We live in a stupid time. We are led by stupid people. I ask myself if there was a time when we could afford to be led by stupid people, and I can’t come up with a sufficient answer. Perhaps the closest we have come to tearing it all down was in the Nixon administration. Brazen flouting of the law was the theme though our checks and balances actually functioned. Congressional hearings, subpoenas, the press, and the conscience and voices of most civil servants still worked. Our country was fighting a never-ending and unpopular war in Vietnam, the military-industrial complex had entrenched itself in policy-making to an extent never seen in our history. Civil rights were still being fought for even after the revelations and violence of the 60s. Had we as a society not learned? The Cold War, anti-communism thread was woven throughout. The economic fate of the US was tied into the Middle East concurrently as the policeman of the world and the enabler of the oil-producing nations, no matter how anti-democratic the regimes that ran them. Thus began the outsized influence of the fossil fuel industry and its nexus with the US government and foreign policy. In the Venn diagram of each of these circles, the American people were being pushed out further to the edges. As our government courted the enemies of our enemies, foreign policy to the highest bidder, we found ourselves in bed with unsavory characters.

The 70s ended with the Iranian hostage crisis and the election of Ronald Reagan. The Cold War subsequently heated up as the administration stepped on the gas to produce trillions of dollars worth of nuclear weapons, deficits be damned. We grew up fearing nuclear annihilation and rightfully so. Reagan rolled back regulations and invited the evangelicals to the table regarding school prayer. An overlooked character during the Reagan administration was Ed Meese, counselor to the president, who embodied much of the current iteration of Republican Party, a Christian, hyper-partisan, do-as-I-say-not-as-I-do, Constitutional originalist, without an ounce of compassion. One can make the argument that Reagan was the first puppet of a conservative ideology that still persists. But at least we didn’t think he was in bed with the Russians.

George H. W. Bush was the first former CIA director to hold the office of the presidency, possessing a pedigree as elite as any. That the Republican intelligentsia was able to convince its flock that he wasn’t “elite” is testament to their marketing prowess. Bush was just whiny enough that he didn’t have that “macho” appeal to carry Republican water to a second term…