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Things Trump Is Doing Right
(05-15-2017, 03:53 PM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote:
(05-15-2017, 02:07 PM)Eric the Green Wrote:
(05-15-2017, 12:38 PM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: At this point, each faction is still seeing a triumph of their own faction.  My own angle is that you can't have a resolution of the 4T problems unless you can see and address the 4T problems.  However, those with other world views are quite capable of convincing themselves that only their approach can work.
And that's the situation of all 4Ts. One side represents the future, the other the past, and one side wins. A 4T is a battle, not a compromise. Only one side's resolution will be adopted. Only one's side's approach will address the problems, and it alone will work.

The artist archetype is the compromiser. They are virtually absent. Nope. Neither side will compromise now. That's the way it is, and that's the way it should be.

Yes and no.  Part of the Grey Champion's role is to build as large a coalition as he can, to bring as much of the country into the new values as possible.

And, almost without saying, to keep that coalition intact (as you suggest below)!


Quote:This doesn't mean he can compromise the key values of the transition.  The isn't also to say there won't be fire breathing extreme partisans about who will reject with prejudice and scorn any trace element at all of the old values.  It's just that if you want to win, you want very broad acceptance of what you want to do.  At lower ranks, sure, there are going to be fire breathers, and they indeed have a role to play.  I just don't think you want fire breathers all the way at the top.


That is a big point. Leaders of a Crisis Era can be passionate in principle, but they must also be rational enough to keep convincing people of the rectitude of their cause. It is also necessary that they express the cause as something far bigger and more important than themselves. 53% support, as with Obama, is not enough even if he did many things right. 44%, about the highest that I have ever seen for Donald Trump, is even less adequate. If something goes terribly wrong in the Crisis, then the divisions that have riven American political life and economic perceptions so severely will make any collective response to a real danger terribly ineffective.

To be sure, a truly monstrous fire-breather can accomplish things with pure, unadulterated terror -- basically, obey with enthusiastic support or die horribly -- but this is not part of the American heritage. It did not work for Hitler, as shown by the July 20 plot inconceivable in America or Britain, when the elites turned in part against the Fuehrer. Trump isn't that bad, but some of those in the plot knew that they could overthrow Hitler and save their necks or face brutal retribution for war crimes for which they might become culpable. (I also think that the July 20 plotters believed that they could have negotiated something in a settlement by turning over the most objectionable Nazis who survived the coup).

Quote:Oliver Cromwell might stand as an example of a fire breather on top.  He oversold his values, which were overturned by the Glorious Revolution.  The royalty returned.  A wee bit of prudence can be prudent.  It is easy for extreme partisan movements to become carried away by success and do more than the culture can absorb.  The combination of the New Deal with the Awakening push for civil rights, gender rights, peace and environmental action might well be another example.  It isn't these weren't worthy causes, and that the Democrats of the time America was Great shouldn't have struck when the iron was hot.  The GIs had an outstanding can do attitude to fix things, and boy did they go about it.

Any attempt to dismantle the welfare state, outlaw certain sexual rights (homosexuality, abortion, and contraception), eviscerate labor unions, shift tax burdens from the rich to everyone else, gut environmental protections, subordinate women to men, or enforce the values of fundamentalist Christians even on scientific issues will require repressive force.  People can make great sacrifices to save traditions that they cherish and fundamental decencies of their political order, but don't expect them to accede to a social order that exists solely to enrich and pamper elites at the expense of everyone else. To get through this Crisis Era, we will need solutions and not scapegoats.

And, yes -- I expect Millennial adults to achieve great things in this Crisis Era.

Quote:They just gave the conservatives a heavy overdose of Future Shock.  The conservatives wanted and to a great extent got a Glorious Revolution style setting back of the clock to an earlier set of values.  I can only hope that Trump will be the dying gasp of that.

Early-wave Boomer reactionaries, whether acolytes of Ayn Rand or an unforgiving Jesus (really John Calvin), will more likely convince people of how wrong those geezers are. But they are not the last act of the Boom Generation.
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.


