Fighting The Fourth Reich

[pbrower2a]

(08-30-2017, 01:40 AM)Kinser79 Wrote: Now it is time for Occam's razor.

(my material to which you respond in dark green)

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Quote:It is difficult to discern the politics of (the current child-to-adolescent) generation. If the Silent are any indicator, I expect it to begin very conformist as a "me too" generation,

This assumes that Generation Zed will express themselves exactly like the Silents did.  We have no reason to expect them too.  After all Millenials have not expressed them exactly like the GIs did or Xers the Lost, or for that matter Boomers the Missionaries.  That being said even if they adopt a "me too" methodology at least for the foreseeable future that means conservative.  The mood is shifting right after decades of being left as is to be expected.

They aren't voting yet. They are not yet creating mass culture. So far they are getting the same mass culture as Millennial young adults. In the 1970s the (then stupefied) mass culture produced for Generation X was clearly different from what Boomers bought. But for the time Generation X had no problem with it. Boomers to a great extent abandoned mass low culture not made for themselves and went in other directions unless the material was 'nostalgia'. I am reminded of what the GI journalist Herb Caen had to say of the 'bubble-gum' rock that early-wave Generation X listened to with apparent relish: that this stuff was incredibly bad.

As the disco fad  (and that dreadful, contrived music was intended to blend Boomers and X in a mindless hedonism) failed to redefine American mass culture as a lucrative conduit of record sales to its creators, performers, and hucksters, Boomers and X split.

The GI's and the Silent did not have such a cultural split until about 1960.

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Quote:With Generation X we saw a voting pattern that made the difference in the 1980 election by going more sharply toward Reagan

I don't think that Xers made the difference in the Reagan Revolution.  I'll tell you why.  In 1980 the youngest voters were born in 1962.  Arguably the first year of the X cohorts, maybe the second depending on where one draws the Boomer/Xer line.  So we're talking about a fraction of a fraction.  The Youth vote in 1980 was Boomer dominated.  Now if we're talking 1984 that is a different story as the entire 18-22 demographic would be Xers, and include the 23-in-1984 if you insist on the cut off being 1961.

What does this tell us about Xers in 1984?  That they preferred the incumbent over a return to the 1970s which Mondale represented.

It was marginal. Reagan was going to win over a President widely seen as ineffective and out of touch. Ronald Reagan was about as slick a campaigner as Obama would be 28 years later in running against the legacy of a failed President if not the incumbent. Both reached for visceral concerns, and at that Reagan may have been more effective. Or that could be race. 

Analysts of the time expected Reagan to win, but not as big as he did. They also found that voters born in 1961 and 1962 were much more conservative in economics and had less ambiguity in supporting a right-wing foreign policy than voters born as late as 1960. That may have been a complete shock. The Carter campaign sought the votes of people born in 1961 and 1962 -- and got burned.

Voters born as late as 1966 were voting in 1984. Voters in Generation X were still much more sympathetic to free-market solutions even at the cost of economic inequality through lower pay and through shifts from high-income income taxes to low-end consumer taxes. Of course Walter Mondale was a horrid campaigner that Democrats chose practically for long-standing, loyal and dedicated service to his Party. Almost like Alf Landon, and with much the same result.

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Quote:Generation X became less conservative with time as Republicans doubled down on such  social issues as abortion, gay rights, anti-feminism, and the Fundamentalist agenda, but it was more attuned to free-market ideas and less hostile to corporate power than any generation since the Lost Generation. Few conservatives predicted that X secularism and libertarian values on sexuality would be an open door for liberalism within Generation X. 

I would argue that X hasn't become more liberal, but rather that the things that they are liberal about are issues that the liberals have used to gain their votes.  The GOP's pandering to conservatism on sexual and cultural issues was pandering to Silents and older Boomers mainly.  Groups more likely to oppose them than X on economic issues.

As I've told Eric in the past, people don't become more liberal or conservative as they age, what happens instead is that which is considered liberal or conservative changes.

