Who Can Beat Trump?

[David Horn]

(08-21-2018, 05:33 AM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: ...  Right now, the capitalist elite and post Communist tyrants are having their innings.  The arrow of progress in favor of human rights and democracy is very hard to find, not at all obvious.  The idea of all men being created equal is being quashed by selfish tribalism and greed.  This is generally the case, with conservatives resisting change well for three of the four turnings.

I am assuming global warming, limited resources and taking care of an ever increasing population are problems that will eventually have to be solved.  The existing elites with existing ways of profiting seem to be putting off acknowledging these problems.  They wish to continue the gravy train, the old pattern which they profit from.  I don't think this will go on forever.  It can, however, last the lifetimes of the elites that currently hold power.  When this is no longer the case, the new values might triumph...

This is the essence of your comments, and the ones I subscribe to as well. Unworkable solutions can prevail for extended periods, if the underlying structure of society is adequately strong and those unworkable solutions aren't overly toxic. But there is an advancing paradigm, fully supported by the Trumpists and not really opposed by conventional Republicans or Democrats, that promotes or at least permits the total emasculation of the workforce for private gain. Once all gains flow to capital and work declines to the point that human effort is essentially unnecessary, the rule of the wealthy will either precipitate a mass removal of undesirable human beings or a revolution that topples capital entirely.

The only alternative is a proactive move to something akin to socialism that permits a sharing of what will be virtually unlimited wealth. The already wealthy will oppose this, and the self-righteous up-by-my-bootstraps crowd may as well, but the alternatives to doing this peacefully are not pretty. This is all speculation on my part, since I don't' expect to be here when it happens. My grandchildren will, and that's enough reason for me to give a damn.