Twelve years in the wilderness
My political awareness began in earnest just before the hammer fell.
Oh, sure, I'd been dimly aware of the Reagan/Mondale election when I was 7, and then by the Bush/Dukakis election, I was involved enough, at 11, to be genuinely disappointed by the outcome. But it was 1992, when I was just starting high school, that I really started reading the papers and knowing what was going on. Or at least the press version of what was going on.
Bill Clinton. The first Democratic president since I was a toddler. I knew from a young age that I wasn't a Reagan or Bush fan, but Clinton...him I really believed in. I felt like there was some hope in politics now.
Two years later, the Republicans swept into Congress. It was like getting punched in the gut. And oh, the gloating. And oh, the media paeans to Newt Gingrich's eternal genius. And oh, the awful things those guys went around saying about the things I believed in. We were decadent. We were "counterculture McGovern-niks." We weren't "real Americans" like them. These were the people who'd ridden a tide of popular support, who were going to sail in and dismantle everything I believed in.
What can I say? I was a teenager. I had a flair for the dramatic. But the thing is...it really turned out to be that bad. We got welfare reform and environmental neglect and total inaction on health care. We got the gay-bashing Defense of Marriage Act. We got the impeachment of that first president to really inspire me, on charges that were nobody's business.
Then they stole the presidency, and we got the fearmongering, warmongering, environment-trashing, gay-bashing nightmare that was unchecked Republican power. For six years.
My age has almost doubled since the Republicans swept into power. Now that they've been swept back out...well, you know how when you're in actual physical pain, after a while you stop noticing? And you don't even think about it again until it stops? That's what this is like.
I'd forgotten what it was like not to lose. To have some respect for the people in power. To believe that legislation I'll actually like has a decent chance of passing, that the issues I actually care about might get discussed.
I'm actually hopeful. It's a huge adjustment.
Oh, sure, I'd been dimly aware of the Reagan/Mondale election when I was 7, and then by the Bush/Dukakis election, I was involved enough, at 11, to be genuinely disappointed by the outcome. But it was 1992, when I was just starting high school, that I really started reading the papers and knowing what was going on. Or at least the press version of what was going on.
Bill Clinton. The first Democratic president since I was a toddler. I knew from a young age that I wasn't a Reagan or Bush fan, but Clinton...him I really believed in. I felt like there was some hope in politics now.
Two years later, the Republicans swept into Congress. It was like getting punched in the gut. And oh, the gloating. And oh, the media paeans to Newt Gingrich's eternal genius. And oh, the awful things those guys went around saying about the things I believed in. We were decadent. We were "counterculture McGovern-niks." We weren't "real Americans" like them. These were the people who'd ridden a tide of popular support, who were going to sail in and dismantle everything I believed in.
What can I say? I was a teenager. I had a flair for the dramatic. But the thing is...it really turned out to be that bad. We got welfare reform and environmental neglect and total inaction on health care. We got the gay-bashing Defense of Marriage Act. We got the impeachment of that first president to really inspire me, on charges that were nobody's business.
Then they stole the presidency, and we got the fearmongering, warmongering, environment-trashing, gay-bashing nightmare that was unchecked Republican power. For six years.
My age has almost doubled since the Republicans swept into power. Now that they've been swept back out...well, you know how when you're in actual physical pain, after a while you stop noticing? And you don't even think about it again until it stops? That's what this is like.
I'd forgotten what it was like not to lose. To have some respect for the people in power. To believe that legislation I'll actually like has a decent chance of passing, that the issues I actually care about might get discussed.
I'm actually hopeful. It's a huge adjustment.
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