The New Crisis War Unfolding Now?

[Eric the Green]

(08-21-2018, 09:15 AM)David Horn Wrote:

(08-20-2018, 11:38 PM)Eric the Green Wrote:

(08-20-2018, 12:01 PM)David Horn Wrote:

(08-17-2018, 09:03 AM)pbrower2a Wrote: It could be comparatively mild because everyone is scared of nukes.

I think the primary reason this 4T is mild, at least on the surface, is due to a lack of coherent sides.  Dems are split into neo-liberals and emerging Social Democrats.  The GOP is 80+% Trump, with all the puzzlement inherent I that, and 20% old-school and vapid.  Add-in the mostly unaffiliated SJWs and the ever more libertarian business community, and the reason is pretty clear: too many teams and philosophies at play to make a true us-versus-them struggle.

All true, but for whatever reason, what results in political power is greater polarization than any time since the civil war, and the teams are clearly red vs. blue. And this is what is determining events. The splits within teams are not as great as they appear, compared to the split between teams. 

I agree that the Blue team has more in common internally than it ever will to the Red team, but it still has internal fractures that make it far less cohesive than a true revolutionary movement requires. The Red team is more coherent on the surface, but less so underneath, where Trumpists are often less Trumpist than their rhetoric implies.

I'm not sure a revolutionary movement is needed for events to unfold as they should. Just enough cohesion to get a movement going in the right direction again. We can hope for only so much in this backward country, but I think we can hope for a governing coalition at many levels that is willing to push things forward more than in the recent past. Revolutions tend to fail, but if we on the left push forward, and the right-wing rebels against this happening, then it will be the right-wing that loses the rebellion instead of the left. A left-wing revolution probably can't succeed in the USA. We're too backward for that. May it be the right-wing that has to rebel in the USA.

Quote:

Eric the Green Wrote:Libertarian economics is the main bone of contention, and the other bones fit neatly into it into two well-defined sides.

All that fits into the double rhythm which accents the domestic this time around, but foreign challenges remain as well. The world is more dangerous now than any time since the height of the Cold War.

Added clarification would make this clearer, if accepted. The term "neo-liberal" applies properly only to libertarian economics, and that is the Republican agenda. "Libertarian businessmen" of course are the leading exponents of this agenda. "neo-liberal" or former "New Democrats" or "establishment Democrats" today are not neo-liberals, because they believe in regulation and taxes and social programs, but they tend to be over awed by and bow down to the Republican neo-liberals at times, and are too connected to big business at times, so they are neo-liberal by comparison to "Social Democrats."

Here we disagree. The neo-liberal movement within the Democratic Party was 100% the doing of Bill Clinton, trying to be a less dogmatic conservative in a conservative era. It left us with the economy being supported as a pro-business ideology by both parties, with the cultural component the only piece in play. Don't forget: Bill killed Glass-Steagall and cued-up the disaster in the finance arena just a few years later.

I don't disagree that it was Bill Clinton, but I'd say he was trying to be a less dogmatic liberal in a conservative era. But he was too conservative, I agree, and killing Glass- Steagall was an important part of that. I deserted him over those things, as you know. However, he did campaign clearly against trickle-down economics in 1992, and he did raise the minimum wage and the earned income credit and things like that. So he didn't leave the cultural component the only piece in play; that's not accurate. Remember his campaign slogan was "it's the economy, stupid." You tend to exaggerate that point, even though it's basically true.

Quote:

Eric the Green Wrote:But they are definitely both on the blue team, along with the "SJWs," and the heat of the rhetoric doesn't change this. There is a mixture of ethnic identity politics and social democracy on the blue team, with no clear boundaries between those two factions. White identity politics is well served by libertarian economics too, even though there is not a complete overlap of opinion between these factions. But a conservative libertarian like Jeff Flake may speak out against Trumpism, and the debt it causes too, and yet he votes for all of Trump's pro-business schemes no matter how dangerous to the national debt they may be. The anti-welfare dog whistle provided by libertarian economics since Nixon and Reagan has increasingly become a TRUMPet call.

Sorry to disagree again, but this is an area where clarity of mission is essential. If the GOP remains pro-business and anti-diversity, they will have a relatively united faction to drive to the polls. If the Dems spend their energy fighting an infinite range of culture wars, they lose. Sorry, but Dems can't stand for every culture meme and deliver a message that transcends their base. That may work in 2018, where anger may be enough, but it will fail miserably in 2020 when losing will not be an option.

The economic issues will have to be central. Although they must embrace diversity, or lose much of their base, they won't win just by fighting culture wars. If a "pro-business" candidate is nominated, (s)he will have to lean more to the left and embrace a more populist-economic liberal agenda. I think that can happen. But Kamala Harris will not win, and Warren won't either. It will have to be a candidate with the stuff to win, and that may mean accepting McAuliffe or Landrieu instead, who have the leadership skills and articulate abilities needed. That could be called clarity of mission: essentially, a candidate who has the talent and skill to articulate one and get people behind it. And I think these two have the ability to do that, and thus unite the two main factions.

I'd love it if Bernie Sanders could win. He has a better shot than most of the "true progressives" (apart from Sherrod Brown, perhaps). But the odds are likely against him. It may depend on whether Trump continues to screw himself more and more, so much so that some of his base is chipped away, assuming he is renominated. It will take a whole lot of serious Trump errors before the extremist party dumps him, either in the Senate or at the polls. I'm not optimistic. But if he IS dumped, Pence is easier to beat, inherently (8-7 score, no better than Warren). He has the charisma of a wooden indian. That's the best reason from our point of view to dump Trump. Liberals (including me once upon a time) overestimate the importance of correct ideology in choosing a candidate, and forget that charisma and confidence is the key to victory.

A candidate with the same views as Hillary Clinton, but more articulate and likable, would have won in 2016 (a candidate with a higher horoscope score would have won). You were right that Hillary was not a good choice; I had more confidence in her than you did, even though I knew the "score." And you're right she probably would not have been able to push her agenda forward, and maybe it wasn't a decisive or strong enough agenda to push the nation forward. We would have avoided the disaster now unfolding though, so it's up to Americans to see that disaster, and to see that the better choice now is to move further forward than before, rather than further backward than ever before, and hope it's not too late after the damage now occurring.