Let's make fun of Trump, bash him, etc. while we can!

[Bob Butler 54]

(10-10-2016, 11:39 PM)taramarie Wrote: Residue beliefs from earlier years no doubt. Why is it within one political party? Why would they not want equality? I am sorry if these seem like stupid questions but you have to understand the culture that I was raised in. We are not culturally different in a political sense. THANKFULLY as I see how it is ripping America apart. I am just shocked tbh. I cannot fathom why equality is not desirable for people and why it is under debate in this year of 2016. To me when i read what it was like here in NZ in the 1950s I see America in a similar light. It is like looking back in time.

It's at least as profound a question as stupid.  I'll try to take it seriously.

Let's suppose you were writing a Declaration of Independence, and want some glorious high flying words to justify overthrowing existing government.  Do you write...

"We hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all male white property owners are created equal..."

Well, no.  That doesn't sound like a universal truth, does it?  If one is going to invoke the Creator, one's universal truths have to be more universal.  So, from the very start America was founded on a lie.  The ideals say equality.  It's right at the very beginning of our founding document.  In fact, white male wealthy folk were a heck of a lot more equal than anyone else.  The struggle to make the reality match the words is perhaps the central struggle of America.

If it is neat to be equal, some people find it even neater to be superior.  Call The Donald Exhibit A, an arrogant white male who considers himself superior to just about anyone else.  He's a selfish, racist, sexist narcissist.  If one is an actor trying to portray such a character on the stage, one would have to convince one's self that while performing the play that it is cool and neat to grab one's co-star by her crotch.  It is cool and neat to show how stupid and inferior the characters are who have darker skin pigmentation.  It is cool and neat, if one's character is frustrated in any way, to gain revenge and humiliate, to put other characters in their proper inferior place.  Equality is for the inferior.  Only a cuck would be satisfied with equality.  A white male should never be satisfied with equality.  

(Yes, the above paragraph outlines a vile stereotype.  If you try to apply the vile stereotype to all Republicans one ends up closing one's mind.  If one applies it only to The Donald, one might not be too far out.  As always, beware confusing the vile stereotype that outlines a flaw that might be shared to varying degrees over a broad culture with an accurate description of every individual within the culture.  Hopefully, the above mentioned play is in the style of an old Greek tragedy, where the main character's flaws doom him to all sorts of awful stuff.  If one follows the traditional theme, his awful behavior in the early acts leads inevitably to painful disaster in the final scenes.  The 2016 election does seem to be drifting in that direction.)

For a good sized part of our country's history, blacks were owned and women could not own property.  That is a problem for a country whose ideals start with 'all men are created equal'.

And I have to reprise my opinion on world views and values.  They are anchored deep.  They are virtually unchangeable and unquestionable.  If one believes that the Bible is Truth, it follows that the theory of evolution is bogus, that science has to be mistaken.  No amount of evidence or logic can trump a deeply imbedded world view.  If one grows up in a racist sexist culture, it's cool to grab a lady's crotch, it's cool to insult and denigrate any minority, it's cool to expect the best jobs and the highest salary.  It might not just be cool, it might be perceived as a Right, to be expected.  It is firm.  It is there.  It is unquestionable.  It is Truth.  (Not.)

And then there are folk who just as arrogantly, stubbornly, irrationally, and irredeemably insist that all humans are created equal.  They too infest the country.  They present major problems to those who want to manifest their inherent superiority.  They push political correctness.  They are....  annoying.

How did the current manifestation of the equality question take shape?  FDR's New Deal started an ethic of supporting the common man, of protecting the many from the blatant flaws in our society.  Starting in the 1950s, the civil rights movement started pointing out firmly that racism was a blatant flaw in our society.  I don't feel it necessary to review MLK's career, but that was the core of it.  The Democrat's and GI's habit (or values, or world view) was one of attacking problems head on.  It didn't matter if they were defeating Fascism, containing Communism or flying to the moon, the GIs couldn't turn down a challenge, and took up racism as one of their many projects.  While MLK was the hero and chief crusader, JFK and LBJ pushed the key legislation through congress.  It became a Democratic thing, and attracted black votes to the Democrats.

The War on Poverty was another LBJ 1960s era project that attempted to solve the problem of poverty in the inner cities.  Again, this was the time America was Great.  The GIs couldn't leave a problem unsolved, a challenge unmet.  This being the era of Tax and Spend, a core part of the solution was spending a lot of tax money to improve the lives of poor inner city blacks.  This too brought a lot of black voters into the Democratic party.

While Nixon gets the credit for the 'Southern Strategy' described in the above video, if Nixon hadn't come up with it, somebody else would have.  If one party is collecting a whole bunch of minority voters, the other party is going to seek out the racist vote.  Inevitable might not be the right word, but then again it might be the perfect word.

Through the unravelling, lots of folks didn't want to go back to the demonstrations, riots and unrest of the late 1960s.  This doesn't mean the tensions weren't there, that the battles weren't being fought while not talking about it openly.  The Republicans have been trying to subdue any and all entitlement programs.  They have used the bogus 'supply side' theory to justify it, though supply side has repeatedly failed whenever tried.  The Republican policy has been to do as much as they can to attract the racist vote while trying not to be too blatantly obvious about it.

Enter Trump.  He is being blatantly obvious about it.  This just isn't about Trump, though.  He's just blowing out a dam that is a lot bigger and more potent than he is.  The tensions go all the way back to the Declaration of Independence, the ideal of equality pushing against the practical reality that some folks consider themselves superior and insist on acting superior.  The problem of race resurfaces and erupts from time to time.  The 1960s brought the last major breaking of the equilibrium.  Trump seems to be trying to roll back the gains of the 1960s, encouraging and personifying the racist and sexist behavior that was the norm before the Blue Awakening, the civil rights movement and the feminist movement.

And as the video states, The Donald has the Republican base as the ideal population to rally.  From Nixon's time on, the GOP built their rank and file as racist with intent and purpose.

(In other notes, I have proposed that supply side, demand side and balanced budgets all have conflicting but appropriate places in setting a flexible responsive financial policy.  When talking pure economics, I still believe this.  I have also proposed that the Republicans have pushed supply side well beyond the point of reason, resulting in repeated financial collapses.  While I'll stick with the notion that in the proper circumstances and in moderation supply side can be beneficial, the above should suggest one reason why supply side is being pushed by Republicans way beyond the point of reason.  Reason has nothing to do with it.  Supply side is driven in part by something far uglier than reason.)