In his 1980 Presidential victory, Ronald Reagan won 50% of the popular vote. In part this was due to an earlier speech in which he claimed that Social Security and Medicare were the enemies of freedom. This resonated strongly because all across the land, senior citizens were saying “Yeah, I cash the checks, but I’ve totally lost the freedom to be impoverished and homeless. That’s just wrong.”
Twenty years later George Bush won with 48% of the popular vote, but it required his brother in Florida to make sure that a bunch of black people couldn’t vote. So, his real count was probably more like 47%. Voters in 2000 strongly suspected that Bush was a deeply compassionate man. When Bush later said “Too many OB/GYNs aren’t able to practice their love with women all across the country”, supporters just nodded and said “Yup, I knew he was all about love.”
So, there was only a three percent drop in support for the GOP in twenty years. But things have changed quickly in the last thirteen years. Consider this: A researcher at The New Yorker looked at the congressional districts for the 80 GOP reps who wrote a letter to John Boehner urging him to avoid a “clean vote” and threaten to shutdown the government.
This will undoubtedly become the most famous Dear John letter in history (“Dear John, we’re sleeping with other guys now, and they’ve got a lot more money. Sorry.”)
The districts for these letter-writing, shutdown-favoring representatives comprise only 18% of the American population. The tiny crack that appeared in 2000 in The Ronald Reagan Memorial Bridge has become a major fissure. It’ll soon need to undergo repairs.
America is like a patient slowly waking up from a long coma. Yeah, we’re experiencing a high-grade fever this week. Next week we just might shit the bed. And we’ll probably need some rehab to get back to full functionality in the future. But we’ll get there.
Too much tea gives me diarrhea!