...a lot of other knock-on effects. As the favored ultraconservatives began getting the big promotions, many went along with the new party line whether they agreed or not. The reactionary turn in the Church attracted billionaire money from people like Tom Monaghan, and these two trends reinforced each other. Pretty soon we had reactionary publishers, media networks like the execrable EWTN, and phony radtrad "colleges" for neurotic parents who wanted to silo their kids off from "modernity" (Christendom College, Franciscan University, etc.).

A good illustration of just how much times have changed is to look at the activities of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) over the years. In the mid-1980s, the USCCB released pastoral letters on topics such as the arms race and economic justice. By 2011, the USCCB was attacking same-sex marriage with slick, Hollywood-style videos like Marriage: Unique For A Reason, which can charitably be described as patronizing (at best). The reactionary archbishop of the Twin Cities at the time (John Nienstedt) organized a mass mailing of more than 400,000 DVDs to Minnesotans before Election Day 2010, calling for a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage. (It failed).

https://sojo.net/magazine/march-2019/rise-catholic-right
https://www.startribune.com/catholics-to-get-dvds-opposing-gay-marriage/103494984/

...it's not only Tesla claiming that the future will be totally automated. I remember seeing a clip from this promo video in a Volvo commercial a few years ago now.

Check out 3:28-9:22 of the YouTube video.

...of Covid was the cough. It was a hacking, punishing cough that I haven't experienced since a bout with bronchitis years ago. It gave me splitting headaches. So I was glad to get an Rx for cough suppressant, which worked really well. I never experienced loss of taste or smell. It was like a really bad cold that dragged on for a couple of weeks. It probably would have been even longer without Paxlovid.

I needed a cough suppressant for the punishing, hacking, unproductive coughing. The cough was so bad I thought I'd eventually break a rib. (That actually happened to a friend).

...the political cartoon This Modern World.

When it comes to man-on-the-street interview subjects, media outlets like MSNBC are perennial suckers for the "I'm economically anxious--definitely NOT a bigot" demographic.

https://www.democraticunderground.com/100217366772#post13

...more dominated by Northeastern politicians like George HW Bush. Of course, those days are gone. Most of the Republicans today make Reagan look downright liberal by comparison.

Unfortunately, Rudy Boschwitz also won in the 1978 election, and he and Durenberger often (but not always) cancelled out each others' vote. They both basically campaigned as moderate Republicans, but Boschwitz was much more of an ideologue once in office.

...from far-right and alt-right sources. This is standard boilerplate rhetoric heard daily from radtrad Catholic media outlets like EWTN and Relevant Radio. It is also clear that Trump cribs his more extreme statements from Nick Fuentes and his execrable "Groypers" as well as incel and MRA/PUA groups at places like 4Chan.

Journalist David Neiwert brought this "mainstreaming" process to light in his book Alt-America: The Rise of the Radical Right in the Age of Trump.

https://www.democraticunderground.com/100217476579#post4

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncle_Ruckus

...and he has a button on his desk that says "Make Economy Gooder!" which he just refuses to push. So it's all his fault. Got it.

... was his tweet about the July 4th event at Mount Rushmore. "People are fed up!", he declared (7/1/20), making Covid precautions into another front in the culture war. Herman Cain made other specious claims like "the vast majority of people who get exposed to the virus don't even get sick" (4/30/20). Cain's lax attitude probably resulted in him contracting a fatal case of the virus, whether at Trump's infamous Tulsa rally or while traveling with the Trump campaign.

In a macabre twist, Cain's staff (and possibly his family) continued to post from his official Twitter account long after his death from Covid on Joly 30, 2020.