02-15-2020, 09:36 AM
(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.
We are seeing the breakdown of the dehumanized individualism that took its baby steps with Reagan only to become the gallop of Donald Trump. People wanted expression of individuality, and not a conformity of suffering on behalf of rapacious, unprincipled elites like Donald Trump. Nobody wanted a grim contest to determine who would get survival by accepting the worst, but with the most theatrical expression of delight, on behalf of greedy people loyal only to themselves and their self-esteem.
We hit bottom with Trump. After a bad binge we are beaten, disoriented, and broke. We bought drinks for everyone on what was intended to be the down-payment on a new car and gave a 30% tip to the bartender. We got rolled for what was left in our pockets, including the car keys, and someone used the car on a joyride that totaled the car. We do get to ride on a more expensive vehicle now -- the bus for which we have a 30-minute wait in the climate of Kansas City, with arctic winters at the start of a winter day and tropical summers at the end of the day's work -- in line for the bus. (I am picking on Kansas City for its fire-and-ice climate, and nothing else). If we do get a car it will be a car older than the usual lifespan of a dog -- from a tote-the-note lot at which one makes "convenient weekly payments" largely of an interest rate of 40% per year (basically a lease because the car will not last five years. The tote-the-note lot will replace your clunker with another jalopy in a profitable transaction. Because of our irresponsibility, the insurance rate has just tripled.
It all makes us want to drop out, doesn't it? Well, there is no place in which to drop out.
The good thing about the whole mess is that we have quit drinking because we can't even afford mass-market beer. Our liver thanks us as it gets to recover some. Unfortunately we get to feel reality harshest in an unforgiving economic order that punishes simple bad luck as if it were a crime.
Well, at least the bartender got a down-payment on a new car. For that we get to feel cheer.
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.