Who are you voting for in 2016 pt. II

[MillsT_98]

Now that the RNC and the DNC have happened, has anyone changed their minds since the first thread? Who are you now voting for come November? I added more options this time. I included Gary Johnson and Jill Stein because Gary Johnson is the nominee for the Libertarian Party and Jill Stein is the presumptive nominee for the Green Party.

[Eric the Green]

I'm saying Hillary Clinton for now, because Jill Stein said that Hillary should go to jail. That's as bad as the Republicans.

[Cynic Hero '86]

Hillary is the disgusting personification of boomer decadence and softness. She seems to have mush for brains, "America needs more love and kindness", TRUMP is the 4T regeneracy and return to nationalistic values.

[Bob Butler 54]

(08-03-2016, 10:36 AM)Cynic Hero Wrote: Hillary is the disgusting personification of boomer decadence and softness. She seems to have mush for brains, "America needs more love and kindness", TRUMP is the 4T regeneracy and return to nationalistic values.

Over her career she has solved a bunch of tough problems, problems that often involve women, children, minorities and the sick.  She has usually made it work, which isn't particularly easy to do given a government that is often dysfunctional and resistant to helping the People.  She is good at listening to those with a problem and dealing with the problems that come with solving problems.  She has generally got it done.  

There are people out there who are unfamiliar with love and kindness, who think such basic Christian values are reflections of weakness or dysfunctional thinking.  Such people just aren't going to get it.  Coming together to solve common problems was the way of the New Deal and the decades that followed...  the time when America was great.  Hillary has the better shot at living and implementing Trump's motto.  If one wants to understand her own 'stronger together' motto, take a look at how America handled the Great Depression and World War II.

Alas, I don't know that you can comprehend basic Christian concepts, western morality or recent US history.  They seem beyond you.

Trump hasn't helped anyone but himself for his entire life.  It's all been about about him.

Not that I think you are listening, nor that you have  your eyes open.  You are seeing what you want to see and repeating it endlessly while trying to remain as ignorant as possible about how Hillary has spent her life.

Anyway, enjoy life in your echo chamber.

[Eric the Green]

Well said you guys. I'm with her and not with Cynic Hero or his hero.

[Cynic Hero '86]

One can embrace nationalism and be pro-western. Germany was western and was a bitter enemy of orthodox and communist Russia. In the Yugoslav example I mentioned Tudjman as well, his performance during his rule in the 1990's was even greater than Milosevic's. Croatia was Catholic and historically an ally of Austria and Germany and an enemy of the Eastern Slavs and Turks. 20th century liberalism is not the all end all of western civilization. I embrace the west of Napoleon, Clausewitz, Bismarck and the Kaisers.

[Odin]

Clinton.

[Ragnarök_62]

All your lobbyists are, belong to us <-  Clintons.

(08-03-2016, 05:13 PM)Odin Wrote: Clinton.

[Kinser79]

This is of course going to not shock anyone but I'm still voting for Trump. Further should he substantially change the GOP I may even change my affiliation prior to 2018 if for no other reason to be able to ensure that "Trumpist" candidates win primaries down here.

[Kinser79]

(08-03-2016, 01:27 PM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote:

(08-03-2016, 10:36 AM)Cynic Hero Wrote: Hillary is the disgusting personification of boomer decadence and softness. She seems to have mush for brains, "America needs more love and kindness", TRUMP is the 4T regeneracy and return to nationalistic values.

Over her career she has solved a bunch of tough problems, problems that often involve women, children, minorities and the sick.  She has usually made it work, which isn't particularly easy to do given a government that is often dysfunctional and resistant to helping the People.  She is good at listening to those with a problem and dealing with the problems that come with solving problems.  She has generally got it done.  

There are people out there who are unfamiliar with love and kindness, who think such basic Christian values are reflections of weakness or dysfunctional thinking.  Such people just aren't going to get it.  Coming together to solve common problems was the way of the New Deal and the decades that followed...  the time when America was great.  Hillary has the better shot at living and implementing Trump's motto.  If one wants to understand her own 'stronger together' motto, take a look at how America handled the Great Depression and World War II.

