08-21-2017, 07:02 AM
Carter was ... Carter. I think that Carter ran on the cultural claims of the South to have solved the problems (largely Jim Crow practice) and did what no Democrat has even come close to doing as a Presidential nominee -- winning every former Confederate state except Virginia. It is ironic that the only former Confederate state that Hillary Clinton won was Virginia.
Carter may not have been particularly objectionable in the North and West, which he still lost. Because he could not rein inflation without bringing about another Great Depression or hurting key Democratic constituencies he got a malaise. Reagan was willing to needle Democratic special interests and got re-elected.
Trump is... well, Trump. He made promises that he could never keep because turning back the calendar on demographic change and well-received reforms is more destructive than effective. I see much getting worse. If you are not on the winning side of a partisan win, then you are irrelevant except as someone to follow orders and accept the personal consequences. I see a legislative branch in which unelected corporate lobbyists wield the real power. The Hard Right has decided to stoke old resentments, which is not good for social concord.
Dubya at least got away with his inadequacies long enough to get re-elected. Trump is an unmitigated disaster so far.
Carter may not have been particularly objectionable in the North and West, which he still lost. Because he could not rein inflation without bringing about another Great Depression or hurting key Democratic constituencies he got a malaise. Reagan was willing to needle Democratic special interests and got re-elected.
Trump is... well, Trump. He made promises that he could never keep because turning back the calendar on demographic change and well-received reforms is more destructive than effective. I see much getting worse. If you are not on the winning side of a partisan win, then you are irrelevant except as someone to follow orders and accept the personal consequences. I see a legislative branch in which unelected corporate lobbyists wield the real power. The Hard Right has decided to stoke old resentments, which is not good for social concord.
Dubya at least got away with his inadequacies long enough to get re-elected. Trump is an unmitigated disaster so far.
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.