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Messages In This Thread
Things Trump Is Doing Right - by X_4AD_84 - 04-07-2017, 10:22 AM
RE: Things Trump Is Doing Right - by pbrower2a - 04-07-2017, 10:30 AM
RE: Things Trump Is Doing Right - by Warren Dew - 04-07-2017, 11:24 PM
RE: Things Trump Is Doing Right - by David Horn - 04-10-2017, 10:24 AM
RE: Things Trump Is Doing Right - by Galen - 04-08-2017, 08:35 PM
RE: Things Trump Is Doing Right - by pbrower2a - 04-08-2017, 11:42 PM
RE: Things Trump Is Doing Right - by pbrower2a - 04-08-2017, 07:37 AM
RE: Things Trump Is Doing Right - by FLBones - 04-08-2017, 05:59 PM
RE: Things Trump Is Doing Right - by Emman85 - 04-08-2017, 06:59 PM
RE: Things Trump Is Doing Right - by Galen - 04-08-2017, 11:15 PM
RE: Things Trump Is Doing Right - by David Horn - 04-10-2017, 10:37 AM
RE: Things Trump Is Doing Right - by Warren Dew - 04-16-2017, 12:17 AM
RE: Things Trump Is Doing Right - by pbrower2a - 04-10-2017, 10:27 AM
RE: Things Trump Is Doing Right - by pbrower2a - 04-10-2017, 11:17 PM
RE: Things Trump Is Doing Right - by pbrower2a - 04-12-2017, 01:27 AM
RE: Things Trump Is Doing Right - by Warren Dew - 04-16-2017, 11:54 AM
RE: Things Trump Is Doing Right - by Warren Dew - 04-17-2017, 08:50 AM
RE: Things Trump Is Doing Right - by Warren Dew - 04-17-2017, 07:16 PM
RE: Things Trump Is Doing Right - by Ragnarök_62 - 04-17-2017, 11:19 PM
RE: Things Trump Is Doing Right - by Ragnarök_62 - 04-18-2017, 01:13 AM
RE: Things Trump Is Doing Right - by Warren Dew - 04-18-2017, 09:32 AM
RE: Things Trump Is Doing Right - by Warren Dew - 05-02-2017, 10:54 PM
RE: Things Trump Is Doing Right - by Warren Dew - 04-17-2017, 08:30 PM
RE: Things Trump Is Doing Right - by David Horn - 04-18-2017, 10:12 AM
RE: Things Trump Is Doing Right - by David Horn - 04-18-2017, 03:05 PM
RE: Things Trump Is Doing Right - by David Horn - 05-03-2017, 03:22 PM
RE: Things Trump Is Doing Right - by Warren Dew - 05-04-2017, 08:21 PM
RE: Things Trump Is Doing Right - by pbrower2a - 05-03-2017, 02:43 PM
RE: Things Trump Is Doing Right - by pbrower2a - 05-04-2017, 08:14 AM
RE: Things Trump Is Doing Right - by Odin - 05-06-2017, 08:55 AM
RE: Things Trump Is Doing Right - by Galen - 05-06-2017, 11:50 PM
RE: Things Trump Is Doing Right - by Odin - 05-08-2017, 06:47 AM
RE: Things Trump Is Doing Right - by Galen - 05-09-2017, 03:57 AM
RE: Things Trump Is Doing Right - by Odin - 05-09-2017, 06:35 AM
RE: Things Trump Is Doing Right - by Galen - 05-09-2017, 03:21 PM
RE: Things Trump Is Doing Right - by pbrower2a - 05-09-2017, 06:29 PM
RE: Things Trump Is Doing Right - by Odin - 05-11-2017, 07:14 AM
RE: Things Trump Is Doing Right - by Odin - 05-12-2017, 07:19 AM
RE: Things Trump Is Doing Right - by David Horn - 05-09-2017, 09:58 AM
RE: Things Trump Is Doing Right - by pbrower2a - 05-07-2017, 07:04 AM
RE: Things Trump Is Doing Right - by Galen - 05-07-2017, 06:27 PM
RE: Things Trump Is Doing Right - by pbrower2a - 05-08-2017, 12:29 PM
RE: Things Trump Is Doing Right - by Galen - 05-09-2017, 04:04 AM
RE: Things Trump Is Doing Right - by Warren Dew - 05-09-2017, 12:20 PM
RE: Things Trump Is Doing Right - by pbrower2a - 05-08-2017, 07:27 PM
RE: Things Trump Is Doing Right - by David Horn - 05-10-2017, 10:53 AM
RE: Things Trump Is Doing Right - by pbrower2a - 05-10-2017, 01:03 PM
RE: Things Trump Is Doing Right - by pbrower2a - 05-10-2017, 01:55 PM
RE: Things Trump Is Doing Right - by pbrower2a - 05-13-2017, 09:04 PM
RE: Things Trump Is Doing Right - by pbrower2a - 05-15-2017, 08:46 AM
RE: Things Trump Is Doing Right - by David Horn - 05-15-2017, 10:13 AM
RE: Things Trump Is Doing Right - by pbrower2a - 05-15-2017, 05:23 PM
RE: Things Trump Is Doing Right - by David Horn - 05-16-2017, 09:35 AM
RE: Things Trump Is Doing Right - by David Horn - 05-16-2017, 05:08 PM
RE: Things Trump Is Doing Right - by pbrower2a - 05-17-2017, 08:15 AM
RE: Things Trump Is Doing Right - by Mikebert - 09-19-2017, 03:49 PM
RE: Things Trump Is Doing Right - by David Horn - 09-20-2017, 03:35 PM
RE: Things Trump Is Doing Right - by pbrower2a - 05-15-2017, 04:15 PM
RE: Things Trump Is Doing Right - by FLBones - 05-17-2017, 10:38 AM

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