At the end of a generational cycle of extreme conservative politics, the facts behind the Big Lie had been laid bare. The promise of "family values" had been shown a sham of bigotry and hypocrisy, the promise of "small government" was exposed as a failed economics of greed, and "strong military" had proven a worldwide disaster of fear-driven arrogance.
Arising in the face of the clear failure of conservatism, was a powerful and vibrant progressivism which offered a pathway towards "universal opportunity" through education, economic fairness, security and healthcare, a pathway towards "leadership security" a new paradigm of leading the world by example, securing the nation's energy future, sustainable economics, and de-funding all sides of international terrorism. Finally it offered a pathway towards "shared responsibility" the opportunity to move beyond the politics of fear and division, towards a true ethic of a responsible national community focused on the shared destiny of the nation and all mankind.
But on August 29, 2009, presidential politics was set on its ear when the party of old, white, southern, men nominated a woman to carry the mantle of their greed, fear, and failure. President Bush had emerged as the embodiment of the combined failures of conservatism, but in a brilliant move, the right-wing strategists, managed to find a culture warrior who was ideologically and temperamentally identical to the president, but also undeniably different. She was after all, a woman. So overwhelmed were the American people by the brilliance of this choice, that they rushed towards her with open arms. The hope for a brighter future, for real change, left by the wayside, Americans embraced the old, failed, corrupt, but wonderfully re-packaged conservatism, and the rest was history.
The far right wing court appointed by the McCain-Palin Administration, and re-energized state-level far right legislatures stripped freedom after freedom away until America was transformed into a class-stratified, and fanatically controlled society. Ecological degradation, combined with the resulting resource wars stripped the nation of its former beauty and confidence. The divided culture resulted in bloody violence, but that was nothing compared to the economic collapse which followed. The "dustbowl economic" policies of the far right robbed small towns, small businesses, and working families of their ability to prosper. Massive oligarchs rose up and took absolute control of all aspects of government in very short order, and in the face of worldwide competition, the uneducated, greedy, arrogant nation was surpassed even military and economic power.
It was the choice of the American people which made the difference. Presented as it was with gleem and polish by the far right, even in the face of the obvious opportunity for change, America chose McCain-Palin and thus began the end of the great American experiment.