COVID-19 is the climax to this 4T

[Eric the Green]

(04-13-2020, 11:07 PM)Generational Wrote:

(04-13-2020, 10:18 PM)Eric the Green Wrote:

(04-13-2020, 09:02 PM)Generational Wrote: Regarding income and wealth inequality I think it's clear to everyone but neocons / neolibs that it's a very big problem and needs to be reversed. Also, everyone except for blinded ideologues knows that socialism and anything in this directions does not work. So what gives? My feeling is we will find a populist solution close to what the book "Towards a Truly Free Market" from 2010 outlines.
Nationalist-populist conservatives understand that there are TWO things that make people conservative like nothing else:
1. Have children
2. Own property and assets
Large cities with a tenant-only class are ALWAYS governed by socialist-type local governments, across the globe. The voters have nothing to lose. But get the property widely distributed --- they turn conservative. The same is true when you collect assets like stocks over time. I started this early and I tell you nothing made me more conservative as I have something to conserve now.

Populism is liberal and it works. It means higher taxes on the wealthy, minimum wages and union rights for workers, break up of big monopolies and oligarchies, regulations to keep business behaving, and public ownership of certain industries and services where workable and appropriate. A mixed economy. That's populism. Power to the people, not the 1%. Neo-liberalism is the opposite: trickle-down economics or opposition to taxes, regulations and welfare.

We need people to be liberal, not conservative. Conservatives (which are now all neo-liberals) hold on to the status quo of elite power and traditional authority. That blocks progress toward true populism, and has blocked it in the USA for 40 years.

Families and property owners need to understand, for their own good and benefit, that allowing a small number of rich people to own and control everything reduces the value of their property, because the economy suffers. Only a country in which wealth is widely distributed is creative and fun to live in, and full of opportunities to earn and invest money. In the long run, we are all in it together. Wealth results from a country with abundance for all. Allowing conservatives to control the country means that needed problems are not addressed, and no solutions are found. That is what conservatism is now. Stand pat, do nothing, preserve the privileges of the wealthy, and expect all benefits to trickle down from the top. But nothing trickles; we are tinkled on.

That's the choice now; don't be fooled. The choice is between a country that works for 1%, or one which works for 99%. That's a D vs. R choice; blue vs. red. True progressive populism vs. neo-lib/neo-con. There are no other choices available now. None.

Have you been frozen 2010 and just woke up? :-) The Trump revolution has turned the Republican party populist. The neocons/neolibs from Koch to Kristol have moved to to the Democrat party where the neoliberal corporate platform has just pulled it together to oust the populist candidate. I mean everyone sees the charade. Don't let yourself be played. Their interest for the American people goes as far as giving their kids the next Burisma gig.
The 4T moves on anyways. Looking for the "consensus" candidate 2020 will fail even worse than 2016. The elite families' corruption is not tolerated by the electorate any more.

Ha, I am woke, yes I couldn't be MORE woke.

I have never been fooled to think Trump is a "populist." As I said, he is populist on one issue, but that one issue does not make him a populist. For sure, he has adopted some of his positions because he thinks they will work for him politically. It's all about him, and no-one else. But he has always been racist, and he has always been about making money and not following the law. He has always been about taking advantage of others and screwing them for his own benefit. He's just a typical Republican tycoon who defends the privileges of his class. Anyone who really listened to him and wasn't spoofed by his phony populism knew that Drumpface was just going to roll out even more and heavier trickle down economics, this time on steroids. His man Bannon called it dismantling the administrative state. Trump is doing everything he can to take power away from the people. He appoints the worse possible justices. He wants to deprive the people of the right to vote, as he did in Wisconsin, and his justices uphold him. He wants to take health care away from them.

Sorry, but we need the state to balance the power of the tycoons. They must be regulated, and they must be taxed if the people are going to be treated fairly and not lose wages and their rights. Right now, the tycoons who control the Republican Party want to destroy our climate and our environment. They want to allow us all to get sick. They want to keep power in the hands of a wealthy few. They want to destroy our democracy. They want to saddle us with endless debt. The Republicans are a bunch of goons--- lock, stock and barrel. Trump has only made them even worse.

Biden is a center or center-left guy. Bernie may be able to pull him more to the left, toward true populism, but only if the people remain active and push him that way.

Trump is not only NOT a populist. He is an absolute abomination, in every way. I must vote for the lesser evil because the greater evil is TOO great. I am a green. I am Eric the Green. I voted Green 5 times, so I don't go along with the crowd lightly. "Don't let yourself be played." Trump is a good and persuasive player. I was very disappointed that the Democratic boomers (like me) copped out and voted for Biden (I voted for Bernie of course). But we must make do with what we've got, again. Sorry to say. The USA is still a two-party duopoly, and Democrats arewere afraid, literally, that Bernie is some kind of "socialiist" that would not beat Trump. Boomers grew up in the Cold War, and socialism was communism, the great enemy.

People who think they know what the electorate will tolerate, do not look at the election returns. The people voted for Hillary in the primary, and they voted for Biden in the primary. If Americans want better, then they had better start voting for it.