There’s a meme that we are where we are today in the U.S. starting with the Reagan presidency, and there’s certainly a lot of truth to that. But personally I believe American politics began a long downward trend once television became the primary medium. We’ve all heard how JFK outsmarted Nixon during their televised debate by wearing a blue shirt, because blue showed up as white whereas Nixon’s white shirt showed up as gray. The visuals of candidates began to dominate politics, and people made their judgements based that. Would Reagan have even become president if he wasn’t so good in front of a camera?