2013 was plenty dire. We had Ted Cruz’s friends in the House trying to dismember social security and medicare while Obama kept explaining away why we needed more troops in Afghanistan and fewer labor organizers in Ohio.

The '08 Housing Crisis was still echoing through the US economy, the economy was stalling in the face of Congressional austerity, and people ringing the big “Climate Change is coming for us” dinner bell were once again getting told to shut up so we wouldn’t scare away moderate republican voters in the 2014 midterms. Israel and Gaza had broken out into a brief shooting war, the recently-debunked Lancet “Vaccination-Autism” study was gaining traction among reactionary politicians, Jeffry Epstein was hanging out with Bill Gates on Palm Beach, and a fresh-faced NYC landlord with political aspirations was all over FOX News saying how he was on the verge of uncovering Obama’s real birth certificate.

The fuse was lit. We were all just in the fucking around phase, rather than the finding out part.