The Partisan Divide on Issues

[Eric the Green]

(10-31-2020, 01:15 PM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote:

(10-31-2020, 09:58 AM)David Horn Wrote:

(10-30-2020, 01:24 AM)Eric the Green Wrote: Democrats have a lot to do if they win. It's hard to remember it all. Here's just a taste...

10. I'll leave it at 10 for now, and I won't discuss gun control, abortion, women's and gay rights, trade, workers' rights, consumer rights, unions, regulating speculation, infrastructure, housing, and education here, etc., but health care and the pandemic is on everyone's mind. Trump and the repugs have slashed funding and programs for disease control and research, and it must be restored at once, including full plans to control the current and future pandemics. Health care reform must proceed with plans to move toward a medicare for all system.

Eras take a long time coming to fruition, and this one will be no exception (assuming it begins soon).  This one will be no different.

Agreed.  The last progressive era ended when the racist vote turned out to be stronger than the black vote.  We wound up with the conservatives dominant as a result.  We have talked about the shifting demographics all through the unraveling, but that is a slow process.  I suspect Trump will be the catalyst that brings America over the top, that a progressive victory Tuesday could result in a period that lasts for decades.

Crises seem inevitably to be between a conservative stay the same faction and a progressive solve the problem one.  It does not seem prudent to predict this will change.  But the issues last time were government regulation of the economy and containing autocratic dictators.  That is quite different from COVID and structural racism, the two hottest issues now.  I see no reason to expect the next crisis to have similar issues to this one.

Alas, we won't see.

When I talk about a progressive era, like we have had in the past, I generally mean a decade. Sometimes it can last for a turning. Usually, a 4T is progressive, but a battle. Afterward, there is a pulling back during the first turning because people want domestic peace and are happy to conform. This time, I expect progressive movements to continue into the first turning, partly because that's what I see in the cycles. Our 4T contained much that was still 3T, and so there is a lag. However, I expect a more-fully 1T mood to take hold in the late 2030s. Still, 1T conservatism, apart from some extreme reactions, is generally moderate. Ike, Grant, Washington. The Awakening will follow, which will bring progressive movements of our time since the sixties to greater fruition. So, in that sense, we will see a generally progressive era, with ups and downs, through the 2050s. Much will come to fruition, but all problems are never solved and new ones come up. It's the human condition. But we progress and unfold, if we continue to live up to who we are as humans.

Conservatives made something of a comeback after 1968, but it was a partial one, and after Watergate it went away. Many reform movements continued in the 1970s with important results. The conservative era, which had its forerunners in the mid and late sixties (during a progressive time), really began with Reagan. He instituted trickle-down economics, aka neo-liberalism, which is a racist dog whistle, but is not entirely racist. It appeals to economic libertarians. It was anti-taxation and regulation. Wholly unnecessary, it was brought about because big interests found the movements of the Awakening like consumerism and environmentalism cutting into their bottom line. They hired Reagan to deceive people into following them. He was a master communicator and a brilliant faux-macho charming actor whom Gen X grew up with, and they absorbed the lies and have stuck with him through Bush, Gingrich, Bush Jr., Paul Ryan. Mitch McConnell, and Donald Trump. Many Silents and Boomers were persuaded to give up their sixties and seventies idealism and join in the greedy fun. Strauss and Howe called the 1984 victory an all-generational acquiescence into indulgence.

So it was more than the racist vote versus the black vote. There are a lot of concerns around which our current polarization has developed.