(12-06-2018, 11:14 AM)David Horn Wrote:(12-05-2018, 03:55 PM)Mikebert Wrote: ... Although not complete the change in direction was enough for FDR to add to his Congressional majority in 1934 and 1936 so that it became so large that even after he was hammered worse than Obama in 2010 in 1938, Democrats still held a majority. His victory in 1940 and his decade-long Congressional majority made FDR the unquestioned commander in chief going into WW II. The result was a degree of political domination for 48 years after 1932 than was similar to what Lincoln had achieved for his party.
This is not and most probably will not happen this 4T. Add the unbridled effect of money due to Citizens United, and a rising aspirational majority in the larger cities, stalemate seems most likely. Yet things are degrading though neither side seems to have a solution that will swing the supporters of the other side to their cause. Assuming I'm right here, what will lit take to break the stalemate, and what will it look like when it does? The aspiring urbanites are not going to accept a retrenchment, and the rural opposition seems to be in the foulest mood I've seen.
Assuming the T4T theory still applies, then we should be a lot further along the crisis path than we are.
Who says that the resolution of a Crisis will be positive? The barbarians are not at the gate; they are inside. I can imagine America resolving problems that it let fester during the 3T by excising the rot of institutional graft, corrupt politics that endorses the graft, and a mass culture that diverts people from the harsh reality of political consequences.
America can become a corrupt, inequitable, hierarchical, and repressive society. What matters most is that many of the richest Americans want it that way, and not that such is good for most people . Money shouts!
It may have taken the Great Depression to humanize our political culture. Such is a high price, but nothing like the shameful defeat that Germany endured and eminently deserved in 1945.
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.