The Partisan Divide on Issues

[pbrower2a]

(12-10-2019, 12:49 AM)Eric the Green Wrote:

(12-10-2019, 12:00 AM)pbrower2a Wrote: The problem would be in deciding what would be the Red States and what would be the Blue states. It might not be on the vote.  Such a state as Nebraska or Utah gets good ("blue") social conditions with strongly-Republican ("red") politics. Some areas within some very "blue" states are very "red" (like eastern New Mexico) and some areas in very "red" states are very "blue" in their politics (Atlanta, Louisville, Memphis, Nashville, Birmingham, New Orleans, Texas' giant cities and border areas)...

Give America a dictatorial government that neglects or abuses the parts of America that did not vote for it for the indefinite future, and America could split much as Yugoslavia did, complete with rancor and bloodshed. Being on the wrong side of a borderline could make one a pariah or worse.

Civil wars over ethnicity are bad enough, but a civil war over the core principles of economics are even nastier. It is easy for me to characterize Donald Trump as standing for an economic order in which the vast majority of people have responsibilities to support the gain, indulgence and power of the rich-and-powerful irrespective of the misery that they are obliged to endure.  It is also easy to see how people ordered to endure such could easily decide that they will not do so -- they will instead tax the easy money.

So one side is for a high-tech feudalism and the other is for freedom. How do you think that will work?

There will be no agreement about how to divide the nation, if secession happens. Some states will just decide to do so, and then the rest will decide how to respond to this "illegal" act. And then, yes, it could be that portions of a seceding state will secede from the state and rejoin the union. It's hard to see how isolated cities could do that though. Classic thinks the residents of blue cities in red states can be rounded up and moved. Does not seem likely, but who knows how rancorous or oppressive our 4T could get.

...and that is precisely the point. The "red" areas produce the ores, foodstuffs, fuels, and natural fibers, but the "blue" areas have the ports, the large-scale processing units (of both data and of such things as steel  or cereal), and the financial services. Greater Chicago is the end of the line for many raw materials for processing  or the shipping point for huge quantities of Midwestern meat and grain. People in rural Illinois may see Chicago as a Sodom and Gomorrah... but they need its economic activity if they are to get tolerable prices for wheat or for pork bellies. 

We are obliged to use our imagination and vision to look for better if we are in or are approaching old age. We will need to make pragmatic decisions that recognize what works and what doesn't if we are in midlife. If we are old enough to do raw labor but still wet behind the years we will have to commit to changes not of our choosing.

The biggest trend that I see is the end of scarcity (except in something that a few can monopolize). We are not going to get happier just by having more stuff unless we have the commodity fetish that debases life. Making a good living just by making more stuff will not be the way to riches. Sure, we will need more grains, fibers, building materials, ores, and fuels just to accommodate a larger number of people in the world, but nobody is going to get rich off such who has not gotten rich already.

Experience will matter more than will totems. Being familiar with all fifteen string quartets of Dmitri Shostakovich will make life far richer than "I got drunk in (fifteen different places)". What may be socially intolerable at some point could be being a crashing bore.