I Really, Really Want My Politics Back

I thought American politics were divisive when I was young. Which they were. (Just watch a short video about civil unrest in America in 1968, like this one here)

But if you look at a Liberal Republican from those times like Senator Edward Brooke (the subject of this week’s repost of leading Liberal Republican politicians), or a conservative Republican of that time like President Ronald Reagan (see the entry about Reagan in W.H. Brands’ Reagan: A Life in the Bibliography With Commentary section), you realize how much more extreme and uncivil American politicians have gotten since those days.

Most of us, as passionate as we might be about politics today, really, really don’t want to continue on our current political trajectory. Because like it did in the USSR (Russia) and Nazi Germany, such politics often ends really, really badly for millions of people. And while we thankfully aren’t likely to end up in either of those places–though there are dozens of commentators on this website from both ends of the political spectrum who think we will–we could end up living in a nation of disgruntled pessimists. Which is an utterly un-American world view…and a terrible future to bequeath to our children and grandchildren. Really really.

Click here to read about Edward Brooke.