The Partisan Divide on Issues

[Bob Butler 54]

I am tempted to translate. The extremists have vile stereotypes for whomever opposes them. Criticism should be allowed. Neither faction is perfect. Vile stereotypes should not be allowed. That leads one into not listening and stalemate.

The “hardcore Americans” are a strange alliance. There is a deal of evangelical white male tribal thinking. There is an evolved from Scottish militaristic fighting culture. There is a streak of racism. There is a desire to keep manufacturing jobs in the US, which is understandable, assuming somebody can counter the elite’s stranglehold on the government. Quite a trick. That is one place where they could make common cause with the progressives if they were not so locked in their perspective. There is a more rural culture of being self reliant rather than committing to teamwork and specialization. That is just a function of where people live and how is is best to be in their environment.

The “quasi socialists’ are looking back at when America was great, towards stepping back to the 1950s and 1960s. Much less wealth is slowed off to the elites as division of wealth. There is a commitment to everyone, not just the white male evangelicals. The amount of things that must be done in terms of infrastructure is less than what was done in the 1950s and 1960s. Then there was a belief that America could do anything it set its mind to. I see the current vision of how much America could and should do today as smaller than in the heyday of tax and spend liberalism. At that time the opposition was the Soviet Union, there was a War on Poverty, and we were flying to the moon. Current plans are smaller and doable. It is just that we are living in a small government time where we are far less confident and ambitious.

Do we believe in that all men are equal under law? (The alternative is being a bigot.) Do we believe that there should be a smaller division of wealth. (The alternative is that a very few should have larger yachts.) Do we believe that the younger generations, working multiple jobs but unable to save towards retirement are being given a bum deal? (Is there an alternative to that one?)

Todays conservatives are in a strange place. The Republican Establishment has been identified as being tied to the elites. The Republican Base will shoot down most anyone but a Trump or Palin as a candidate for national office. Trump is busy demonstrating that he will betray his base. He will run chants about locking Hillary up when it is his appointees that are being locked up. Oh, he will flirt with bigotry enough to keep his rallies full, but he ends up loosing every time he endorses anybody. The base is wising up, but the big shots in the Republican Party seemingly have not noticed. Well, some of them have noticed. A lot of people are retiring from congress. The rest are trying to keep the schema going for a few more years.

Basically, if Trump continues to crash, what will the conservatives do? Will they keep the core not despicable conservative values and try to find a replacement for Trump and Palin to push a small government, no elites, light on taxes, strong on defense agenda? Will they be tempted to gain volume but reduce the size of their tent by stepping away from the evangelical, elite and racist elements? Who can step up and copy Reagan and try to make his ideas work after many decades of diminishing return have made this virtually impossible?

I just don’t see a winning hand there. Fortunately, I don’t have to. I am inclined to see the pendulum swinging the other way. I am enough a fan of cyclical history to expect that the pendulum will eventually swing the other way. I am hoping this is a spectacular enough failure to start a swing.

I wonder about the American readiness to use military force to spread our way of life. That results in our spending a lot of money that other countries just do not spend. We have essentially got out of the Middle East. If we are going to give up the World’s Policemen role, can we cut the absurd amount of spending?

I wonder if you can keep the conservative agenda alive if you tie it to racism and division of wealth. Some of the conservative agenda makes sense. Not all of it is deplorable. The demographics are changing.

I am seeing too much elite bootlicking in the liberal side of things. Can they push the more aggressive radical agenda without running afoul of the recent decades of small government memes. I am not worried that a more equal and more active government could sustain itself for a few decades. It worked just fine between the New Deal and Great Society. It is the small government mind set that has been pushed from Nixon through Trump that is my concern. It is not whether America could be great again, but whether our voters are willing to risk being great again.

Anyway, there is a core set of ideas on both sides that are solid and should be looked at. The two groups should be able to talk to each other. Thing is, the extremists have pushed their opposites toxic. They engage between socialists and bigots, not between two group of people with solid ideas and are willing to let go of their more deplorable brethren. As long as you continue to demonize those not riding the poisoned perspective, you cannot be involved in a real conversation. Neither can many of the blue extremists that demonize the red.