11-06-2016, 11:53 PM
(11-06-2016, 10:46 PM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote:(11-06-2016, 08:52 PM)playwrite Wrote: But they are hurting others, 10s of millions of others, and they will continue to do so. The fact that the majority of them are also hurting themselves doesn't make it okay.
Anyone still wasting their time and energy trying to convince them or compromise with them is living in an alternative universe. They cannot be helped until they are completely and unequivocally defeated. It's no different than 1860.
By 1860, the country was pretty much on the path to all out Civil War. To me, it is not at all clear this is the case now.
There are disconnects of alternate realities. Abe Lincoln said he did not want to see slavery expand would allow it to continue where it exists, but the southern politicians said he was out to destroy slavery. Hillary is saying she is in favor of closing gun show loopholes, but Trump says she is out to destroy the 2nd Amendment. These are just blatant examples of the common practice of totally distorting the other side's position and misleading one's base. As long as this continues, we're going to be divided and dysfunctional.
That is how extremist or totalitarian dysfunction works: whoever is not 100% with the leadership of a cause is the Enemy -- either an obstruction to be removed or destroyed, or a backslider who has betrayed the Cause. The pro-slavery side did not see slavery as a necessary evil but instead as a great virtue, a defining characteristic of civilization at its best.
Never mind that the British Empire had recently abolished slavery by buying freedom for slaves, and without having to begin any wars (aside from some colonial adventures to abolish the slave trade where it still existed. I am tempted to believe that that was how Abraham Lincoln wanted to end slavery in America. People formerly bonded in servitude would be freed in exchange for government bonds.
Quote:If Trump wins, trickle down borrow and spend is going to destroy the economy again, resulting in the Democrats taking over in 4 to 8 years to put the nation back on its feet again. Eventually, will the middle of the country figure it out?
We would likely get a replay of the Great Depression -- and not only the first year and a half as from the autumn of 2007 to the spring of 2009, but instead of some equivalent of the autumn of 1929 to the autumn of 1932. Republicans who would have the Senate majority through the end of 2018 if Donald Trump is elected President would have little chance of losing it because there would be so few Republican Senate seats up for Democratic wins in 2018. The House of Corporate Lobbies -- excuse me, House of Representatives -- is so gerrymandered that Democrats would have no chance of winning it except in a calamity. In 2020 even Southern white people would recognize that they have been cheated. Then America would turn to some leaders wise enough to turn things around. 'More of the same' would be out of the question because it comes with mass hunger.
Another alternative is that Donald Trump would so mishandle his responsibility as Commander-in-Chief that the Armed Forces would be obliged to choose between overthrowing him and becoming complicit in war crimes in a war that America has no chance of winning.
"I know more about ISIS than the generals -- believe me!"
NO! I certainly don't believe him. I am going to guess that Barack Obama says nothing of the sort, recognizing that anything that he knows about ISIS is what the military and the intelligence services have told him.
Quote:If Hillary wins, I don't know what becomes of the Republicans. I can see Faux News and Trump TV selling different sets of excuses, playing the blame game to the hilt, and fighting a battle to establish what the primary conservative platform will be. Did they lose because of tepid backing of Trump by the Republican establishment, because the system is rigged, or because Trump is a flawed candidate? Other? All of the above? What is the vision going forward? Does the party need to move beyond trickle down borrow and spend? Should the southern strategy be played subtly, blatantly or abandoned?
At this point... they can turn their rhetorical knives against each other without interference from Hillary Clinton or other Democratic leaders until or unless the knives become more figurative, or at least symbolic of lethal violence, and deadly, in which case leading Democrats will turn to law enforcement to keep the rest of us safe. Maybe Republicans might resort to the type of violence that one now associates with rival gangs of drug traffickers... but that would be the end of any credibility that they have. Without credibility they will have no chance of participating in the questions of public policy.
Quote:Supposing Trump wins and is as bad at running the country as he is at running businesses, are there enough relatively sane Republicans in Congress to join the Democrats to institute a system of damage control? How many congressional Republicans will put the good of the country ahead of the success of a Trump presidency that will redefine the meaning of what it is to be conservative and Republican?
