Current Events > The Alger Hiss affair is the second biggest inflection point in American history

(+) Yeah! (+)

80/80
in terms of single moments that are directly and negatively responsible for the state we find ourselves in, second to only the assassination of Lincoln.

Alger Hiss was a high-ranking Democrat in the federal government who was (probably) a member of the Communist Party during the 20's and 30's. As you might imagine, pretty much every Communist Party had some sort of direct line to the USSR, and Hiss was (probably) responsible for copying sensitive government documents and handing them off to Soviet intelligence. Richard Nixon was wasting away in the dead-end and decrepit HUAC when knowledge of Hiss's spy activities fell into his lap. The subsequent political and legal circuses, in which Hiss's defense strenuously denied his ever having been a communist and demonized communists in the strongest possible terms (the Democrats as a whole got in on this), are responsible both for Nixon's rise to political prominence and for the second Red Scare in its entirety. I could talk at length about how Nixon's election is just about the exact moment the country began its long, lurching descent into the hell we find ourselves in today, but he would have never gotten that far if it weren't for Hiss. If Hiss simply confessed to his wrongdoing on the spot and didn't drag it out over the course of years, we would almost certainly not be dealing with the complete collapse of the country right now.

it was one of the dominos for sure. But the turning point was regan and 9/11

Ubergeneral3 posted...

it was one of the dominos for sure. But the turning point was regan and 9/11

Reagan doesn't happen without Nixon, and 9/11 doesn't happen without Reagan.

Idk about second-most, but its up there.

or many events add up into a turning point...

LonelyStoner posted...

Idk about second-most, but its up there.

What would you put above it?

Ubergeneral3 posted...

it was one of the dominos for sure. But the turning point was regan and 9/11

I feel like it all originates from the end of the civil war and our failure to properly punish the confederates.

bump

Garioshi posted...

What would you put above it?

Pretty much any other event that had immediate consequence instead of multiple events leading up to it.

You may as well blame the Big Bang for causing Trumps two terms.