The Partisan Divide on Issues

[pbrower2a]

(12-16-2020, 11:25 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote:

(12-16-2020, 04:13 PM)Eric the Green Wrote:

(12-15-2020, 10:52 AM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: For the last year or so I have been supplementing my web news with watching a little MSNBC on the side.  It is sort of like watching the news during the Watergate era.  The news was the most tense and interesting thing on TV.  After the news spent 25 minutes on Watergate, there was the next upcoming Watergate special programming.  You can say all the bad things you like about Trump, but 2020 has sure made for interesting times, even if it was along the lines of the ancient Chinese curse.

With the electoral votes in and the vaccine being distributed?  It is starting to wind down.  The suspense seems to be going away.  The four walls of the quarantine seem to be a bit more confining.  The light at the end of the tunnel seems a bit brighter.

Ah, well.  I have had enough of interesting times.

Nixon and Trump as the bookends on the unraveling?  Seems like the history books will have that as an inevitable structure.

Trump turned out to be a perfect example of the generally-40-year Skowroneck theory, in which the last in the cycle since Reagan was the disjunctive, which shows that the philosophy dominant since the start of the cycle has run its course. Biden then begins the new cycle.

That may hinge on whether Harris is nominated in 2024, which would cut the "Reconstructive" presidency down to 4 years and eliminate the hand-picked successor, and possibly allow Trump or a clone of his to return to power. If Trump were to return to power, it seems fair to predict that not only would this end the Skowroneck cycle, but would end the presidency as we know it.

https://www.thenation.com/article/archiv...omes-next/

Biden/Harris actually represent the old Democratic cycle that began with the election of FDR that Reagan tweaked enough to keep America free.

Wrong. Very wrong. FDR's New Deal politics depended heavily upon the GI generation which trusted the political process to solve some problems. As the influence of the GI generation faded (with age, of course, as its voters started dying off) the New Deal coalition faded in strength and relevance. Reagan is the start of a new Skowronek cycle with a very different ethos, one that celebrates wealth and privilege on the assumption that those with wealth and privilege are more competent than non-rich 'losers' who might more wisely take delight in watching elites wallow in sybaritic excess than getting more than the share that those elites allow to trickle down. An aging Skowronek cycle comes to an end when either (1) the vital constituency behind it fades away, or (2) the person  in charge takes the ideology to some absurd, and perhaps destructive or abusive parody of its original ethos. Donald Trump is so sick a parody of Ronald Reagan that Joe Biden can beat him with a Reagan-like campaign.    

Quote:Thanks to you, we are nearing its end. If Trumps runs, he will represent a departure from DC politics altogether leaving DC powerless and more or less penniless.

I expect Joe Biden and Kamala Harris to offer what seem to them a pragmatic solution to problems that we now have, problems that conservative pols swept under the rug.  Whoops! Those are chips of old lead paint!

There is more at fault than plutocracy. Much bad stuff goes on in a 3T, including the rise of anti-intellectual religiosity. Bad habits from other times must give way in the solution of a 4T. and the most common bad habits come from the recent Unraveling.  

Quote:If you live in a blue city or near a large blue city, the situation for you may get a little ugly or downright ugly.

Nothing like the reality in Overdose Gulch, most of which is economically-ravaged areas like central Appalachia and the Ozarks. Such places are the ones that went most to the Right over twenty years. If you thought that such places would prosper because they would be attractive to Corporate America because of cheap, submissive, and obedient labor with low expectations in life. Think again. These areas continue to hemorrhage jobs and other opportunities.   

Quote:Also, the time of the career politician will come to an end as the American states vote to impose term limits.

Term limits have been fading as a solution to political inadequacies in recent years. 

Quote: What's going to happen to you, I don't know and don't care at this point. You have had many years to show me something of value that's worth keeping you and you've failed miserably.

Lives of people dissimilar to you matter lest your life become precarious too.