The Monster Years

Krugman on the end of The Monster Years:

Last night wasn’t just a victory for tolerance; it wasn’t just a mandate for progressive change; it was also, I hope, the end of the monster years.

What I mean by that is that for the past 14 years America’s political life has been largely dominated by, well, monsters. Monsters like Tom DeLay, who suggested that the shootings at Columbine happened because schools teach students the theory of evolution. Monsters like Karl Rove, who declared that liberals wanted to offer “therapy and understanding” to terrorists. Monsters like Dick Cheney, who saw 9/11 as an opportunity to start torturing people.

And in our national discourse, we pretended that these monsters were reasonable, respectable people. To point out that the monsters were, in fact, monsters, was “shrill.”

Four years ago it seemed as if the monsters would dominate American politics for a long time to come. But for now, at least, they’ve been banished to the wilderness.

Across the Netroots people are saying, Is it real? Am I dreaming? But of course it's real. The unreality of the killer clowns has crumbled, the unbearable nightmare is ending.

As Donna Haraway likes to point out, the word monster comes from the Latin monstrare, "to show." The word "demonstrate" comes from the same source as the word "monster." We have seen the monsters, and they have exposed to the world the catastrophic bankruptcy of corporate-militarism, they have exposed the nihilism of intolerance and exceptionaism. The demonstration has taken place, the monsters have shown their faces. Now, we move on to, you know, the nearly impossible work of building and repair.