Election 2020

[Eric the Green]

(11-10-2020, 12:38 AM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote:

(11-10-2020, 12:04 AM)Eric the Green Wrote: Crisis topic A remains climate change, and it will be a key focus of Biden's agenda. He has made that clear. Biden and Democrats are hoping that Biden's time in the Senate and his friendship with McConnell will enable him to make negotiations with him. Whatever comes out of this negotiation will be inadequate. Even what normally comes from Democrats when they have the power is usually inadequate. But inadequate is much better than deliberately making the problems worse, which we had under Trump.

If we ever move from inadequate to actually solving problems, if will be necessary unfortunately for the blue side to "impose" it's culture on the red, because the red culture's entire being rests only upon opposing the necessary solutions. As I keep reminding you Bob, 4Ts are not kumbaya and let's all get along. If Biden can get a few things done by negotiation and calls for unity, well and good. But in order for a crisis style solve-the-problem mindset to happen, in our currently-polarized situation between one side that wants to solve problems and the other that wants to expand them, one side has to win, and then, as in all 4Ts, it can build consensus because it succeeds in resolving issues and moving the country forward. 

Once that is done, the ranks and power of the opposing culture diminishes, and some adherents of the reactionary culture will change their minds. It's tough to argue with success, especially among the younger people coming along. Resentments may well linger and problems resurface, as happened after the civil war, but that can't be helped-- as long as we have in the contiguous Dixie and Redneck lands a culture (Classic Xer's culture) that is dedicated to aristocracy and rooted in ancient rather than modern times.

I would differ on a few points.  If you were a patriot, a yankee, or an ally, a 4T is about kumbaya.  You bind together against the enemy and defeat him.  The question this time is whether you welcome the maybe enemy or make him a forever enemy.  I would make it his choice, not make it for him.  You are so much at the extreme that you cannot let go of the hate and unify as Biden is asking us to do.  You are insisting on the unravelling conflict perspective, refusing to adapt into the crisis mentality.  Love and peace, man.  Try to summon your inner hippie.

I am also doubtful that the environment will get the focus it deserves.  Sure, it is an element of the Democratic agenda.  We will get a few steps closer to enough in a few years.  Still, the economy will be such a wreck that I doubt we will do enough.  So far, COVID and racial violent policing have bubbled to the top of the crisis.  The desire to move to a high mood will overcome things when the bug and racism are attacked.

Will this help the millennials when the next generation of prophets goes off in the awakening?  Likely not.

I don't know what to do about Red America, really. Whether I hate them or not makes no difference. They seem to be doubling down on their hate and rejection of progress, judging by the election returns. It is up to them if they want to wake up from their delusions. I can't wake them up. I respect them as human beings, but I don't respect their ignorance. Luckily it's not up to me how they are handled. But ultimately, I wish them well. Yet, I can't always feel too sorry when they are flooded out, because they voted to get flooded out.

The thing is, however disgraceful, stupid, self-obsessed or criminal we might say Trump is, or even other Republicans like McConnell, must be said about the 71 million people who voted for him too. After 4 years of what he said and did, they wanted him back. There can be no excuse for them.

"You bind together against the enemy and defeat him." That's right, but then you say the opposite. Can we do both at once? It didn't work against the redcoats and those who didn't want revolution. It didn't work against Dixie. It didn't work against the Nazis, OR against the oligarchs who remained vehement in their hatred of FDR-- and he welcomed their hatred. So, now we have an enemy within our own country once again, as we always do in a 4T. I don't know where we go from here, for sure. To a break-up, or to some success and demographic change that gradually moves us forward. What we have had is 40 years of stalemate, and the voters voted for more of it. It doesn't seem sustainable to me. We're headed for a breakdown, unless somehow destiny calls us forward.

It doesn't matter if you feel "doubtful that the environment will get the focus it deserves." It will demand attention, every year, year after year. Racism seems already on the back burner; dealing with it no longer commands majority support. Instead Red America is only interested in law and order. So what is on top will fluctuate as the years pass. Covid is first priority now, but it will go away in a year, while the climate crisis is here for the century.