Ever know in your guts it was going to get this bad?

[XanaDUer2]

I was 15 when Reagan was sworn into office. I remember his fight with the air traffickers. I remember feeling queasy about that, even as a teenager. Watching Republicans and their enablers over the last 40 years, RW extremism and fascism have come to full fruition.

A lot of my generation will say RR was one of the greatest Presidents, and I have to remind them how things got worse for average people upon his election. Older people who know better, well, know better. I have a memory of when I was about 20, of a man and his wife, and his kid being turned away from an emergency room for not having the money nor the insurance for care. And even then, I thought, this is crazy. What is going on? I was on my parents' insurance, so I was in my little bubble, but finally starting to realize not everything here in Kansas is okay. I still think about that family years later, and wonder what they did about the man's injury. Why do American elect a RR and why do they continue to make life miserable for themselves and other average Americans?

Ever feel this craziness was coming, but no one believed you? Knowing that Roe V Wade was always in their crosshairs and they would never stop until they overturned it. The book True Believer by Eric Hoffer predicted in the 70s that we would eventually, end up with a wanna-be dictator like Trump. I am going to vote, donate, and do everything I can to get rid of Trump and his minions. Thanks for reading.


Sinclair Lewis said "When fascism comes to America it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying a cross."

[SlogginThroughIt]

1. yep.

That is all.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

2. I figured on a different sort of bad, like nuking NK or Iran.

There's still time for that to happen, though.

[Baked Potato]

6. Yes, Iran.... One of Trump's loose ends.

[NRaleighLiberal]

3. Yes

[Solly Mack]

4. ...

Ever feel this craziness was coming, but no one believed you?

Yes.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

5. A hundred years from now, possibly sooner,

the history books will all date the beginning of the decline of this country from Ronald Reagan's election.

I was 32, twice as old as you, when RR was elected. I knew what a horror it would be.

And Lane Kirkland, who at the time was head of the AFL-CIO, actually supported Reagan's firing of the air traffic controllers. Unions were already weakening, but that was the death knell.

[XanaDUer2]

8. I wasn't a kid who followed the news closely

but that struck me. Like the beginning of the end. Child of union parents here, NYC

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

19. Yep. Clearly your parents had made you aware

of things like how important unions are.

[XanaDUer2]

20. Not only did my parents not owe money to the hospital

When I was born (nyc), they got money because of the union. My mom would tell me about those times and the meetings she attended. Prob why I was more sensitive to the air-traffic controllers' plight. I also remember her telling me how hard life had gotten under Reagan. She was a single mother by then. I was about 23 when my political sensibilities began forming. Never trusted RR.

[MiniMe]

7. I'm waiting to lose my insurance

in the 2 years before I'm eligible for Medicare

[LiberalLoner]

9. Yes. I had the same feeling back then too.

After the idealism of my childhood in the late 60s and early 70s, I saw a long slide into the near dystopia I fear is coming soon.

[Stuart G]

10. It has been worse..Herbert Hoover, Pearl Harbor, Civil War, Polio Epidemic, Viet Nam War,

World Wars I and II, Great Depression, I, etc, etc, etc,....

Here is the point: "Somehow this nation has survived, and will survive again."

Remember: A new president is coming soon. On Jan 21 we will have a new president.

[Cerridwen]

14. and poor women dying of back alley abortions. Just like old times. (edited)

edited to add "poor". I forgot middle class white women will be just fine with therapeutic abortions and european travel (if it opens again).

[GoCubsGo]

11. Yes, from the moment the election was stolen.

[BannonsLiver]

12. Sure.

Do I believe a 15 year old had the foresight to look 40 years into the future of America and predict what was going to happen? No. Not really.

[Baked Potato]

13. Reagan was a snake in the grass.

He pumped the MIC while Hollywood helped him with glitzy money grubbing type TV and movies showing rich snobs rolling in the bucks. Reagan taught people that individualism was best, screw the Democrats and their helping hands.

Republicans are pushing basically it’s “survival of the fittest” with regard to surviving America.

What they aren’t counting on is Democrats are fit as a MOFO, and are ready.

[XanaDUer2]

17. Those primetime soap operas, like Dynasty

Yup.

[roamer65]

15. Yep. Definitely.

Dump has no limit as to how low he will go. Never has, never will.

[lindysalsagal]

16. I thought we'd be in another war by now. Instead, he harms innocent children at the border.

He's out of time.

