Those days already seem so long ago

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This was inspired by a comment Ned made on the Good Nonfiction, Please thread. The gist of the comment was that the book he was reading about the 1996 presidential campaign seemed to be about a time in the very distant past.

I would propose that the reason why the recent past can be made to seem so distant is that the vast majority of the issues that capture our attention in news media are not only superficial and ephemeral, but are that way by design.

I'd argue that since 1996 few, if any, large scale public policy issues in the USA have either emerged as new and unanticipated (9/11/2001 was the second large scale attack on the WTC) or have been solved by the implementation of practical new policies. Most of what has changed is the daily hubbub, not the substance.

So, what really has changed in the USA national arena in the last decade? The rich growing richer? CEOs getting more venal? Reaganomics being disasterously wrong-headed? The business cycle of boom and bust? The trade imbalance growing as fast as WalMart does? The US military fighting oil wars in the middle east? Abortion politics?

― Aimless (Aimless), Friday, 6 January 2006 19:10 (twenty years ago)

I don't how much things have changed, but one prays that change is a'comin'.

Also, on a similar note about so long ago, I recently saw the Clinton's Final Days gag vid again, and it made me positively nostalgic. It even has a cameo from Helen Thomas!

― kingfish pibb Xtra (kingfish 2.0), Friday, 6 January 2006 19:19 (twenty years ago)

A bit more specific than what this thread emcompasses, but I wondered pretty much the same thing a little more than a year ago:

Election '96: Democracy Comes to the Internet

I think that the terrorist attacks of September 11th have a lot to do with the way this country has changed. That said, I really feel that the confusion generated from the 2000 Election, whatever side one was on, took the breath out of many Americans.

Something that's weird: I remember all of those school shootings: From the little girls murdered in Jonesboro, Arkansas, to Columbine. I remember seeing reports on the news about another one and thinking, "Well, I'm just going to have to get used to the fact a dozen schoolchildren are going to get shot in my country every year." At least that's died down.

― Pleasant Plains /// (Pleasant Plains ///), Friday, 6 January 2006 19:22 (twenty years ago)

HELLO?! THE ANSWER IS TEH INTERNETS!

― gabbneb (gabbneb), Friday, 6 January 2006 19:24 (twenty years ago)

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