Fascism is on the ballot - Printable Version +- Generational Theory Forum: The Fourth Turning Forum: A message board discussing generations and the Strauss Howe generational theory (http://generational-theory.com/forum) +-- Forum: Fourth Turning Forums (http://generational-theory.com/forum/forum-1.html) +--- Forum: Current Events (http://generational-theory.com/forum/forum-34.html) +---- Forum: General Political Discussion (http://generational-theory.com/forum/forum-15.html) +---- Thread: Fascism is on the ballot (/thread-7018.html) |
RE: Fascism is on the ballot - Bob Butler 54 - 10-16-2020 Not an expert on Republicans. Can anyone suggest a name for an heir to the Tea Party? He is likely a governor. He would have broke with Trump early on the coronavirus, perhaps joined one of the local blue alliances attempting to correct for a lack of a federal plan. Ideally not with an obvious elitist or racist link. A local hero, not a Washington DC guy. Has a reputation for being with the working man. Likely not with the globalist movement. Romney seems the only anti Trump Washington DC guy, but he had his shot and I am more than a bit dubious. Anyone else? RE: Fascism is on the ballot - Eric the Green - 10-16-2020 (10-16-2020, 07:19 AM)Isoko Wrote: I agree with you Eric when it comes to millenials in America (and the larger Anglo world such as Britain and Canada). The vast majority of them actually are very defensive and supportive of the new multicultural/multiracial society that has been born. They don't have the desire to return to the past. "populist" is not an accurate term for these right-wing folk; that meaning of "populism" implies that "the people" at heart are fearful and prejudiced and can be preyed upon to vote their rights away on that basis, whereas the original meaning of the term means power to the people over moneyed and the other elite interests of a few. Europe and the USA are different, that is true. Europe has a long caesar tradition, whereas USA has a long democratic one. Things have shifted a bit though, because the Europeans since WWII and the American Marshal Plan restoration, and especially since the late sixties movements, took the American sixties movements and older democratic traditions and went with them and became more advanced, while America has gone backward in that time. Also, Europe has a much-stronger socialist tradition, and it's not a dirty word there whereas it is in the USA, especially because the USA was the leader of the Cold War and Russia was the totalitarian "socialist/communist" enemy, and because of our self-reliance capitalist ethic. Therefore with all these trends much has been established in Europe of a liberal and left bent, so the generational cycle of returning caesars may not apply. But you may be right that with the millennials it is coming around again, and the immigrant/refugee crisis certainly has stoked it with the rise of LePen, Brexit, the Italian right-wing leaders, neo-Nazis in Germany, and the drift back to authoritarian government in eastern Europe, etc. There is also certainly rising people-power opposition to these trends, as there is in the whole world now. That's true populism. So, we'll see. I think if caesarism returns it will be a 4T thing, and that means soon. It may already be too late for the LePen types, since the refugee crisis is easing now. Trump's fall, if it happens, will also take some air out of this movement. A progressive turn in America will influence what happens in Europe once again. RE: Fascism is on the ballot - Classic-Xer - 10-17-2020 (10-16-2020, 12:59 PM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: Not an expert on Republicans. Can anyone suggest a name for an heir to the Tea Party?Marco Rubio. The White Supremacists won't like it but who gives a shit about them. Romney is done as a national contender unless he switches parties again and becomes a Democrat again. I mean, he is a JFK Democrat at heart. RE: Fascism is on the ballot - Classic-Xer - 10-17-2020 (10-16-2020, 04:19 PM)Eric the Green Wrote:It's an accurate term to use for a group of American middle class voters like the Trump supporters and the American Tea Party. The Macbeth's (GOP) are now on your side.(10-16-2020, 07:19 AM)Isoko Wrote: I agree with you Eric when it comes to millenials in America (and the larger Anglo world such as Britain and Canada). The vast majority of them actually are very defensive and supportive of the new multicultural/multiracial society that has been born. They don't have the desire to return to the past. RE: Fascism is on the ballot - Classic-Xer - 10-17-2020 (10-15-2020, 01:39 PM)CH86 Wrote:Age becomes a factor even with Trump. I don't see him running again in 2024. If Trump wins, the Republican party will become America's party because it will have no other choice than to become America's party which will result in the Democratic party being left to their own devices and eventually their own demise. To me, Trump's election buys time for more Americans to get of Dodge so to speak.(10-15-2020, 12:40 PM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote:(10-15-2020, 11:26 AM)CH86 Wrote: Donald Trump WILL Run again in 2024 (after repealing the two terms limit/he will achieve this via Berniecrats unexpectedly siding with the GOP on this one issue) but will be crushed in that election in 2024... RE: Fascism is on the ballot - Bob Butler 54 - 10-17-2020 (10-17-2020, 04:00 AM)Classic-Xer Wrote: If Trump wins, the Republican party will become America's party because it will have no other choice than to become America's party which will result in the Democratic party being left to their own devices and eventually their own demise. The Republicans have to get rid of Trump, the Trump enablers, the Trump base, the racist tendency and the elitist tendency. That, and they have to wait for the turnings to go selfish again. It will take that long to rebuild after the 'get rid of' phase anyway. Of course, there is always the chance that the Trump base will come out on top of the Republicans struggle for control of the party. If that is the case, and the base still seems dedicated enough to the racist cause that it might happen, the party goes down to a non contender status. Trump could prove a looser, but the core of the strongest conservative faction. RE: Fascism is on the ballot - David Horn - 10-17-2020 (10-15-2020, 02:18 PM)Isoko Wrote: Actually when Biden wins (and it is pretty definite at this point) there will be some moaning and shootings from the right wingers but it will quieten down. There won't be any major civil war or insurgency in America because of one simple fact: you guys are still very comfortable. We Americans are a lot more idiosyncratic than you think. We tend to be less responsive to facts and more likely to believe what we prefer rather than what is real -- QAnon being a prime example. Russians have always been cynical, so you are less susceptible to the nonsense we're absorbing by the tonne. Assuming erratic behavior, and you'll be better served, and violence falls into that category. It's less likely but fully possible. RE: Fascism is on the ballot - David Horn - 10-17-2020 (10-15-2020, 11:17 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote:(10-15-2020, 12:40 PM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: I suspect the polls are more or less right, Trump will loose, be found guilty of something or other, and therefore be disqualified from running in 2024. This might not stop him from going through the motions, it will just prevent him from winning. I don't expect, however, to convince an ideologue. We'll see how Earth 1 progresses. Unless I'm living in your alternate reality, I have a hard time seeing how rural America can flourish on its own. Yes, you'll have the land and no assets to develop it -- big empty areas for grazing and raising crops. The plains states may have a future in wind and solar energy, but you don't believe in that stuff, do you? RE: Fascism is on the ballot - David Horn - 10-17-2020 (10-16-2020, 04:33 AM)Classic-Xer Wrote: I can tell that Isoko doesn't live here. I can say the same about you, and be more accurate in doing so. You are part of the alternate truth squad, who have demonized fact over opinion for so long, you can't tell the difference anymore. RW and social media have more in common with Soviet Pravda than they do with reality. I assume they are your source of "news". RE: Fascism is on the ballot - David Horn - 10-17-2020 (10-16-2020, 05:05 AM)Isoko Wrote: Classic Xer, Spot on! RE: Fascism is on the ballot - David Horn - 10-17-2020 (10-16-2020, 12:59 PM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: Not an expert on Republicans. Can anyone suggest a name for an heir to the Tea Party? Jeff Flake and Ben Sasse are both potentials, and Nikki Haley is already running for 2028. What they look like philosophically is still open to election blowback. RE: Fascism is on the ballot - David Horn - 10-17-2020 (10-16-2020, 04:19 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: "populist" is not an accurate term for these right-wing folk; that meaning of "populism" implies that "the people" at heart are fearful and prejudiced and can be preyed upon to vote their rights away on that basis, whereas the original meaning of the term means power to the people over moneyed and the other elite interests of a few... Here we disagree, because the idea of populism isn't ideological, it's emotional. Any leader who appeals to heart-over-head is being a populist. Bernie Sanders is a populist but one based in the real world. QAnon is populist and maniacal. The two aren't mutually exclusive. RE: Fascism is on the ballot - Eric the Green - 10-17-2020 (10-17-2020, 08:58 AM)David Horn Wrote:(10-16-2020, 04:19 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: "populist" is not an accurate term for these right-wing folk; that meaning of "populism" implies that "the people" at heart are fearful and prejudiced and can be preyed upon to vote their rights away on that basis, whereas the original meaning of the term means power to the people over moneyed and the other elite interests of a few... There again, the assumption in using "populist" in this way, assumes that "the people" (as opposed to some sort of elite or more intellectual folks) are more likely to be emotional than rational. I don't see any basis for defining the word populist this way, as opposed to its original ideological meaning. Any populist is one based in the real world, and any populist is similar to Bernie Sanders. QAnon, Le Pen, Trump, Erdogen and company are not populists. They are demagogues. They appeal to prejudice and fear in order to take the people's rights away. "The people", of whatever class, should be assumed, and asked, to be as rational and aware of their real interests as are those of educated elites, who are also part of "the people." And in a democratic society, the people rule, not the elites. Democracy = rule by the people. Now there's a good word. And people of all classes also have emotional and entertainment interests as well. Thus, any presidential candidate to win, regardless of ideology, has to be likable, connect well with people, and give the impression of being a real leader. Thus Bill Clinton won because (among other things) at the debate he showed empathy with his audience while Bush looked at his watch. Democrats do not take this into account as often as Republicans do. Their nominees are frequently wonks chosen because of their policies, and thus lose. This is just good psychology, and paying good heed to astrology too. "Populism" just another term that has been corrupted in conventional usage today. It consider it a disrespectful term to apply to "the people." RE: Fascism is on the ballot - Eric the Green - 10-17-2020 (10-17-2020, 08:50 AM)David Horn Wrote:(10-16-2020, 12:59 PM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: Not an expert on Republicans. Can anyone suggest a name for an heir to the Tea Party? Astrologically, they are losers. Tom Cotton seems the most likely heir. And Trump actually wanted to make Ivanka his heir. If she acquired more qualifications, and performed well in some public position, she would be a dynamite candidate. Watch out for her, especially if Barrett makes Trump president (for life?). Romney remains a conservative. Where he differs from Trump and Company is that he also has principles and ethics. Maybe that reflects his Mormon background. I see above Bob refers back to Classic Xer, who mentioned Marco Rubio. He is certainly a follower of Reagan, as are many Xer politicians, but I'm not sure that makes him a Tea Party darling. His score improved a bit in my new system, but it is still not impressive. So if he is going to be a Republican leader in the future, that does not mean he will be elected president, unless his opponents are weak. I still wonder a bit how he lost to Ted Cruz, who is not an appealing candidate at all. It just shows the ideological power of the right wing in the Repug Party, I guess. And the power of his home state. RE: Fascism is on the ballot - Eric the Green - 10-17-2020 (10-17-2020, 08:36 AM)David Horn Wrote:(10-15-2020, 11:17 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote:(10-15-2020, 12:40 PM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: I suspect the polls are more or less right, Trump will loose, be found guilty of something or other, and therefore be disqualified from running in 2024. This might not stop him from going through the motions, it will just prevent him from winning. I don't expect, however, to convince an ideologue. We'll see how Earth 1 progresses. Your excellent point has deprived Classic Xer of a reply. It's interesting that he confuses his half of "America" with ours, the one that is "a free country that's committed to upholding the rule of law that truly represents a commitment to equality and maintaining higher living standards..." RE: Fascism is on the ballot - pbrower2a - 10-17-2020 (10-16-2020, 04:19 PM)Eric the Green Wrote:(10-16-2020, 07:19 AM)Isoko Wrote: I agree with you Eric when it comes to millenials in America (and the larger Anglo world such as Britain and Canada). The vast majority of them actually are very defensive and supportive of the new multicultural/multiracial society that has been born. They don't have the desire to return to the past. Is populist any worse a term than, for example socialist or revolutionary? I remember seeing an image of a billboard in Cuba that extolled "Socialist Revolution -- of the common man, by the common man, and for the common man" in a deliberate use of a key phrase of Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg Address on behalf of Castro's "revolution". Quote:Europe and the USA are different, that is true. Europe has a long Caesar tradition, whereas USA has a long democratic one. Things have shifted a bit though, because the Europeans since WWII and the American Marshall Plan restoration, and especially since the late sixties movements, took the American sixties movements and older democratic traditions and went with them and became more advanced, while America has gone backward in that time. America and most of Europe experienced much the same Enlightenment. The difference is that the landed elites did everything possible to protect their class privilege from democracy. European economic elites saw their own power, indulgence, and gain as the definitive expression of the social optimum and sought to limit the Enlightenment to cultural creation in lofty literature, music, and art and to science and technological progress. (It was not so simple in America, where the slave-owning planters whose economic values were feudal). Politics? The economic elites squelched that area of the Enlightenment, and in many countries political change would require revolutions beginning with the French Revolution. The American Revolution came into being before the Industrial Revolution took hold in America, so the American Revolution came before socialism was even a word. The Humanist enlightenment in Europe would largely need revolution or other overthrow to bring an end to the last traces of feudal structure. Quote:Also, Europe has a much-stronger socialist tradition, and it's not a dirty word there whereas it is in the USA, especially because the USA was the leader of the Cold War and Russia was the totalitarian "socialist/communist" enemy, and