OK, wait, hold on: this is not an accurate description of the situation, back then.
Watching Egypt self-immolate, I am taken back to the time when the United States was alight with bitter conflict—to December 2000 and the unresolved presidential election. Admittedly, no one was killing political opponents, and but for a “bourgeois riot” in Tallahassee, Florida, there was nothing more violent than the trading of abuse across the party-political divide. But in a country unaccustomed to electoral ambiguity, there was fear in the air: it was palpable. America was in uncharted territory. The voting was over, the count was maddeningly inconclusive, and the country was on edge, electrified and shaken, awaiting resolution. Most disconcerting of all was the sense that this perilous post-election limbo was so very un-American. This sort of thing happened in Italy, in Argentina, in India, places less serene in their political culture, more turbulent in their ways. Not in America!
Continue reading Just a reminder: outside the political bubble, 2000 wasn’t all that. (Also: Egypt!)