Why Donald Trump Got Elected

[JasonBlack]

fwiw, I did not vote for him either time (in 2020 for example, I voted for Edward Snowden), but the vast majority of anyone to the left of Ted Cruise seems completely out of touch with why the American public voted him in. 

The reason is glaringly obvious: we need something to feel good about. It's true that any intellectually honest, independent thinking person should be able to look the problems of their country in the face, it's true that that we have some major issues that we can no longer continue to ignore, and it's true that deriving your entire self-worth from some sort of ethno-collectivist identity is kinda pathetic. Nonetheless, the simple truth is that you need to boost morale in order to get through a crisis, and at the moment we don't have that. Instead, we've been 
- spitting on masculinity for the better part of 30 years
- guilt tripping parents over concerns for overpopulation (actually, even before that. lots of Xers are justifiably salty over a childhood where they were treated like carbon machines of whom less should have been born)
- guilt tripping normal Americans for their "materialistic western lifestyle" for something as innocuous as driving to work. not all of us want cheaper oil so we can afford another voyage around the world in our yacht.
- focusing only on how we enslaved free people rather than how we freed enslaved people. we need to focus on both, not just one or the other.
- telling people they're "racist Nazis" for being nationalistic or patriotic 
- talking about who "greedy and selfish" it is to have any ambition past having enough to be barely comfortable. 

Seriously, everyone talks about all this "compassion" this, "empathy" that, but....no one actually shows any. 90% of the time, when you hear this term being thrown around, it's done in a bitchy, condescending tone and used to browbeat people with legitimate self-interests into shutting up because they aren't the hot cause at the moment (ex: as a gay millennial, it's hilarious to watch people from around my graduating class admonish people over absurd claims of "homophobia", after being a largely homophobic generation themselves until only a decade or so ago).

Does anyone unironically think sanctimonious college students, soccer moms and vegans are going to get us out of a crisis era? Where is the motivation? Where is the vigor, the pride, the confident pursuit of victory? Say what you will about Donald Trump, he was willing to offer these. Sure, he was cocky, braggadocios, crude, etc, but if you pay attention to his more important speeches, most of them were about reminding Americans about what we have done well, what we can continue to achieve (and yes, he includes several example of blacks, hispanics, immigrants, etc. not just WASP from the ol' boy's club). 


I'm not asking for a return to the naïve days where people glorified war and impulsively charged into battle over causes they knew nothing about. That kind of unbridled emotionalism is not what we need right now. What we do need, desperately, is leadership that can boost our morale and restore some feeling of power and vitality. At this point, I don't know who it's going to be, but there is a reason America has never made it through a 4th turning without a Grey Champion, and the longer we put off looking for one who has the necessary constitution, the worse off we will be.

[pbrower2a]

Let's start by looking at one innovation, not particularly high-tech, that (1) killed lots of jobs and (2) made offshoring of existing jobs easy. Containers. I recall a piece in Mad Magazine that mocked longshoremen, warehouse workers, and freight handlers back in the 1960's. One measure of how such people lived was their ownership of stuff that the middle class still considered luxuries, such as color TV's. These people might have several of them despite modest pay... the TV's were of course pilfered. The more exposure that costly merchandise from whiskey to golf clubs to color TV's to high-cost clothes had to 'sticky fingers' the more it faced an informal pilferage tax as a cost of doing business. Containers ensured that a load of Magnavox televisions shipped from Fort Wayne to Fort Worth would be inaccessible to any sticky fingers between the factory and the store. Such greatly reduced the number of people in shipping... meaning that someone like "Archie Bunker" who seemed to have paid for everything that he had) could be laid off and never re-hired. The people actually moving the stuff around on land were crane operators who could do with one crane what perhaps twenty freight handlers could do.

Add to this another obvious fact: transporting stuff over water has always been cheaper than land transport. It costs less to ship a bulk load from Shanghai to San Francisco than from San Francisco to Salt Lake City. Shipping costs fell, so it was easier to import than to manufacture. Manufacturing jobs in America disappeared in favor of manufacturing jobs in poorer countries .
That ainno0vation made life much less expensive. It also killed jobs. Nobody has a viable solution for job loss

[JasonBlack]

(03-13-2022, 10:54 PM)pbrower2a Wrote: Let's start by looking at one innovation, not particularly high-tech, that (1) killed lots of jobs and (2) made offshoring of existing jobs easy. Containers. I recall a piece in Mad Magazine that mocked longshoremen, warehouse workers, and freight handlers back in the 1960's. One measure of how such people lived was their ownership of stuff that the middle class still considered luxuries, such as color TV's. These people might have several of them despite modest pay... the TV's were of course pilfered. The more exposure that costly merchandise from whiskey to golf clubs to color TV's to high-cost clothes had to 'sticky fingers' the more it faced an informal pilferage tax as a cost of doing business. Containers ensured that a load of Magnavox televisions shipped from Fort Wayne to Fort Worth would be inaccessible to any sticky fingers between the factory and the store. Such greatly reduced the number of people in shipping... meaning that someone like "Archie Bunker" who seemed to have paid for everything that he had) could be laid off and never re-hired. The people actually moving the stuff around on land were crane operators who could do with one crane what perhaps twenty freight handlers could do.

Add to this another obvious fact: transporting stuff over water has always been cheaper than land transport. It costs less to ship a bulk load from Shanghai to San Francisco than from San Francisco to Salt Lake City. Shipping costs fell, so it was easier to import than to manufacture. Manufacturing jobs in America disappeared in favor of manufacturing jobs in poorer countries .
That ainno0vation made life much less expensive. It also killed jobs. Nobody has a viable solution for job loss

Yup, and in the initial stages at least, Trump actually brought back a lot of manufacturing jobs when he got in because he had deals with companies in advance (I was honestly really surprised that worked). He was kind of an ass, but on a gut level, he understand what people really wanted.

[pbrower2a]

Donald Trump is also vulgar. Think of two of the most odious models of the Common Man on TV of the last fifty years: Archie Bunker for his politics, superstition,  at least and bigotry (All in the Family) and Al Bundy (Married With Children), meld their worst traits, and add a huge amount of money, and you get Donald Trump. Archie Bunker at least is loyal to his wife even if he is a male-chauvinist pig; Al Bundy may be apolitical, but he is a horrible role model for his son, taking the boy to strip clubs. Both are models of both male chauvinism, if in very different ways.

