Trump's people have founded their Party:

[Eric the Green]

(09-16-2021, 06:48 AM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: I haven’t been pitching in as much here lately.  From my perspective the Republican Party has considerable commitment to racism and the elite.  During the unraveling, they had a considerable advantage in seeking elite profit, tax cuts for the rich, sending jobs abroad where you don’t lose profits to high wages, benefits and environmental concerns, and attacking labor, benefits and wages in the US.  As small government and cutting domestic spending was seen as hurting minorities rather than the working poor, the racists were pleased.  As so many problems like infrastructure and the environment were more encountered and obvious in urban areas, the idea that small government didn’t have to solve problems less encountered in rural areas.  This came to hurt when Covid became one of the problems.

Now these aren’t Classic’s problems.  He is not an elite.  He is not a raving racist.  He just is tied by habit to the Republicans and extrapolates his own views onto an imaginary Acirema.  These views are not what I see as the primary Republican / Red threat.  The problem is elites using money to influence government and racism gathering more votes that LBJ gained by pandering towards the blacks.  The elite money and racist votes dominated the unravelling.  With the twin Covid and Floyd triggers, these factors could be reversed in the ongoing crisis.

But Classic has an idea that the Republicans are for the working man.  I don’t think so.  Oh, they tried to make it so for a while.  For a time when the ‘Tea Party’ was towards its peak, there was an attempt at the Republican’s main stream divorcing itself from the elite influence.  From my view, this died with Trump.  He brought the elite and racist elements back together.

But at any rate, arguing with Classic doesn’t seem to be much worth it.  Attention should stay focused on the real problems, the influence of money on government, and systematic racism.

The many Classic Xers in Acirema are easy and willing pawns for racist neo-liberal elites and policy-makers. The damage they cause is no longer confined to urban areas. The rural voters, the ranchers and hunters etc., may still oppose the "federal land grab" and oppose regulations against motorbikes and oppose increasing wolf populations and protecting endangered species, and vote for whoever protects their guns, but the policies they vote for are causing much land erosion and degradation of their lands. Wildfires, floods, droughts and heat waves are making water ever more scarce, and farmlands and ranchlands are threatened. It is for the Republican pawns to decide whether saving their own lands and their own fates is more important than hanging on to their ethnic and religious prejudices and ideologies that appeal to their self-reliance and identity. 

It is not so much the elites now, but their willing pawns who through their votes keep in power the short-sighted, near-term focus of policy in our society. The pawns like Classic Xer are the ones who keep narrow-minded policies alive regardless of threats from pandemics and climate change, and it is they who support Republican voter suppression of democracy, even more than elites. Their heros like Larry Elder appeal to them by promising such short-sighted policies as lower gas taxes and an end to vaccine mandates. Many of the elites are smart enough now to know that environmental destruction and raging pandemics do not support their bottom line, and that dollars are not black, brown, red, yellow or white. For example, General Motors is now adapting to the need for electric cars. So I put more responsibility on the rank and file voters who in rural counties vote 80-90% Republican than upon the elites these days, even though many of the elites are still also corrupt and short-sighted as well, and still benefit greatly from neo-liberal/classic liberal policies.

But none of that means that arguing with Classic Xer is an adequate and productive strategy to create better policies that will benefit America and the world in the long-run.