Reply #69: Excellent post. Couple of good choices but

[Jakes Progress]

I think age seems to be the most telling here. My first reaction was 1980. Strangle the neo-cons in their infancy.

But it was really 1968. California put the lock in for its favorite son and the whole mess got started. I remember staying up for the returns that Fall. I couldn't believe that the country was so stupid, so dim that it would fall for Nixon's lies. It really started me on my road to political cynicism.

I could go with '52 if I could be sure that that would have finished off Nixon. Einsenhower was the president on the wall of all of my elementary school classrooms, but I learned later what crap we did in Africa and the Middle East under his reign. That stuff set us up for what we have today. My dad always said that was the election that soured him on politics. He worked his ass off for Stevenson in '48 and again in '52. He decided that if the country was going to do that to itself despite all the evidence, there was nothing he could do about it. He contributed and voted in all elections, but he never had the volunteer fever that he had before that.

Yep. 1968. Reverse that one and we have a chance to keep our country.