Thoughts On Where We Are, and Where We're Going

[David Horn]

(09-18-2018, 04:58 PM)Eric the Green Wrote:

(09-18-2018, 03:34 PM)David Horn Wrote:

(09-17-2018, 10:58 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: As I stated before many times, the best scenario I see in our 4T era is for the left to take power during the 2020s, and opposed by a rebellion whose violence will be limited to a relatively short uprising by the pro-gun, anti-tax and anti-diversity fanatics in the red states. Secession may occur, but the violence may be corralled before the 1T starts in circa 2028. The Trump base will linger, but my suspicion and hope is that its power will only be enough to make a 4T crisis climax exist, beyond which a relative, but not complete, consensus will lead us into the future.

If you can accomplish the first step on your list, the odds are decent that progress will be made.  Unfortunately, Progressive ideas are scary.  They are often new and untried, so the less adventurous (i.e. almost all the population) will only opt for that as a last resort.  Note: Winston Churchill saw that as the defining issue of our politics.

The only caveat to that is that today's progressive ideas are mostly not very new. They have been around for decades, and have just been resisted during the unprecedented regression America has undergone for 40 years. Part of this owes to our election system and the lack of civic knowledge among younger generations today. Presidential election returns since 1992 have shown majority support for these progressive ideas. But the system has not allowed progressive leaders to take office and institute policy.

It's interesting that I had this same discussion with friends in the 1980s.  All of us saw how poorly the younger generation was being prepared in the civic sense, but none of us had the ability to do more than educate our own children.  It hasn't improved since then, for two reasons:

• Republicans hate spending money on anything, so the schools are poorly funded almost everywhere these days
  
• The less aware are easily manipulated, and that plays well for the plutocrats who pay all the bills.
  

Unless that improves, or calamity ensues, I don't see much changing.