Election 2020

[Bob Butler 54]

(02-14-2020, 01:49 PM)David Horn Wrote:

(02-14-2020, 11:36 AM)Eric the Green Wrote: ... Mike has major problems for Democratic primary voters. First, he's a billionaire trying to buy the election, and he uses his money to buy supporters. There's no magic to Mike except the magic of money. Second, his record on labor unions and hiring practices is poor. Third, his stop and frisk policy hurts him with blacks. Fourth, his shut down of Occupy hurts him with liberal youth. Fifth, not all voters like his nanny-state approach to indulgences like soda pop and grass. I'm sure there's more. His major appeal is competence, "Mike will get it done." We know how that fared with that other Mike. And he has no personality, even a complacent 'murican one like Nixon and the Bushes, which is fatal to a USA presidential candidate. In a year when Democrats are choosing who can beat Trump, that is a drawback that some Democratic primary voters might consider...

We should be at the end of a half-cycle, where the more progressive views begin to take hold in earnest.  I would prefer it that way; I hope it's true.  If the Dems select Bloomberg out of fear, and that's what it would be, then we're still awaiting the regeneracy that's out there somewhere.  You're right.  Mike Bloomberg cannot and will not be the one to reign in the excesses and point to a new way.  If he's the candidate, Dems will have to back him to the hilt, because the alternative is four more years of Trump literally tearing the guts out of the country.  It's questionable whether recovery would be possible in the aftermath.  Then again, a Bloomberg victory would forestall the arrival of the ne paradigm, yet again.  I'm not sure pushing a regeneracy out much further is possible, so we may fail this cycle.  If so, I would hope to live to an unreasonable age to see the next iteration finally fix things.

You are still assuming the Industrial Age sequence.  The new values were manifested in a crises war.  Democracy was not trusted to implement a transformation.  Without nukes, there used to be crisis wars.  Now?  The idealist generation of boomers was divided, so they blocked transformation and a crisis regeneracy. While September 11 echoed Pearl Harbor and Fort Sumpter, it did not trigger a mobilization. Whlle a new set of values was thrown out to implement Neo colonialism, they were conservative values running under a conservative president. Cut and run won over stay the course. The US was unwilling to commit the boots on the ground necessary to make the proposed values win. The economy tanked into the Great Recession. The crisis, if potential crisis it was, failed to transition into shifting values into the new neo colonial pattern.  

There are lots of reasons to not take the Industrial Age pattern seriously during the recent crisis turning.

It is still early to predict an Information Age pattern.  Yes, the crisis era is about past without transformation.  When might we see a values shift?

Could the high configuration result in transformation?  This should be a time of lockstep, of rejection of the old way of thinking, of just plain walking over any remnants of the old values that get in the way.  McCarthyism and its rejection of communism and liberalism is an example from the 1950s.  Does the OK Boomer meme stand a chance, a contempt for the old values?   Would a rebirth of democracy and rejection of authoritarianism and all things Republican fit.  Does the rededication to infrastructure fit with building renewable resources and paying attention to decaying bridges?  Can the new ideals be accepted in a high without being preceded by a crisis trial and error period by just saying no?

Or do we have to wait for the awakening?  The Civill Rights movement, the Women’s Rights movement, the shift in the Domino Effect policy every time the authoritarians try to expand, a wave of environmentalism, all occurred with the GIs dominant in power and through the passage of major congressional legislation.  Thus, arguably, the last awakening was transformational, and the next one would repeat the pattern.  The awakening might be the transformational turning for the Information Age, not the crisis.

I am not sure where to put my bets.  It could be a combination of all three, or it could be none of the above.  There might not even be four repeating generations or turnings in the Information Age.  It may be too soon to tell with certainty.