Can Trump (or Pence) establish a dictatorship in America?

[Eric the Green]

(08-18-2018, 06:32 PM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote:

(08-18-2018, 05:58 PM)justpassingthrough Wrote: "Can Trump (or Pence) establish a dictatorship in America?"

Can they? No.

Do they want to? No.

Are they trying to? No.

Hysteria from totalitarians losing power results in massive projection.

Agreed.

On another thread, I listed a bunch of tropes used by either extreme. The first included a Red fandom of big business, with the Blue favoring big government.  I would favor checks and balances.  I see big business and big government working together, and a need to prevent abuse by the dominant over the many.

That much is hard to deny, the pro big business leanings of the administration, and the need of the common folk to catch up, to negate the surge in profits since Reagan's time.  The Red rejection of the Establishment is in many ways right, but they elected a representative of the swamp.  We are worse off than ever.

The Red have general disgust of their Establishment, but have been unable to find a candidate truly working for them.  The Blue are behind the curve in rejecting their Establishment and may be too fond of the feeding trough environment.  As long as the see saw keeps promising 'power' in four to eight years, with the mid term elections making sure the believed in mandate goes away after two years, the spiral of violence will not take off.  No climax civil war or revolution.  A following of the Industrial Age pattern of a violent climax conflict remains distant.  

The awakening seems more likely to be the decisive turning, not the fourth.  I keep envisioning the next prophet generation as the Green, as committing themselves to issues rejected by the old Establishment like global warming and pro rich greed with a vengeance that puts the boomers to shame.  The upheaval could be real.

I have a gut feeling that more tropes need to be rethought, that a common principle can be derived that unites the two extremes.  But how do you unite - for example - the Red belief in self defense and the people being of threat to the government with the Blue belief in arms prohibition?  The extremist clings to their own world view and is not open to thinking through a new idea.  Thus, an endless repeating of the old ideas.

The gun control debate is certainly a possible trigger to civil war, given the fanaticism of the red side. And it's too early to say that today's polarization won't create a spiral of violence in this 4T. The stalemate is making each side more and more frustrated; it cannot continue. One way or another, one side will break through and win. My prediction has been for decades that the 2020s would be the decisive decade, not the 2010s, and that the progressive side will win. That does not preclude future pendulum swings, of course, but they need not be totally frustrating and deadlocked, as they are today.