09-23-2022, 11:09 AM
(09-23-2022, 06:20 AM)David Horn Wrote:(09-23-2022, 12:29 AM)Eric the Green Wrote:(08-23-2022, 10:21 AM)David Horn Wrote:(08-22-2022, 11:22 AM)Eric the Green Wrote: For the first time in a while Trump's approval numbers are lower than Biden's
https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/pol...ald-trump/
https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/bid...al-rating/
Thank goodness for small mercies. To me it seems like Trump should have 99% disapproval.
True, but then again, we don't marinate in Fox News like so many do. I have good friends who honestly don't know real facts because all they get are the fabricated ones. We discuss politics rarely and non-politics 99% of the time. At some point the veil will fall, but, as I've learned through experience, that can't be forced. They have to arrive on their own.
The numbers are back to being virtually tied between Biden and Trump approval ratings.
A true indication of insanity in the USA. Will people in the USA become sane again, on their own?
I'm staring to wonder: do we have to endure our own Mussolini Moment™ just to survive into the next phase? Are we that shallow a people?
Fascism was a political novelty a century ago. Mussolini acted like a normal politician at first before replacing service with power as an objective. He promised Big Government without telling quite what that meant. In time people found out, only they found out too late to stop the bad stuff. It's when the salami tactics start that democracy dies .
Trump never succeeded at the salami tactics. He needed to get support from the Democrats to achieve anything other than his three Judicial Stooges appointed and selected. He showed his desire, but Democrats stopped him. He purged the GOP, but he could not purge the Democrats. Thank God that one of our main political parties is genuinely democratic and operates on the principle of internal democracy instead of the sort of 'democratic centralization' (an oxymoron if there ever was one) of a Communist party. This time a once-democratic Party that was simply more consistently pro-business than the other adopted Commie methods. Fascism usually comes about in one of two ways -- from recent leftists like Mussolini, Goebbels, Doriot, or Quisling scrapping everything Marxist except terror or when the reactionary elements adopt Bolshevik techniques to make their conservative agenda harder as a line.
We need re-examine and acknowledge old principles that we have compromised for various reasons. We need contemplate how we can inculcate character into more young adults and more ability to resist demagogues. John McCain all but plagiarized Herodotus when he said that character is destiny. Part of good character is knowing enough to back off when one's abilities fall short of one's responsibility. Part is recognizing the need for some sacrifices of personal convenience. Part is recognizing that conspicuous consumption (often with the word luxury) is for schmucks.
The Multiversity must go, as it leaves far too many gaps in learning for what young smart people need if they are to enter the fast track of economic responsibility and success. A generally-accepted canon of liberal arts was once the norm, and most of that (with some tweaks to adapt to social and technological change over the last half-century) existed for good reason. Just consider teaching: teachers need know what things children must learn, and the liberal arts teach precisely that. I am satisfied that someone with the temperament, solid knowledge of the liberal arts, and perhaps a "ninety-days wonder" course that applies that learning to pedagogy is adequate for elementary teachers. Teaching is one of the largest professions in sheer numbers, and we need do this well.
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.