This post first appeared at Government Cheese – Chronicling the collapse of democracy.

I was thinking about how most voters out there have no memory of all kinds of things people who are older remember.

Tax Cuts Will Pay For Themselves

They don’t remember Reagan promising that tax cuts for the rich will cause them to invest in the economy and bring all kinds of great things that meant the tax cuts “will pay for themselves.” They didn’t watch the resulting shift from government taxing the rich and doing things for people, into “borrowing” FROM the rich, doing nothing for the people, and paying massive amounts of interest TO the rich. AND the resulting massive inequality. They don’t remember that there weren’t billionaires. Now it’s billionaires with all the money vs people in food lines, etc.

Deregulating Corporations Will Unleash Growth And Bring Prices Down

They don’t remember Reagan promising that deregulation of corporations will “unleash” growth, causing them to provide more great things so we would all be so much better off. Now they pollute at will and scam everyone. They don’t remember the promise that getting rid of antitrust regulations would force prices down and make everything better. They didn’t watch as merger after merger transformed the economy into a few giant monopolies that charge whatever they want and make you pay monthly to use products you already paid for.

Elections Were Competitive

They don’t remember competitive elections before campaign finance was undone. Regular people could run for office. Now a few oligarchs decide elections with “dark money” so no one knows who pays for the ads and bots and propaganda.

They don’t remember the Democratic Party standing up and fighting for working people.

Before The Propaganda

They don’t remember that TV news used to have rules about serving the public interest. They don’t remember that commercials were not allowed to lie. They don’t remember when the benefits of belonging to unions was allowed to be discussed on the air. They don’t remember that “markets are better at making decisions than government (i.e. “democracy”)” was laughed at. They don’t remember that there was a fight to allow non-whites to vote. They don’t remember that women couldn’t get bank accounts or credit cards without their husband’s permission. They don’t remember that government existed to make people’s lives better.

There are all kinds of things they know nothing about…

For a lot of them ALL they are old enough to remember is Trump coming down an escalator and saying immigrants are all criminals who rape and murder, etc…