When did the USA jump the shark?

[dad]

or did it never jump?

[JackBeck]

1. When they elected Reagan.

[SeattleGirl]

2. Yup.

And when George the Second was selected, it did a huge belly flop. x(

[JackBeck]

4. That's when all the fish heads were thrown into the sea to attract a feeding frenzy.

Is that stuff called chum?

[SeattleGirl]

7. I believe so. (Brace for the picture)

[Cobalt-60]

15. Agreed

[RoyGBiv]

3. 1876

[BrotherBuzz]

9. Custer?

[RoyGBiv]

10. Oh, wow ...

Seems everything I thought I wrote in that I somehow managed to delete before hitting send. Guess that was kinda obscure, huh? :-)

I was thinking of the Presidential election and the end of Reconstruction and all that went along with it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_election,_1876

[BrotherBuzz]

12. LOL, I thought I was playing Jeopardy

;)

[ghostsofgiants]

5. It does it every four years.

Long-running tradition from what I can tell.

[Vidar]

6. Though the US accomplished great things under FDR & Truman, I

think it was fucked almost from the beginning. Aaron Burr shot Hamilton thirty years too late, after Hamilton had alread given America to the moneyed elite.

[WritingIsMyReligion]

8. Yeah, Hamilton was a strange one.

I just had to write an essay on his economic plan yesterday in school.

"So after Hamilton had finished giving oral sex to the wealthy..."

:P

[Aristus]

11. As a voice for clear-eyed rationalism, I'd have to say:

right after World War II. It is my assertion that becoming a superpower was the worst thing that ever happened to America. All our national will and national focus became centered on holding and increasing power for its own sake. Why do you think the expression "Power to the people!" was considered such a threat by the establishment in the 1960's. A stable and prosperous middle class, a comprehensive social safety net, superior education, environmental preservation...all these things took a back seat to the military-indutrial complex. An all-out conventional war with the Soviet Union would have totally devestated our economy (meaning: all the glittery profits enjoyed by the defense contractors), but nuclear stalemate allowed us to fight small, intense wars against Soviet and Red China proxies. These wars perpetuated the demand for military goods in what was nominally a peacetime economy. And it also fomented the notion that the only true expression of patriotism lay in how much we love war and hate everyone who is not American.

[Spider Jerusalem]

13. Why not go back further?

Why not to 1846, "Manifest Destiny", and the Mexican War? Or to the 1890's and early 1900's, and the US becoming an imperial power and extending its reach beyond the North American mainland, to Cuba, the Philippines and Hawaii under McKinley, and to Latin America under Theodore Roosevelt?

[Aristus]

14. Well, it IS a debatable topic, after all.

You have some good points, and there's probably no definitive viewpoint.

[Manifestor_of_Light]

16. when it became an imperialist power

which was a long time ago. Spending the money on war and conquest instead of peace and programs for the American people. The military industrial complex Eisenhower warned us about.

As far as recent events, I'd say when Reagan was elected and he busted the Air Traffic Controllers Union. He really sent us downhill.

[leftofthedial]

17. ronnie raygun

it was over in 1980

when the media pretended everything was okay despited the crimes and corruption of the raygun era

and it was okay that the "leader" of the "free" world was a drooling idiot

[treestar]

18. At the time of Gulf War I

Instead of enjoying the peace dividend of the end of the cold war, insisting on continuing with the military-industrial complex - all the wars since then, showing that there was a will to war against somebody, just let it be anybody.