(02-10-2021, 10:18 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote: [ -> ] (02-10-2021, 03:05 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: [ -> ]I agree with all this. I also see the neo-liberal philosophy that took power with Reagan as the lynchpin that has persuaded more people to support this Republican coalition, and the power of these ideas and slogans have compelled Democrats also to compromise too much with it. Those supporting the Republican Party cling to this philosophy, and it needs to be questioned and overturned. Many people were charmed by such figures as Reagan and Trump and find it hard to let go of them. By the way I am arguing now with a friend who thinks RFK Jr. is a great American and that seems to be his basis for claiming vaccines are dangerous and should not be taken. How amazing it is how people can be so hypnotized by charming famous and powerful people.
This philosophy has many names: free-market economics, trickle-down economics, social darwinism, self-reliance, anti-welfare, supply-side, libertarian economics, etc. The political battle between the party of the elites and the party of workers (since the 1890s in the USA, mainly) is the background of the neo-liberal philosophy which backs the moneyed-elites. Reaganomics and neo-liberalism was just a new and more-thorough version, and the racial conflicts find their way into it and blend with it naturally. As you say, the racists, and those who believe the philosophy of the elite (now known as neo-liberalism or Reaganomics), came together into the same party. The 1890s and 1960s saw major shifts in party alliances, and the 1960s began a geographical shift in party support that has ended up by the year 2000 into the red and blue states and counties we know today. Some further shifting continues as we go along too, partly due to demographics.
There may be a growing split now in the Republican Party between the racists and the neo-liberals, but most Republican politicians don't seem ready to get off the Trump boat. Polls I have seen though shows the rank and file evenly-split. So we'll see what happens as the second decade of our 4T continues, and whether they sabotage each other enough to help bring the Party down.
You're right, racism ain't going away because it's deeply embedded in Democratic culture and Democratic politics and there are way to many Democratic supporters making a lot of money off it these days. I mean, could the Left have won without taking full advantage of a white cop killing some black guy during an arrest and completely politicizing it. Like I said, when the day comes that you and every other mindless fool no longer have enough police to protect from the animals don't come crying to me or anyone associated with the America right because we're going to be laughing our asses off as your being attacked and being forced out of your homes.
The Right tends to be much more racist, and the Democrats have a disproportionate share of "model minorities". If you are a Democrat you have contract with members of the Model Minorities or may be a member of such a group. Ask me whether I consider certain differences valid. Jews? Let's see... apparently people do not need Jesus to be moral. I see cheap grace, something completely absent in Judaism but commonplace in certain parts of Christianity, a severe impediment to moral conduct. Islam? A billion Muslims can't be all wrong. LGBT? So long as they don't mess with children... oh, they hate NAMBLA, too, something to do with messing with children, which is a legitimate abomination for us all. Skin color? You cannot choose to be white unless you already are. You might be surprised that skin color among some people of East Asian groups isn't outside of the "white" range. Hispanic origin? What is wrong with their culture? Nothing.
As for you... I doubt that you would be the one to seek out if something went wrong. You lack empathy, and you seem the sort who would have taken delight in watching Christians and malingering slaves fed to the bears and Big Cats in the Roman circuses. (This is not to be confused with the more modern circuses in which "tigers and lions and bears -- oh my!" are compelled to act more like Toto. Dogs are as lethal predators as bears and Big Cats; they differ in being better behaved and more predictable. Aside from the domestic cat, dogs are the only carnivores that you can trust... and cats only because they are too small to maul us). You may be surprised to know that the Romans thought such spectacles exercises in civic virtue. An oddity: lions are less likely to kill people by day, so the encounter between lions and Christians did not always result in the lions dining and the Christians dying. I know your type, and you would endorse whatever cruelty some elite would impose.
Crime is actually going down in recent times in America. Exposure to environmental lead contributes severely to learning disabilities and poor impulse control, both of which themselves contribute to high crime rates. Lead paint is no longer on the market and leaded gasoline is gone. At one time it was easy to predict crime rates in a target pattern, with each circle whose bull's eye is the center city having higher rates of educational underperformance, chronic unemployment, and both property and violent crime increasing in each circle as one goes toward the bull's eye, with the highest rates of educational underperformance, chronic unemployment, and crimes increasing as one approaches the city center. Much of the employment was in the city centers themselves, and commute traffic (and lead emissions) intensified with heavier traffic and slower speeds. People who live in the closest circles got the most lead, and that could mess them up badly.
Drug use is down -- way down! -- among all groups except for poor whites. Opiates have largely disappeared among the ethnic groups that were prone to them in the 1960's because people now in their sixties scare children with tales of how heroin ravaged their communities one person at a time. Drug use many not cause crime; it is possible that criminality correlates with a proclivity to use addictive substances.
Now you tell me: what would you do about those parts of America in which living conditions have deteriorated as jobs have disappeared? Do you give a damn about dying cities in the Midwest from Iowa to Michigan to Ohio to Pennsylvania and New York? People may have never lived quite the "American Dream" because the solid lives depended upon hard work in factories, and hard work is not itself hedonism. This said, people who worked in auto plants at the least could live materially-abundant lives based upon union wages in a vibrant economy. They are the people who bought the air conditioners north of US 40, had the console color TV sets, and bought lots of Perry Como or Lawrence Welk records (if white) or records from Motown. Yes, the market for Motown was heavily black people with jobs at the plant...
Oh, so you don't care? Air conditioning is a luxury (although the line at which it is a luxury will likely have passed from US 40 to US 12 within 40 years due to global warming), and poor people often get stuck without it. You deal in servicing and installation of air conditioners, and it is likely better for you or at least your kids (that work tends to be passed down in the family) that people be able to afford air conditioners.