The Partisan Divide on Issues

[Eric the Green]

(09-18-2022, 07:50 PM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: I have been half wondering what the leftover conservatives would look like as the crisis ends.  I feel the crisis fixes the greatest problem facing the culture.  The conservatives go for no change, no fix to the problem, continue the problem, often profit off the problem.  The progressive come out ahead, forcing a change, fixing the problem…. To me the results of the crisis was more obvious than what would get us here.  Covid would be handled.  The election would be upheld.  Bad cops killing minorities would be no longer acceptable.  Voting rights haven’t quite yet been secured, but you could see it happening if the Senate gets a few more votes and the filibuster is canceled.  What the problem is is so obvious that the crisis continues until there is a consensus that what is wrong has to be fixed.

And then the conservatives do something.  The certainly can’t admit they were wrong,  After the Revolution, they moved to Canada.  After the Civil War they created the KKK.  After the last crisis they stole some of FDR’s best ideas such as regulating the economy and containment.  After Trump?

Maybe after the hatred and violence of the recent past one can start to guess.  Drive though a peaceful protest of police abuse.  Take an assault rifle to a bar full of minorities.  Drive from rural to urban areas to give the resident minorities a problem.  Implement a violent insurrection.  Gerrymandering.  Deny lost elections.  Impose their culture on all as they did repealing choice.  Attack doctors, teachers, poll workers, the DOJ, the FBI.

I can see a rough remnant of MAGA becoming professional bad neighbors.  Not most of MAGA.  The Big Lie and Trump’s criminality is becoming very obvious, if at a slow pace by people who limit themselves to MAGA loyal media.  But there will be a small fraction of those who hate because they have always hated, who make other people miserable because that is what they do.

That is what has to be crushed in the high.  It is said that the values of the high support the solutions to the preceding crisis.  This hate reflects the methods and attitudes of MAGA.  The culture of the high has to reflect that this hate is not acceptable moving forward.

Thanks for your input. I hope you are doing OK after not being here for a while.

Your timing being off may account for being off on some of this analysis.

For sure, we are just past the half way point of a 4T that started in 2008. The crisis is not solved. As you say, voting rights are not handled; they are still on the ballot. Bad cops can still kill ethnicities without apparent cost. No legislation on either problem has been passed. No significant change has been made on gun ownership either, so mass shootings will continue and get worse. The MAGA crowd is armed with these guns, and plans to resist and overthrow democracy as Trump (their dear leader) is trying to do.

We can't talk about what the conservatives are doing yet in a 1T, beyond what they are continuing to do now until they are defeated to end this 4T: resisting what needs to be done to heal the crisis, and instead making the crisis worse.

The nub of the Crisis has not been fixed and is getting worse. It is obvious to those who look, but that doesn't mean people have looked. It doesn't mean you have looked.

It is a twin malady, as I see it. First, the cold civil war. The division of the country is still deep and getting deeper. Neither side trusts the other, and neither side trusts our institutions. The division seems mostly powered by ethnic (aka mis-titled "race") fears. One side wants to keep America white, the other is either not white or wants to accept diversity instead of prejudice. Deep demographic divisions exist in this divide: rural vs urban, college educated versus not, male versus female, ethnic divisions, old versus young, etc. The cold civil war could get hot, as it did on Jan.6, 2021.
Again, refer to this article:
http://generational-theory.com/forum/thr...l#pid82663

Part and parcel of the division is also the neoliberal ideology (aka Reaganomics, free-market ideology, trickle-down economics), which took power in this country at the end of the 2T. It has only very recently even begun to be challenged, when a 15% minimum tax on corporations was passed by reconciliation. In addition, since 2020 there have been bipartisan spending bills on a scale that had not been passed since before the neoliberal era began about 41 years ago. But as long as the wealthy get away without paying much in taxes, and are allowed to keep wages/salaries/overtime low, then inequality and middle class decline will continue. Neoliberalism by definition renders government incapable of dealing with any problems or concerns. This ideological malady has not been seriously dealt with, and unless it is, democracy itself will continue to be in serious danger along with economic and social/health viability.
http://philosopherswheel.com/freemarket.html

Hovering over all of this is the most dangerous crisis of our time: the climate crisis. Again you did not mention it. It gets noticed more and more all the time as the resulting disasters get worse and worse. Scientists scream that unless fossil fuel use and other changes are made in the next 10-20 years, tipping points will be reached that will make hothouse earth inevitable and irreversible. Civilization will not survive this condition, and it will last for thousands of years. The decision of whether to transform our energy sources in particular (and also start to deal with reforestation and changes in agriculture) MUST be made in this 4T, which means the 2020s. If that is not a crisis, I don't know what is. Only a start has been made to deal with this crisis. The fourth turning is described by the authors as archetypally symbolized by the season of winter. This is when bad weather happens. This time the symbol is quite literal.
http://philosopherswheel.com/globalwarming.html

But unless the cold civil war and its basis in prejudice and market ideology is resolved by a blue victory over the red, climate change will not be dealt with. Because every proposal to make the needed change in policy is lumped in together with the cold civil war division. This issue and every other issue is now part of the division between the blue and red tribes. Every issue is politicized and partisan now. The 4T is on the ballot