Many people find in Donald Trump the rarity if a pol who not only tolerates their vulgarity, but also actively endorses it. Of course, many also despise the vulgarity that Trump is.

[JasonBlack]

(03-14-2022, 08:42 AM)pbrower2a Wrote: Donald Trump is also vulgar. Think of two of the most odious models of the Common Man on TV of the last fifty years: Archie Bunker for his politics, superstition,  at least and bigotry (All in the Family) and Al Bundy (Married With Children), meld their worst traits, and add a huge amount of money, and you get Donald Trump. Archie Bunker at least is loyal to his wife even if he is a male-chauvinist pig; Al Bundy may be apolitical, but he is a horrible role model for his son, taking the boy to strip clubs. Both are models of both male chauvinism, if in very different ways.

Many people find in Donald Trump the rarity if a pol who not only tolerates their vulgarity, but also actively endorses it. Of course, many also despise the vulgarity that Trump is.

As an entertainer and businessmen, I find his vulgarity amusing and funny. As a politician, I find it concerning. I am not a Catholic school nun when it comes to foul language, but we need too much vulgarity gets in the way of projecting an image which is authoritative and gets people to want to follow you. I will say this though...it is infinitely better to be too blunt and vulgar than to exhibit the fake, stale, flaccid presentation style which dominate both sides of politics since the 90s. You'll notice that, after 4 years of Trump, the nation has grown tired of the fake, obsequious communication style that Biden returned to when taking office.

Side note: one reason I think we haven't had many Xer presidents (just one cusper in Obama) is that their generation-of-rebels, school-of-hard-knocks personal style doesn't lend itself well to top bureaucratic positions (Trump is not Gen X, but his bad boy image tends to sit well with them). Gen X are more comfortable projecting the authority of an entrepreneur, a field commander or tough love sports coach, not a head of state. In terms of conservatives as a whole, I think we need to be steering in a direction that restores a sense calm, steady-hand authority coming from a place of strength. Something FDR was amazing at in spite of being downright evil on a policy level.

[David Horn]

(03-14-2022, 09:01 AM)JasonBlack Wrote:

(03-14-2022, 08:42 AM)pbrower2a Wrote: Many people find in Donald Trump the rarity if a pol who not only tolerates their vulgarity, but also actively endorses it. Of course, many also despise the vulgarity that Trump is.

As an entertainer and businessmen, I find his vulgarity amusing and funny. As a politician, I find it concerning. I am not a Catholic school nun when it comes to foul language, but we need too much vulgarity gets in the way of projecting an image which is authoritative and gets people to want to follow you. I will say this though...it is infinitely better to be too blunt and vulgar than to exhibit the fake, stale, flaccid presentation style which dominate both sides of politics since the 90s. You'll notice that, after 4 years of Trump, the nation has grown tired of the fake, obsequious communication style that Biden returned to when taking office.

Side note: one reason I think we haven't had many Xer presidents (just one cusper in Obama) is that their generation-of-rebels, school-of-hard-knocks personal style doesn't lend itself well to top bureaucratic positions (Trump is not Gen X, but his bad boy image tends to sit well with them). Gen X are more comfortable projecting the authority of an entrepreneur, a field commander or tough love sports coach, not a head of state. In terms of conservatives as a whole, I think we need to be steering in a direction that restores a sense calm, steady-hand authority coming from a place of strength. Something FDR was amazing at in spite of being downright evil on a policy level.

I agree, we don't even listen to the obsequious anymore ... nor should we.  It's an obvious form of political speech intended to offend no one and not make enemies.  Unfortunately, it fails at the latter by being too good at the former.  People want to be offended by things they find offensive.  Duh!  Smearing on a thick veneer of inoffensive rubbish is insulting to almost everyone.  Will anyone in a power position see that for what it is?  Apparently, Trump and his doppelgangers (Ted Cruz and Ron DeSantis come immediately to mind) seem to have in mastered at a crude level.  Maybe, it IS crude, and they are spot on. 

[JasonBlack]

(03-14-2022, 12:00 PM)David Horn Wrote:

(03-14-2022, 09:01 AM)JasonBlack Wrote:

(03-14-2022, 08:42 AM)pbrower2a Wrote: Many people find in Donald Trump the rarity if a pol who not only tolerates their vulgarity, but also actively endorses it. Of course, many also despise the vulgarity that Trump is.

As an entertainer and businessmen, I find his vulgarity amusing and funny. As a politician, I find it concerning. I am not a Catholic school nun when it comes to foul language, but we need too much vulgarity gets in the way of projecting an image which is authoritative and gets people to want to follow you. I will say this though...it is infinitely better to be too blunt and vulgar than to exhibit the fake, stale, flaccid presentation style which dominate both sides of politics since the 90s. You'll notice that, after 4 years of Trump, the nation has grown tired of the fake, obsequious communication style that Biden returned to when taking office.

Side note: one reason I think we haven't had many Xer presidents (just one cusper in Obama) is that their generation-of-rebels, school-of-hard-knocks personal style doesn't lend itself well to top bureaucratic positions (Trump is not Gen X, but his bad boy image tends to sit well with them). Gen X are more comfortable projecting the authority of an entrepreneur, a field commander or tough love sports coach, not a head of state. In terms of conservatives as a whole, I think we need to be steering in a direction that restores a sense calm, steady-hand authority coming from a place of strength. Something FDR was amazing at in spite of being downright evil on a policy level.

I agree, we don't even listen to the obsequious anymore ... nor should we.  It's an obvious form of political speech intended to offend no one and not make enemies.  Unfortunately, it fails at the latter by being too good at the former.  People want to be offended by things they find offensive.  Duh!  Smearing on a thick veneer of inoffensive rubbish is insulting to almost everyone.  Will anyone in a power position see that for what it is?  Apparently, Trump and his doppelgangers (Ted Cruz and Ron DeSantis come immediately to mind) seem to have in mastered at a crude level.  Maybe, it IS crude, and they are spot on. 

a real asshole is better than a fake Semaritan.

[pbrower2a]

(03-14-2022, 12:00 PM)David Horn Wrote:

(03-14-2022, 09:01 AM)JasonBlack Wrote:

(03-14-2022, 08:42 AM)pbrower2a Wrote: Many people find in Donald Trump the rarity if a pol who not only tolerates their vulgarity, but also actively endorses it. Of course, many also despise the vulgarity that Trump is.