If there is any tendency, it is that people tend to vote in accordance with the interests with which they develop rapport. But let us remember that Generation X was going to feel the brunt of sexual repression. A generation almost libertarian on economics was also libertarian on s-e-x. X was (and still is) largely secularist, and it disliked the agenda of the anti-secular Religious Right that sought to replace science with religious revelation. That was the pattern of the young-adult early Gilded and Lost.

Generation X was also having children. X could tolerate lower real incomes and real higher prices in the name of economic growth... but they were starting to have children. Low wages and high costs were hurting the children of Generation X. Generation X started drifting toward the political center as it saw its children having to pay the price for the plutocratic, fundamentalist agenda of the GOP in the 1980s. Yes, there were loud X proponents of this agenda, like Ralph Reed -- but shrillness of a minority is not enough.

So X was willing to make economic sacrifices in the name of economic growth from which they could derive benefit in This World. The largely Boom Religious Right really did believe in Pie-In-the-Sky-When-You-Die as an adequate reward for misery in This World. X did not fall for that. It had its limitations, and the corporatist-fundamentalist coalition associated with Reagan and Bush I simply went too far. Sometime political reality goes that way.

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Quote:....The hack that Kinser shows in this video

I will admit that David Cullen is perhaps a novice amateur when it comes to generational theory, his main bailiwick is discussion of technology.  I'm not even sure if he's read S&H unlike say Styxhexenhammer666, who I would be surprised if he hadn't considering that he edits and republishes herbology books from the 17th century.  That being said if we give credence to polls and actual votes of people between 18-24 now (whether they are Millie Civics or Zed Adaptives is irrelevant at this point) then we must conclude that the youth is trending right.

Bear in mind in 2016 an 18 year old was born in 1998 and a 24 year old was born in 1992.

If the X/Millie line is around 1982 like S&H wrote, this means that even if these people are not an actual generation in and of themselves, they are definitely the later wave of Millies.  Assuming a 20 year generation of humans 1982-1992 would be Millie^1 and 1992-2002 would be Millie^2.

It could be possible that what is happening is that Millie^2 is taking up the name of Generation Z because they are alienated from the older half of the generation.  Indeed, there is evidence that this is relatively common at least in the current saeculum what with Aquarian Boomers and Disco Boomers, Atari Xers and Nintendo Xers, why should Millies be different?

As I have noticed, politics do not drive technology, and technology has at most subtle and usually unforeseen effects upon social patterns. Few people thought that the telephone would change how people did business. Few people foresaw that the automobile would change the patterns of dating, often bringing people not in the same proximity by then-recent standards.

Demographics may not decide things on the individual level, but in an economy of consumer choice, demographic reality can decide what succeeds and what fails. It can decide that obsolete models of business fail and that those in touch with economic reality succeed.

The Millennial Generation has yet to unite behind one or two overpowering realities. For GIs that was the Great Depression and World War II. Millennial adults have yet to see anything at all analogous to either. Millennial adults, to the extent that they were old enough to vote, did get behind Barack Obama to prevent an economic meltdown that looked much like the start of the Great Depression from getting that bad. But we are still 75 years away from the Pearl Harbor attack and 71 years away from the Allied victory... and 69 years away from the Communist coup in Czechoslovakia and the Berlin Air Lift that solidified the world for a long time. (All in all, the independence of what had been British India may be far more relevant to contemporary reality than the Cold War, and the settlement of the Korean War as an easy armistice still has shapes current events. But that is what this amateur historian sees. Amateur? In the past much of the best work was done by amateurs).

Watch the demographics. The line between GI and Silent did not emerge until the end of World War II, separating soldiers who stormed Okinawa and put Dachau under more humane management from those who might have expected to storm mainland Japan but instead did occupation duty. The difference between cohorts of 1923 and 1928 would be obvious in 1948 would not be as clear between cohorts of 1924 and 1926 until the 1950s. The difference between 1924 and 1925 is still subtle. Lots of people thought that Marlon Brando was the Silent (although born in 1924) and that Paul Newman was the GI (although born in 1925).

