But people have been saying this literally for decades. They all were essentially hollering down a well. They did not have large, influential media companies behind them. Their political allies were at best timid and at worst absent.
For example, in 2009, the Department of Homeland Security issued a report detailing a resurgence of radicalization in the American military. The entire commingled Republican political and media, led by then-Speaker John Boehner, a reputed “moderate,” lit themselves on fire. The outcry, stoked (as always) by lies and deliberate misrepresentation, caused DHS to run and hide. It withdrew the report. You will note that I did not use the word “forced.” The DHS was not “forced” to do anything, any more than the Clinton administration was “forced” to abandon Lani Guinier. In 2009, the DHS was going to be in Democrats' hands for at least three more years. The department could’ve told Boehner to pound sand and stood by the report. In the real world, political outrage is not “force.” It only has the power that tepid resistance gives to it.
Which brings us to this weekend. Paul Pelosi gets attacked with a hammer during a home invasion and as a temporary proxy for his wife, who is the second in line for the presidency. We had Republican influencers babbling about gay trysts gone wrong, and idiot candidates trying to link the attack to their current bogus spin about a national crime wave. And this is the reaction, on national teevee, of the national chairwoman of the Republican Party. From the Washington Post:
I just can’t anymore. These people are simply lost and mad. Their political party is simply lost and mad. Their political movement is simply lost and mad. Their candidates are simply lost and mad. We are on the very brink of handing the country over to the lost and the mad. The prion disease has jumped from one subject population to the general public, and in too many ways, it is creating its own reality in the national mind. We are all lost and mad.
https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/a41819935/republican-extremism/?src=socialflowTW