03-03-2020, 01:32 AM
(03-02-2020, 11:34 PM)sbarrera Wrote: The Reagan-Trump era - 1980-2020. A pretty long time.
But not as long as the New Deal era (1932-1980) in the Skowronek cycle in which the New Deal had largely set the political discourse and the political alignments. It did not so much fail as its constituency died off. The Mountain and Deep South recognized as late as 1976, by voting for Carter in some states that have never since voted for a Democratic nominee for President, that the New Deal had brought a great improvement in personal lives.
In any event, the Reagan-Trump era isn't officially over until Trump is no longer President. The Skowronek cycle sees Trump as a failed President unable to stop a political tide. For Carter, the Reagan tide came because of Carter was President at a time when his agenda had worn out. With Trump, his political demise will result from misconduct that others unwisely chose to enable even if it is grossly treacherous, corrupt, despotic, incompetent, and irrational. "There are good people on both sides" applies to divisions of ethnicity, philosophy, region, religion, and social class -- or for that matter rivalries such as between fans of the the New York Yankees and the Boston Red Sox. With something so evil as drug trafficking, arson, neo-Nazis, child molestation, and armed robbery one side is completely evil.
I expect Trump to go down to defeat because of his horrid approval ratings (I have never seen approval ratings so bad at this stage for a first-term President seeking re-election) and the intolerance that Americans ordinarily show for corrupt politicians in gubernatorial, Senate, and Congressional elections. I also expect him to take down several Republican Senators with him for their spineless defense of the indefensible deeds of this President.
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.