As an entertainer and businessmen, I find his vulgarity amusing and funny. As a politician, I find it concerning. I am not a Catholic school nun when it comes to foul language, but we need too much vulgarity gets in the way of projecting an image which is authoritative and gets people to want to follow you. I will say this though...it is infinitely better to be too blunt and vulgar than to exhibit the fake, stale, flaccid presentation style which dominate both sides of politics since the 90s. You'll notice that, after 4 years of Trump, the nation has grown tired of the fake, obsequious communication style that Biden returned to when taking office.

Side note: one reason I think we haven't had many Xer presidents (just one cusper in Obama) is that their generation-of-rebels, school-of-hard-knocks personal style doesn't lend itself well to top bureaucratic positions (Trump is not Gen X, but his bad boy image tends to sit well with them). Gen X are more comfortable projecting the authority of an entrepreneur, a field commander or tough love sports coach, not a head of state. In terms of conservatives as a whole, I think we need to be steering in a direction that restores a sense calm, steady-hand authority coming from a place of strength. Something FDR was amazing at in spite of being downright evil on a policy level.

I agree, we don't even listen to the obsequious anymore ... nor should we.  It's an obvious form of political speech intended to offend no one and not make enemies.  Unfortunately, it fails at the latter by being too good at the former.  People want to be offended by things they find offensive.  Duh!  Smearing on a thick veneer of inoffensive rubbish is insulting to almost everyone.  Will anyone in a power position see that for what it is?  Apparently, Trump and his doppelgangers (Ted Cruz and Ron DeSantis come immediately to mind) seem to have in mastered at a crude level.  Maybe, it IS crude, and they are spot on. 

It is possible to use vulgar language with wit. Just think of the late George Carlin with his Seven Words That You Can't Say on Radio. Out of context the words are silly, and that is the essence of the joke. OK, the word shit refers to anything worthless and either offensive or harmful.  Children at one point in their lives admire their ability to produce something for the first time, and it is literally shit. They are also taught to use the toilet to dispose of it and to not be proud of it. They are taught only a little later, in most cultures, to be proud of something more useful, like recognizing letters and numbers, or for a really-brilliant kid, how to read words and to manipulate numbers (Learning to read at age three is brilliant; learning to read at five is normal; not learning to read until seven indicates that one is a dullard; only verifiable idiots never learn how to read). The word feces is a prissy euphemism, as are other words as slang or clinical substitutes for it. Of course many of us have more delicate words for abstract expressions of worthless ideas (nonsense for worthless and absurd ideas or statements) or objects (garbage, rubbish, schlock) that might be both expressive and precise. Heroin users who know that the drug that they can't shake often  call it shit, a fair assessment of something that does no good.

OK, it is necessary that certain ideas such as racism, militarism, exploitation, and religious bigotry are not only offensive but destructive. Such are ideological equivalents of raw sewage.  To find what Vladimir Putin is doing in Ukraine is inexcusably vile requires, if one is not directly affected, that one have some minimum of intellect and maturity. Doing bad things to innocent people must offend a decent person. I do not yet understand how people can do certain things to others yet consider themselves human, whether doing an armed robbery, abusing a child for sexual gratification, or mowing people down or directing them to gas chambers, or marching them into slave ships.

I have known people who could never turn off their offensive behavior before I ever heard the words "Tourette Syndrome". Hearing such people talk was unpleasant, but that is nothing in contrast to an air force blasting civilian targets. 

When a vile person who uses offensive language or images turns such into public policy, we then have big trouble. People of intellectual sophistication (a college degree is now a good proxy for such even if it isn't reliable at the personal level) rejected Trump at the polls in 2020. Even white males as a demographic, if that was only marginally so. It's not that degree-holders are especially sympathetic to the disadvantaged or downtrodden; college-educated people were one of few demographics to vote for Goldwater in 1964.

...As for Obama, I have noticed that his electoral victories in 2008 and 2012 looked more like those of Eisenhower than of anyone else. Take away the farm-and-ranch and the Mormon vote from Ike, and you have Obama elections. Biden won with a map somewhat similar (if not as impressive) as Obama in 2020, which may suggest that electoral victories of Democrats for the next couple decades will look much the same. Democrats are adopting a conservative foreign policy by default (I see Trump as almost the sort of disaster that Republicans made of McGovern in 1972, except that McGovern lost in a landslide and probably was not quite as bad as he was said to be. Trump is simply that bad for praising tyrants and dictators. By nominating Trump the GOP has sold out sensibilities once associated with conservatives. It is too early to determine whether the GOP will pay dearly for aligning with Trump, although we are now late enough into the Crisis of 2020 that we could find out soon. It will be up to Republicans to oust the hucksters, demagogues, poseurs, ignoramuses, and unsavory types among them. Democrats can at most defeat such people in elections.

But back to Obama and Biden. Obama is unique as President, but someone has to be closest to him as an analogue for behavior and temperament. As a Reactive he might have wished to be another FDR, but he became a stereotypical "mature Reactive". Those are our first two Presidents, the Civil War vet Presidents other than McKinley, Truman, and Eisenhower. Cautious because of his experiences? Check. Not using the power of government to settle personal scores or enrich oneself? That's maturity itself. Free of alienation? Check! (if you want to know what an 'immature reactive' is by contrast, then look at the bulk of fascist dictators and Stalinist stooges, Mao Zedong and his early inner circle, and Ho Chi Minh. Yuck!) Scandal-free? Ideally so, and the Obama administration has been one of the cleanest. Chilly rationalism? That is desirable in political figures in all times.

Ultimately it was the whack job that Obama used on Osama bin Laden, and later al-Zarqawi, that suggests someone who could learn from Chicago gangsters. I can easily see Obama, had he been allowed to take that route, as the sort of prosecutor or judge that gangsters and crooked politicians dread. The Chicago political machine wanted him out of that role, and US Senators or Presidents don't prosecute grafters or drug kingpins. Obama is one of the "do the crime and do the time, and don't fault me for giving you the Max" types. We will see more of those. That said, the killing of Osama bin Laden was much in character, if not justification, of an underworld hit. Obama may have had no admiration for Al Capone (underworld figures of Capone's generation were another category of "immature reactive")... but Capone would have admired what Obama did to the worst terrorist who ever lived.

