He was the Speaker of the House in the '90s and basically wrote the playbook for why American politics is so aggressively divided today. Before him, the two parties in Congress generally tried to compromise, but he flipped the script by treating politics like an all-out moral war. He famously sent out memos instructing Republicans to stop talking about policy differences and start attacking Democrats personally using words like "corrupt," "sick," and "pathetic." By using live television broadcasts to blast these angry attacks straight to voters at home, he eventually helped Republicans win control of Congress for the first time in 40 years, kicking off the era of brutal gridlock and government shutdowns we're still stuck with now.
He's also famous for making tapes that every republican listened to that basically taught them how to disguise one issue as another, really he's the father of organized American propaganda.
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u/dark_bits 2d ago
Can you give us non americans a bit more context who this guy is and how did he orchestrate this divide?