01-09-2017, 04:57 PM
(01-09-2017, 01:43 PM)X_4AD_84 Wrote:(01-07-2017, 04:56 PM)SomeGuy Wrote:Quote:If you are who I think you are,
Jordan Goodspeed. Although, since I admittedly reposted the same article to you under my present moniker, if you're thinking that I am "SomeGuy", that would be true, too.
Quote:someone who admits that our country may be lurching toward an American-style fascism, I'm not sure why you voted for Trump. He checks off more than a few boxes of an emergent fascism in the body politic. If he does not lead us directly into the funhouse of fascism, might he not lead us, at least, into its antechamber? Is that not dangerous enough? You give evidence of nuanced thought from what I've seen in previous posts. I'd like to think that I do, too. (The older I get, the less I tend to see the world in binary terms: you know, war or peace, capitalism or socialism, "You're either with us or against us.") God knows you don't have to explain your rationale to me or anyone else. But I just don't get it, especially with you.
It might be worthwhile to know that the man who wrote the article I linked to actually writes on a weekly basis, and made comments concerning this issue. He actually said a year ago that the most likely outcome of this election is that Donald Trump would win. The things you might want to consider is that while Donald Trump, while no fascist, certainly fills a fascist shape hole, so did a lot of political leaders in the '30s whom we have much higher opinions of. Including a certain wealthy, womanizing New Yorker with a populist flair and a penchant for talking to the electorate over the heads of the established media.
I know, I know, dear readers, you're outraged. I can hear the squealing from here. If this president is altogether cruder, louder, more volatile, and less thoughtful than that other one, why, perhaps we might reflect on what that says about this period versus that one. But hey, at least he can walk, right? Take that, Great Power Saeculum!
But seriously, even if he doesn't do any of things he campaigned on, and gets tossed out on his ear 4 years from now, at least he cleared the space on both parties for something new. Which is something we sorely need, and, if we have to have a crude populist phase, having a wealthy, socially liberal real estate developer with a taste for pretty women and debt-driven construction projects fill the role is not the worst outcome we could have had. In the absence of serious address of the issues of a substantial portion of the electorate, that fascist shaped hole would still be there, and could have been filled by someone much worse.
Quote:Anyway, the problem with downplaying "neoliberalism," and attacking its individual planks instead, is that that political tack comes off as so much "scattershot" to the public: the very problem that hindered Hillary Clinton and--to a much lesser extent--Bernie Sanders, who at least offered a half-formed vision to the voters. The Republicans, I hate to admit, do a much better job of characterizing their policies as a whole. The Democrats have to roll all the way back to LBJ and his Great Society to find a succinct summation of their policies. "Hope and change"? (Way too nebulous for me, Obama.) Trump at least gave Americans a ball cap slogan they could understand; Hillary gave us "I'm With Her."
My problem with this is two-fold. One, by reducing everything to a single nebulous buzzword, you are necessarily flattening and distorting the issues at play, which are never reducible to single causes. Particularly if the buzzword in question is somewhat ill-defined, unfamiliar to most people on this continent, and thus susceptible to meaning whatever people want it to mean. Which would be fine, up to a point, if you were a politician on the stump, who needs to encapsulate complicated ideas in a fashion easy for his constituents to suggest, but that's not what you are. You are a poster on a board dedicated (at least nominally) to discussion, and as such I would prefer if you put aside the rhetoric and spoke to actual issues or ideas.
But it's a free country, you do what you want.
Quote: (By the way, if you're at all interested, I'll tell you sometime about a coffee shop conversation that I overheard about Her in my conservative small town prior to the election. It was as illuminating as it was disgusting.)
I always like hearing gossip.
Quote:I think where you and I really part ways is that you envision Trump as a departure from the "present order" or "status quo," which I've characterized as neoliberalism. From the policies that he's proposed, and the administration that he's now assembling, it sure looks like neoliberalism to me: privatization? (check); deregulation? (check again); tax cuts for the rich? (big check), austerity for everyone else? (We'll see). You rightly mentioned Trump's stance against free trade as a break from neoliberal orthodoxy, but I see that as a mere sop to the working-and-middle class voters that he had to woo to swing a narrow victory his way. In the main, his policies amount to little more than reconstituted Reaganomics, in my humble opinion.
And this is the problem with thinking solely in terms of categories (by your leave). You could easily have drawn up similar objections to a Jeb administration, a Cruz administration, or even a Clinton administration. Hell, since you're using the word, Obama's administration came up for much the same abuse. If you're coming at it from a European perspective, for instance, pretty much all American politicians are neoliberal. And yet I think we can clearly agree that all of those administrations would have been different, and that some of those differences are too big to be obscured under fancy 50 cent words.
Quote:I readily concede that Trump might prove transformational, though enough time remains in this Fourth Turning for him to merely prove transitional, paving the way for something better (some kind of post-capitalism)--or worse (neo-feudalism or fascism, God forbid).
He may be transitional, may be transformational, things may get better or worse. We'll have to wait and see, and act accordingly. I can't help but feel that your ideology may be limiting your thoughts on the range of possible outcomes. As it does to us all, to be sure.
Quote:I apologize for the "barking." Don't mean to come off like some drill sergeant. Chalk it up to political passion...
Don't worry, I have actually had drill sergeants, you don't sound anything like them.
I won't claim to have known FDR, but nonetheless, no way in Hell is Trump another FDR. Sure, FDR was rich and horny. But he was not new rich and not a complete Ugly American like Trump. His persona was about as far from Trump as one can imagine. He fit in more with British upper class people. It was a match made in heaven given the times.
(01-09-2017, 04:38 PM)SomeGuy Wrote:Touche...though I lay no claim to "precision." (I did pull the 5-10 percent probability out of the air.) My broader point is simply to say that Trump's chances of being the next Gray Champion is not a "fat-tail" event. He could pull it off. It is certainly more likely than his transmogrifying into Hitler or Mussolini. But I don't think it's a stretch at all to say that the latter event is a fat-tail risk of less than one percent. I probably don't need to be a statistician to be right about that. It would take a confluence of dire events to come together, a "perfect storm," if you will, for some variety of fascism to take hold in America.Quote:Don't see it in his DNA, though I would assign it at least a 5-10 percent probability.
Really? at least 5-10%? Where is this degree of "precision" coming from, can I see your work?
I think what you meant to say was "I find it unlikely, but not impossible".
Made-up numbers are a pet peeve.