Alas, I don't know that you can comprehend basic Christian concepts, western morality or recent US history.  They seem beyond you.

Trump hasn't helped anyone but himself for his entire life.  It's all been about about him.

Not that I think you are listening, nor that you have  your eyes open.  You are seeing what you want to see and repeating it endlessly while trying to remain as ignorant as possible about how Hillary has spent her life.

Anyway, enjoy life in your echo chamber.

Bob,

I've said it elsewhere. The New Deal solved the last 4T and set up the situation that led to this 4T as such attempting something similar is not the solution to this 4T, nor can ever be. 4Ts happen because the establishment is fundamentally broken (usually at the hands of the idealistic generation that follows the last 4T). One thing that cannot be said about HRC is that she is anti-establishment, she is the very essence of the establishment and all the ills with it.

Love him or hate him the same cannot be said of Daddy.

[Eric the Green]

Quite the opposite of what kinser says it's true (not that this should surprise anyone).

Clinton is the progressive who is seeking change. She has not only made change all her life, as her husband said, the policies and platforms she is running on are the changes that we need. Politicians like Hillary who represent the people and their real concerns are not the Establishment. Corporate titans and their Republican representatives are the Establishment.

Trump represents the Establishment. He represents big money, pollution, trickle-down economics, racial dog-whistles and southern strategies, nationalism, guns, militarism and law and order and shooting young blacks in the street. That is the same old shit. Anyone voting for the Grump is voting to uphold and uplift the Establishment.

And there's nothing new about the Establishment deceiving people to vote for it with misleading slogans. In the 60s it was the "silent majority that has been forgotten." In the 80s it was "freedom." Now in 2010 it is "politicians are stupid so change the Establishment." Exactly the opposite is true in every case of Republican sloganeering. There is nothing new here. Republicans are the party of 1984, and in fact, 1984 was the election in which their slogans had the most deceiving effect, boosting Big Brother Ronnie into office. Now the deceivers want a "Daddy" figure. Nothing new there at all. The Republicans deceive misinformed folk like kinser and classic Xer into voting for them all the time. Nothing new at all.

[Cynic Hero '86]

The forces that dominated in the 3T always constitute the establishment when the 4T hits. In the recently completed 3T the government championed immigration, permanent free trade, and internationalism. Thus the side that supports those ideas and values constitute the establishment in the current 4T with the factions that are against those ideas constituting the anti-establishment. Thus hillary personifies the establishment because she is a main supporter of these policies.

[Kinser79]

Thanks Eric for solidifying my position. Since I know your right about as often as a broken clock (and I'm being really generous here in saying that) your statements show clearly that my analysis is correct.

As much as I'm loath to agree with CH here (mostly because I think he is possibly psychologically unstable and have no evidence he's started on some meds or something--I have noticed he hasn't posted about his nebulous "restorationism" lately though) the fact is that whatever is the status quo at the end of the 3T (Neo-Liberal economics, Neo-Con foreign policy, globalism, multiculturalism, and open borders) becomes the "Establishment" of the 4T.

As such to solve the 4T whatever that establishment is must be completely smashed before the 4T is resolved. This is true whether the 4T ends well or ends badly.

Now before someone accuses me of siding with the only person who is likely to be a fascist on this board, the fact is that this comes straight out of S&H's very own theories. No matter what happens in the 1T, no matter how the 1T feels, or is like it is fundamentally different from what was before the 4T. That happens, and can only happen with whatever the establishment was being completely destroyed.

[Eric the Green]

(08-04-2016, 12:14 AM)Cynic Hero 86 Wrote: The forces that dominated in the 3T always constitute the establishment when the 4T hits. In the recently completed 3T the government championed immigration, permanent free trade, and internationalism. Thus the side that supports those ideas and values constitute the establishment in the current 4T with the factions that are against those ideas constituting the anti-establishment. Thus hillary personifies the establishment because she is a main supporter of these policies.

