Election 2020

[pbrower2a]

(11-13-2020, 05:22 AM)Eric the Green Wrote:

(11-12-2020, 08:21 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote:

(11-12-2020, 10:13 AM)David Horn Wrote:

(11-12-2020, 05:34 AM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote:

(11-12-2020, 01:25 AM)Classic-Xer Wrote: Biden represents the old values ( FDR/ LBJ/ Obama values) or failing values as you say. Popularity isn't much of a factor when it comes to ones actual abilities to get anything done. You can say what you want but Trump got things done. We're still more or less a fifty country that's more or less dead locked which is a far cry from where FDR was, LBJ was and Obama was back in 08'.

Racism and white supremacy is the old values.  Being in favor of the working man is the new.  Science over fantasy is the new.

You are sort of correct but mostly wrong in saying popularity isn’t a factor.  The dominant factor of the unraveling is that there was a bigger white supremacy vote than minority and worker vote.  As a result, jobs went overseas, benefits cut, labor unions weakened, and the younger generations sunk into poverty as domestic spending was consistently cut.  The red were centered on the Neo con, the racists, the elite, the religious.  Culture war issues were put ahead of the working man and the minorities.

It doesn’t look like that is going to continue.

Let me weigh-in with a third opinion.  The old values are the Reagan neoliberal fantasies that we're all alone and we either make it or we're failures.  It's been sold in many flavors for the last 40+ years, and is now perceived wisdom.   Trump's followers believe it, even though it hurts them every day.  But the competitive model is now the only model, so they cheer-on their side and take a hit for the team.  It's zero-sum, and they need to win!

If the Dems ever succeed, it will be with a cooperative model that allows everyone to gain, not just a few.  First, the idea needs to be believed, and that's where the challenge lies.  Remember, Goldwater sold the neoliberal fantasy in 1964 and got slaughtered. New ideas don't just take hold on their own.

You're really talking about self reliance and our commitment to self reliance and independence since the two go hand in hand. I get the impression that you don't like us very much for that reason  and view us as a threat to to an ideology which cultivates and requires the opposite for it to work. Well, guess what, there's 60 some million of us and 10 million more who want to be like us who showed up on election day during a national pandemic that half the country has been traumatized by its existence.

I tend to think that it was ideology that has played the major role. No doubt people's lifestyle in cities tends to condition people there to be less persuaded by the self-reliance ideology than people's lifestyle in rural areas. But the self-reliance ("neo-liberal, free-market") ideology has been clearly spelled out, and framed as opposition to government. Even though conservatives don't really oppose government when it comes to the things they want government to do for them, like put up various barriers to other countries, or supporting "law and order" and repressing drugs and outlawing abortion and supporting wars and the military and imposing their religion on us and stuff like that. But the temptation of the slogan is still very persuasive, because conservatives vote on their fears and their wrong values and don't bother too much with logic. So "less government", "government is the problem", means government should not be requiring a conservative to have his hard-earned, self-reliantly-earned money "stolen" from him to pay for those "lazy" (you know who) people who refuse to work and are dependent on that problematic government. And the scare-words "socialism" and "law and order" and "2nd amendment" are most effective in arousing the fears that stoke this self-reliance ideology.

We are thinking on different lines, and you are just as right. My idea of self-reliance is to live with simpler technology and fewer large institutions -- and that includes Big Business. Our political system was made for a nation of small-scale craftsmen, shopkeepers, and yeoman farmers. Even the colleges and universities were small. Some much-renowned universities  (Harvard, Yale, Princeton, MIT) are smaller than some Texas high schools. 

Can we go back to such times? The first truly big business of modern style is DuPont Corporation, established in 1802 (it since merged with the newer giant Dow Chemical). Doing away with large institutions would imply abandoning the economies of scale that make much inexpensive. One may see Wal*Mart as a cause of the vulgarity in American life, but it is able to supply us with many creatures comforts more cheaply than mom-and-pop merchants used to. The giant land-grant universities such as the University of Michigan, Michigan State, and Western Michigan University are the ones that many smart kids from prole families can afford to attend (so that the kids can get teaching credentials), and some of them have the cutting-edge hospitals or do high-level research. I am satisfied that the giant banks such as Bank of America, Chase, PNC, Wells Fargo, and USBank are good places to deal with only if one has large accounts, needs big loans, does extensive travel, or does complex dealings... but there are people like that. 

