06-08-2021, 01:18 PM
(06-08-2021, 10:15 AM)pbrower2a Wrote:(06-07-2021, 07:20 PM)galaxy Wrote: revolution: country united against external enemy
depression/wwii: country united against internal enemy who is not a person or group of people/country united against external enemy
civil war: country divided against itself, intense identity politics/"culture war," people from the two sides feel like they no longer have anything in common
2008-202?: country divided against itself, intense identity politics/"culture war," people from the two sides feel like they no longer have anything in common
Again and again, race proves to be this nation's Achilles heel. Add a racial dimension to the crisis (such as...a black president and a resulting huge increase in political polarization in 2010, for example) and it's all over.
This Cold Civil War will end with resignation, not glory. We should all pray that 1/6/21 was the climax.
If this Crisis ends with COVID-19, then it ends with a whimper. Which side in the cultural Cold War prevails will depend upon who is in charge at the end. One side will be far more successful in economics, especially in meeting basic human needs that go beyond an animal level of survival.
My own political views (ideologically centrist but voting strongly Democratic, because I view the Republicans as rapidly becoming terrifyingly authoritarian) are probably biasing me here, but I have begun to wonder if Donald Trump's death (likely during the next decade because of the state of his health) might mark the end of the 4T. It's clear that the end of the pandemic won't do it - that would be a 12-year turning, which is far too short - and it looks like the Republican Party is trapped in some kind of Trumpist holding pattern until he dies. Surely even his supporters here recognize how unusual this is. Usually when a party loses an election, it changes. After losing 2008, the Republicans couldn't get away from Bush fast enough, and after losing 2016, Democrats started trying to be simultaneously populist and technocratic to appeal to their rapidly shifting coalition.
But the Republicans after losing 2020? They're doubling down on what they were doing before, desperate for the critical Trump endorsement in the primaries, and there's no sign that this will stop anytime soon. Perhaps when he's gone we can finally get some depolarization going, which might be the end of the crisis, but if it is, the nation will feel relief, not victory. It will be a Crisis that was survived, not defeated.
2001, a very artistic hero and/or a very heroic artist