Hillary is not on board with free trade. The 3T was not about internationalism. In America, it was about militarism under Reagan-Bush.

The government didn't champion immigration in the 3T. It happened. That's different. Nothing has been done to reform our immigration system. The status quo is the Republicans who refuse to act.

The Establishment or status quo that dominated the 3T is trickle-down economics, or Reaganomics. Trump supports it; Hillary opposes it.

Trump is better on the trade issue. That's the only issue he's better on. That's not enough. And no-one should trust a man who never makes anything in America with his own business, to force businesses to make things in America.

[Ragnarök_62]

Eric The Green Wrote:Quite the opposite of what kinser says it's true (not that this should surprise anyone).

Uh, how about neoCONS?

So , here's one for Jill Stein.

Flocks of hawks flock together, right?

Just look at what I found in that hawk-rag, New Republic.
Kagan is an utter idiot. He's oblivious to the fact the US is broke, has 3rd world infrastructure, under employment, etc.  So it goes, charity belongs at home.  Why the fuck can't he take a tour of Detroit?

Quote:Clinton is the progressive who is seeking change. She has not only made change all her life, as her husband said, the policies and platforms she is running on are the changes that we need. Politicians like Hillary who represent the people and their real concerns are not the Establishment. Corporate titans and their Republican representatives are the Establishment.

Clinton is the MIC establishment and neoCON.

That fat fuck chickenhawk needs to enlist and go fight his imperial wars first hand.
      [/url]

Here are more fucking neoCONS for Hillary. 

NeoCONS are the focus of evil in this universe !!!!!!!!    

Oh, man, I wish they'd all die.  Rats and roaches are far more worthy of biomass than these Satans incarnate.

Quote:Trump represents the Establishment. He represents big money, pollution, trickle-down economics, racial dog-whistles and southern strategies, nationalism, guns, militarism and law and order and shooting young blacks in the street. That is the same old shit. Anyone voting for the Grump is voting to uphold and uplift the Establishment.

Well, birds of a feather flock together.  Hillary supports wars of choice and the ultimate bankruptcy of the US. She also supports sending another generation of youth off to god forsaken hellholes to fight for special interests.

[url=<br /><br />Well, birds of a feather flock together.  Hillary supports wars of choice and the ultimate bankruptcy of the US. She also supports sending another generation of youth off to god forsaken hellholes to fight for special interests.<br /><br />]

Quote:And there's nothing new about the Establishment deceiving people to vote for it with misleading slogans. In the 60s it was the "silent majority that has been forgotten." In the 80s it was "freedom." Now in 2010 it is "politicians are stupid so change the Establishment." Exactly the opposite is true in every case of Republican sloganeering. There is nothing new here. Republicans are the party of 1984, and in fact, 1984 was the election in which their slogans had the most deceiving effect, boosting Big Brother Ronnie into office. Now the deceivers want a "Daddy" figure. Nothing new there at all. The Republicans deceive misinformed folk like kinser and classic Xer into voting for them all the time. Nothing new at all.

    Close. Both major parties are totally fucked and worthless  Who came up with this "Indispensable Nation" horseshit?

Here's some sanity on what "Indispensable nation" really does.





[url=<br /><br />Close. Both major parties are totally fucked and worthless  Who came up with this "Indispensable Nation" horseshit?<br /><br />Here's some sanity on what "Indispensable nation" really does.<br /><br />http://blogs.reuters.com/great-debate/2014/10/20/obama-tests-u-s-democracy-by-waging-an-empires-continuous-wars/<br />http://www.huffingtonpost.com/tom-engelhardt/on-being-an-indispensable-nation_b_5996172.html<br />http://nationalinterest.org/article/delusions-indispensability-8145<br />http://www.commondreams.org/views/2014/10/17/being-indispensable-nation-flames<br /><br /><br />It also does this:<br /><br />http://photobucket.com/images/detroit%20ruins<br />http://www.epi.org/publication/ib244/<br /><br />It's time to shutter all those bases overseas , bring the boys home, and chuck this globalization crap. :cool: <br /><br />#JillStein2016<br />]http://blogs.reuters.com/great-debate/2014/10/20/obama-tests-u-s-democracy-by-waging-an-empires-continuous-wars/
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/tom-engelh...96172.html
http://nationalinterest.org/article/delu...ility-8145
http://www.commondreams.org/views/2014/1...ion-flames


