• CanadaPlus
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    3 days ago

    Two out of the five never got real political power, though. Meanwhile McCarthyism blew over because it was just a component of a larger panic within a healthy democracy, and the Contract with America looks like it amounted to a slight reorganisation of congress in the end.

    The whole racist South thing is a more reasonable comparison. Although it was a time when things went by region a lot more, and the larger north could apply pressure. I can’t really see a Lincoln or fifteenth amendment coming to the rescue the same way this time around. Just, who’s left to stand up to MAGA?

    I should probably throw in the Gilded Age too as it seems to fit with our current situation nicely. We had a decent progressive push after the last one.

    Sort of? Inequality took on a different character after Teddy, but the roaring 20’s is often lumped into the gilded age anyway. That’s because it wasn’t really a political (or spiritual) movement so much as wealth self-accumulating like it always tends to in agricultural civilisation. You were right to leave it out.