2016 Postmortem
In reply to the discussion: MAY I ask this: Do people here who remember Watergate [View all]senz
(11,945 posts)People were more easily shocked; we still held government in high regard, at least in the abstract. We took pride in our government. Most people took pride in the idea of America, not in the "USA USA USA" kickass sense, but because we thought America was noble and good (okay, not all of us thought that, but the vast heartland did).
The media was pre-Reagan, pre-Clinton, pre-cable, and of course pre-internet. Informationally, it was a different world. Walter Cronkite delivered the news in a straightforward professional manner; none of this MSNBC, FOX, CNN openly slanted, partisan, tabloid garbage. The news media seemed genuinely alarmed, in a grown-up way, by what was happening.
People took Watergate seriously. Republicans felt attacked and victimized as Republicans (and Hill fans) often do, but many Republicans were shocked. Even my brainwashed uber-capitalist Republican older brother expressed distaste for Nixon.
It seemed to me that those in control were deeply dismayed by what was happening at the top.
I don't see any of that anymore. We're cynical. We learned "greed is good, government is bad," we learned "everybody does it," we learned that those who do don't get rich are losers, and we're learning that the people of this country don't count for much. So when the top 10% is crooked as hell and we've got rich, shady characters running for president, we barely resist. (Well, some of us do, but we get laughed at for it).