It also does this:

http://photobucket.com/images/detroit%20ruins
http://www.epi.org/publication/ib244/

It's time to shutter all those bases overseas , bring the boys home, and chuck this globalization crap.  

#JillStein2016[/url]

[Cynic Hero '86]

(08-04-2016, 12:31 AM)Eric the Green Wrote:

(08-04-2016, 12:14 AM)Cynic Hero Wrote: The forces that dominated in the 3T always constitute the establishment when the 4T hits. In the recently completed 3T the government championed immigration, permanent free trade, and internationalism. Thus the side that supports those ideas and values constitute the establishment in the current 4T with the factions that are against those ideas constituting the anti-establishment. Thus hillary personifies the establishment because she is a main supporter of these policies.

Hillary is not on board with free trade. The 3T was not about internationalism. In America, it was about militarism under Reagan-Bush.

The government didn't champion immigration in the 3T. It happened. That's different. Nothing has been done to reform our immigration system. The status quo is the Republicans who refuse to act.

The Establishment or status quo that dominated the 3T is trickle-down economics, or Reaganomics. Trump supports it; Hillary opposes it.

Trump is better on the trade issue. That's the only issue he's better on. That's not enough. And no-one should trust a man who never makes anything in America with his own business, to force businesses to make things in America.

The 3T did emphasize military/defense in the earlier stages, but once the USSR fell, it became much more about internationalism and globalism. The corporations were the biggest backers of immigration and outsourcing, they were the main champions of the free-trade and end of history idea. The reaganite wing of the GOP has been thoroughly subjugated by trump. So the GOP will now focus on protectionism, and supporting US manufacturing. The only way it can return to Reaganomics would be if Trump loses and the establishment GOP regains and consolidates its former power.

[Kinser79]

(08-04-2016, 12:52 AM)Ragnarök_62 Wrote:

Eric The Green Wrote:Quite the opposite of what kinser says it's true (not that this should surprise anyone).

Uh, how about neoCONS?

So , here's one for Jill Stein.

Flocks of hawks flock together, right?

Just look at what I found in that hawk-rag, New Republic.
Kagan is an utter idiot. He's oblivious to the fact the US is broke, has 3rd world infrastructure, under employment, etc.  So it goes, charity belongs at home.  Why the fuck can't he take a tour of Detroit?

I know of a certain someone who is going to Detroit.....  He's not Hillary Clinton.

http://www.freep.com/story/news/politics.../88035754/

Also the Detroit Free Press is a known right wing rag..

Eric-the-Ignoramus Wrote:

Quote:Clinton is the progressive who is seeking change. She has not only made change all her life, as her husband said, the policies and platforms she is running on are the changes that we need. Politicians like Hillary who represent the people and their real concerns are not the Establishment. Corporate titans and their Republican representatives are the Establishment.

Rags Wrote:Clinton is the MIC establishment and neoCON.

That fat fuck chickenhawk needs to enlist and go fight his imperial wars first hand.
      [/url]

[url=http://www.blacklistednews.com/Hillary_Clinton_Praised_By_Neo-Cons/49474/0/38/38/Y/M.html]Here are more fucking neoCONS for Hillary. 

NeoCONS are the focus of evil in this universe !!!!!!!!    

Oh, man, I wish they'd all die.  Rats and roaches are far more worthy of biomass than these Satans incarnate.

The Neocons support Hillary.  Anyone opposed to wars of choice, "nation building" in places other than the USA and such like failed policies should run from her.  Probably explains why I've had such ease recruiting former Bernie people to the Trump camp down here.  FL is a swing state, we all know it and we know voting for Jill Stein no matter how great we may or may not think her is a vote for Shillary and thus against what we stand for.