Obama's role in history is awkward due to his timing as President. He's the sort of leader that one expects after, and not at the peak, of a Crisis. The best that his type can do in a Crisis is to mitigate it; he can't decide it as a political leader. His type is more likely to decide a Crisis on a field of battle, more like.... Ike. Nimitz. Patton. Grant. Washington. Sheridan. Montgomery. DeGaulle. Zhukov. I look at Obama and I can imagine a certain sort of general or admiral, a spit-and-polish officer whom subordinates dislike in peacetime but relax the spit-and-polish character in war. If I am facing someone like him as The Enemy then I am in dread if I am not a fool. His kind gets casualties for which he feels shame but still inflicts a high casualty rate upon the Other Side. One wins wars by compelling the Other side to run out of troops and supplies.

[David Horn]

(03-14-2022, 02:29 PM)JasonBlack Wrote: a real asshole is better than a fake Samaritan. (fixed it!)

In today's world, where gentile is considered b-o-r-i-n-g and an asshole can say for you what you are too timid to say yourself, that is all too true. On the other hand, no one loves it when it is directed at them. Trump made a classic mistake, assuming that his minions were both motivated (true enough) and dominant (not so true). Then there is the issue of overexposure. Even assholery loses its appeal when it's relentless and repetitive. Trump crossed that line a long time ago.

[JasonBlack]

(03-15-2022, 10:31 AM)David Horn Wrote:

(03-14-2022, 02:29 PM)JasonBlack Wrote: a real asshole is better than a fake Samaritan. (fixed it!)

In today's world, where gentile is considered b-o-r-i-n-g and an asshole can say for you what you are too timid to say yourself, that is all too true.   On the other hand, no one loves it when it is directed at them.  Trump made a classic mistake, assuming that his minions were both motivated (true enough) and dominant (not so true).  Then there is the issue of overexposure.  Even assholery loses its appeal when it's relentless and repetitive.  Trump crossed that line a long time ago.

Don't get me wrong, I am getting very, very tired of how rude modern culture has gotten. Cantankerous boomers, gruff/surly Gen X, snarky/sarcastic millennials and passive-aggressive zoomers.....it's kinda gone the whole spectrum. Hell, I know I'm guilty of it sometimes. I make an effort to cushion what I say at least a little bit with words like "frankly", "with respect", "if I may add", etc, but learning to be more polite has been an uphill battle for me, and even more so learning how to be polite and still assert my point with sufficient, controlled passion. I'm hoping the next turning sees an end to this "my voice must me heard!" nonsense that has everyone shouting over each other and escalating with greater and greater dramatic displays for attention.
tl;dr, your point is legitimate

In spite of all of this....fake people are still 10x worse than rude people, so I'm not retracting my comment haha

[David Horn]

(03-16-2022, 11:56 PM)JasonBlack Wrote:

(03-15-2022, 10:31 AM)David Horn Wrote:

(03-14-2022, 02:29 PM)JasonBlack Wrote: a real asshole is better than a fake Samaritan. (fixed it!)

In today's world, where gentile is considered b-o-r-i-n-g and an asshole can say for you what you are too timid to say yourself, that is all too true.   On the other hand, no one loves it when it is directed at them.  Trump made a classic mistake, assuming that his minions were both motivated (true enough) and dominant (not so true).  Then there is the issue of overexposure.  Even assholery loses its appeal when it's relentless and repetitive.  Trump crossed that line a long time ago.

Don't get me wrong, I am getting very, very tired of how rude modern culture has gotten. Cantankerous boomers, gruff/surly Gen X, snarky/sarcastic millennials and passive-aggressive zoomers.....it's kinda gone the whole spectrum. Hell, I know I'm guilty of it sometimes. I make an effort to cushion what I say at least a little bit with words like "frankly", "with respect", "if I may add", etc, but learning to be more polite has been an uphill battle for me, and even more so learning how to be polite and still assert my point with sufficient, controlled passion. I'm hoping the next turning sees an end to this "my voice must me heard!" nonsense that has everyone shouting over each other and escalating with greater and greater dramatic displays for attention.
tl;dr, your point is legitimate

In spite of all of this....fake people are still 10x worse than rude people, so I'm not retracting my comment haha

You may get your wish, but don't hope for bland introspective sameness either.  I have no argument with you on the issue of fakery or rudeness either.  Everything has its time.  There's a reason that Ecclesiastes is still relevant today, even for atheists.  Its life wisdom we should all embrace.

[pbrower2a]

(03-16-2022, 11:56 PM)asonBlack Wrote:

(03-15-2022, 10:31 AM)David Horn Wrote:

(03-14-2022, 02:29 PM)JasonBlack Wrote: a real asshole is better than a fake Samaritan. (fixed it!)

In today's world, where gentile is considered b-o-r-i-n-g and an asshole can say for you what you are too timid to say yourself, that is all too true.   On the other hand, no one loves it when it is directed at them.  Trump made a classic mistake, assuming that his minions were both motivated (true enough) and dominant (not so true).  Then there is the issue of overexposure.  Even assholery loses its appeal when it's relentless and repetitive.  Trump crossed that line a long time ago.

Don't get me wrong, I am getting very, very tired of how rude modern culture has gotten. Cantankerous boomers, gruff/surly Gen X, snarky/sarcastic millennials and passive-aggressive zoomers.....it's kinda gone the whole spectrum.

Different generations experiencing much the same stresses will act differently. Time of childhood is as much one's formative environment as are ethnicity, creed, region, and class. People are not better or worse for having experienced certain things because they could. None of us can undo the realities that shaped us. The generations make different assumptions based heavily upon what they knew in childhood. Even such a concept as "Suburbia" has changed; Boomers may recall suburbs still new that still had rural characteristics that people born around 2000 would have to reconstruct in their minds to fully understand. Post-secondary education that used to be inexpensive might have been done inexpensively by Boomers; people could use their college years for broadening their intellectual universe. Today any post-secondary education practically necessary for white-collar work comes with a huge load of debt, so life is all about preparing to pay back entitled loan-sharks. Housing is far from as inexpensive as it was in the 1970's because of under-investment in low-cost housing. , so people are obliged to pay slumlords dearly. Managerial style has largely developed in MBA schools which treat workers as mere tools for achieving the objectives of economic elites.  The tax system fosters monopolization through the consolidation of industry and the cornering of markets, practices once scorned but now endorsed as the highest expression of material progress.

