Donald Trump: polls of approval and favorability

[Galen]

(06-23-2017, 07:43 AM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote:

(06-23-2017, 02:49 AM)Galen Wrote:

(06-22-2017, 06:37 AM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote:

(06-22-2017, 02:29 AM)Galen Wrote: Normally with this many special elections at least one or two seats should have flipped to Dims and this was one of the more likely ones.  None of them did and it took a seven times spending advantage and over sampling the polls like the media did last year to get this close.  The Dims still haven't learned anything and my guess is that their latest antics are in fact pissing people off.

I have often said that a fourth turning marks the end of an order and way of looking at things.  My suspicion is that when future history books are written they will say that the election of Trump marked the real end of the Progressive Era.  It looks like the next saeculum will be marked by the destruction of large entities including nation states.

My crystal ball is still hazy.  Yes, a lot of Democrats are portraying the opposition as deplorable and getting people angry.  See my notes to and about Eric.  As long as the Erics of the world are doing their thing, the reds are just going to become more stubborn and ticked off.

It will be interesting how the financial problems in states such and Illinois, which have been run by Dims for decades, play out.  It seems likely that the Dims will be blamed for this.  In the west pretty much every national government is functionally bankrupt.  This is a sign that the nation-state is no longer functioning combined with the general contempt politicians are now held.  I would suggest a little light reading on the subject.

People tend to look at the world in a very linear way.  Eric the Obtuse and Odin expect the centralization trend that started in the early modern period to continue and so believe the world will always be what they have known.  When I see major organizations all exhibit similar signs of failure then it is safe to say that the long term trends are about to change.  Religion as a major organizing force did not last forever and I see no reason that the nation-state, at least at its current scale, to last forever.

What we are seeing now is that the always existing cold war between the tax-payer and tax-consumer is turning hot because the state is running out of loot.  It is only a matter of time before the continual pillaging cause some kind of negative reaction of which I believe we are seeing the leading edge.

The above shows a relatively consistent perspective on things.  It is hardly the only perspective on things.  In many was aspects of it seem wrong, very wrong, from other perspectives.  You seem reluctant (obtuse?) to consider or respond to some of these perspectives.

I have considered many different scenarios but the US has a very rigid set of interests who will never give up any of the loot not to mention any special privileges they have gotten.  When this happens the system goes on until it breaks.  This breakdown is a long term process which in the case of Rome was a century or so but once they got to the point of debasing the silver denarius only a drastic reduction of their welfare-warfare state would have saved them.  The Spanish and Ottoman empires similar process took place and they never made the decisions that would have saved them.  I expect the US to continue down its current path until that is no longer possible.

(06-23-2017, 07:43 AM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: I tend to agree with your talk of the US being in fading empire mode.  I tend to agree that our position on the world stage will have to fade if we are to compete with other power blocks who tune their cultures toward better economic competition.  I just see the spend more tax less Republican unraveling memes, first pushed by Reagan before the Soviet Union fell, most recently pushed by Trump, as furthering the perhaps inevitable economic collapse due to military overspending typical of fading superpowers.  Something’s got to give.  Either the military has to shrink or national priorities have to shift.  Frankly, I’m ready to see the military fade.

I’m not overly familiar with the financial problems of Illinois and other Midwest states.  I sort of think of Flint Michigan’s water problems as representative.  If you don’t fund government agencies, if there is a mode of thought that government agencies fail, that they never do well, then they will fail.

It is not just military spending but the overall spending of government that causes the problems.  There is also the small problem of the ever increasing regulations that strangle economic growth.  All these things were present to a much greater degree in the Soviet Union which caused them to go down in seventy-five years.  This is a matter of economics and not belief.

The problems in Illinois are a consequence of overspending and unfunded liabilities such as public employee pensions.  This is problem all states have and will eventually manifest in all of them in the fullness of time.  I expect as this happens more then the promises of government will be seen as worthless.