Chucking American Government texts

Later this summer we plan to have a blow-out yard sale.  I’m talking a horse-drawn cultivator, tools, kitchen antiques, furniture, and, of course, books.  Tonight I was up in the shed getting the books ready for sale, and I realized that most of my old political science texts were no longer valid.

I last taught American Government in the fall of 2008.  Twitter was in its infancy, the Supreme Court had not issued its “Citizen United” decision, the Voting Rights Act was intact, and while the Patriot Act had been passed after the attack on the World Trade Center, no one had any idea that the N.S.A. was amassing “metadata” of our phone calls and emails.  “Roe v. Wade” was still the law of the land.

“Voter Suppression” was not a nation-wide phenomenon, the “Tea Party” had not been formed, and federal judicial appointments were almost always approved.  The Allentown Morning Call was a reasonably good paper.  Fracking was unknown.  

I do remember a black woman in the class telling me how her mother cried when Obama was elected, and when I tried to explain why, I teared up myself.  Five years seems like an eternity.