Economics do not explain everything. One might expect parallels between similar stages of the generational cycle, but mass culture today is very different from what it was eighty years ago. Technology is the least of it; people have more sophisticated devices for doing what they largely did  even a century and a half ago. E-mail operates much like a telegraph, and reading books on line on a device shaped much like a book does not change that one is still reading. The Internet functions much like broadcasting, just as television in its early days was basically vaudeville. This said, the mass culture that we now know is not as uplifting as it was eighty years ago, when movies were made to code, and popular entertainers and pro athletes were obliged to act in ways that did not offend the devout. America pulled out of an economic meltdown analogous to that which began in the autumn of 1929 after a year and a half instead of after three withering years, which means that America did not experience the bank runs -- and the economic elites had the means of buying the political system by financing the rise of politicians who believe as those elites do -- that no human suffering can ever be undue so long as it enriches and indulges those elites while enforcing compliance with their will. If Americans got the New Deal to bring pervasive reforms in economic and political life to the benefit or working people, Americans got instead political leaders intent on imposing a New Serfdom of debt bondage and corporate gouging. It may surprise people that the Great Depression was in fact a good time for era of neolibberakstarting new mom-and-pop business to fill the interstices that the failed behemoths of the 1920's left behind; many entities Too Big to Fail may really been too corrupt to save,

We have come to accept an accounting and economic myth that prosperity is what people pay for what they get. By that criterion, a family that goes into destitution because of medical costs prospers because of its expenditures on ultimately-futile treatments. People paying 70% .of their post-tax income for rent for a slum flat are somehow more prosperous
than homeowners who were paying mortgage, insurance, and taxes limited to 35% of their income because such were the largely-sustainable level of expenditure for such. in accordance with underwriting standards of mortgage loans in the 1960's. Note well that people paying a mortgage were buying a house that would be fully paid-for by retirement.

It is hardly surprising that coarse situations bring out coarse language. Stories of the Holocaust and of life under Stalin are full of such language. Solzhenitsyn was in no ways a prissy writer. Obviously our recent era of neoliberal economics is far better than the Soviet and Nazi Hells, but it is still pure degradation of life for people not already well off. If I am to give advice to kids under the norms that have developed over the last forty years it is to say that the only reason for your existence to filthy-rich people who hold you in contempt because you are not one of them, it is that you exist solely to make people already filthy rich who by all reasonable measures can achieve any sybaritic excess possible is to make them even more filthy rich, make them able to indulge even more extravagantly (and destructively), or to enforce their will upon people helpless due to their poverty and limited opportunity. One must accept that such people are no better than feudal lords, Capone-era gangsters, or the old Soviet nomenklatura. Exploiters always sink to a level of moral depravity that they see as noble. They act without mercy because mercy is weakness to any exploiter. American elites largely seem to think that their tennis elbows are far worse than the pancreatic cancer or third-degree burns that proles endure.

 

Quote:Well, I know I'm guilty of it sometimes. I make an effort to cushion what I say at least a little bit with words like "frankly", "with respect", "if I may add", etc, but learning to be more polite has been an uphill battle for me, and even more so learning how to be polite and still assert my point with sufficient, controlled passion. I'm hoping the next turning sees an end to this "my voice must me heard!" nonsense that has everyone shouting over each other and escalating with greater and greater dramatic displays for attention.
tl;dr, your point is legitimate.

[/quote]


It is difficult to be polite in a system that is grossly impolite toward anyone who does the real work to underpin the prosperity that largely goes to rapacious, demanding elites. ystem makes hypocrisy a survival skill even if it is merely "suffer but remember to smile". Undoing much of the rot in economic and cultural life will not be easy and it will not happen quickly. It will be necessary nonetheless if we are to achieve anything from the mitigation of poverty to the constraint of global warmong.

[JasonBlack]

(03-17-2022, 09:04 AM)pbrower2a Wrote: It is difficult to be polite in a system that is grossly impolite toward anyone who does the real work to underpin the prosperity that largely goes to rapacious, demanding elites. ystem makes hypocrisy a survival skill even if it is merely "suffer but remember to smile". Undoing much of the rot in economic and cultural life will not be easy and it will not happen quickly. It will be necessary nonetheless if we are to achieve anything from the mitigation of poverty to the constraint of global warming.

Exactly. I try to be a little more compassionate as a result. The death of formality as a communication style during the awakening has done a lot to erode emotional boundaries and created a world polarized between rude, loud "my voice must be heard!" types yelling over each other on one end, and everyone else on the other end who just keeps their head down, doesn't speak up and doesn't assert themselves. the rise of mass media is going to make this cycle hard to break.

[Eric the Green]

(03-13-2022, 09:10 PM)JasonBlack Wrote: fwiw, I did not vote for him either time (in 2020 for example, I voted for Edward Snowden), but the vast majority of anyone to the left of Ted Cruise seems completely out of touch with why the American public voted him in. 

The reason is glaringly obvious: we need something to feel good about. It's true that any intellectually honest, independent thinking person should be able to look the problems of their country in the face, it's true that that we have some major issues that we can no longer continue to ignore, and it's true that deriving your entire self-worth from some sort of ethno-collectivist identity is kinda pathetic. Nonetheless, the simple truth is that you need to boost morale in order to get through a crisis, and at the moment we don't have that. Instead, we've been 
- spitting on masculinity for the better part of 30 years
- guilt tripping parents over concerns for overpopulation (actually, even before that. lots of Xers are justifiably salty over a childhood where they were treated like carbon machines of whom less should have been born)
- guilt tripping normal Americans for their "materialistic western lifestyle" for something as innocuous as driving to work. not all of us want cheaper oil so we can afford another voyage around the world in our yacht.
- focusing only on how we enslaved free people rather than how we freed enslaved people. we need to focus on both, not just one or the other.
- telling people they're "racist Nazis" for being nationalistic or patriotic 
- talking about who "greedy and selfish" it is to have any ambition past having enough to be barely comfortable. 

Seriously, everyone talks about all this "compassion" this, "empathy" that, but....no one actually shows any. 90% of the time, when you hear this term being thrown around, it's done in a bitchy, condescending tone and used to browbeat people with legitimate self-interests into shutting up because they aren't the hot cause at the moment (ex: as a gay millennial, it's hilarious to watch people from around my graduating class admonish people over absurd claims of "homophobia", after being a largely homophobic generation themselves until only a decade or so ago).

