07-30-2020, 01:47 AM
(07-29-2020, 01:33 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote:(07-29-2020, 04:17 AM)Ragnarök_62 Wrote:(07-29-2020, 01:22 AM)Einzige Wrote: Eh? The vast majority of Democratic voters, even of Democratic activists, are basically nonideological, like the overwhelming majority of Americans.
Well, let's make this easy. For POTUS, the choice is between a Mad Man and a Zombie. As for the 2 parties. They're both Neoliberal/Neocon. The US population has been gaslit to no end. The result, a step, step down towards the next dark age. Until then, let's enjoy our bread and circuses. [cheap junk food], mass/digital media. I'll go for Biden for a better chance for bread. Like, it's the new national motto: "It's all about the Benjamins"
When in Rome, do as the Romans do. In America, do what Americans do. That means you join a tribe like Futbah teams and sort out what kind of junk food you prefer. After all, even though America hates to admit this reality, Trump is the personification of the US.
PS.
Marxism, like anything human concept has to account for the fact that some humans are sociopaths. This reality is why a lots of zealous ideologies warp into nightmares. History is littered with this stuff.
Trump's not a mad man. He's to stoic, to cunning and to calculated to be a mad man. So, you go ahead and vote for the zombie and get used to the idea of fighting for a loaf of bread or paying twice as much for a loaf that can't be manufactured as much or get to your grocery store until its disinfected and cleansed or sold until its disinfected and cleansed and so on. Dude, the guy has 83 million followers on twitter that the dude who owns Facebook bans and doesn't worry about losing as customers. You better wake up and stop thinking like a Democrat and start thinking like an American who knows they're dealing with a crisis right vs sitting in the bleachers watching one right now. Do what Rani did if you can't accept voting for a Republican, vote Libertarian instead of voting for a zombie and find yourself being stuck with a two bit liberal candidate who doesn't deserve to be president that the country doesn't recognize as being legit.
1. I see Donald Trump forcing an ideological realignment in American politics, one that redefines recent ideological divides and perhaps establishes some Crisis-Era version of a political Big Tent. Liberals and some conservatives have begun to coalesce in the recognition that checks and balances and the rule of law are essential to preventing the imposition of a self-styled despotism, even if that despotism has no coherent ideology because its leader has none. We are finding some conservatives coming out of the political version of the closet and recognizing that the mainstream of the Democratic Party has beaten them in the race to determine that Donald Trump is a menace to 230 years of Constitutional government.
Are those conservatives trustworthy? We shall see. I assume that they still want tax cuts, regulatory relief, and further evisceration of labor unions. For now, Trump is the menace, and the old saying "a drowning man grasps at a viper" applies.
2. President Trump's idea of "making America great again" depends heavily upon America taking on the characteristics of a pioneer society in which people get much while sacrificing little. If living with 1950-style costs of housing and the opportunity to make a solid living as an industrial worker is what people consider great, then such is beyond recovery. Twice the population that we had in 1950 ensures that more people will be competing for the same housing space. Housing costs in coastal California were incredibly low back then, and even such places as San Mateo, Hayward, and San Jose were still within rural areas. If ten million people want to live in the San Francisco Bay Area due to the mild climate they are going to have to live in housing characteristic of of Seoul, Tokyo, or Hong Kong, complete with the rental costs. The great views? It will be easier to find a place with a view, if an awful one, in a place like central Illinois, a thoroughly un-scenic area, or at least what one sees from 294, 80, 55, 57, or 70. Trump sells an absurd myth that nobody can achieve unless by culling the population.
On the other hand, central Illinois has a delightful climate -- if you like "Minnesota Lite" in the winter and "Texas Lite" in the summer.
Beware contradictions and absurdities as public policy; they never work.
2. "Neoliberal" and "neoconservative" seem built indelibly into our public life. Divesting ourselves of such will take some inordinate disaster. It may be too late for that, not that I want any nukes flying around.
3. One observation that I must make: much of American life is made for morons. I hate to cite the Evil One, but he well expressed the idea that political discourse is most wisely designed to appeal to the stupidest person in the audience that one wants as a supporter. I can say this also about mass culture, advertising, religious hectoring, and job classifications. Most jobs readily available are made for people on the borderline of mental retardation.
OK, it takes considerable learning to realize that a work for three string instruments that takes nearly fifty minutes to perform called "Divertimento, E 563 in E-flat for string trio by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart" is worth dedicating forty-minutes of time. Yes, it is that good:
It is extremely difficult to market except to an audience that knows about this masterpiece. It is easier for people to listen to Top 40 pap and find something superficially attractive yet utterly empty because such is easy.