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Quote:seems to express wishful thinking more than anything else about politics. "X" and "Millennial" will be the strongest influences upon this generation, with Boomers likely to appear either as having grandparent-like influence as relics of a time when black-and-white television was the norm and before the Interstate Highway System was largely built or as old political figures (like Donald Trump this time or FDR in the last Crisis Era) to be recognized for greatness or to be rejected for awfulness.

Well I know of one Boomer politician that some of this set of cohorts revile, she lost the youth vote to Trump.  As my son said of HRC "She represents everything wrong with society why would anyone vote for her?"  Obviously he wasn't old enough to vote in the last election but he would have likely voted for Trump and I haven't checked but I suspect when he registered to vote he registered Republican, though he really has no use for partisan politics--but FL is a closed primary state.

The marginal voter of November 2016 who voted against Trump seems to become more proud of the choice. The marginal voter for Trump has drifted away, as shown in polling since the election.

Just look at the disapproval ratings for the President in some states that Donald Trump barely lost (Maine, Minnesota, and New Hampshire) and four of the six states that he most barely lost.





Blue, positive and 40-43%  20% saturation
............................ 44-47%  40%
............................ 48-50%  50%
............................ 51-55%  70%
............................ 56%+     90%

Red, negative and  48-50%  20% (raw approval)
..........................  44-47%  30%
..........................  40-43%  50%
..........................  35-39%  70%
.......................under  35%  90%

White - tie.


Now for the theme of disapproval as shown in the Gallup data and subsequent polls:




navy under 40
blue 40-43
light blue 44-47
white 48 or 49
pink 50-54
red 55-59
maroon 60-69
reddish-black 70+

...any possibility of Donald Trump winning re-election will depend upon him undoing the high disapproval levels in such states as Arizona (a state  that Democratic nominees have won only once since 1948!). Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. Maybe Ronald Reagan could get away with such by compelling Americans to take some hardships that reflect themselves in the President's approval rating. Donald Trump is not the new Ronald Reagan, someone able to push America in a right-wing direction. Neither is he a right-wing version of John F. Kennedy able to turn a bare win into increasing approval.

Polling in North Carolina, Florida, and even Texas (this is before Hurricane Harvey, and I doubt that he will get any help from handling the disaster) indicate trouble. He is not picking up support elsewhere as compensation.

Give him a chance and hope for the best? He's not the President to convince us.

He is far behind Obama at the same time.

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Quote:Homelander, Digital native, Zee, or Zed youth are yet to enter adulthood. Unlike Generation X, which was clearly much less pretentious about its culture having any educational or moral content and was much more reactionary on economics than its elders, the current child generation (Homelander, Digital native, Zee, or Zed youth) have yet to graduate from high school. For most whom we can expect to become leaders they have yet to enter college, and there they get to encounter adult ideas generally unavailable to those who go no further than High School or take a strictly-vocational course. They have yet to recognize the superficiality of the digital world.  They will get some hard knocks in the workplace and in economic life.

College doesn't mean the same thing as it did when you went.  These days going to college means that you were dumb enough to pay money to be indoctrinated with leftist nonsense.  Maybe it made sense to pay money for an "education" before the internet existed but these kids have spent their entire lives exposed to adult ideas online.  In fact they have never not been exposed to them which makes them different from previous generations, and even waves of generations if in fact what we are dealing with is just the second half of the Millennial Generation.

In the old days, the idea behind college was that the callow student who went in would come out better, whether at a good secular school like Harvard or the University of California or a good religious-oriented school like Notre Dame or Brigham Young. But even at the lower level of educational matriculation (as a courtesy I will not name names) practical education that might get one a job as a schoolteacher or county agricultural agent would have some structure intended to change the mind of the youth to take away some of the rough edges.