The Electoral College is a bitch.

Eric-the-Obtuse Wrote:

Quote:Trump represents the Establishment. He represents big money, pollution, trickle-down economics, racial dog-whistles and southern strategies, nationalism, guns, militarism and law and order and shooting young blacks in the street. That is the same old shit. Anyone voting for the Grump is voting to uphold and uplift the Establishment.

Rags Wrote:Well, birds of a feather flock together.  Hillary supports wars of choice and the ultimate bankruptcy of the US. She also supports sending another generation of youth off to god forsaken hellholes to fight for special interests.

The funny thing is that since Eric here thinks Trump is part of the Establishment, then he should be able to explain why the GOP Establishment left him.    Then again Eric is also a solipsist so maybe the Establishment is whomever he says it is never mind whose never held political office and never mind whose been in and out of DC for 40 years.

Quote:Well, birds of a feather flock together.  Hillary supports wars of choice and the ultimate bankruptcy of the US. She also supports sending another generation of youth off to god forsaken hellholes to fight for special interests.

Like I said above, and even Galen has said it. The Neocons support Hillary. That is all you need to know if you are opposed to that agenda.

Quote:Close. Both major parties are totally fucked and worthless  Who came up with this "Indispensable Nation" horseshit?

Here's some sanity on what "Indispensable nation" really does.

I quite agree.  That being said Jill Stein doesn't have a chance of being elected.  The Greens are not on the ballot in all 50 states, the Libertarians are but the Greens aren't.  As for the "Indispensable Nation" bullshit, I think it is a Cold War relic much like NATO and a whole host of other relics that Trump has pointed out.

[Bob Butler 54]

(08-04-2016, 12:26 AM)Kinser79 Wrote: As much as I'm loath to agree with CH here (mostly because I think he is possibly psychologically unstable and have no evidence he's started on some meds or something--I have noticed he hasn't posted about his nebulous "restorationism" lately though) the fact is that whatever is the status quo at the end of the 3T (Neo-Liberal economics, Neo-Con foreign policy, globalism, multiculturalism, and open borders) becomes the "Establishment" of the 4T.

As such to solve the 4T whatever that establishment is must be completely smashed before the 4T is resolved.  This is true whether the 4T ends well or ends badly.

Now before someone accuses me of siding with the only person who is likely to be a fascist on this board, the fact is that this comes straight out of S&H's very own theories.  No matter what happens in the 1T, no matter how the 1T feels, or is like it is fundamentally different from what was before the 4T.  That happens, and can only happen with whatever the establishment was being completely destroyed.

First, I always read S&H as very conservative for a pair of folk who came up with a theory of how transforming change occurs.  They always insisted that their theory is non-partisan, that it didn’t favor or justify the theories or principles of either party.  I disagree with that.  I always thought a 4T would address the gravest problems of any given era, and in most crises in the Anglo-American series, this meant that the establishment elites lost power, wealth and influence to progressives who wished to force change.

To that extent, yes, a crisis generally gives the Establishment a black eye.

The problem is in correctly identifying the gravest problems, seeing who is trying to solve them, and who represents the Establishment that wants to continue to hold power and profit by leaving the problem unsolved.

As an heir of sort to the Whigs, I have a shortcut arrow of progress that helps me distinguish between Establishment and Progressive.  The arrow points towards human rights, equality and democracy.  In this particular crisis, we’ve got income inequality and an biased legal system that leans hard on certain minorities.  In just about any crisis, the wealthy have too much influence over the politicians, and this one is no different.