Does anyone unironically think sanctimonious college students, soccer moms and vegans are going to get us out of a crisis era? Where is the motivation? Where is the vigor, the pride, the confident pursuit of victory? Say what you will about Donald Trump, he was willing to offer these. Sure, he was cocky, braggadocios, crude, etc, but if you pay attention to his more important speeches, most of them were about reminding Americans about what we have done well, what we can continue to achieve (and yes, he includes several example of blacks, hispanics, immigrants, etc. not just WASP from the ol' boy's club). 


I'm not asking for a return to the naïve days where people glorified war and impulsively charged into battle over causes they knew nothing about. That kind of unbridled emotionalism is not what we need right now. What we do need, desperately, is leadership that can boost our morale and restore some feeling of power and vitality. At this point, I don't know who it's going to be, but there is a reason America has never made it through a 4th turning without a Grey Champion, and the longer we put off looking for one who has the necessary constitution, the worse off we will be.

Donald Trump has a horoscope score of 9-4.

https://philosopherswheel.com/presidenti...ScoredWhat

Considering the score of her opponent, Hillary Rodham Clinton, 7-12 with (I think) Jupiter rising (J) which can confer maybe 5-10 extra points, Hillary was fairly easy to beat, considering our electoral college system which currently provides an advantage for small, rural, conservative states and disenfranchises larger liberal ones. But Joe was equal or superior to him as a candidate.

Your male worship and capitalist/money-making orientation is not likely to lead us to who would be a suitable president in our crisis era. But not everything you mentioned is wrong, in my opinion. We do need a leader who can make us feel good about ourselves, and not always focus on how bad things are or have been, but offers hope and a pathway, and gives the impression of being a strong, confident and capable leader. The college students, soccor moms and vegans can be part of his or her support team, but no-one is expecting one of them to run for president anytime soon. Trump by the way also focused too much on how bad things were, and that made him vulnerable to defeat by a genial guy who touted American greatness and abilities (Joe Biden).

Thes traits do not necessarily mean a macho leader like Reagan, necessarily, or even the Bush's (who were actually better athletes than even lifeguard Reagan), because Bill Clinton and Barack Obama were enormously-talented candidates and good leaders who were not of the macho Republican brand, but were very articulate speakers and had hipness/cool, gentle confidence, great smarts, geniality and likability, and who also had very high horoscope scores--- as did Reagan and the Bush's.

[Eric the Green]

"my voice must be heard" dates from the time of this movie quote. Since the protesters were unable to convince LBJ to get out of Vietnam, no matter how loudly they shouted, and oppressed African Americans and others got impatient with continued discrimination and wealth gaps, people have felt unable to be heard. And then the reactionaries got into the fray too, believing themselves the forgotten Americans too, and their voice was raised by demagogues from Richard Nixon and George Wallace to Donald Trump.

[Eric the Green]

(03-14-2022, 09:01 AM)JasonBlack Wrote:

(03-14-2022, 08:42 AM)pbrower2a Wrote: Donald Trump is also vulgar. Think of two of the most odious models of the Common Man on TV of the last fifty years: Archie Bunker for his politics, superstition,  at least and bigotry (All in the Family) and Al Bundy (Married With Children), meld their worst traits, and add a huge amount of money, and you get Donald Trump. Archie Bunker at least is loyal to his wife even if he is a male-chauvinist pig; Al Bundy may be apolitical, but he is a horrible role model for his son, taking the boy to strip clubs. Both are models of both male chauvinism, if in very different ways.

Many people find in Donald Trump the rarity if a pol who not only tolerates their vulgarity, but also actively endorses it. Of course, many also despise the vulgarity that Trump is.

As an entertainer and businessmen, I find his vulgarity amusing and funny. As a politician, I find it concerning. I am not a Catholic school nun when it comes to foul language, but we need too much vulgarity gets in the way of projecting an image which is authoritative and gets people to want to follow you. I will say this though...it is infinitely better to be too blunt and vulgar than to exhibit the fake, stale, flaccid presentation style which dominate both sides of politics since the 90s. You'll notice that, after 4 years of Trump, the nation has grown tired of the fake, obsequious communication style that Biden returned to when taking office.

Side note: one reason I think we haven't had many Xer presidents (just one cusper in Obama) is that their generation-of-rebels, school-of-hard-knocks personal style doesn't lend itself well to top bureaucratic positions (Trump is not Gen X, but his bad boy image tends to sit well with them). Gen X are more comfortable projecting the authority of an entrepreneur, a field commander or tough love sports coach, not a head of state. In terms of conservatives as a whole, I think we need to be steering in a direction that restores a sense calm, steady-hand authority coming from a place of strength. Something FDR was amazing at in spite of being downright evil on a policy level.

Beyond the obvious evils of putting Japanese in camps and planning to attack them* with the first nuclear bombs, how were FDR's policies "downright evil", except from a neoliberal point of view which itself is downright evil?

*of course the original reason for developing the atom bomb was because Hitler was known to be developing one. Imagine nuclear blackmail of humanity by Hitler.

[JasonBlack]

(03-17-2022, 07:05 PM)Eric the Green Wrote:

(03-14-2022, 09:01 AM)JasonBlack Wrote:

(03-14-2022, 08:42 AM)pbrower2a Wrote: Donald Trump is also vulgar. Think of two of the most odious models of the Common Man on TV of the last fifty years: Archie Bunker for his politics, superstition,  at least and bigotry (All in the Family) and Al Bundy (Married With Children), meld their worst traits, and add a huge amount of money, and you get Donald Trump. Archie Bunker at least is loyal to his wife even if he is a male-chauvinist pig; Al Bundy may be apolitical, but he is a horrible role model for his son, taking the boy to strip clubs. Both are models of both male chauvinism, if in very different ways.

Many people find in Donald Trump the rarity if a pol who not only tolerates their vulgarity, but also actively endorses it. Of course, many also despise the vulgarity that Trump is.

As an entertainer and businessmen, I find his vulgarity amusing and funny. As a politician, I find it concerning. I am not a Catholic school nun when it comes to foul language, but we need too much vulgarity gets in the way of projecting an image which is authoritative and gets people to want to follow you. I will say this though...it is infinitely better to be too blunt and vulgar than to exhibit the fake, stale, flaccid presentation style which dominate both sides of politics since the 90s. You'll notice that, after 4 years of Trump, the nation has grown tired of the fake, obsequious communication style that Biden returned to when taking office.

