The Partisan Divide on Issues

[pbrower2a]

(12-16-2019, 07:06 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote:

(12-16-2019, 01:45 PM)David Horn Wrote:

(12-14-2019, 03:48 AM)Classic-Xer Wrote:

(12-12-2019, 02:20 PM)David Horn Wrote: At this moment in time, both parties are largely "owned" by the wealthy elites, but it's the GOP that is doing it's level best to make that even worse. Citizens United is the product of a conservative court, bent on protecting the rights of wealthy.  The Dems are the second raters here.  So wanting to escape the control of the overlords by supporting the GOP is the world's greatest exercise in futility.  

Be aware of the actions not the words.  The GOP cuts taxes on the rich and removes restrictions on how they can use their wealth.  That enables the virtually unlimited right to use wealth to undermine democracy and we're already pretty far along on that journey.  Next up: anarchy, because only the rich and powerful have control in a wide open game.  Everyone else is one or two steps away from poverty -- you and me included.  It's easy to control people who are at risk.

I happen to believe in the notion that action speaks louder than words. So, I tend to focus/ judge more on actions than words. How many brushes with poverty have you experienced in life? I've experienced three during my life so far. The first was the worst because I was pretty powerless at the time. The last one was the worst as far as overall financial losses. Right now, I'm actually more than a couple steps away from poverty. I'm pretty familiar with ex urban areas and ex urban people. Honestly, I don't know of many or have met many ex urban folks who seem to be financially hurting these days. So, I doubt that you're a couple of steps away from poverty either unless you're completely dependent on your wife or something. Yes, it's easy to control people who are at risk. I'd say that Liberals know/ understand that better than anyone else right now.

My journey has been far from linear.  I left upstate New York, because the place was in rapid decline, and I wasn't about to join the fray.  That was 1972, and it's only worse today.  I've had other struggles along the way too, but I'm beyond that now.  I'm not atypical in this exurban enclave, because it's a resort area, with plenty of well-to-do retirees.  The locals who hail from here, on the other hand, are not so secure.  Still, there is an actual economy here.  No, the real exurban and rural economy lies to the west of me, in Western Virginia and other coal-belt areas.  Poverty is high, education levels are low, and mobility is near zero.  Among these folks there is a general belief that they pay the bills for their urban cousins, and they resent it.  Of course, the exact opposite is the case, but that truth is not enough to change opinions.  The area is solidly pro-Trump by upwards of 80%.  They believe he wants to help, but the nasty Democrats are stopping him.  Never mind that the state hasn't had a solid Democrat-lead government since 1983.

Well, I think it's very obvious to most everyone these days that the nasty Democrats aren't helping him, aren't going to help him  and aren't into the idea of helping the the American country either at this point. Well, there isn't much that Americans can do about them at this point. Lets face it, the bulk of Americans don't live in the areas these days for obvious reasons. The group of nasty Democrats has already gone to far over the edge and is now on the path towards whatever fate has in store for them down the road. AOC comes from a nasty Democratic district. So, what happens to her? What happens to her voters and financial supporters? Does America care? What happens to Obama's old mentor/ preacher? What happens to Al Sharpton? Does America care? Hmmm...Poverty is high, education levels are low and mobility is near zero in that economic region for what reason? Could draconian liberal policies and liberal resentment of them be the reason? What's your view of the so called smelly Walmart people or poorer working class people doing whatever it takes as far as working, voting  and making enough of a living goes in order to remain independent and stay off welfare programs these days?

A New Deal-style coalition has yet to be built this time. I had thought that Obama would do so because the time was tight and he had the right message -- except that this time, unlike the case in the 1930's, the questionable principle that he who owns the gold makes the rules had not yet broken. Could the difference be that Obama rescued the economic elites so that America could avoid a meltdown as severe as the Great Depression, only for those elites to buy the political process with right-wing propaganda? Maybe as in the 1930's we needed a full-blown Great Depression to create a climate of political civility. 

We are on the brink of a new era, one in which scarcity is no longer the dominant reality in American political life. Producing, buying, and hoarding more stuff is no longer a reliable means of creating a sense of prosperity. I forget what science fiction writer suggested that in an age of real prosperity, status would come largely by rejecting Kitsch and clutter. The electronic gadgetry that cost a pretty penny back in the 1980's is mostly junk now even if it is still serviceable.... and due in part to the extinction of patents stuff similarly useful is available to Wal*Mart shoppers. 

The workers who used to make solid incomes making stuff are now out of work. Maybe we could still make televisions and radios to sell for current prices -- if industrial workers would go back to making $4 an hour or so. One can't live on $4 an hour unless one resides in a sheltered workshop, and the $4 an hour goes into such luxuries as ice-cream sundaes and trips to the movie theater. Even for the commodity that the economic elite offers as the opiate of the masses -- mass low culture -- can be incredibly cheap. With a cast-off CRT television, a used DVD player, and mass-market DVD's that may have been in the $5 bin at Wal*Mart at some time, you can watch a movie. Maybe even a great one! Do you realize how cheap the stuff is? If I had to move across country to get work I would not need to use a moving van; I could donate stuff at a Goodwill in Flint (a very unpromising place) and buy similar stuff at a Goodwill in Austin (a booming place). Replacing my old stuff with something that someone else cast off because it no longer fit their lives is cheaper than using a moving van. I will take my laptop computer, a stereo (the speakers are twenty-five years old but their sound quality remains excellent), my classical CD collection (irreplaceable), some books, movies, and about ten changes of clothes... and I won't have to spend a huge amount of money. Shipping the stuff would be more expensive!    

Experiences will matter more than will stuff.  I could put off buying a new car so that I could make a memorable trip, let us say to Italy. 2500 years of history, the ancient society most analogous to the modern world, and the beginning of the modern world in the Renaissance. 

Economic reality has had the management of scarcity as its focus from antiquity to a few years ago. Now we will have to manage the glut. A time without scarcity may have been the dream of nearly farm laborer and sweatshop worker, and even such people as schoolteachers and accountants. Now we enter an era in which we can seemingly buy anything not monopolized cheaply -- and the dream can become a nightmare for multitudes.

The generational cycle suggests that the 2010's are analogous to the 1930's and maybe the 1950's, that the 2020's will be analogous to the 1940's and 1860's, and that the 2030's will be analogous to the 1950's and 1870's. The analogy might be better for the ten years surrounding a zero-year, as the late 1940's were very different from the early 1940's in much of the world... if I am to apply the 80-year rule rigidly, then the next five years will seem like apocalypse and the following five years will be recovery. If America bungles its way into an ill-managed war, then its suburban sprawl from the years following WWII could get the brunt of destruction, and something very new could be built upon the ruins... something that fits the rationality of the time. Farewell, schlock housing of Greater LA built cheaply in the 1950's and already decrepit, but turning huge rents for landlords today. People will be evacuating it -- not defending it.  

By 2030 the current partisan divide on cultural and economic issues will be seen as the cause of trouble that brought the world (or at least America) to the brink of ruin. People will be more intent on getting the rewards for their toil than on making executives, big shareholders, and landlords rich. People will want something workable, pragmatic, and accessible. Americans will not want an order that resembles a society on the brink of a proletarian revolution; follow the lead of Donald Trump and the Tea Party (as if there is any difference), and America will be less likely to win any war for profit. Religious fundamentalism will be incompatible with the rationality that one associates with the Millennial Generation.

Things will not sort themselves easily; no Crisis Era has ever worked out that way.