05-15-2016, 01:21 PM
(05-15-2016, 06:21 AM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote:(05-15-2016, 12:31 AM)Kinser79 Wrote: Bob, I hate to be the one to break this to you, but in the 1930s congress was just as divided. FDR himself was called everything under the sun. That is a feature of our particular system, not a bug, so getting around it isn't that much of a problem.
The first 100 days the status quo went out the window. Yes, there was still a lot of division and strife. In any crisis the faction out of power doesn't shut up. They would be as loud and obstructive as they can be until the crisis reaches climax, at which point they somehow morph int "me too.". Congress's cooperation with FDR waxed and waned during his time in the White House. Still, if ever there was a time when labor, management and government came together and initiated transforming change, it was FDR's first Hundred Days.
A loud voice speaking extreme positions in the late 3T or pre-regeneracy 4T is nothing. All sorts of extreme positions will be put forth. The more extreme, the more dubious I'd be about throwing around labels like Grey Champion. What is needed is someone who can work coalition and compromise while anchoring to the central ideals and new values that center the crisis. It's the difference between Charles Sumner and Abe Lincoln.
I think the difference between this 4T and the last is that this 4T is just as much a political crisis (like in the Civil War 4T) as it is an economic crisis, and because the edge of the economic crisis was taken off by swift action by governments there is not the same urgent fear of "if we don't go along and play nice the people are going to go Fascist or Communist and have us hanging from lampposts".