The Partisan Divide on Issues

[Eric the Green]

(01-18-2022, 12:35 PM)David Horn Wrote:

Eric Wrote:Another point is that neoliberalism and other reactionary ideologies have been so dominant for so long, that if not overturned in this 4T after such a long 40+ year conservative period, the USA will have (and already is to a large extent) become so used to the Reagan model that it will just become the norm forever. The pendulum is supposed to swing. If it no longer swings, our politics and our civics is dead and the turning pendulum is broken too.

My wife was born in 1959 and has been immersed in neoliberalism her entire post-adolescent life.  She's a liberal but still can't see many of the inherent fallacies for lack of any evidence to the contrary.  Even younger people have less.  We need leaders who can make eye-opening possible, and there are few of them in evidence.

You can't be both a liberal and a neo-liberal. Despite the language, these are opposites. But I am not speaking for your wife, not knowing her as you do.

Quote:

Eric Wrote:This is now longer than the period in the romantic age of 1815 to 1850 when all change was prohibited and all ideals were frustrated by restored monarchs after the French Revolution and Napoleon. The only way it was broken was by opening a period of realpolitik industrial nationalism with some reforms thrown in, leading to the eventual death of the old European civilization in a 30-year holocaust in the 20th century.

Again, leaders are the missing factor.

And there is no-one on the horizon at the moment. Certainly not any of the 2016 or 2020 announced presidential candidates. But I never agreed though, that it's up to the leaders. We the people are the source of the needed changes. We are the ones failing. I don't think it's all that hard to be a true liberal and admit that the country needs to "transform". But the Republicans can get away with saying that Americans don't want transformation. The reality is that whoever does not keep transforming and progressing, regresses and declines. That is not as hard principle to grasp, but Americans fail to grasp it.