[moondust]

18. Yes.

I knew the election of Reagan and his "trickle-down" economics hoax and attacks on unions and "big government" would lead to what has subsequently been described as "predatory capitalism" and a more difficult life for many working people like myself who didn't stand to inherit a fortune. Not long thereafter globalization and offshoring took off and the future looked even darker. Then his re-election winning 49 states was the final nail. All that has had a significant influence on the choices I've made along the way.

[Chainfire]

21. I grew up as a child of the Greatest Generation, with the benefits and burdens that go with it.

The people of the WWII Generation had to die off to give another Fascist a chance at governing the United States. I have never felt insecure about our position in the world until the last three years. This President is not the disappointment of having Ronald Ray Gun, Or Jr. as President, this President is a clear and present danger to the US and to the peace of the world.

We have a last chance to reset the direction our nation is heading in, and I am not overly confident we will choose the right path. I am not sure that the will of the people will determine the outcome of the election.
Too many people believe that a disaster like in the mid to late 1930s could not happen to us, not happen here, but it is happening, right before our eyes. History will judge us by what we do in November.

[Baked Potato]

27. Well said.

[Initech]

22. The cons are after absolute power.

And I feel like if we don't stop them, they will get it. And the scary thing is now they have Russia on their side, and that will help them achieve their goals. We must stop them at all costs.

[XanaDUer2]

23. Agreed

I feel the future is on the line with this election...fork in the road...we choose one.

[musette_sf]

24. My third presidential vote was for Carter's second term.

I despised Reagan and his handlers so much that I had made plans to move to Canada had he won the 1976 nomination and election. I told everyone I knew what he and his handlers were all about, and was shocked when he won. Reagan - or more accurately, his cabal's funders and handlers - are the architects of today's shitshow.

[Yavin4]

25. I knew it was going to be bad under Bush II.

I had posts on here saying so, but I didn't think that it would get THAT bad.

I knew that it would be even worse under Trump, but not THIS worse.

I need to do better at scaling.

[Leith]

26. I didn't

Not like this.

Of course we all knew that rethugs would be assholes about everything, but I never imagined that armed thugs would threaten state governments. I never thought that refugees would be thrown in cages and/or "disappeared." I never could have foreseen that an absolute lunatic would be prancing around the White House snorting drugs like a bloodhound on a scent. And I certainly could never believe that so many people would be stupid and hateful enough to cheer the monster and its cohorts on while he murdered hundreds of thousands of fellow citizens by hostile neglect. That secret "police" would snatch innocent people off the streets simply for being there.

No. I never imagined all this.

[XanaDUer2]

31. Hug

I think Biden/Harris will win. Then we can get to work fixing things. Yes, it's a nightmare

[Leith]

33. Right now

I would crawl through rocks and broken glass in the heat of the Mojave desert for 10 miles to cast my vote against the monster.

[smirkymonkey]

28. I remember taking a non-fiction writing course in NYC during the Bush II years and

in that class I wrote an essay called "Ambling Toward Fascism". The teacher and some others thought it was well written, but it got a lot of pushback from people who thought it was too extreme and that the US would never come close to becoming a fascist nation and the things that I predicted would never come true.

And I never even predicted half of what has come to pass during the Trump era, I simply believed that we would lose many of the rights we take for granted and that minorities and other oppressed groups would be demonized.

What is happening now is much worse than I have ever expected and if Trump gets another four years I foresee a hellish dictatorship of the likes we could have never imagined. It cannot happen.

[Kaleva]

29. As the effects of climate change increase, things are going to get worse.

[Silent3]

30. Since I imagined everything including devastating wars and an outright police state...

...as soon as Trump was elected, "this bad", while awful enough, is better than my worst fears.

What I didn't imagine was how thoroughly spineless nearly all congressional Republicans have been. Oh, I knew most were just in it for power and money, and that many were actually crazy enough to believe a lot of the same shit their mindless followers eat up, but I expected at least a few, say 10-20, to actually have more honor than they've proven to have, and to speak out against the incompetence and corruption of Trump.

Also I didn't expect as much as 40% of the public could be so willfully blind to so much. That's what shocks me.

[XanaDUer2]

32. It is shocking

Esp the supporters of Trump. Frightening

[The Genealogist]

34. I feared it would be bad, yes

I figured he wouldn't be more than a few months in before we were involved in a bona fide, full-on declared war because he didn't like the way someone looked at him. In general, though, the kind of evil he does is the kind of evil I expected from him.

[Roland99]

35. Sinclair Lewis never said that

https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/sinclair-lewis-on-fascism/

[XanaDUer2]

36. Thank you

I stand corrected

[Sugarcoated]

37. Yep

Didn't imagine a pandemic would happen but I knew he was capable of killing people for his own benefit