Who Can Beat Trump?

[Eric the Green]

(09-08-2018, 05:47 AM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote:

(09-07-2018, 04:47 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote: Uniting principles have to (be) broader than those of the blues/progressives these days. A simpleton red might follow an idea like small government as government continues to grow and become more powerful and less interested in serving of the interests of those who elected them like a blue simpleton might follow an idea like big government and helps it  grow and become more powerful and eliminates a few long standing American rights that big government views as no longer being  necessary or views as no longer being applicable to certain people or groups.  

I tend to use the word 'base' rather than insults and demeaning descriptions like 'simpleton'.  I respect the concepts behind both parties bases somewhat.

I do find the gun issue and the Second Amendment reverses certain trends.  Generally, you would find progressives on the side of the arrow of progress and The Enlightenment rights.  However, the blue base generally goes for gun prohibition, while it is the reds who are going with the old right.  As long as the prohibitions are limited to felons and mentally incompetent, let them try prohibition, but prohibitions are notoriously difficult to enforce and enable the criminal element.

It is easy to see how the parties reversed on this issue.  Weapons fit better in the rural environment, and police response time is longer as population density decreases.  Hunting is more common in rural areas.  The need to try something to ease gun violence in cities is distant from the more rural Republican base.  This reverses the usual position of the progressives favoring equality and rights.  It is also why I fence with Pbrower and Eric on this issue.  I am laying cause less with the reds than staying consistently progressive.  The arrow of progress suggests a strengthening of the Right to own and carry weapons.

I generally sympathize with the bases and consider many of their ideas good ones.  However, when stereotypes are involved, I get doubtful.  The blue include stereotypes of the red as rednecks, hillbillies and gun nuts.  David Horn on this site and the book Hillbilly Eulogy both fish modern blue stereotypes.  The red might reply with their stereotypes of the welfare mother, and people who exploit government handouts.   All might have some truth, but I have met far more people than stereotypes.

I have problems when people too much vote their stereotypes.  Voting for small government, low taxes and the Second Amendment is fine.  Voting for a politician who promises these things but delivers support for the elites and the Swamp is less fine.  Voting for a millionaire narcissistic liar?

Now, I don't see you as the base.  I see you as an extremist and an oddity.

(09-07-2018, 04:47 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote: As general rule, what's good for Ford Motors is good for the country considering the country is getting the bulk of the benefits as far as taxes and employment are concerned.

Since Reagan's time, profits from automation have been fed to the elites.  The division of wealth has skyrocketed.  There is a point to strong corporations.  Right now though, balancing the division of wealth more could benefit the people.

A society that needs to rely on private guns to feel safe, is not the beneficiary of progress, but a victim of regression. The USA is the only developed society with this obsession. The second amendment is a relic of a time when slave rebellions had to be quashed in order to keep the South in the Union, when guns were muskets, and when armies, national guards and police as regular forces did not exist. Progress would be to remove it. Absent that, I will recognize such progress as Americans are willing to accept, given our traditions, fears and obsessions, on the gun issue, and on all the social issues.

I do see Classic Xer as typical of the Trump base; perhaps even a bit more reasonable at times. That said, I recognize what Obama says, that the blues have to seek to appeal to everyone, and name-calling does not work. I may indulge in it, but I would not consider it a good campaign tactic for a politician or a political activist. Everyone has the potential, if not the likelihood, of recognizing what is right and what is truly beneficial for themselves, and that what benefits society as a whole benefits themselves also.

The red base feeds in, as Classic Xer does in this quote above, to the notion that corporations and big business is good for America, because the benefits trickle down and jobs are created. Sometimes that's true, but today, often it is not. Blues recognize that wealth is power, and too much of both is now concentrated in what we call the 1%. Trickle down does not trickle; "job creaters" replace jobs with machines now, and hog all the benefits. Big business cannot be trusted and must be regulated, and such is not "socialism," even though such is denounced by the reds, when in reality it is restraint on the tyranny of the powerful that prey on the rest of us. 

The slogans of big government and freedom used by the reds are the exact opposite of the truth, used to fool the people. Prejudice and scapegoating has been used to great effect to create the Trump base and the GOP ideology. Red voters, as we call them today, are just people who have been fooled. So, there is no equality between the red and blue perspectives. There may be grains of truth on both sides, but the red side as it exists today has become unacceptable as a ruling principle for our society, and the sooner everyone realizes this, the sooner we can make progress again after 40 long years of nothing but regression and stalemate.