I have my idea of where the conservative wing can emerge within the Democratic Party -- well-educated people who have a stake in ordinary decency but who might have no use for the economics of the Far Left. I can also imagine the rump of the Republican Party that rejects the stilettos-out invective of recent leaders, to find the Democratic Party a suitable place for people who take Christian principles seriously for lack of an alternative.
An Era of Good Feeling in a Crisis Era? It would create a bloated Big Tent unwieldy in electoral politics, electoral politics decided in primary elections and not in the general election.
In the 1930s the Republican Party became a default for dissident Democrats and for people who could not make their way through the machine politics of the existing Democratic party.
Quote:However the election turns out, at least one month following the election will involve radical transformation of one or both parties. I'm not at all sure how it will settle out.
As I said in another recent post, I don't see Trump as a transforming Grey Champion sort who will lead our culture into a new age. Trump is pushing trickle down borrow and spend plus the southern strategy. That won't transform anything. That's the unravelling continued.
A Clinton win shoves Donald Trump into political irrelevance. Maybe Republicans learn something from defeat... something other than 'be more ruthless', 'be more careful in the use of deceitful rhetoric', and 'abandon all scruples'. If they don't, then they could face a political calamity even worse in 2020.
Quote:Should Hillary get in, I don't know how far she can get if the Republicans have enough people in Congress to filibuster. I know she is persistent and able to propose solid policy, but she has been so poisoned by decades of vile propaganda that I anticipate as stubborn an obstruction of the first female president as we had with the first minority president. The deplorable aspect of the Republican base won't reelect anyone who doesn't go all out obstructionist, and the deplorable wing seems to control the primaries.
I expect a Clinton Presidency with Democrats in control of both Houses of Congress to be a near-replay of the first two years of the Obama Administration. I expect a Clinton Presidency with Democrats in control of the Senate but not the House to be a replay of the second four years of the Obama Presidency to the extent that such lasts. A Clinton Presidency with Republican majorities in both Houses of Congress will be a near-replay of the last two years of the Obama Presidency.
The 'deplorable' wing of the Republican party may control the Republican primaries, but it will not control the general election unless Donald Trump as President establishes a dominant-Party system with the aid of both Houses of Congress -- in which case, we would have the governmental system similar to that of the People's Republic of China except with iconic images of our Founding Fathers gutted of any democratic character instead of Marxist figures stripped of Marxist character.
Given a choice between having a government in which iconic images of Washington, Jefferson, Adams (both), Hamilton, Madison, Franklin, and Lincoln are gutted of their democratic qualities and one in which the iconic images of Lenin, Stalin, and Mao are gutted of their Marxist character... I would prefer the latter.
Quote:The cleanest path to a true transformation might be a damage control alliance of most congressional Democrats and any hypothetical Republicans that care more for their country than they care for Trump. Whomever makes that alliance work might write the transforming policies and be nominated for president and Grey Champion.
...and who would those dissident Republicans be?
Quote:Or if there are not enough sane Republicans, the Democrats have been taught over the last eight years how to filibuster and frustrate a president. If the Republicans can filibuster and frustrate Hillary, could and would the Democrats filibuster and frustrate The Donald?[/quote]
Democrats would have every reason to frustrate The Donald when he evade the Constitutional constraints against despotic or dictatorial government. If Democrats must filibuster to prevent some federal legislation that makes a mockery of the right to vote (as in allowing employers to control their employees' votes) or outlaws labor unions, nominates fanatics or cronies in the Supreme Court, or to prevent some unjustifiable war by someone who knows more about (insert the implicit Menace of the Hour) then the generals and admirals... then so be it. The filibuster has a sordid history in America, but it remains in existence for good reason.
Much will be decided on Tuesday should Hillary Clinton win the Presidency because she shows no signs of any break with the overall policy of the Obama Administration. Should Donald Trump be elected with stooge majorities in both Houses of Congress, then I will change my signature to a movie quote from All About Eve:
"Fasten your seatbelts. We're in for a bumpy ride."
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.