the presidency, the PTB in the GOP realized that their supporters will swallow anything.

[Botany]

53. The end of the fairness doctrine is a big part of the problem and

Reagan's campaign which started in New Philadelphia, MS where he talked
about state's rights was clear signal to the sewer creatures that they were
welcome in the GOP.

Nixon's southern strategy laid the ground work for this toxic mess too.

[The Wielding Truth]

62. YES. The end of the Fairness Doctrine opened the door to bad journalism.

[Botany]

68. It is really hard to fathom the out and out crap that people are now being and have ....

..... been fed by right wing "news sources." In Nov. 2012 after the President had been
re-elected I was told by a really nice man that now Obama was going to use the U.N. to
bring in Hamas fighters to America so he could impose his will on white people, have a
third term, and take away people's guns. Last Sept. a nice smart customer of mine
told me that Hillary Clinton had somebody killed to cover up Bill Clinton's cocaine operation.

Rush, Fox, and so on are a cancer on America's collective brain and they really hurt
the country and its people.

[JI7]

58. No. This goes back to southern strategy and even before

[StevieM]

60. There are a lot of interesting answers on this thread. Here is another: Oliver North

Here is a link to a post a put up earlier this year.

https://www.democraticunderground.com/10028548992


We began down the road to Donald Trump on July 7, 1987 when Oliver North testified before Congress.

Looking back that was a real turning point.

I had thought in the past that nominating Trump was similar to nominating North in Virginia for Senate in 1994. It was the GOP voters' way of saying "screw you." But North has much greater relevance here.

People celebrated North as a hero. He kicked butt and took names. He placed blame on the liberal enemy within. He proclaimed that America doesn't lose wars and we could have won Vietnam if not for Washington politicians. He was clean cut and in uniform, as opposed to the long-haired hippy lawyer questioning him.

This was the start of the U.S. becoming fact-resistant. North was a hero even though he was clearly a criminal. Even though he clearly subverted the Constitution of the United States. His poll numbers later went down, but it is frightening that they were ever good to begin with. North was able to win people over simply by identifying the liberal threat to real Americans and doing his part to fight it.

Donald Trump won because of the fake email scandal. Had it not been for that fake scandal he would have been slaughtered. Even if you throw in the bogus attacks over Benghazi and the Clinton Foundation, along with the last-minute Obamacare premium hikes, HRC still would have destroyed him. If he was really lucky he might have lost by as little as 12 points. It probably would have been more like 14 points IMO. Obama would have beaten him by 20 points had he been allowed to run for re-election.

The ability to sell the fake email scandal was based on the lack of need for fact-based analysis. People decide based on their gut. It sounds about right that a former first lady would get special treatment. And so if people with titles like "Mr. Speaker" are saying "it defies explanation" that she isn't being indicted--for something--then they are inclined to believe it. They can't imagine that Republicans at the FBI or State Department Inspector General's Office would be partisan just because they are Republicans and this is what Republicans do. If you are a non-partisan voter than you are unlikely to be persuaded by a hyper-partisan argument, even if the facts are hyper-partisan. And that especially holds true when the accused is somehow associated with the liberal side and the accusers are somehow associated with the wonderful word "conservative."

Iran-Contra taught the Republicans that they can get away with anything. In a twisted way it makes perfect sense that Iran-Contra is treated like nothing while the fake email scandal is treated like Watergate. Because the facts are not relevant. Oliver North being treated like a hero is the ultimate example of that.

[applegrove]

61. Once they saw how deeply foolish a candidate could be and still be

elected to state office, and how much control they could then have over policy, some ditched the dyslexic bushes and other patrician and went for the untethered in any belief dyslexics. Remember Bannon tried to convince Palin to run for president in 2012. Then he moved onto Trump. Both clueless dyslexics (not to be confused with informed dyslexics like Churchill or Kennedy).

[unblock]

63. the right-wing movement has many founders, but hate radio, then foxnews are greatly important.

reagan, gingrich, and others started us down the path they're on now, it's pretty much been a straight line down to hell for them.

actually, we could go back to nixon's southern strategy, that was really at the base of the unholy alliance between business interests, authoritarians, and bigots.

[walkingman]

64. Reagan - the white conservative GOD

[JHB]

66. No, much earlier. Palin was a halfway house.

You can take it back decades, but the current trajectory was locked in by Newt Gingrich and Rush Limbaugh.

[alphafemale]

67. yeah.

Like stone age people did not bash skulls with rocks.

This has always been.

[Skittles]

69. Reagan made greed and stupidity fashionable

it really started with him

[PufPuf23]

70. Reagan was the watershed.

Nixon was a lying corrupt creep but intelligent and probably did care somewhat for the people.

Reagan began our zombie-like long descent into anti-intelligent oligarchy.

Hate radio, hate religion fed the haters.

Palin was the hives. McCain is just disgusting.

Trump is the cancer gone malignant.

[moondust]

71. I'll take the long view.

Slavery was essentially the convergence of unbridled greed and bigotry. The Civil War may have ended outright slavery but it didn't end the greed and bigotry in the South and elsewhere that have become the hallmarks of today's sadistic Republican Party and its Orange Buffoon squatting in our White House.

[Books_Tea_Alone]

74. I also blame Schmidt & Wallace for glorifying deplorables but..

It really started with Clinton's impeachment. At the time, my place of employment had the trifecta of Limbaugh, Hannity & Dr. Laura on all afternoon. The brainwashing I saw among these employees was stunning as was their total hatred of all things Clinton. They had a "holier than thou" attitude. Felt like they went underground for a decade until the Obama/McCain election. Palin spoke to their inner redneck and with a healthy dose of racism towards our "Muslim Black President" (my family's words) the country's deplorables found a voice and crawled out from their rock.