The connection between the expense of a purchase and the intellect necessary for having the skill with which to afford it is weak. Semi-literate pimps and pushers love the same sorts of expensive cars that attorneys and physicians can afford. Just think of the low quality of "gospel of wealth" preachers who tell people that they can be successful in life if only they "sow the seed" -- right into the televangelist's bank account. Could it get lower? Sure -- people handling snakes as tests of faith.
We have seen a highly-refined art of offering thirty-second ads for political campaigns, typically defaming anyone who would challenge the precepts of pure plutocracy. "My opponent will..."
raise your taxes
put Social Security and Medicare at risk
"pal with terrorists" (OK, Sarah Palin went too far on this one, as pal is not a verb)
take away your guns
promote homosexuality
make it easy for criminals to do violent crime and get away with it
Finding meaning in life isn't easy -- but it must not be impossible.
4. Sure, Marxism attracts sociopaths. Sure, fascism attracts sociopaths. But so does our political system. Some people really believe that on their behalf, no human suffering can ever be in excess if that suffering turns them a profit, allows them to indulge themselves extravagantly, or enforces their power. That is exactly what I would expect of a medieval aristocrat, a slave-owning planter, the most rapacious plutocrats of the early-industrial era and the purveyors of the most irresponsible products ever known (elixirs said to cure everything but might kill you instead), the war merchants who sold weapons to both sides in wars that they promoted through proxies, and drug kingpins. Are our economic elites any better? Maybe not, but they have the money to support the most reactionary toadies as political pets.
Character is everything, and people with great prerogatives had better have souls worthy of their power lest tragedy ensue.
Now, on to Trump:
Quote:Trump's not a mad man. He's to stoic, to cunning and to calculated to be a mad man. So, you go ahead and vote for the zombie and get used to the idea of fighting for a loaf of bread or paying twice as much for a loaf that can't be manufactured as much or get to your grocery store until its disinfected and cleansed or sold until its disinfected and cleansed and so on. Dude, the guy has 83 million followers on twitter that the dude who owns Facebook bans and doesn't worry about losing as customers. You better wake up and stop thinking like a Democrat and start thinking like an American who knows they're dealing with a crisis right vs sitting in the bleachers watching one right now. Do what Rani did if you can't accept voting for a Republican, vote Libertarian instead of voting for a zombie and find yourself being stuck with a two bit liberal candidate who doesn't deserve to be president that the country doesn't recognize as being legit.
5. Donald Trump is the result of an educational system that let him advance without developing as a person. He is one of the early-wave Boomers who went through an MBA program that taught no ethical values. If one has no ethical values then one naturally gravitates to moral and cultural emptiness and little empathy. Life is more than "sex&drugs&rock-n-roll", bureaucratic power, material comfort, economic ease, and ordering people about as if those others were slaves. Figure that the Armed Services have academies that inculcate character through drills that are as important as the academics... life isn't easy for a junior military officer, but if a junior (let alone senior) officer fails due to a lack of character, soldiers can die in large numbers who might not need to.
Maybe mass poverty isn't quite as severe an ethical consequence as tens of soldiers dying under some colonel because that colonel wants a Medal of Honor for inducing such a sacrifice. This said, poverty is unpleasant, and nobody seeks it except as a way of experiencing religious bliss. Nobody wins elective office by promising potential voters that his policies will reduce the quality of their lives so that a tiny elite will get to live like sultans. But that, all too often, is what we get.
OK, so he isn't a mad man? By that criterion I would make a fine President (on the other hand I have gaps in my personality that would make me unsuited to running for high office). Stoic? Do you think Trump knows what that word means?
He is calculating and cunning -- just like a typical mobster or (more catastrophically) someone who uses an elaborate conspiracy to do murder-for-hire for the proceeds of an insurance policy. One can calculate badly, and one's cunning is all too obvious. "Cunning" is exactly what we expect of the most bloodthirsty killers in the animal world. They have a limited range of vocal expressions, and much of that range is "Meow!"
I think that I have said enough about dividing people in America between "Americans" based on their cultural and ideological identity and people not-so-American. Democrats no longer have the strongest arguments against Trump; conservatives now do! Democrats made the case against the Trump Presidency in the impeachment... and conservatives have gladly supplied good reasons for seeing Democrats as useful and necessary allies this time.
83 million followers on Facebook... are those the only people that you consider "Americans"?
Yes, we are aware of the actuarial risks of electing someone whose Presidential term will end when he is 82. Trump is an even greater risk.
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.
