Wheels within wheels.

[Mikebert]

(06-03-2019, 11:35 PM)Eric the Green Wrote:

(06-02-2019, 01:01 PM)Mikebert Wrote:

(05-31-2019, 04:14 PM)David Horn Wrote:

(05-31-2019, 03:44 PM)Mikebert Wrote: The reality of today has moved beyond the ability of past experience to explain it.

This is the issue we've tried to overcome, or barring that, ignore.  So far, we're not doing very well at either level.  But history will do a perfect job, 75 to 100 years from now … not that we should care all that much.  This feels like a pivotal moment, but totally without direction.

We know what needs to be done, but how?  Being an issue warrior tends to generate more backlash than converts.  Being passive just allows the current ills to continue.  Somewhere in the middle, or somewhere else entirely, there is a solution that escapes me.

The Civil War 4T struggle was over Red vs Blue. The Blue Conservative party won. In the Depression the struggle was over Conservative vs (econ) Progressive. The Red Progressive party won.

Today the term progressive (or liberal) has gotten so tangled up with cultural politics that they can no longer be separated.  This is, I think, a core problem. Progressives/liberals are BOTH Blue and progressive while Conservatives are both Red and conservative. So an effort by progressives to advance policy is a war on two fronts, and those usually end in defeat.

The Civil War 4T struggle was over Gray vs Blue. The Blue progressive party won. In the Depression the struggle was over Conservative vs (econ) Progressive. The Blue Progressive party won again. The progressives have always won the 4T struggles.

Blue is progressive, Red is conservative today. Cultural and Economic issues are tangled up because the issues are tangled up. Cultural conservatives (racists, homophobes, religious bigots) are dedicated to economic conservatives (trickle-down free-market ideology). They are joined at the hip. Social and cultural justice is bound up with economic fairness. You can't have one without the other. The issues are bound together so the politics is tied together.

The party that won the last 4T was the Democratic party that won the 1932 election. That party was a Red party, the party of the Jim Crow South. The candidate was FDR, who was a progressive Democrat. He had been Navy Secretary for the last Democratic president, who, like FDR, was a progressive, and a racist.

Red vs. Blue is a cultural measure. It can be mapped on a two dimensional chart along with liberal and conservative economic views to form distinct quadrants:

1. Red conservatives (usually called conservatives, but nowadays could include what is known as the alt-right) 
2. Blue conservatives (often called neoliberals or libertarians) 
3. Red liberals (often called populists)
4. Blue liberals (often called progressives)

You have seen this before except they label the non-economic axis as authoritarian vs. libertarian. I think replacing it with the Red-Blue axis is more informative.