The Partisan Divide on Issues

[pbrower2a]

(05-18-2020, 05:15 PM)Kinser79 Wrote:

(05-18-2020, 09:33 AM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote:

(05-18-2020, 08:34 AM)Kinser79 Wrote: But barring some disaster of epic proportions Trump will be re-elected in 2020

But what if there is such a disaster of epic proportions?  Like the botched handling of a pandemic?

(05-18-2020, 08:34 AM)Kinser79 Wrote: After 2024 the 1T will have started and we'll be in store for the Mega-Crisis that I predicted.

If the economic result of the pandemic is real, the nomads are likely to push materialism, locking down the culture and building infrastructure again.  The crisis will happen in the crisis, the high in the high.  Just had this discussion with The Nomad.

Not surprising to see people predict what they want to see.  

While I could pretty much agree with your description of the Republicans, you description of the Democrats reads more like a list of demonizations the Republicans have come up with.  I don't recognize myself at all in most of them.

1.  The President's handling of the Pandemic has been pretty much spot on.  Further it has vindicated his economic arguments.

An unlikely coalition of Big Business and largely-liberal politicians has taken the lead and left President Trump in the dust. Trump isn't so much a follower (which would be tolerable) as a back-biter.

Quote:2.  Yes the economy is in the toilet right now.  It will remain there as long as politicians insist on maintaining mass quarantines instead of opening the country back up for business.  Guess which party the governors that want to maintain indefinite lock down are from.  I'll give you a hint they aren't from the GOP.

Between the entrepreneurial spirit and desires that people can defer but never fully deny, Americans are going to find ways to do what they crave doing. The hazard to business will be the breaking of old habits that after some hiatus many people will not go back to enough. I have some idea of how I will celebrate the re-opening of restaurants -- three non-chain places in one day. I figure that I will also have some desire to go somewhere to satisfy my Wanderlust. 




At my age I have pretty much the stuff that I need, and it is down to replacement. In a life with plenty of hardships I am glad to be a low-maintenance person.  Dog, maybe a girlfriend, to Tahquamenon Falls? 

Quote:3.  Mega-Crisis isn't something I want to predict.  It is a historical pattern.  Like the Revolutionary Saeculum was a Mega-Crisis that resulted in the final end of feudalism in Europe and the American split from Europe the next crisis will separate the current Era from the next Era.  There is a reason why Millies are so often compared to the Glorious--they are so so much alike in many important ways, namely being Nomad-Civic hybrids.

The only Nomad-Civic hybrid that Howe and Strauss recognize as a generation is the Gilded, and I concur with that depiction. The Gilded had a typical Reactive childhood but ended up, at least in the North as a Civic Generation. (The only notable Southern Gilded who did something big to influence America was Asa Pemberton, inventor of Coca-Cola). The Southern Gilded really were wrecked whether by defeat in the Civil War or, if black, having been thwarted in an effort to create an economy based upon commerce and industry by people who successfully brought back race-based subjection if they could not recreate slavery.   

Quote:4.  The Democrats don't have any real infrastructure programs underway.  So far 500 miles of the Wall have been built.  Granted that is mostly updating and repairing existing border baracades but there are 1500 miles to go.  There are simply too many other interests opposed to high speed rail and other similar types of infrastructure while needed simply won't be built unless one proposes dismantling the automobile-industrial complex.  Try doing that without a depression that would make the 1930s look like a bad day on Wall Street.

Interstate 69 is being extended from Indianapolis to the Mexican border, entirely through "Red" states. Now connecting the US/Canadian border at Port Huron through Lansing and Fort Wayne (completed around the early 1990's), it now goes exclusively through states that voted for Donald Judas Iscariot Trump in 2016. It will require expensive bridges across the Ohio and the Mississippi. My own state could wisely upgrade mostly four-lane Interstate 94 (completed in Michigan in 1961) west of Ann Arbor to four lanes in each direction; its traffic is horrific.

The Border Wall is an ecological disaster and an economic boondoggle. It would make more sense to upgrade US 83 from the Canadian border to the Mexican border as an Interstate-quality freeway. At least such a highway would do more to unite than to divide America. 

High-speed rail can work where densities are high and big cities are along the way. Acela is popular. For relatively short trips it can rival air travel for convenience (let us say between Dallas, Austin, and San Antonio; Detroit and Chicago; Los Angeles and San Diego). 

Self-driving vehicles will do much harm to the motel business in waystation areas (let us say, Effingham Illinois) and to the automobile aftermarket for collision repairs. On the other hand, more people will be able to travel and will find it easier. 

    

Quote:5.  I'm not concerned about what you see yourself as being or not.  Those are the factions that make up the Democratic Party.  I should know because I was involved with the Democrats for nearly two decades on an intimate level.  There is also the possibility that you're part of the old coalition that hasn't caught on that you're not wanted or needed in the New Democratic Party.  How many people stuck with the (Democratic) Party after Bill Clinton and were blue collar?  Quite a lot.  In your case you might just be suffering from inertia.

Donald Trump is more likely to serve as the scapegoat for all that will have gone wrong in this Crisis. The death toll from COVID-19 is characteristic of a nasty war. Conservatism will likely revive -- but only if it connects anew to old virtues. Maybe the Democratic Party will go too far in the socialist direction or get taken over by Trump-like grafters, in which the Republicans could win with a conservative version of Barack Obama.