Side note: one reason I think we haven't had many Xer presidents (just one cusper in Obama) is that their generation-of-rebels, school-of-hard-knocks personal style doesn't lend itself well to top bureaucratic positions (Trump is not Gen X, but his bad boy image tends to sit well with them). Gen X are more comfortable projecting the authority of an entrepreneur, a field commander or tough love sports coach, not a head of state. In terms of conservatives as a whole, I think we need to be steering in a direction that restores a sense calm, steady-hand authority coming from a place of strength. Something FDR was amazing at in spite of being downright evil on a policy level.

Beyond the obvious evils of putting Japanese in camps and planning to attack them* with the first nuclear bombs, how were FDR's policies "downright evil", except from a neoliberal point of view which itself is downright evil?

*of course the original reason for developing the atom bomb was because Hitler was known to be developing one. Imagine nuclear blackmail of humanity by Hitler.

that's not enough to qualify? anyway, he also
- confiscated gold
- attempted to cap maximum income at $25,000 (ie....not even a high number)
- attempts at court packing
- limiting the number of people in each household who were allowed to work 

the guy was a real CUNexTuesday if you catch my meaning.

[JasonBlack]

(03-17-2022, 05:27 PM)Eric the Green Wrote:

(03-13-2022, 09:10 PM)JasonBlack Wrote: fwiw, I did not vote for him either time (in 2020 for example, I voted for Edward Snowden), but the vast majority of anyone to the left of Ted Cruise seems completely out of touch with why the American public voted him in. 

The reason is glaringly obvious: we need something to feel good about. It's true that any intellectually honest, independent thinking person should be able to look the problems of their country in the face, it's true that that we have some major issues that we can no longer continue to ignore, and it's true that deriving your entire self-worth from some sort of ethno-collectivist identity is kinda pathetic. Nonetheless, the simple truth is that you need to boost morale in order to get through a crisis, and at the moment we don't have that. Instead, we've been 
- spitting on masculinity for the better part of 30 years
- guilt tripping parents over concerns for overpopulation (actually, even before that. lots of Xers are justifiably salty over a childhood where they were treated like carbon machines of whom less should have been born)
- guilt tripping normal Americans for their "materialistic western lifestyle" for something as innocuous as driving to work. not all of us want cheaper oil so we can afford another voyage around the world in our yacht.
- focusing only on how we enslaved free people rather than how we freed enslaved people. we need to focus on both, not just one or the other.
- telling people they're "racist Nazis" for being nationalistic or patriotic 
- talking about who "greedy and selfish" it is to have any ambition past having enough to be barely comfortable. 

Seriously, everyone talks about all this "compassion" this, "empathy" that, but....no one actually shows any. 90% of the time, when you hear this term being thrown around, it's done in a bitchy, condescending tone and used to browbeat people with legitimate self-interests into shutting up because they aren't the hot cause at the moment (ex: as a gay millennial, it's hilarious to watch people from around my graduating class admonish people over absurd claims of "homophobia", after being a largely homophobic generation themselves until only a decade or so ago).

Does anyone unironically think sanctimonious college students, soccer moms and vegans are going to get us out of a crisis era? Where is the motivation? Where is the vigor, the pride, the confident pursuit of victory? Say what you will about Donald Trump, he was willing to offer these. Sure, he was cocky, braggadocios, crude, etc, but if you pay attention to his more important speeches, most of them were about reminding Americans about what we have done well, what we can continue to achieve (and yes, he includes several example of blacks, hispanics, immigrants, etc. not just WASP from the ol' boy's club). 


I'm not asking for a return to the naïve days where people glorified war and impulsively charged into battle over causes they knew nothing about. That kind of unbridled emotionalism is not what we need right now. What we do need, desperately, is leadership that can boost our morale and restore some feeling of power and vitality. At this point, I don't know who it's going to be, but there is a reason America has never made it through a 4th turning without a Grey Champion, and the longer we put off looking for one who has the necessary constitution, the worse off we will be.

Donald Trump has a horoscope score of 9-4.

https://philosopherswheel.com/presidenti...ScoredWhat

Considering the score of her opponent, Hillary Rodham Clinton, 7-12 with (I think) Jupiter rising (J) which can confer maybe 5-10 extra points, Hillary was fairly easy to beat, considering our electoral college system which currently provides an advantage for small, rural, conservative states and disenfranchises larger liberal ones. But Joe was equal or superior to him as a candidate.

Your male worship and capitalist/money-making orientation is not likely to lead us to who would be a suitable president in our crisis era. But not everything you mentioned is wrong, in my opinion. We do need a leader who can make us feel good about ourselves, and not always focus on how bad things are or have been, but offers hope and a pathway, and gives the impression of being a strong, confident and capable leader. The college students, soccor moms and vegans can be part of his or her support team, but no-one is expecting one of them to run for president anytime soon. Trump by the way also focused too much on how bad things were, and that made him vulnerable to defeat by a genial guy who touted American greatness and abilities (Joe Biden).

Thes traits do not necessarily mean a macho leader like Reagan, necessarily, or even the Bush's (who were actually better athletes than even lifeguard Reagan), because Bill Clinton and Barack Obama were enormously-talented candidates and good leaders who were not of the macho Republican brand, but were very articulate speakers and had hipness/cool, gentle confidence, great smarts, geniality and likability, and who also had very high horoscope scores--- as did Reagan and the Bush's.

What you call "worship of masculinity" is actually much closer to "equality" than what we've seen in the previous decades. It's just that we are fish swimming in the waters of feminism to the extent we cannot recognize it for what it is. Likewise, "giving us something to feel good about" doesn't mean telling us we're doing correctly what we're actually doing wrong. That's called delusion, and precisely what 4Ts are there to cure us of via the school of hard knocks. What we need is something motivating to rally behind, to inspire confidence, triumph, and a tendency to look out for our own rather than everyone else but ourselves.

[David Horn]

(03-17-2022, 09:08 PM)JasonBlack Wrote: What you call "worship of masculinity" is actually much closer to "equality" than what we've seen in the previous decades. It's just that we are fish swimming in the waters of feminism to the extent we cannot recognize it for what it is. Likewise, "giving us something to feel good about" doesn't mean telling us we're doing correctly what we're actually doing wrong. That's called delusion, and precisely what 4Ts are there to cure us of via the school of hard knocks. What we need is something motivating to rally behind, to inspire confidence, triumph, and a tendency to look out for our own rather than everyone else but ourselves.

