The measure of success they have achieved has only become readily apparent in the last few years. We find ourselves on the precipice of catastrophe after financial collapse, thousands having been killed, a city lying in ruins. (These things have been a long time coming and there's plenty of blame to go around [3]).

And yet it didn't take just a bad administration or poor policy decisions for people to notice the issues. The populace didn't notice until the point at which we can now argue about how far off the cliff we are.

And it is still not entirely clear that the population at large understands why they find themselves at this point.

The Republican party has waged a successful war to equate taxation with moral evil, to equate liberals with dictators, fairness with interference, and tyranny with order.

In the last election, Republicans accused the middle classes of irresponsibly voting to enrich themselves at the expense of the upper classes.

But in order to get elected, this is precisely the path Republicans have traveled. They have promised low taxes, easy riches, and no regulation to the upper classes, all the while telling people that this was compatible with the continuation of America as we have known it. Not only that, but they have convinced many in the middle class that these actions are beneficial to them and that they are just an asset bubble away from joining the ranks of the ultra-rich.

They have essentially waged war on America's historic values.

It is easy to see how one might be misled. As a kid my family often took long car trips across the country on the Interstates. As far as i could understand, the Interstate system had always been there. And as far as i could tell it would always be there. It was after all built out of earth, gravel, and concrete.

But it turns out the Interstate system did not magically appear, and will not last indefinitely after having been built. It was a substantial investment made to foster defense and commerce. Even if one never sets tire on an Interstate, one benefits from it whenever buying practically any good or using any service. [1]

The fact that most of the Interstates are not toll roads has insulated the direct costs from us. That they have existed for all if not the majority of many's lifetime has insulated us from the fact that it had not always been this way.

I would assert that this has been happening to a larger extent over a greater period of time with regards to our way of life. Our country and indeed our civilization is not the result of our generation, nor the previous generation. It is the sum of 200 plus years of work, and another 1000 or more years even before that to lay the ground work of ideas of rights and civil justice.

In short, like so many things, we have taken our civilization for granted. We may pay lip service to our founding on the Fourth of July, but it seems like people understand our civilization as having been created out of whole-cloth after WWII.

So where we find ourselves now is at the end of a historic aberration and at the beginning of the consequences of that aberration.

To combat this i would propose another branding campaign. Not one that says that the Democrat Party is the source of all good, and the Republik Party is the source of all evil. But one that promotes a little historic understanding:

• That Liberal Democracy ensures a government which is limited, that guarantees rights of speech and assembly. That private property and individual freedoms are rights derived from liberalism. That those liberals, the Founding Fathers set up our liberal government. That liberalism ensures that we can worship (or not) as we please.

  Again we are not trying to say Democrats are the embodiment of these things or that all good things issue from there. What we should attempt to do is underline the fact liberalism brought us our way of life and that it is a superlative of excellence and not an insult.

  That we should recognize we are all liberals and we should use the term with respect to the benefits we derive from it.

• That labor unions have brought us many things which we take for granted, like having a fighting chance of not dying at work, getting vacations, working hard for 5 days a week (and not 7), for working hard for 8 hours a day and not 15. (I'm talking to you all you fat cat lazy, commie bums who only work 8 hours 5 days a week).
• That feminism is why women can vote, own land, and enter into contracts. It's why they can go on TV and talk about the evils of feminism instead of being told to go home and find themselves a man.
• That taxes are what funded the construction of our nation. That taxes today are historically low. That civilization costs money and does not happen by itself. (If it did, then you could maybe justify saying taxes were immoral). That taxes have ensured the progress of our society through research, oversight, law enforcement, and many other things it funds[4].
• That intellectualism is what made possible better health, longer life, the Internet, transportation, radio, TV, phones, ....
• etc, etc, etc.

The problem is that they have based their entire political fortune on demonizing them. And while it wins them elections, it is having the unintended(!?) consequence of making people hate the very foundations of our civilization.[2]

[1] Leaving aside comparisons to railroads, and negative effects like pollution, etc.
[2] Not unlike the unintended consequences of demonizing people and groups of people leading to violence.
[3] Again to underline: i'm not saying these things were Republican's fault or that a Democratic administration would have prevented them. I'm saying that even after these quite extraordinary events, people are only now beginning to ask questions about their government's (and its policies) effectiveness.
[4] I still hate paying them.