I see the chain of crises as incremental.  From the start of the transformation from the Agricultural Age pattern to the Industrial Age pattern, the conservative elite that held too much power over the people were the hereditary land owning militaristic nobility.  As I see it, they did not go away in one crisis.  It took many many crises before they were no longer the primary problem, the bad guys whose power had to be slowly whittled away.  The US Civil War might be viewed as the last US internal crisis between agricultural elites and industrial democracy.  Even that was not a total clean wipe-your-hands victory.  The slave owners just turned to sharecropping and Jim Crow intimidation.  A grave problem was ‘solved’, and one of the more hateful mechanisms for an elite class to dominate the working people was removed.  Nothing to snicker at.  Still, the elites did not vanish in one crisis.  Martin Luther King had and the modern Black Lives Matter movement has more work yet to do.

After the Civil War, agricultural elites were no longer the gravest elite threat to the life style of the People.  That position went to the Robber Barons, the very rich owners of the means of production that Marx so disliked.  While Marx proposed one can make an elite class go away in one fell swoop in a decisive revolution, S&H look at history in more detail.  They suggest cultures transform through a long series of crises.  There are more crises in S&H’s tale of cultural evolution than Marx had revolutions.  This is because groups of elites don’t go away in one crisis.  You can only whittle them down some.  Often one can whittle quite significantly, but the job is always partial.

FDR’s New Deal aspect of his double crises might be the first S&H crisis aimed at diminishing the power of the Robber Barons rather than agricultural elites.  It didn’t get the whole job done any more than the English Civil War made the American Revolution unnecessary, or the American Revolution made the American Civil War unnecessary.  Tolkien in his Lord of the Rings suggested that the shadow will always take another shape and grow again.  No victory, no matter how magnificent, is final.  One should expect a different threat to form.  In the real world, there will always be elites trying and to some extent succeeding at monopolizing wealth and political power.

Thus, from my perspective, income inequality is the gravest problem, and Robber Barons are the elite whose power and wealth must be diminished.  Your father is the living embodiment, the walking talking platonic ideal manifestation, of the idea of Robber Baron.  He has spent his life amassing great personal wealth with no regard to the common man.  I see no reason to expect him to change.  His economic plan features tax breaks for the Robber Barons.  His solution is to increase the economic inequality.

Hillary, meanwhile, had not been a politician until after her husband left the White House.  She had been a lobbyist and activist on the behalf of women, children, minorities and the ill.  She has spent her life pushing for equality, trying to benefit the People who have been trodden on worst.  

The two people have spent their lives pushing very different causes.  For one whose arrow of progress points at equality, human rights and democracy, my choice is absurdly clear.

Then there is Trump’s endorsement of leaders like Putin and Saddam Hussain who tried and are trying to make the Agricultural Age style of intimidating tyrant continue to work in the modern age.  Trump is sort of correct that Saddam did maintain peace by terror, did prevent the Middle East from going unstable.  Saddam was not insane.  He was just a student of tyranny.  He knew how to keep a people oppressed and in line.  I will give Saddam that much.  However, I can’t admire the man, and I’ll not back a modern politician seeking office in America who suggests that autocratic tyranny is an admirable way of doing business.

While I’ve often suggested that Cynic Hero’s desire to restore autocratic strong man Agricultural Age values is pretty much unique to him, very un-American, Trump in some ways does match Cynic’s ideal of going back to the old way of doing things.  Trump isn’t often explicit in saying such, for good reason, but he gives hints of it from time to time.

Issues aside, your father does not play well with others.  If he is frustrated in any way, he will throw a tantrum, demonize the other person, and throw about insults.  It doesn’t matter who he is dealing with…  women, minorities, the disabled, reporters, fire marshals, gold star mothers, Republican authorities, even Democrats on occasion, get given the same sort of treatment.  I have no reason to expect this will change should he get elected and have to work with foreign leaders, who are already quite alarmed at having to deal with him.  Issues and philosophy aside, he just doesn’t have the temperament to work with human beings he can’t just fire should they disagree with him.  His personality alone would disqualify him as a candidate in my eyes, even if he did have a history of working for the benefit of others.

Anyway, my primary thrust is that too much power and wealth is often placed in the hands of an elite class.  In any given crisis, the abusive behavior of the elite class must be reduced.  In recent history, this elite class is the Robber Barons.  No single crisis will totally end the power of elitism, or even destroy a specific elite class.  Some issues will be resolved, but the answers are never complete.  The battles of one crisis are never fully over.

