Reply #65: I am in my mid 50s

[hifiguy]

and I can not recall any time in my life where so many demonstrably batshit insane people were so prominent in public life and taken so seriously. The belligerently loony reichwing has always been there, but sensible conservatives like Ike and Wm. F. Buckley - and even Nixon - made sure they were relegated to the sidelines. I started wondering, at a low, back-burner level, what was going on when the religulously insane began making themselves heard in the 1970s and got seriously worried when Raygun was elected twice.

But even that couldn't prepare me for the Repiglican party turning into the vast, open-air lunatic asylum it has become in the last decade or so. Even 15 years ago someone like Bachmann or Rand Paul would have been hooted and laughed off the public stage almost immediately after surfacing.

The terminally stupid and hoplessly crazy (and I do mean crazy as in delusionally psychotic) have been organized and well-funded and present a clear and present danger to the survival of this country. There have always been neo-fascist nuts as far back as the Birchers, but I never expected to see them front and center on the political stage of the nation. People that scream at the clouds and expect answers are now "mainstream."

:wtf: