Has the regeneracy arrived?

[pbrower2a]

(11-12-2016, 04:34 PM)Arkarch Wrote: I am not so worried about Trump - who is 70 yrs old and while determined on some issues, seems entirely ADD on others.  Its Pence that concerns me.... obviously accepted for VP in return for unwavoring religious right support.  It looks like he has been given free hand to figure out the administration.

It's the Senate and the House of Corporate Lobbyists that will enact and pass bills to turn the social calendar back 120 years. No more Great Society. No more New Deal. Back to the Gilded Age, with farm laborers starving despite working in some of the richest farmland in the world, children toiling in mines and factories, and the 70-hour workweek and 40-year lifespan as the norm for industrial workers. No unions, no medical insurance -- just suffering. Maybe to punish blacks and other  minorities who saw through Donald trump and rejected him he will impose Jim Crow, if not Apartheid.

Were I a Communist I would be licking my chops.

[Ritterlich]

Trump will live and die with improving the financial conditions and social standing of the working and middle class, particularly the white one. If he doesn't improve this fast enough he'll implode and they will probably come after him with all their guns. He knows this, probably better than anyone else. He will bully the establishment GOP who are now rapidly waking up to this reality as well into spending so much Nationalist Keynesian money like there's no tomorrow, drying out the labor pool by deporting illegal immigrants and restricting work visa and enacting tariffs to make American workers competitive. Trump gains nothing from unhappy workers. He couldn't care less about unhappy welfare people because these vote Democrat. He may make their life miserable, ok. But there is no turning back working conditions to the miserable state of the industrial revolution or whatever. It's the opposite he'll make sure American workers are so scarce they can demand better raises than in decades. This in turn will enhance their social standing and this in turn will make them happy Trump voters. This is not your father's GOP anymore. Trump has been teaching them a big lesson. Are they stoopid and slow to learn? Sure but they are not complete idiots.
If you want to understand how right-wing populism works to the very extreme read on Hitler's economic programs upon becoming Chancellor in 1933. This lead to a big boost in income for the working class (unless you were Jewish or communist then it was a disaster from the get-go). Skilled workers were in such high demand it was crazy. Obviously Trump will not go this extreme but that's the direction. It's the same playbook. Only thing that's different instead of a Grey Champion we now have an Orange Champion. :-)

[pbrower2a]

(11-12-2016, 07:26 PM)Ritterlich Wrote: Trump will live and die with improving the financial conditions and social standing of the working and middle class, particularly the white one. If he doesn't improve this fast enough he'll implode and they will probably come after him with all their guns. He knows this, probably better than anyone else. He will bully the establishment GOP who are now rapidly waking up to this reality as well into spending so much Nationalist Keynesian money like there's no tomorrow, drying out the labor pool by deporting illegal immigrants and restricting work visa and enacting tariffs to make American workers competitive. Trump gains nothing from unhappy workers. He couldn't care less about unhappy welfare people because these vote Democrat. He may make their life miserable, ok. But there is no turning back working conditions to the miserable state of the industrial revolution or whatever. It's the opposite he'll make sure American workers are so scarce they can demand better raises than in decades. This in turn will enhance their social standing and this in turn will make them happy Trump voters. This is not your father's GOP anymore. Trump has been teaching them a big lesson. Are they stoopid and slow to learn? Sure but they are not complete idiots.

If you want to understand how right-wing populism works to the very extreme read on Hitler's economic programs upon becoming Chancellor in 1933. This lead to a big boost in income for the working class (unless you were Jewish or communist then it was a disaster from the get-go). Skilled workers were in such high demand it was crazy. Obviously Trump will not go this extreme but that's the direction. It's the same playbook. Only thing that's different instead of a Grey Champion we now have an Orange Champion. :-)

To give adequate rewards to the white working class he would have to establish an Apartheid system.

Donald Judas Trump intends to dismantle Dodd-Frank, so any gain that an7yone gets is likely to end in an economic meltdown as severe and protracted as that of 1929-1932.

If Donald Trump is a Grey Champion, then apparently the Grey Champion can be an evil man. I never saw  Howe or Strauss call Josef Stalin a Grey Champion -- did you?

[Warren Dew]

(11-12-2016, 07:26 PM)Ritterlich Wrote: Trump will live and die with improving the financial conditions and social standing of the working and middle class, particularly the white one. If he doesn't improve this fast enough he'll implode and they will probably come after him with all their guns. He knows this, probably better than anyone else. He will bully the establishment GOP who are now rapidly waking up to this reality as well into spending so much Nationalist Keynesian money like there's no tomorrow, drying out the labor pool by deporting illegal immigrants and restricting work visa and enacting tariffs to make American workers competitive. Trump gains nothing from unhappy workers. He couldn't care less about unhappy welfare people because these vote Democrat. He may make their life miserable, ok. But there is no turning back working conditions to the miserable state of the industrial revolution or whatever. It's the opposite he'll make sure American workers are so scarce they can demand better raises than in decades. This in turn will enhance their social standing and this in turn will make them happy Trump voters. This is not your father's GOP anymore. Trump has been teaching them a big lesson. Are they stoopid and slow to learn? Sure but they are not complete idiots.

This is certainly his plan, and it's a good one.  Whether he achieves it depends on the acumen of his economic team.

[Ritterlich]

(11-12-2016, 08:39 PM)pbrower2a Wrote:

(11-12-2016, 07:26 PM)Ritterlich Wrote: :-)

To give adequate rewards to the white working class he would have to establish an Apartheid system.

No. Read on Hitler's economic policies as an example of right-wing populism. It's not a big problem as long as you do it decisively. The whole working and middle class will profit.

Donald Judas Trump intends to dismantle Dodd-Frank, so any gain that an7yone gets is likely to end in an economic meltdown as severe and protracted as that of 1929-1932.

We already had the financial crisis. While we'll have more recessions the economic meltdown is behind us.

If Donald Trump is a Grey Champion, then apparently the Grey Champion can be an evil man. I never saw  Howe or Strauss call Josef Stalin a Grey Champion -- did you?

The leader of the regeneracy will decide on winners and losers very rapidly (to quote Strauss/Howe) and as per his liking and not your personal value system. Plus who will write the history books?

[Eric the Green]

(11-11-2016, 04:21 AM)Ragnarök_62 Wrote: -Kinda like playing poker, right? Sometimes, no matter how good you are. You can get shitty cards and still lose.

-Uh, that 1861 thing just didn't work so well.   That 1T after was the Gilded Age. It will be hard to start a war since that money is for SS and Medicare will be big then.

I think the above will cause a stawk market crash. Climate disruptions are very bearish, man.

It's hard to tell what I'm replying to since I have to delete what I said in order to respond....

[Eric the Green]

(11-11-2016, 04:21 AM)Ragnarök_62 Wrote: It's not a regeneracy at all. If anything, more fragmentation and acrimony are coming.

Dunno.

Dark, dark possibilities.

-Especially stawk market crash.

You have a point X, if a regeneracy means greater unity pushing society in one direction. That could hardly describe the civil war, though. And the Revolution was a fragmentation of the same kind, between parts of what had been one nation (motherland and colonies). If anything the New Deal/WWII was the aberration among 4Ts.

(11-11-2016, 03:59 AM)Eric the Green Wrote:

(11-10-2016, 04:15 PM)X_4AD_84D Wrote: I think we have interpreted a regeneracy as a positive thing that could lead to progressive change, since in the past we have always looked upon 4Ts as conflicts in which the good guys won, and we got more freedom and justice out of it. So it has seemed to me too. But this time we may have voted for a regeneracy that will lead our nation to ruin instead. In other countries, not as lucky as ours, 4Ts can bring defeat and ruin. So it did for Dixie as well. 

-Kinda like playing poker, right? Sometimes, no matter how good you are. You can get shitty cards and still lose.

Kinda, except for the fact that in the USA in the Millennial saeculum, the USA could not have been dealt better cards. Since 1980, we lost despite getting these good cards.

Quote:

Quote:Or else, another regeneracy is still ahead in about 2022 that will be stirred up by the ruin that Trump and the Republicans will have caused. Remember that, as I see it, the 1861 regeneracy came at the end of that 4T, since in reality it began in 1850 or earlier, after 3 dufus presidents. And our 4T most resembles that one. And mobilization for war was like a second regeneracy in the last 4T, which was what really cured the depression (war spending and victory).

-Uh, that 1861 thing just didn't work so well.   That 1T after was the Gilded Age. It will be hard to start a war since that money is for SS and Medicare will be big then.

The Gilded Age was just a typical 1T; the fifties was quite similar; just that we had progressed and the little guy had more. So I guess we just go back this time to the Gilded Age. That's what some here have been saying. As of now, we are on track to go to something worse, perhaps: a banana republic.

I think after Ryan and the Trumps get through, Medicare and SS won't be such a big deal; it will just be cut and people will be insecure and sick. They don't care a fig. You think the landowners in a banana republic care if their people are sick and insecure?

Quote:

Quote:4Ts are likened to "winter" by the authors. This time it is a literal winter, but one that will last beyond this saeculum, because of what we have failed to do-- deal with climate change and pollution. And on Nov.8 we decided not to deal with it effectively for the next 4-6 years, which were the critical decisive years. The American people voted for more severe climate change, and that's what we'll get. Dark realities to come.

I think the above will cause a stawk market crash. Climate disruptions are very bearish, man.

A stawk market crash will just be the first event in a permanent depression, except that for a while the landowners will be fine.

[pbrower2a]

Evil Empires (and a shyster-dominated government will be such) have a tendency to implode -- or commit suicide in wars that they start. At the extreme Adolf Hitler got a false regeneracy (He solved some problems but created far worse ones for Germany) after shaking up much of German economic and cultural life.

We have yet to see the last act of this Crisis Era. The absolute plutocracy that awaits us in January is also the sort of regime that sparks great social unrest that can culminate in revolution. The culmination of this Crisis Era could be a forced restart.

Are we even certain that the Grey Champion of this Crisis need be an American? Think of General Douglas MacArthur in liberated Japan. That could be my best hope. Some Chinese general decides upon the defeat of America in World War III that the liberals who have largely gone into political hibernation are the most trustworthy Americans if he wants an America that causes no more problems. Maybe someone suggests "Oh yes, this is the Constitution that closes the most loopholes to dictatorial government, including fascism. We can almost translate it literally into English"

[Marypoza]

(11-12-2016, 11:30 PM)Eric the Green Wrote:

(11-11-2016, 04:21 AM)Ragnarök_62 Wrote: It's not a regeneracy at all. If anything, more fragmentation and acrimony are coming.

Dunno.

Dark, dark possibilities.

-Especially stawk market crash.

You have a point X, if a regeneracy means greater unity pushing society in one direction. That could hardly describe the civil war, though. And the Revolution was a fragmentation of the same kind, between parts of what had been one nation (motherland and colonies). If anything the New Deal/WWII was the aberration among 4Ts.

(11-11-2016, 03:59 AM)Eric the Green Wrote:

(11-10-2016, 04:15 PM)X_4AD_84D Wrote: I think we have interpreted a regeneracy as a positive thing that could lead to progressive change, since in the past we have always looked upon 4Ts as conflicts in which the good guys won, and we got more freedom and justice out of it. So it has seemed to me too. But this time we may have voted for a regeneracy that will lead our nation to ruin instead. In other countries, not as lucky as ours, 4Ts can bring defeat and ruin. So it did for Dixie as well. 

-Kinda like playing poker, right? Sometimes, no matter how good you are. You can get shitty cards and still lose.

Kinda, except for the fact that in the USA in the Millennial saeculum, the USA could not have been dealt better cards. Since 1980, we lost despite getting these good cards.

Quote:

Quote:Or else, another regeneracy is still ahead in about 2022 that will be stirred up by the ruin that Trump and the Republicans will have caused. Remember that, as I see it, the 1861 regeneracy came at the end of that 4T, since in reality it began in 1850 or earlier, after 3 dufus presidents. And our 4T most resembles that one. And mobilization for war was like a second regeneracy in the last 4T, which was what really cured the depression (war spending and victory).

-Uh, that 1861 thing just didn't work so well.   That 1T after was the Gilded Age. It will be hard to start a war since that money is for SS and Medicare will be big then.

The Gilded Age was just a typical 1T; the fifties was quite similar; just that we had progressed and the little guy had more. So I guess we just go back this time to the Gilded Age. That's what some here have been saying. As of now, we are on track to go to something worse, perhaps: a banana republic.

I think after Ryan and the Trumps get through, Medicare and SS won't be such a big deal; it will just be cut and people will be insecure and sick. They don't care a fig. You think the landowners in a banana republic care if their people are sick and insecure?

Quote:

Quote:4Ts are likened to "winter" by the authors. This time it is a literal winter, but one that will last beyond this saeculum, because of what we have failed to do-- deal with climate change and pollution. And on Nov.8 we decided not to deal with it effectively for the next 4-6 years, which were the critical decisive years. The American people voted for more severe climate change, and that's what we'll get. Dark realities to come.

I think the above will cause a stawk market crash. Climate disruptions are very bearish, man.

A stawk market crash will just be the first event in a permanent depression, except that for a while the landowners will be fine.

(11-10-2016, 04:26 PM)taramarie Wrote:

(11-10-2016, 04:22 PM)Galen Wrote:

(11-10-2016, 04:09 PM)taramarie Wrote: Sigh. Ok Eric has not learned after all.

I think this video sums up his approach to life.

True. Not only that though he bashes anyone who does not believe in what he does. I can understand his anger as well as the republicans anger and reaction. But bashing is what lead to even more division and anger. It is of course not the only reason. But it fed it. I hope he learns that with time.

The Romans did not have a stawk mawket, but l once heard their collapse & the ensuing Dark Ages descibed as a depression that lasted 500 yrs. lnterestingly enough the climate flipped from a warming period to a cooling period. The Dark Ages ended when the climate flipped warm again,  called (creatively enuf) the Medieval Warm Period*

[disasterzone]

Regeneracy to me means fixing the damage that's already been done. I think we need to do this in this order


1. Fix damage and implement policies that fix the immediate damage
2. Implement different policies for the future only after the damage has been corrected. 

Like for the student loan crisis, it would make sense to halt interest rates and pay off whatever interest was on people's student loans more than it would to make college for free. I mean why would someone vote to get taxed more while paying off their student loan debt if only the next generation benefits? it doesn't make sense.

[Emman85]

This year has definitely Imo given more evidence that the 4T started in 2008 with the financial crisis. That is our year zero, the discontent and populism of the 2010s begins there, the 00s was a very decadent Era of celebrity worship and the height of neoconservativism, typical 3T.

[Eric the Green]

Let's just call the 2016 election what it is: the degeneracy.

Will there be a regeneracy? If so, it has begun now, in the streets. And it will be the regeneracy only if it continues and bears fruit on election day, with the reversal of the degeneracy of 2016.

Have other 4Ts seen degeneracies? Maybe the years leading up to the civil war, at least in Dixie.

[pbrower2a]

(11-19-2016, 01:26 AM)Eric the Green Wrote: Let's just call the 2016 election what it is: the degeneracy.

Will there be a regeneracy? If so, it has begun now, in the streets. And it will be the regeneracy only if it continues and bears fruit on election day, with the reversal of the degeneracy of 2016.

Have other 4Ts seen degeneracies? Maybe the years leading up to the civil war, at least in Dixie.

That's now how I have understood or used the word Degeneracy, not that it is an official term in the Howe and Strauss lexicon.  I look to the raw end of the 3T in which weak leadership fails to solve problems that it could readily solve if it paid attention to something other than letting elites wax fat, gross neglect of social and political needs during a depraved time leading inevitably to a 4T. But Regeneracy? We had a promising start in January 2009, only to throw it away in the Tea Party episode.

If we get a principled resistance to a President trying to act as a dictator and his efforts to divide America into "winners" and "victims", then we have a Regeneracy. Just imagine a majority of Americans coalescing on the protection of minority rights and the protection of the environment... and perhaps seeking to stop a catastrophic war before it begins.

We may be seeing a spiral of violence more characteristic of the worst part of the Crisis, the beginning of the end stage in which things seem to be going one way and can swing wildly. Think of the Confederate naval assault on Fort Sumter. Four years after Fort Sumter, the Confederate Army was running out of soldiers at the Battle of Petersburg to defend Richmond. Four years after Operation Barbarossa began, Adolf Hitler, Josef Goebbels, and Heinrich Himmler were in Hell... and four years after the Japanese attack on what the thugs who ruled Japan deemed the weak and vacillating democracies had most major Japanese leaders who had attacked the United States and the British Commonwealth were incarcerated.

There is no predictable schedule. The President-Elect loves to be unpredictable. We have no idea what tempests he will stir in the teapot known as Planet Earth. He will be easy to mock so long as we do not dread the consequences of imprisonment, personal ruin, or death. We shall see how strong the Constitutional restraints are upon the whims of a leader with despotic tendencies.

If Vladimir Putin chose to support him with methods that got our President-Elect elected, then he could come to rue the Frankenstein monster that he created. "Steady and predictable" is far safer than "capricious and irascible", no matter what the ideology is of a leader facing the most powerful person in a rival, let alone hostile, power.

...The people who have prevented President Barack Obama from exercising the political system to reform the political system in necessary and benign ways will soon enable the worst tendencies of a thoroughly-vile man. Power has now replaced service as the objective of American politics, and I cannot see any other instance of such in any other political order ever working well for that political entity. The best that that political entity can have happen is to get away with criminal deeds that mask the intensification of decay, economic, cultural, and moral, within the polity.

Should America become the Evil Empire, then the best that Americans can hope for is a defeat that makes this daring, revolutionary language relevant again:

Quote:We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.

God Help Us, should We the People end up with a leader as contemptful of liberty as George III.

[pbrower2a]

With the qualification that this would be State legislation and would not pass Constitutional muster:

Quote:Destroying property is a crime. That’s true if the culprit is a single vandal, or a group of people involved in rioting. However, peaceful protesting is a protected right under the First Amendment. Maybe.

   A Republican Washington state senator who supported Donald Trump is proposing a bill that would slap an “economic terrorism” label on protest activities already prohibited by law and dramatically intensify their penalties.

Those activities earning a “terrorism” label go way beyond the kind of violence you might expect.

   The proposed bill would allow police to charge protesters who “block transportation and commerce, cause property damage, threaten jobs and put public safety at risk” with a class C felony.

Blocking traffic is a tactic often used to bring attention to protests. Currently, protesters who are arrested are charged with a misdemeanor and released, but a felony charge would bring significant fines and jail or probation. It can also result in at least temporary loss of voting rights and limit rights of association.

Terms like “threaten jobs and put public safety at risk” provide for an extremely wide interpretation. If protesters march past a store, are they “blocking commerce”? Is marching in any street potentially putting public safety at risk?

And if you think that you’re not at risk because you don’t get out and protest, think again …

   The Republican state senator said similar charges would apply to those who “fund, organize, sponsor” such protests, and the bill would force such individuals to “pay restitution up to triple the amount of economic damage” done.

The bill would make it possible to charge anyone who ever participated in a protest, or anyone who ever funded an organization that was involved in a protest, on the vaguest hint of “impeding business” or affecting “public safety.”

Yes, blocking traffic—either of vehicles or customers—is already a crime, but it’s one that’s rarely enforced and which results in relatively minor charges.

   In Washington state, intentionally interfering with or obstructing pedestrian or vehicle traffic can result in a misdemeanor punishable by a fine of up to $1,000 and/or imprisonment of up to 90 days. Under Ericksen’s proposal to make these activities a class C felony, the same activity could result in five years in prison, a $10,000 fine or both.

It’s no surprise that the author of this bill also contends that protesters against Trump have been secretly funded by “wealthy donors.”

When they’re characterizing the size and nature of whole protests, how hard would it be to destroy the lives of individual protesters?

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2016/11/17...o-a-felony

However Donald Trump and his cronies might like this, the criminalization of protest is essential to tyranny, and typically a sign of the absence of democracy. That's how things were in the Soviet Union and in Chile under Pinochet. That's how things are in China today.

That's not to say that anyone can justify riot. Someone smashing into a storefront window, throwing a brick at a police officer, or torching a car during a lawful protest is simply a criminal who deserves the full measure of arrest, prosecution, and criminal sentencing. But this would be just the same at the Tournament of Roses Parade which has no political significance. If I were in a peaceful protest and I saw someone torch a car (how do I know that the car does not belong to a fellow protester?) and had a camera available, I might take some photos of incriminating deeds and supply the photos of such deeds to the police. Tough luck, rioter -- I want a civil society, and not lawlessness whether of a corrupt politician or of a street criminal. Of course a camera can record the violence of counter-protesters. (Counter-protesters may be the most dangerous people in a demonstration or protest, and they are one of the best reasons for a police presence at a protest or demonstration).  

So why would anyone participate in a street protest or demonstration? To restore civility in society and to remind our elected officials that they must remain accountable to those who elect them (and those who voted against them).

[Bourbonista]

Hi, new member here, long-time fan of 4T.

I think that the Trump election marks the beginning of the Regeneracy. The fact that most of the “establishment” media and political elites missed the strength of support for Trump among rural white voters and especially among educated suburban voters shows that Trump tapped in to a significant consensus among many Americans that the current system is irreparably broken and they are willing to bet on a crude, misogynistic, self-serving dilettante over any career politician, right or left.
But I don’t think Trump is the Grey Champion. He will precipitate the Crisis – trade war with China, Great Depression II, a likely constitutional crisis – but will not get a second term. It may be bad enough that a true Grey Champion, equal to Roosevelt or Lincoln will emerge.
God help us if not.

[Ragnarök_62]

(11-14-2016, 11:50 AM)X_4AD_84 Wrote: It's hard to tell what I'm replying to since I have to delete what I said in order to respond....


You need to read the related posts cause I snip  out redundant stuff, like here.


I'm not sure if he writes his text in previous poster's thread levels on purpose or he's just not taking care. I suspect the former. Probably trying to hide from searches by the NSA, etc. Anarchists are very paranoid that way.

Uh, no.  I'm a center left pacifist.  When have ever read that I'd ever resort to violence over anything here? Like I said, I snip stuff out that looks redundant.   Just lay back, kick back and be mellow like Rags.


And have a cookie.

[Ragnarök_62]

X_4AD_84 Wrote:You just made it seem like what Eric wrote, what you wrote and what I wrote was all written by me.

Oh, OK.  I've been doing what I did on the old forum and snipped stuff out like here.  Maybe doing the snip outs like on this post will work better. After a while, other posts have tons of other prior mentioned stuff to scroll through which I find a tad annoying.

[pbrower2a]

(12-14-2016, 07:53 PM)Bourbonista Wrote: Hi, new member here, long-time fan of 4T.

I think that the Trump election marks the beginning of the Regeneracy. The fact that most of the “establishment” media and political elites missed the strength of support for Trump among rural white voters and especially among educated suburban voters shows that Trump tapped in to a significant consensus among many Americans that the current system is irreparably broken and they are willing to bet on a crude, misogynistic, self-serving dilettante over any career politician, right or left.

But I don’t think Trump is the Grey Champion. He will precipitate the Crisis – trade war with China, Great Depression II, a likely constitutional crisis – but will not get a second term. It may be bad enough that a true Grey Champion, equal to Roosevelt or Lincoln will emerge.
God help us if not.

He will precipitate a Crisis through his own incompetence, moral malignancy, or both.... but he will have no means of solving anything. He could be the Neville Chamberlain to some tyrant who uses him. He could say so many offensive things that his Congressional and Gubernatorial stooges echo that he will cause mass demonstrations and protests that could make the Tea Party look like a garden party. He could get America into an economic meltdown with an All-For-the-Few economic policy that destroys the consumer economy that has underpinned capitalism since about 1900. He could foment ethnic and religious strife that could make America into a new Yugoslavia.

The system was already broken before November 9 because ruthless people found ways in which to game a political system intended for people who (like our Founding Fathers) were unwilling to cheat for power. We have a culture (mostly among white people -- blacks, Hispanics, and Asians generally reject this pattern if they are in or want to be in the middle class) that disparages education and is willing to make education necessary for anything other than a peon-like existence fiendishly costly. The legislative branch of the federal and most state governments is e4ffectively responsible to lobbyists and not constituents; gerrymandering ensures that the Right gets a huge advantage in the House. News coverage on one side is beginning to resemble Pravda at best and the Voelkischer Beobachter at worst. Politics has become an extremely expensive sport that only people who already have huge vested interests can win.

Now we have a President who has stoked ethnic divisions while flattering the 'Real (that is, White) America', disparages science when it runs afoul of his favored interests, uses elementary-level language, treats objective reality as disposable, calls for violence and harassment against opponents, and claims to know more than the experts with years of experience.

Can religion save us? Not if we can vote for a President who bragged about grabbing women by their crotches without their consent and walks into women's changing rooms when females are there.

Our best hope is that 2016 is a fluke that we can undo and transcend in 2021 or later. Maybe  we need to short-circuit the Electoral College when a Presidential nominee gets a plurality with more than 45% of the vote.  Maybe we need to have proportional representation in Congress, as Congressional districts have become artificial entities that make no sense except as political choices of those in power at some time.

So that we can compete -- more specifically, so that All Americans  can compete -- with a world in which intellectual sophistication is the cause of economic wealth and have a social order in which mass ignorance does not pervert the political process and hurt people, we need to put more resources into formal education.

[David Horn]

(12-14-2016, 07:53 PM)Bourbonista Wrote: Hi, new member here, long-time fan of 4T.

Welcome!

Bourbonista Wrote:I think that the Trump election marks the beginning of the Regeneracy. The fact that most of the “establishment” media and political elites missed the strength of support for Trump among rural white voters and especially among educated suburban voters shows that Trump tapped in to a significant consensus among many Americans that the current system is irreparably broken and they are willing to bet on a crude, misogynistic, self-serving dilettante over any career politician, right or left.
But I don’t think Trump is the Grey Champion. He will precipitate the Crisis – trade war with China, Great Depression II, a likely constitutional crisis – but will not get a second term. It may be bad enough that a true Grey Champion, equal to Roosevelt or Lincoln will emerge.

God help us if not.

I agree that Trump can't be the leader we've been looking for.  He's an actor taking the biggest stage on earth -- and that's all.  His biggest contribution to this cycle may already be in the can: the Russian hacks may have selected a President.  FWIW, Hillary wasn't the right person for the job either, just better than this shameless huckster.

I'm less sanguine about the resolution of the crisis.  BHO has been a huge disappointment, and now we have The Donald.  Unlike the Republicans, who declared total war on Obama, the Dems are trying to play nice.  This is likely to be a very one-sided policy.  If we swing back to the Dems in 2020, what vision will they offer and how will they deliver?  After all, obstruction worked so well for the GOP this past cycle.

[pbrower2a]

(12-15-2016, 10:17 AM)David Horn Wrote:

(12-14-2016, 07:53 PM)Bourbonista Wrote: Hi, new member here, long-time fan of 4T.

Welcome!

Bourbonista Wrote:I think that the Trump election marks the beginning of the Regeneracy. The fact that most of the “establishment” media and political elites missed the strength of support for Trump among rural white voters and especially among educated suburban voters shows that Trump tapped in to a significant consensus among many Americans that the current system is irreparably broken and they are willing to bet on a crude, misogynistic, self-serving dilettante over any career politician, right or left.
But I don’t think Trump is the Grey Champion. He will precipitate the Crisis – trade war with China, Great Depression II, a likely constitutional crisis – but will not get a second term. It may be bad enough that a true Grey Champion, equal to Roosevelt or Lincoln will emerge.

God help us if not.

I agree that Trump can't be the leader we've been looking for.  He's an actor taking the biggest stage on earth -- and that's all.  His biggest contribution to this cycle may already be in the can: the Russian hacks may have selected a President.  FWIW, Hillary wasn't the right person for the job either, just better than this shameless huckster.

I'm less sanguine about the resolution of the crisis.  BHO has been a huge disappointment, and now we have The Donald.  Unlike the Republicans, who declared total war on Obama, the Dems are trying to play nice.  This is likely to be a very one-sided policy.  If we swing back to the Dems in 2020, what vision will they offer and how will they deliver?  After all, obstruction worked so well for the GOP this past cycle.

Donald Trump does not have majority support, He will only have power in a system that has traditionally stopped any tendencies toward a despotic President. But this time things are different. The President looks to have unqualified support from adequate majorities of both Houses of Congress and many state legislatures. Maybe the Supreme Court will stop the criminalization of dissent, and local police will turn their focus on to people who commit acts of violence and property destruction instead of upon people exercising  their First Amendment rights.

Donald Trump can at most bring a false regeneracy, a time in which garish pageantry replaces give-and-take. We have the most one-sided political order that we have had since the Republicans tanked in the early 1930s. Will Donald Trump  follow through on his bigotry? We must accept this as a likelihood. Will he become reasonable? Don't bet your life, your liberty, or your material well-being upon it. The United States becomes almost as pure a plutocracy as the Confederate States of America on January 20. Expect Donald Trump to demand great suffering in the name of "Making America Great Again". Great, sure -- only for the Master Class. Expect life to get so miserable in America that there will be about fifty countries that you might prefer living in just for living conditions.

Those of us who oppose him can act upon conscience and reason -- commodities that the President and those around him seem to lack.

Recognize any slight and symbolic concession for what it is -- slight and symbolic. Recognize that a President who was a sociopath before winning office will not suddenly become a saint. Recognize that the government will not help you. Institutions will not help you. People who never bought into the myth of rugged individualism will be stuck with that.