Generational Dynamics World View

[Bob Butler 54]

(11-05-2020, 12:20 PM)David Horn Wrote:

(11-05-2020, 08:07 AM)John J. Xenakis Wrote: As of this moment, it appears that the election counting is almost over, and Biden will be president, the Republicans will lose one seat in the Senate but still control it, and the Democrats will lose several seats in the House, but still control it.  The stock markets are cheering because this means political gridlock.

There is something uniquely bad about market economics that sees political failure, and gridlock guarantees it, as a huge plus for capitalists.  We're less and less on the same team. Nick Hanauer is right.  Eventually, the trampled-upon will take revenge, and it won't be restrained.

It seems to me not hard to understand.  The Republicans have had the elite vote forever.  They have flip flopped from being the isolationist and abolitionist party to the strong on defense party with the KKK.  Still, they have always been the party of the robber barons.  They see Trump out, with his disastrous Covid policies.  You can not get the economy going without attacking the bug, which Trump stubbornly refused to do.  You have at least one house of Congress still in Republican hands, which will make it hard for Biden to go all out with his elites shall pay their fair share pledge.  That is a big win from the elite's point of view.  Without the funds to pay for the Democratic agenda, no agenda.

That is not all that is Republican, however.  That is the elites.  The red alliance includes the elites, the racists, those who would enforce their religious views using the government on everybody, those who value their guns, those who value Voodoo Economics, with it's guarantee of stimulation in good times and bad, which guarantees two good terms then disaster, those who think you can keep cutting domestic spending without hurting the worker, those who would spend lots of money on defense when you are getting less and less out of using brute force...

The blue folks have not convinced all of the above groups to flip in a consistent way.  The believers in each issue still believe.  Some of the above may fade with demographics, but it is not enough to convince those dedicated to one or another principle to switch.

This time around we had Trump to unite against.  This was due do Trump being absurdly bad, not that any of the basic red values have changed.  

The hallmark of the crisis is supposed to be solving problems.  This is not going to happen if each faction seeks to totally block the other.  The goal out to be to find a solution that doesn't get in the way of what the other guys believe with fervor.  Too much fervor.  Too much going against the other guy.  Too much insistence on taking the other down.

If the Republicans stick with a policy of obstructionism, if the senate blocks any attempt to reform racist systematic policing, if the newly conservative court starts legislating from the bench, taking down things like health care and a woman's control of her own body, things could still get intense.  The red can believe thoroughly in such things.