4 ms·

I don't know what generation you are, but for my generation it started with Newt Gingrich and the "Moral Majority"'s intentional stonewalling and dismantling of

• thewebcount 6y ago
  It definitely goes back to at least Reagan saying that government is the cause of all of our problems, but it's probably earlier than that. I have a vague recollection of Nixon saying something similar, but can't remember the details.
• toby 6y ago
  There's a great podcast about this: https://www.thisamericanlife.org/662/transcript https://www.thisamericanlife.org/662/transcript To me the most interesting part was about how Tip O'Neill and Ronald Reagan were pretty close friends: "Then one day, I picked up the paper and read where he had made a statement about me that was pretty harsh. And I called him, and I said, Tip, I thought we had a relationship here, where we could do business together. And, oh, now, I read in the paper that you said-- And he interrupted me and said, well, buddy, that's just politics. He said, after 6 o'clock, we're buddies. We're friends. I did take it that every once in a while, when we had a meeting, I would visibly set my watch at above 6 o'clock."