Nah, America was on this trajectory from watergate. The day the other party decided they wanted to give up on bipartisan efforts, and started primary-ing their own for bipartisan behavior, you took a step down this path.
With the advent of Murdoch’s papers and news efforts, the infinite money and credibility glitch allowed for these specific circumstances to occur.
The question is whether the information economy is downstream of the political economy, or vice versa.
That's a different problem. Toxic bipartisanship has been around for a long time with supporters and opponents. But a single billionaire outright buying a candidate to the point where he can claim that the president would not be in office without him is madness.
This is madness from the perspective of a general citizen point of view.
The mechanisms which were broken, that let these events come to pass - these began with the decision to end bipartisanship by republicans.
This isn’t about toxic bipartisanship, which isn’t even an issue. Unadulterated partisanship as a political strategy, is the start.
The enablement is the news ecosystem that was set up to defend these actions, and eventually launched the conversations entirely out of the gravitational well of facts and norms.
With the advent of Murdoch’s papers and news efforts, the infinite money and credibility glitch allowed for these specific circumstances to occur.
The question is whether the information economy is downstream of the political economy, or vice versa.