I know I'm opening a door to a room I'm not very familiar with here, but it might not be accurate to say politicians on either side are taking it to levels unseen in our nation's history. I doubt we've ever had a seventh grader in the white house before, but as a general matter there is probably some pretty stiff competition out there. A visit to the Lincoln library and museum is pretty eye-opening as to how vicious and outrageous political ads and tricks were at that time, to say nothing about the government abuse that took place immediately after that war. For a long time (and still), the commerce in this country was an act of acquisition--of timber, minerals, riverways, harbors, croplands, and railways. It was a poorly controlled brawl, and combatants could behave very badly without many people knowing which dirty tricks were being used and where, and if they knew, being able to do anything about it.
Corruption still happens, of course, but now it is more difficult for power players to do what they do without everybody knowing about it. The lights are on, so to speak. But what appears different, and is very interesting, is that the fight is over information itself now, not information about something, like steel, land for building railroads, or forests. So the lights are on but the nasties are now fighting over how to create illusions with it. They always did, now it is THE game.
That's probably a lot of crapola, and I expect to be called on it, but hey, it's early on a Saturday and the coffee hasn't cleared the cobwebs yet.