My how the wheel turns! Men totally dominated society (and still have precedence) until just a few brief decades ago. It's not an anomaly that the Equal Rights Amendment is still not ratified. If you are looking for a return of male dominance, you'll be sadly at a loss.

[Anthony '58]

(03-17-2022, 05:27 PM)Eric the Green Wrote:

(03-13-2022, 09:10 PM)JasonBlack Wrote: fwiw, I did not vote for him either time (in 2020 for example, I voted for Edward Snowden), but the vast majority of anyone to the left of Ted Cruise seems completely out of touch with why the American public voted him in. 

The reason is glaringly obvious: we need something to feel good about. It's true that any intellectually honest, independent thinking person should be able to look the problems of their country in the face, it's true that that we have some major issues that we can no longer continue to ignore, and it's true that deriving your entire self-worth from some sort of ethno-collectivist identity is kinda pathetic. Nonetheless, the simple truth is that you need to boost morale in order to get through a crisis, and at the moment we don't have that. Instead, we've been 
- spitting on masculinity for the better part of 30 years
- guilt tripping parents over concerns for overpopulation (actually, even before that. lots of Xers are justifiably salty over a childhood where they were treated like carbon machines of whom less should have been born)
- guilt tripping normal Americans for their "materialistic western lifestyle" for something as innocuous as driving to work. not all of us want cheaper oil so we can afford another voyage around the world in our yacht.
- focusing only on how we enslaved free people rather than how we freed enslaved people. we need to focus on both, not just one or the other.
- telling people they're "racist Nazis" for being nationalistic or patriotic 
- talking about who "greedy and selfish" it is to have any ambition past having enough to be barely comfortable. 

Seriously, everyone talks about all this "compassion" this, "empathy" that, but....no one actually shows any. 90% of the time, when you hear this term being thrown around, it's done in a bitchy, condescending tone and used to browbeat people with legitimate self-interests into shutting up because they aren't the hot cause at the moment (ex: as a gay millennial, it's hilarious to watch people from around my graduating class admonish people over absurd claims of "homophobia", after being a largely homophobic generation themselves until only a decade or so ago).

Does anyone unironically think sanctimonious college students, soccer moms and vegans are going to get us out of a crisis era? Where is the motivation? Where is the vigor, the pride, the confident pursuit of victory? Say what you will about Donald Trump, he was willing to offer these. Sure, he was cocky, braggadocios, crude, etc, but if you pay attention to his more important speeches, most of them were about reminding Americans about what we have done well, what we can continue to achieve (and yes, he includes several example of blacks, hispanics, immigrants, etc. not just WASP from the ol' boy's club). 


I'm not asking for a return to the naïve days where people glorified war and impulsively charged into battle over causes they knew nothing about. That kind of unbridled emotionalism is not what we need right now. What we do need, desperately, is leadership that can boost our morale and restore some feeling of power and vitality. At this point, I don't know who it's going to be, but there is a reason America has never made it through a 4th turning without a Grey Champion, and the longer we put off looking for one who has the necessary constitution, the worse off we will be.

Donald Trump has a horoscope score of 9-4.

https://philosopherswheel.com/presidenti...ScoredWhat

Considering the score of her opponent, Hillary Rodham Clinton, 7-12 with (I think) Jupiter rising (J) which can confer maybe 5-10 extra points, Hillary was fairly easy to beat, considering our electoral college system which currently provides an advantage for small, rural, conservative states and disenfranchises larger liberal ones. But Joe was equal or superior to him as a candidate.

Your male worship and capitalist/money-making orientation is not likely to lead us to who would be a suitable president in our crisis era. But not everything you mentioned is wrong, in my opinion. We do need a leader who can make us feel good about ourselves, and not always focus on how bad things are or have been, but offers hope and a pathway, and gives the impression of being a strong, confident and capable leader. The college students, soccor moms and vegans can be part of his or her support team, but no-one is expecting one of them to run for president anytime soon. Trump by the way also focused too much on how bad things were, and that made him vulnerable to defeat by a genial guy who touted American greatness and abilities (Joe Biden).

Thes traits do not necessarily mean a macho leader like Reagan, necessarily, or even the Bush's (who were actually better athletes than even lifeguard Reagan), because Bill Clinton and Barack Obama were enormously-talented candidates and good leaders who were not of the macho Republican brand, but were very articulate speakers and had hipness/cool, gentle confidence, great smarts, geniality and likability, and who also had very high horoscope scores--- as did Reagan and the Bush's.

It's gotten to the point where your astrology-based analyses make at least as much sense, if not more sense, than conventional political analysis - because the planets never "switch sides" (Mars always relates to war, Venus always relates to love, and so on).

Our "tradition" of "side-switching" began in 1877, when the Republicans threw African-Americans under the bus in order to get "His Fraudulency," Rutherford B. Hayes, elected President  - making Samuel Tilden the only candidate in U.S. history to receive an outright majority of the popular vote and lose in the Electoral College.  And bad karma wasted no time in hurling barbed arrows at the Republicans: A mere two years later, the first ship carrying immigrants to America docked not at Ellis Island, but at New Orleans (and featured Italian immigrants!), with the immigrants who came here over the next 40+ years, to a man, woman and child, joining the Democratic Party and ousting the Southern segregationists from leadership of the national party (Republican Herbert Hoover carried 13 of the 19 slave states/territories in the 1928 Presidential election).

Fast-forward to the 1920s, when Samuel Gompers, the George Washington of American trade unionism, led the charge to have immigration halted altogether, getting his wish when Congress passed two bills to do just that in 1921 and 1924.  Today, however, the Democrats are the party of open borders.

When the USS Liberty was accidentally sunk in the Mediterranean during the Arab-Israeli "Six Day War," Republicans screamed bloody murder while Democrats rushed to Israel's defense.  Now, the Republicans are Israel's steadfast defenders while Democrats fawn over the "Palestinians."

And when the 1968 Gun Control Act was passed, its most vehement opponents were the Black Panthers.  But now the Left hasn't met a restrictive, confiscatory gun law they don't zealously embrace, despite the fact that approximately 95% of those incarcerated at any one time under such laws that are already on the books in the various states are poor, young men of color.

Give me the stars any day!