That is still a valid objective. It is better that we have people with ideas of how to live well other than to wallow in the base drives of the id and the unbending rules of a harsh superego. We need people who believe that there is more to life than consumerism, sex, drugs, booze, bureaucratic power, and mass culture so that leaders can contemplate the choices of their decisions. In view of the emptiness of the mass culture, the sophistication of our technology, the productivity of our economy outstripping the need for productive labor, and the ruthless cunning of our political bosses, we may need to rediscover the liberal arts. Add to this, our culture and even economy still promotes a focus on getting things now even at the cost of ruin later. A valid college education could promote a long-term focus that our society lacks so severely. 

I think that you have the objective of most college students wrong. They do not go to college to get left-wing indoctrination (have you ever heard of Liberty University, founded by the late reactionary, traditionalist Jerry Falwell?) For its flaws, I can think of people who would get some improvement in their character by attending Liberty University.

Unless one gets into a skilled trade program, college is the best chance that most people have of avoiding becoming part of a permanent underclass in a plutocratic, inegalitarian society. Although the economic reward for attending college and getting a degree is generally slighter and less certain, and the cost of college education has become higher in real cost, it is increasingly the only real chance that most people have. If one sees pushing papers in an insurance company better as a glorified clerk than being a farm laborer or a kitchen helper, then one now practically needs the college diploma.

In a large college it is easy to evade the left-wing indoctrination that you dread.

Quote:That hack does suggest a positive in recognizing thrift as a merit in a world of debt. But the solution to personal debt is not self-denial.

Quote:I know that this is probably an alien concept to a Boomer but saving to buy something rather than going into debt for immediate gratification is not the same thing as self-denial.  Rather it is merely having a lower time preference.  Furthermore given the way technology and prices of manufactured goods go it is actually better to wait.  That Ishit you want will be half-off in six months for example.

It is to be expected that persons who have live all or most of their lives in times of economic distress should be more strongly K selected.

I have been a saver when I had the chance. I am old enough to recognize that one of the most effective ways to save money is to not be an early-adapter. The ultimate late-adapter can buy stuff at Goodwill or Salvation Army for a fraction of what it was originally sold for. Even more, one can really save money by living in a place that is then unstylish -- like hick towns in the Midwest, where the local culture is church, high-school band, and whatever mass culture is available at Wal*Mart. It's not very satisfying, but on many respects life is not as easy as it was fifty years ago.

When Donald Trump offered the vapid slogan "Make America Great Again", he let people decide for themselves what that meant. I'm thinking that that meant 'easier' -- lower real rents, less suburban sprawl, lower costs of government activity, and shorter commutes. But what is possible in a country of 300 million people isn't so easy in a country with a population of 160 million people. People expect miracles of improvement in their lives through technology. Sure, we get more entertainment cheaply -- but some things like housing do not afford any benefits from economies of scale.

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Quote:We need remember that government debt allows personal saving.

No it doesn't.  Government debt is differed (sic) taxation.  The reason that people buy treasury bonds or bills (depending on the maturity date) is because they know that the government has the power to tax the population.  Even if the debt is merely recycled the population has to be taxed to service that debt even if it does nothing else.

Deferred taxation. Government typically replaces old debt with newer and slightly larger debt, ideally growing no faster than absolute GDP (population growth and improving productivity). Government can borrow at a lower rate than can Best Buy or Sears -- not that I would buy bonds floated by either. But I would buy shares of common stock which has potential for growth and some defense from inflation (and inflation will return) and not corporate or even government bonds. 

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Quote:It is difficult to save if rents and taxes are both high

That sounds like an argument for the government to not spend tons of money on a bunch of nonsense.  I really don't care if it is food stamps or invading Turdworldistan.

Welfare goes back into the economy. You can trust that Wal*Mart, Safeway, and Kroger would rather get money from food stamps in profitable sales of sodas, chips, and meat than to lose money to people who shoplift such things. Given the choice between welfare and crime I prefer welfare. Prisons cost real money, and it is far easier to control people with welfare than with the police.

