10-23-2019, 01:35 AM
(10-22-2019, 09:00 AM)beechnut79 Wrote:(10-21-2019, 02:22 PM)Eric the Green Wrote:Do you feel as if the opening years of the 2020s will feel like an extension of the outgoing decade?(10-17-2019, 09:36 AM)David Horn Wrote:(10-16-2019, 09:00 PM)sbarrera Wrote:(10-16-2019, 02:27 PM)David Horn Wrote: Reality bites, but Sanders' heart attack ended any chance the Democrats will risk betting on him. He's still the Gray Champion Incarnate of the neo-left, but, like Barry Goldwater on the right, he'll have to watch someone else carry the torch into the stadium. Who is needed is a late-40 early-50 year old with the same philosophy and drive. I've seen none to date.
Xer progressives stayed out of politics. They all went into tech and entertainment.
Buried somewhere within the bureaucracy is just the person we need right now: brave and inciteful. Some are already quitting their jobs for the privilege to testify against the Orange One. Others are writing tell-all books about things most of us would be happier not knowing. It's what Nomads do best. Will one of them step forward and run for office? Some already have, but only for the House so far. Unfortunately, we need someone available today, so those good soldiers will be the middle and senior managers in someone else's administration. It's looking more and more like Elizabeth Warren. Eventually, we'll need a pragmatist, and we already have a Dwight Eisenhower in the wings: Mayor Pete, but it's not time for an Ike today.
Maybe so. From my indicators, I think Gavin Newsom has a better chance than Pete of becoming that new Ike sometime after 2028 or 2032. Pete will be a flash in the pan. Meanwhile, there's still a chance McAuliffe or Landrieu will arise in 2024 to provide true boomer gray champion leadership for the 4T climax. Warren may have reached her limits, and Sanders may revive or Biden stay strong, but whether any of the three can be elected in 2020 is a crap shoot at best. 2020 may indeed be the start of a new era, but it may not start in the customary way with a new dynamic president. The best we can hope for is a place-holder like Biden for one term, who will not seek re-election. I see the congress as stepping forward if Trump wins in 2020 and reducing Trump/Pence to figureheads, until the Democratic Gray Champion core/late boomer steps up to the task in 2024.
The impeachment of Donald Trump may be as significant as the establishment of the Constitution. With Trump going down, many Republicans (mostly of the Tea Party waves) go down, too. We will probably be better off when politics start showing more concern for constituents instead for the hidden money that dictates how politicians vote in Congress and in state legislatures.
2020 is the big election. If it goes bad, then we will have a very nasty Saeculum as a sequel. We could have a society under the tight control of what Toynbee calls a dominant elite, the sort that determines that all economic activity, all culture, and political life exist to ensure that the Right People get everything and that life becomes a burdensome privilege for people not in that elite. Most immigrants to America came to escape inequitable, repressive, hierarchical societies in which few people had a chance at satisfying lives.
We are getting the sort of civics lesson that George III gave the Colonies just before the American Revolution.
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.
