11-24-2016, 05:50 PM
(This post was last modified: 11-24-2016, 05:52 PM by Eric the Green.)
(11-24-2016, 06:27 AM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote:(11-23-2016, 08:24 PM)pbrower2a Wrote: I figure that the Trump Administration, both Houses of Congress, and most state legislatures will do everything possible to make liberalism permanently irrelevant to American politics. Such opens America to extremism, both of the extreme Left and Right.
Both parties, after winning any sort of majority, no matter how thin and tenuous, have interpreted it as a mandate, have tried to push their culture on the other half of the country. Health care! Transgender bathrooms! Gay weddings! Pushing a mandate when one doesn't really have one is a good way of losing power. Thus, through the duration of the unravelling neither party has been able to truly push their values in a sustained way. There is the partisan notion that one's own values are correct, the other guy's wrong, that the other culture must be entirely defeated and suppressed. Attempting to do this results in political backlash. The wannabe suppressor becomes the suppressed.
Perhaps forcing one's values on other people isn't always a great and wonderful idea?
It's sort of natural, I think, for the blue side to want progress and real freedom and opportunity. We can't help it if too many people can't see it and resist it and want to go backwards towards the tyranny of the past. We still need to push, for everyone's benefit.
Quote:At the moment the pendulum is swinging red. Not so long ago the progressives were talking about demographics, that the blue leaning segments of the population are growing, the red shrinking, so progressive victory was inevitable. I see values and cultures as incredibly stubborn. Is it possible that trying to move either immovable object might not be the wisest of moves?
Wise or not, in regard to the likelihood of success, it still must be done. Yes, reactionaries are stubborn, especially in conservative, heavily-religious countries like the United States, Saudi Arabia, etc. But we push for progress, or we fall behind. Whether the regressives like it or not, we will keep pushing. It's human nature to do that; to keep pushing up into life, in spite of the forces of death. And evolution continues.
Quote:I think the talk of the country falling apart is premature. Trump talked an extreme red game through the campaign. The harder he pushes that agenda in office, the greater the backlash I'd expect. Thing is, he is shifting blue rather quickly, backing off many of the ideas that won him the angry red votes. I don't think he is shifting far enough to avoid a backlash, and I don't know if the angry red voters will feel as betrayed by Trump as they felt about the establishment Republicans he defeated. We'll have to see.
My magic eight ball keeps coming up 'Answer hazy, try again later.'
The talk always comes before the reality. These are the times in history when such talk is going to happen, and grow. Exactly how it shakes down, I have given my estimate. Even with the Republican winning this year, I had already laid out a scenario. I was by no means entirely sure that the Democrats would win this year, although I predicted it. I thought Hillary would win, and I also knew Trump could win, but it was too horrific a prospect for me ever to forecast. But, here we are. Like I said, Trump shifts his way of talking all the time, even in mid-sentence. But his appointments so far are horrific, and they keep coming up snake eyes, every day so far. Not a one has been to any degree acceptable, except to regressives.