The Partisan Divide on Issues

[Bob Butler 54]

There have been a number of crisis in the past.  The US Revolution got rid of taxation without representation, kings and colonial imperialism.  The US Civil War got rid of slavery, enabled the Robber Barons to take firm control of the federal government, and enabled westward expansion.  The Great Depression initiated the government regulating the economy, if not precisely how.  World War II initiated a policy of containment worldwide, killing any vestiges of isolationism.

In all these cases, there were conservatives resisting change to the status quo in the preceding unraveling.  The prevented the solution to the pending problem.  The problem got worse.  Eventually the people and the opposition decided the problem had to be solved.  The national mood of most was to address the problem.

For much of 2019 I was more and more concerned that no trigger would occur.  We would wade through the prophet - nomad - civic alignment of generations without a problem coming to a head.  Turning theory is a bit weak on what would happen then.  I began to explore what might, with the answer being a rather potent awakening.

Of course, we had triggers.  I currently consider us to have five crisis problems which have to be addressed.

The first is a pair, COVID and it’s economic fallout.  Two highly interrelated problems were such that you can’t fix the economy without first fixing the pandemic.  Unbelievably, the federal government did not attempt to fix the problem.

The second is systematic racism with the responding red violence.  With hindsight, there were a lot of catalysts leading up to the trigger, the death of George Floyd.  The response was classic nonviolence with a political - legislation likely resulting with the expected Biden victory in the election.  Alas, another victory against racism triggered the red violent response.  I’m guessing the red extreme would have remained quiet if the Black Lives Matter protest were not heading for success.  Basically, the racists could not have continued existing policies unless Trump and the Republicans clung to power, which they weren’t about to let happen.  While the capitol insurrection wasn’t overtly about racism, they were let by racist organizations for a racist leader.  They were betting on America being a country of white supremacy, and were committed to it remaining that way, even to the extent of violence.

Global Warming gets an honorable mention.  There was no specific trigger save the more common fires out west and hurricanes down south.  I can see no prompt fix.  The turning mood will likely shift long before the work on global warming is done.  The commonality with the prior crises is the conservative refusal to address the problem.  The current situation was considered quite satisfactory by conservatives without any change.

The obvious answer if you are in the conservative camp is to do just enough solving of the problem to stave off a crisis.  If the unraveling amounts to a conservative temporary victory, stave off the trigger, keep the problem from reaching a level where action is desirable or necessary.

But, no, the conservatives would rather stay in place, will fight hard, often literally fighting, to have the existing structure remain the same.  It doesn’t matter if the solution is morally wrong, threatening a headache, and means downfall.

Is it any wonder that the public decides in a crisis that the problem has to be solved, will be solved, and those who don’t want to solve things are pariahs?  Small wonder that the end of the crisis is dedicated to the problem never arising again, and that the mood of the high is to step on anyone that shows a preference for the old values?