11-10-2016, 01:53 AM
(This post was last modified: 11-10-2016, 01:55 AM by Eric the Green.)
It is a terrible election outcome. I don't know what protests can do about it. Many people blame the elites for our problems. I know people don't like it when I say it, but we do still live in a democracy where voting matters. So it's we the people who are responsible. We can elect leaders who can rein in, regulate and tax the elites. If we don't, we are complicit and in fact almost fully responsible. It's true that we can't entirely help it if the candidates available are not up to snuff. But they come from the people too, and since we make it so difficult to serve, that limits the field. This is not a clever rhetorical approach for me to take, I confess; it's the opposite of Jimmy Carter's in 1976. We need the people to be good enough to choose good leaders, is how I would put it.
I never get why the people, if they feel economically challenged and want to vote for better politicians who can help them deal with it in some way, vote for the very politicians who created the mess. They do this almost constantly. They've done it virtually consistently for 4 straight elections. And then they are upset because the system is broken, so again they vote for the same old folks who have broken it yet again. It reminds me of Einstein's definition of insanity. It shouldn't be so hard to figure out that trickle-down economics doesn't work.
And yet most of our friends in the heartland, mostly in the vast flyover country between the Sierras and the Appalachians, still believe in it and hold on to it with religious fervor and unquestioning faith. For the most typical traditionalists who ironically vote Republican in order to "shake up the Establishment" and "change Washington," this mantra of trickle-down, free market, self-reliance ideology is blended with their traditional loyalty to authoritarian values; like "God family and country." Naturally people like me from the coasts, who experienced the sixties and "the whiff of Woodstock," are not authoritarian, and instead hold that the real Americans are those who question authority and become informed and concerned about what policies actually work. The flyover country folks seem incapable of doing this, and instead want only to boost and protect their traditional culture, which includes trickle down economics or whatever name you call it (and it has quite a few names you probably know by now).
Folks here like Odin and Danielle object when I refer to this. I'm sorry about that, but I don't think I can not mention the elephant in the room, just because it's not polite. This is a good forum that explores real issues, when it is at its best. It could not be more obvious that the nation is split between traditional and progressive/anti-authoritarian values. It's painted on our election maps with the large swath of red in the middle and the slender blue lines on the east and west coasts and near the borders. By its very nature, the authoritarian, free-market ideology and its culture inhibits progress. And the false slogans of freedom are NOT that hard for anyone to see through. Even if the folks in flyover country are supposed to be less educated and intellectual, I DON'T look upon them as inferior folks, or us as superior, and therefore I can't understand why they can't make these simple steps in understanding. All Americans are smart, skilled, dedicated and capable folks. They are able to know what is in their interests. There's something else going on here. I don't know how it changes. But as long as the authoritarian faction manages to rule over us, even though they are in the slight minority, we are stuck in the past and going in reverse, and this means national decline.
I have not been a particular fan of the United States since the days of the Vietnam war and protests. I have never been a fan of authoritarian values of any sort. But I have always believed, like our Democratic Party leaders keep saying, that we have potential to be great-- not "again," but in the future. That is one difference between us; which way our heads are pointed. Forward or backwards. Maybe it's because we can look out over the sea, at least sometimes. We are not provincial.
I never get why the people, if they feel economically challenged and want to vote for better politicians who can help them deal with it in some way, vote for the very politicians who created the mess. They do this almost constantly. They've done it virtually consistently for 4 straight elections. And then they are upset because the system is broken, so again they vote for the same old folks who have broken it yet again. It reminds me of Einstein's definition of insanity. It shouldn't be so hard to figure out that trickle-down economics doesn't work.
And yet most of our friends in the heartland, mostly in the vast flyover country between the Sierras and the Appalachians, still believe in it and hold on to it with religious fervor and unquestioning faith. For the most typical traditionalists who ironically vote Republican in order to "shake up the Establishment" and "change Washington," this mantra of trickle-down, free market, self-reliance ideology is blended with their traditional loyalty to authoritarian values; like "God family and country." Naturally people like me from the coasts, who experienced the sixties and "the whiff of Woodstock," are not authoritarian, and instead hold that the real Americans are those who question authority and become informed and concerned about what policies actually work. The flyover country folks seem incapable of doing this, and instead want only to boost and protect their traditional culture, which includes trickle down economics or whatever name you call it (and it has quite a few names you probably know by now).
Folks here like Odin and Danielle object when I refer to this. I'm sorry about that, but I don't think I can not mention the elephant in the room, just because it's not polite. This is a good forum that explores real issues, when it is at its best. It could not be more obvious that the nation is split between traditional and progressive/anti-authoritarian values. It's painted on our election maps with the large swath of red in the middle and the slender blue lines on the east and west coasts and near the borders. By its very nature, the authoritarian, free-market ideology and its culture inhibits progress. And the false slogans of freedom are NOT that hard for anyone to see through. Even if the folks in flyover country are supposed to be less educated and intellectual, I DON'T look upon them as inferior folks, or us as superior, and therefore I can't understand why they can't make these simple steps in understanding. All Americans are smart, skilled, dedicated and capable folks. They are able to know what is in their interests. There's something else going on here. I don't know how it changes. But as long as the authoritarian faction manages to rule over us, even though they are in the slight minority, we are stuck in the past and going in reverse, and this means national decline.
I have not been a particular fan of the United States since the days of the Vietnam war and protests. I have never been a fan of authoritarian values of any sort. But I have always believed, like our Democratic Party leaders keep saying, that we have potential to be great-- not "again," but in the future. That is one difference between us; which way our heads are pointed. Forward or backwards. Maybe it's because we can look out over the sea, at least sometimes. We are not provincial.