>
>That got passed. How the fuck did all that happen?

I'm not a historian or a sociologist, but these are the outlines of how I understand it.

Late-stage postwar afterglow. In the early 20th century we were basically the only major economy in the world that wasn't blasted to smithereens, TWICE. From this came exponential expansion of the economy, and a universal, justified expectation that everyone's children will be better off than they are. Even though the world was shit for a lot of Americans, a critical mass of them was so optimistic about the future that they just left it to the political class to do their own thing. The people generally trusted the politicians, and when those politicians compromised, even on things their constituents might be furious over, the constituents tended to give those politicians the benefit of the doubt. This left a lot of room for compromise, which really isn't always a bad thing. As terrible as it can be in a lot of cases, our legislative system is designed in such a way that compromise is a necessary lubricant, and without it, the machine just breaks. It's just too easy to slow things to a crawl (or a stop) when the politicians themselves are polarized.

Really, THAT'S "American exceptionalism." We weren't endowed by God with our place in the world. Our slaveholding founding fathers weren't geniuses of statesmanship or diplomacy. And our system of government, sorry to say, is just very poorly designed. European parliamentary systems were largely built after ours and, while they also aren't perfect, they polished up a lot of the mistakes of the American system. The profound gift of not being blown up in the world wars not only made us rich, it also allowed a poorly designed system to work for a good long time. There was well over a century of American history where we weren't a superpower, and our politics were a complete fucking mess. Just as I'm typing this, I'm wishing I knew more about 19th-century US history, because now that that postwar afterglow seems to be dying off the politics of the future might echo that era a lot more than the filmed and taped icons of the 40s-90s that we think of as American government.

I'm slightly drunk at the moment, so I hope that doesn't all sound like bullshitting.

All we have to fear is fear itself. And now, fear is back.