The most obvious difference is a far larger population. A society with 330 million people (that's about what I expect of the 2020 Census) requires far more complexity in organization and infrastructure than does a society with 106 million people (a century ago, following the last significant annexation of the United States, the American Virgin Islands). It is obvious that Los Angeles, California (population near 4 million) requires more complex institutions than does  Needles, California (population just under 5000 and in the middle of nowhere, and I would not advise anyone to live anywhere that lacks a genuine hospital and is not close to a four-year college). I don't want to be bitten by a diamondback rattler in any place, but certainly I would rather be somewhere near a genuine hospital than in Needles.  That's before I even mention the infernal summers and a culture out of the nearest Wal*Mart. 

This said, life is more complex than it used to be, and the high technology and consumer choice (some of it clandestine) can be a trap to people who have no idea of what they are doing and rely upon their impulses as judgment. 

The K-12 education that was adequate for full participation in American life in the 1950's is now grossly inadequate. 

Quote:And this ideology makes the believers in self-reliance and independence feel better and feel superior to those "dependent" liberals. This is Classic Xer's constant refrain. I think it is ideology, and it is also reinforced by lifestyles and greater access to culture, education and diversity in urban areas as opposed to the parochial and provincial atmosphere in rural areas, plus the sheer racial, ethnic and religious diversity in cities, and especially in many coastal and border areas that are closer to the outside world and more connected to it than the contiguous red-state heartland is. But there are also people who believe in either ideology who live in the opposing region too, although not too many in the most rural and most urban areas.

Unlike Classic X'ers, we liberals recognize the complexity of life as a corollary of giant cities, Big Business, high technology, and large institutions.  The genie is out of the bottle, and it is not entirely benign. We will need to adapt to the reality. Someone who offers excessive simplicity of thought is not making our lives simpler; that person is trying to fleece us. So it is with Donald Trump.

Quote:Before the sixties, and especially a century or so ago, heartland people were often genuine populists who voted for what they would now call "socialist" programs. The blacks were well-repressed and didn't alarm people with their liberation demands yet. We've always had fears of immigrants now and then, especially non-white ones. But sometimes, like in the "great" America Trump extols, it was pretty-well suppressed. There have been counter-cultures all along, but in the sixties maybe they took their liberation farther and spread it wider than before. Feminism and gay rights especially threatened the male ego. And the Cold War also had solidified anti-communist and anti-socialist opinions. So as the new stronger forces of liberation arose, somehow the neo-liberal ideology appealed to the red state and red county folks more now. And when the charming faux-macho actor appeared, they flocked to his great communication. And now they love the swindler TV star who satirically and openly proclaims his selfish disregard for others, because he gives unrepentant voice to their own similar feelings and prejudices.

My education tells me to be very cautious about peacock words such as "great". Make America Great Again? What does one mean by "great"? I'm old enough to know enough about the past to know that all that anyone could miss about it was lower real rents and the recovery of youth -- and opportunities that one missed out on. Who wouldn't like to go back in time and make a modest investment in Apple Corporation that makes one rich?  Maybe I would be better off if I had not brushed off that Jewish female my age because my family was full of antisemites. We had much in common.

I don't have to be black to see Jim Crow practice as an abomination. Maybe the Interstate highway system is bland and boring... but it certainly makes travel far easier. It's much safer than the Blood Alleys. I don't miss the epidemic of urban crime related to leaded gasoline. The Internet is an excellent source of reference saves me from having to buy "dead tree editions" of works in the public domain. As a straight male who has been gay-bashed I could come up with a better insult to gay-bashers than an F-bomb; I made clear that LGBT rights are necessary for law and order. Even culinary choices are richer due solely to a more diverse community. Thank you, Vietnamese-Americans! As for being able to get along in a world with a 'solid eighth-grade education' as did some of the elderly Lost that I remember? I would not want to live in their hardscrabble, merciless, boring world. Would you?

So life is more complex; it is also potentially richer as well.  Part of the complexity is sorting out the nonsense in life, and the expansion of the access to genuine information and culture implies more access to nonsense and schlock. OK, life is too complex for having nothing more than K-12 education.