because of our self-reliance capitalist ethic. Therefore with all these trends much has been established in Europe of a liberal and left bent, so the generational cycle of returning caesars may not apply. But you may be right that with the millennials it is coming around again, and the immigrant/refugee crisis certainly has stoked it with the rise of LePen, Brexit, the Italian right-wing leaders, neo-Nazis in Germany, and the drift back to authoritarian government in eastern Europe, etc. There is also certainly rising people-power opposition to these trends, as there is in the whole world now. That's true populism. Populism needs humanism to avoid becoming fascist. America has a "populist" party, but it is very much on the Far Right, much in contrast to the Populist Party that Americans knew in the time of William Jennings Bryan. Socialism needs democracy and the rule of law to avoid degenerating into the Bolshevik-Stalinist-Maoist-Khmer Rouge nightmare. This said, I see tendencies within some libertarian talk that promises (paradoxically) the Marxist assumption that the State will wither away. That's not to say that institutions of the State can wither away without doing great harm to multitudes. I can easily imagine a libertarian society degenerating into a feudal nightmare in which the rich-and-powerful have the dubious freedom of doing to any tenant or employee whatever those rich-and-powerful people want to do. Needful institutions include courts of law, without which lynch mobs will arise. I have never known any elite, whether shamans of tribal societies or the nomenklatura of "socialist" states, including kings, military cliques, feudal lords, academics, or entrepreneurs, with freedom, justice, or social equity. Oligarchy and despotism are always threats to Humanity, and if Donald Trump does not teach that to Americans, then what will? No matter what social organization one has, civil liberties, competitive elections by necessity free and fair, checks and balances, and the rule of law are all that prevent any people from going into the Abyss of despotism and dictatorship. Quote:So, we'll see. I think if caesarism returns it will be a 4T thing, and that means soon. It may already be too late for the LePen types, since the refugee crisis is easing now. Trump's fall, if it happens, will also take some ar out of this movement. A progressive turn in America will influence what happens in Europe once again. If you think the refugee crisis is bad now, then wait until King Neptune starts confiscating the land of hundreds of millions of peasant farmers with the corresponding reduction in food supplies. Hunger allows no technological fix. RE: Fascism is on the ballot - Classic-Xer - 10-17-2020 (10-17-2020, 01:06 PM)Eric the Green Wrote:I wasn't here to reply him.(10-17-2020, 08:36 AM)David Horn Wrote:(10-15-2020, 11:17 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote:(10-15-2020, 12:40 PM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: I suspect the polls are more or less right, Trump will loose, be found guilty of something or other, and therefore be disqualified from running in 2024. This might not stop him from going through the motions, it will just prevent him from winning. I don't expect, however, to convince an ideologue. We'll see how Earth 1 progresses. RE: Fascism is on the ballot - Classic-Xer - 10-18-2020 (10-17-2020, 07:15 AM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote:We already came out on top of the struggle for control over the party. The Republican party knows that it can't win without us and the Trump supporters and the Evangelicals these days. You really have to start paying attention to what you write about us and our so called tendencies compared to the tendencies that we can see and directly associate with you and the Democratic side.(10-17-2020, 04:00 AM)Classic-Xer Wrote: If Trump wins, the Republican party will become America's party because it will have no other choice than to become America's party which will result in the Democratic party being left to their own devices and eventually their own demise. RE: Fascism is on the ballot - Classic-Xer - 10-18-2020 (10-17-2020, 08:43 AM)David Horn Wrote:You assume??? Is there a Liberal around here who really knows anything at this point?? Let's see, we have Facebook and Twitter censoring/banning conservatives and banning press releases related to Biden and you're telling me that we're associated with the alternate truth squad. I watch Fox news and I check out their competition to see if they've changed or still the same. So, what's your opinion worth to me, has it's value changed over fifteen years.(10-16-2020, 04:33 AM)Classic-Xer Wrote: I can tell that Isoko doesn't live here. RE: Fascism is on the ballot - Bob Butler 54 - 10-18-2020 (10-18-2020, 12:48 AM)Classic-Xer Wrote: We already came out on top of the struggle for control over the party. The Republican party knows that it can't win without us and the Trump supporters and the Evangelicals these days. You really have to start paying attention to what you write about us and our so called tendencies compared to the tendencies that we can see and directly associate with you and the Democratic side. The problem will be if you can't win with them. There are more people who reject Trump, racism and elitism these days. If as you say what is left of the conservatives will be dominated by a bunch of losers, that is fine for the Democrats short term. |