02-11-2017, 03:57 PM
(02-11-2017, 12:45 PM)SomeGuy Wrote:Quote:I might quibble with the culture issue, as my understanding that was not the focus of the Tea Party. But this is unimportant.
I agree that it isn't the focus of the Tea Party or Donald Trump. I was simply pointing out that the issues that previously helped generate turnout for the Republicans have largely been lost.
The "Culture Wars" have largely been won by the left.
Quote:I don’t understand this.
We were discussing organized coalitions that could both effectively frame the issue of the problem the 4T is about and solve it. I was suggesting that either of the two listed above could be candidates if one of them achieves some sort of lasting victory during the resolution of the 4T. They would then be the people setting the narrative of what the turning was about and how it needed to be resolved.
Quote:Would it be fair to say that you see the secular institutional reordering that is a hallmark of a 4T will be centered on the liberal international order. That you do not (so far) see an internal reordering as being in the cards?
I am suggesting that a drastic reordering of the international environment would necessarily include an internal reordering as well. I tend to view many of the issues salient today (immigration, wars of choice, deindustrialization, etc.) stem from the logic of the US acting as global hegemon and guardian of the international order. The US began setting up unequal trade relations with countries like Germany and Japan in order to boost their economies to prevent them from switching over to the other side during the Cold War. FInancialization, like that that occurred in late Victorian Britain, is tied in with investments made overseas as a result of this. Our lasting trade deficits have been supported by the dollar's place as the world's reserve currency. Wars of choice stem from the US' self-proclaimed role as global policeman. Politicians on the right and left wringing their hands over Trump's "Muslim ban" are just as likely to cite our need to preserve good relations with Muslim nations for our wars in the Middle East as they are to say "That's not who we are!". Our gargantuan military budgets and attendant industrial complex stem from this same role, potentially crowding out other, more effective uses for the same funds.
Since Trump is in the driver's seat right now, let's look at what some of his proposed policies would entail on the domestic side. Tariffs would be a huge shift, immigration restrictions would be another. If he manages to end the US' hegemonic role (either via "aggressive withdrawal", or by pursuing a conflict with, say, China that goes poorly), think of the effects that would have on the domestic environment. Tariffs, infrastructure spending, lower taxes, restricting the expansion of the supply of cheap labor, possibly enormous defense spending and a loss of US investments in China/East Asia during some sort of conflict, would lead to inflation, financial losses for many, rising jobs here at home. It could resolve the present income imbalance in the US even (especially) if it eventually goes badly. You would see a radically different US at the end of the period than you saw at the beginning, more isolationist, more nationalist, less thoroughly embedded in global affairs. Hell, the Trump/Pence administration(s?) could be firmly repudiated by a Sanders/Gabbard style Democratic successor and still be the definer of the next party system, especially if they come in on a platform of higher wages, more domestic investment, fewer wars/interventions, ie their present platform, and the one Trump ran against to begin with.
The 4T would then be about the end of hegemony and empire, and the need to refocus attention here at home, with a thorough repudiation of both the neocons on the right and the (neo)liberal interventionists on the left, which one might think of as the Bush and Clinton wings of their respective parties.
Like I said, it's a possibility. Doesn't mean it's going to happen that way, but right now I think it much more plausible than some farcical notion of a civil war between "red" and "blue".
Postulating a US war with China is much more farcical. We're going to fight a war over some islands in the sea? No, but a small-scale civil war is already gearing up between red and blue. The country is divided and apparently irreconcilable, between progress and disaster. That's not a situation that can continue; we either resolve in favor of progress or disaster and decline, in a way that the other side won't like and will rebel against.