09-03-2022, 03:46 PM
(09-03-2022, 01:53 PM)Eric the Green Wrote:(09-03-2022, 06:56 AM)David Horn Wrote: You're preaching to the choir. The real audiences are the persuadables, of which there are many. The problem: they are all over the map. Start with the youth, who just aren't interested in Grandpa, though his loan forgiveness may have made a dent there. Then there are the suburbanites who are more worried about crabgrass than national politics. Getting them will be a challenge, because too many choose social media as their proferred news source, and the Trumpists have no compunctions about filling those platforms with half truths, outright lies and worse: appeals to blood and soil couched in mommy-talk.
If Biden is reelected, he'll default to caretaker status relatively early in his second term -- better than having an arsonist in charge but too little to create real change. Once again, the monied will escape and this will settle finally into 1980ish neoliberal lite in the 1T. It could be worse. It should be better.
Biden will still be in charge and pushing for the changes that we'll need. There being no-one else, he will be more than a caretaker. He certainly doesn't have a veep who can take over. Is there a potential House speaker who can fill that role? I don't see that person. A big challenge will be to put down the violent uprisings by the militias of the right wing in the mid-2020s after he wins re-election. I think he is ready and willing to meet the challenge, as he says he is.
Ideally the Trump cult disintegrates, and anyone doing violence on behalf of that cult will likely be relegated to the role of a lone-wolf terrorist. Law enforcement and the legal process deal well -- and mercilessly -- with such types.
Quote:We should do better than we will in this 4T. I guess that's true in most 4Ts. The status quo or a reactionary trend can make a comeback in 1Ts, but they also carry forward the momentum of the changes made during 4Ts, to varying degrees. The question is will we do what we need to do to steer the ship of state on a better course, whether everything gets done that should be done or not. Passing the climate action was a good first step, and as he said we are only just beginning. It will take a Democratic congress to do more. Biden is not to blame if we haven't gotten done all we should; the Democrats in the House did what was needed. The voters did not give Biden a real majority in the Senate, so that limited the results. Again it needs to be continually said. No president can do much without a congress, unless you want a dictator.
After the Crisis a new normal sets in, one consistent with the agenda of the winning faction of the 1T. Trump's faction came close to achieving its agenda, but failed catastrophically. In place of conspiracy theories we will have an orthodoxy that will get increasingly stale.
Dictators have weak legislatures full of appointed flunkies who do exactly what the Great and Infallible Leader tells them to do.
Quote:But I enjoyed your crabgrass reference. Americans of all ages and classes have many ways to go to sleep and ignore what's happening. It's always a challenge.
It was difficult to sleep through all the Katzenjammer from the MAGA cult.
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.