We cannot create enough jobs to solve all our social problems unless we were to commit to abysmal wages that would create social problems in their own right.

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Quote:I can see the next adult generation finding ways to cut corners in the cost of living, and the most effective way that I can see is to move away from high-cost areas. If they must move from California to Ohio to take Grandma with senile dementia or Grandpa with Parkinsonism and find that they can do better economically working as a retail clerk in Dreariness, Ohio than as a technician in Silicon Valley because the rent is a third as much in Ohio, then maybe they will stay in Ohio. If you can live better in Dreariness, Ohio because the rent is as third as much and your wages are cut by a half, you might tolerate the ugly urban scene, the monotonous expanses of farmland, and having to shovel snow.

We delve into the world of subjectives now.  But there are objective counters here.

1.  Moving in with Grandma/Grandpa reguardless their health is probably a good idea.  Grandma/Grandpa likely own their own home, in some cases it is completely paid off (so the only "rent" necessary would be covering the property taxes and necessary maintenance).
2.  If one's cost of living is lower it doesn't really matter if one's salary is lower.  No matter how much you make you can only buy so good a set of cloths, so nice a car, so big a house and on and on.  Seriously Bill Gates is a multiGorillianaire, and he buys his cloths from Wal Mart.

As to the subjective.  I've been to California.  The most I can say about it is the weather is nice.  Otherwise it is crowded and filled with people who are largely lunatics.  I can say the same about New York City.  You couldn't pay me to live in either now, and I've lived in both.  NYC as a Civilian, California when I was in the USN.  So given the choice between  living in Commiefornia surrounded by people who would be convinced that my boyfriend is a Nazi because he is bald while white or living in Dreariness Ohio I'd pick Ohio every time.  But I'm fortunate that my family is all located in Florida.  Yeah it is god's waiting room but most people down here are not insane (I'm far enough north that it is still the South)

Because your bald white gay partner is with you, I assume that nobody would confuse him with a Nazi who would murder both of you. Nazi Germany did not send black people into death chambers in the same way that they did to Jews or Roma because they had few blacks. (The blacks that there were were typically half-German people that the Nazis were satisfied to keep out of the gene pool through sterilization). Homosexuals in Nazi Germany were targeted for abuse and murder in the camps. 

The San Francisco Bay Area is expensive because people want to live there and because high incomes are available to some fortunate people. But supply and demand in housing results in renters bidding up housing costs. Needless to say, that results in high rents, some of the easiest money that anyone can make -- so long as one has made the investments. Unlike bond income that has an obvious limit and whose value (and that of the bond itself if it is long-term) rent can keep up with inflation so long as the rental property is in a place that people want to live in.

For obvious reasons, people do not want to live in Youngstown or Portsmouth in Ohio -- awful places with few opportunities. Owning rental property in such places is not a good way to make money. Were I a landlord I would not want Section 8 renters.

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Quote:Yes, I understand that Kinser now sees Donald Trump as the most wonderful thing to have ever happened to American political life and to be the wave of a glorious future of national pride and of economic growth predicated upon extreme inequality.

Not quite.  Inequality of outcome is a result of liberty.  One can either be equal or they can be free.  Given that choice I pick freedom.

Here's a nice book about some of my ideas.  Its original price was 1 Shilling in 1899.

https://books.google.com/books?id=lQdDAQ...e&q&f=true

I'm going to leave the rest of your post PBR because it is just more of your pipe dreams about guillotines.  Those are neither insightful nor interesting.

More precisely, inequality is the result of the liberty -- of elites -- and the paucity of choices for others. That's how feudalism and slavery operated.

But this said, Donald Trump thinks much like a medieval aristocrat, and in America that is a gross anachronism. But if you think he is so wonderful, maybe his successors won't have it so great when the masses get angry