Why the Past 10 Years of American Life Have Been Uniquely Stupid
theatlantic.com
theatlantic.com
That's easy. Just like living in Narnia, Middle Earth, or Warhammer 40K.
The Tower of Babel was a story created by Bronze Age sheep herders to explain what we know today as linguistic drift.
Basing your entire essay on ancient myths is tenuous logic to say the least. As for claiming that it all started going off the rails in 2010?
To quote an ancient African American proverb:
"We tried to tell y'all."
The last 15 years might have been the most visible to the willfully ignorant, but a Supreme Court justice like Amy Comey Barrett does just appear out of thin air. She is 100% a product of a 50+ year old shift, and a completely predictable one at that.
And that shift that started 50-60 years ago was a result of the previous century of racial barbarism, itself a reaction to a war where it was determined you can't own, buy, or sell an entire family tree in perpetuity.
Christian Dominionism didn't just fall out of the sky and dominate GOP politics out of nowhere. A lot of folks have known for a long time that these folks, when denied power, would much rather embrace authoritarianism than accept democracy without being in charge. They'd rather install Trump as a dictator than accept that most Americans do not share their cultish views.
2010? MAGA? Try John Birch Society.
The origins of that alliance are complex and deep. They've definitely been cultivated over that 50-60 year time frame you mention, though they go back even further. You mention the John Birch Society, which is about 20 years further back. Before that it was anti-immigrant hysteria, and back through the Civil War and the founding of the country.
I don't fully understand what makes that alliance work now, seeing as the allies in it should be at each other's throats. They each seem to think that they're getting something over on the other, somehow.