Optimism.
For decades, we Americans were lauded, and often castigated, for our boundless optimism and belief in a better future for ourselves, our nation, and the world. People all over the world, if asked to describe the American character positively in one word, that word was usually optimistic.
We certainly had reason to be optimistic back in the 90's. A booming economy, a thriving pop culture scene, and a President who was highly-intelligent, academically accomplished, and attuned to the needs of the populace made the decade an exciting time to be both alive and politically aware.
sElection 2000, a corrupt Supreme Court, September 11th, and the feckless Bush/Cheney regime put paid to all of that. The Republican Party's cynical grab for authoritarian power in the wake of the attacks, followed by the longest wars in American history, waged for control of oil resources, but thinly disguised as a "War on Terror" robbed our country of hope that things could be righted again, and that we could back off from our stroll into totalitarianism.
The election of Barack Obama did restore some hope that we were our old selves again. But the very fact of his election, a black man in the highest elected office in the nation, caused all of the various groups of people who thrived on oppression, repression, and heaping retrograde political policy on minorities and vulnerable populations to double-down on their hatreds and desire for unlimited power. Their program to do just that led to the elevation of the most revoltingly, abysmally unqualified semi-human ever to set foot in the halls of government.
The American people are meaner, nastier, more bitter, and less hopeful than they were thirty years ago. The deliberate program of reducing every shred of civilization from our country will finally yank away whatever vestiges of optimism we once had.
We have joined the League Of Ordinary Nations.
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