[Bob Butler 54]

(08-04-2016, 12:02 PM)X_4AD_84 Wrote: CH has undergone a transformation. His earlier notions about meritocratic determination of "transient" elites was advanced in some ways, and not really an outgrowth of Old World Agrarianism. However, he went around the bend into National Bolshevism (or at least, into a polity aligned with it). National Bolshevism with its fusion of Stalinism, Nazism and ancient Eurasian Shamanism, is clearly of the Old World Agrarian variety. It is an existential threat to Western Civilization and The World.

I'll admit I might have lost some of the subtle variations of CH's spiels.

Existential threat? I'm a bit more concerned with modern Robber Barons now than National Bolsheviks.

[pbrower2a]

(08-04-2016, 12:26 AM)Kinser79 Wrote: As much as I'm loath to agree with CH here (mostly because I think he is possibly psychologically unstable and have no evidence he's started on some meds or something--I have noticed he hasn't posted about his nebulous "restorationism" lately though) the fact is that whatever is the status quo at the end of the 3T (Neo-Liberal economics, Neo-Con foreign policy, globalism, multiculturalism, and open borders) becomes the "Establishment" of the 4T.

To the extent that the Establishment show itself corrupt, cruel, rapacious, reckless, and selfish, it loses its credibility while bungling the Crisis. At the extreme it may face overthrow, dispossession, outlawry, and even extermination. It's far easier to win a 4T war as a major power if one does a good job of meeting human needs, fostering innovation and imagination, building and restoring infrastructure, and promoting human brotherhood beforehand.  The Establishment can save itself by appealing to the best in human nature -- courage, conscience, rationality, kindness, and some appropriate caution.

I saw much of the Republican and Democratic national conventions. Political conventions do not ordinarily shape politics, but I can say without hesitation that the Democrats solved more problems than did the Republicans. The Democrats co-opted Reagan without the social Darwinism and low-grade bigotry, transforming the 3T agenda into something suitable for the late stages of a Crisis Era. Donald Trump failed to unify a Republican Party that had seemed in political lockstep for about thirty-five years but had started to show some minor rifts. Republicans ended up finding scapegoats instead of solutions.

I saw a citation of John Podhoretz, a speechwriter for Ronald Reagan. In essence, "You could take five paragraphs out of Obama's speech and you would have a typical Reagan speech. I should know."

Reality will destroy the worst tendencies in American life while bringing out the best, if the leadership is competent enough to recognize the wisdom of riding the only safe tide in a 4T.  

Quote:As such to solve the 4T whatever that establishment is must be completely smashed before the 4T is resolved.  This is true whether the 4T ends well or ends badly.

Not quite. The bad behavior, the bad business practices, the lunatic practices in institutions, and the depraved culture, most of which appear in a 3T die in a 4T, whether fairly early in a largely-wholesome society (America in the early '30s) or late (in a fetid bunker in Berlin) in a sick society. 

Quote:Now before someone accuses me of siding with the only person who is likely to be a fascist on this board, the fact is that this comes straight out of S&H's very own theories.  No matter what happens in the 1T, no matter how the 1T feels, or is like it is fundamentally different from what was before the 4T.  That happens, and can only happen with whatever the establishment was being completely destroyed.

American leadership during the Crisis appealed to the best in American history. America brought liberal ideas to or back to countries that it conquered. It is arguable that FDR emancipated even more slaves than did Lincoln. The pseudoscience of eugenics (very much a 3T innovation and perversion, and which well served the racism of the Axis Powers) got discredited as it was linked to consummate cruelty. The dominance of WASP elites shattered as non-WASPs who had largely been consigned to poverty (like Polish-Americans, Italian-Americans, Irish-Americans, and Mexican-Americans) found themselves in military service that tested the mettle of people of whom little was expected before the war. Jim Crow practices might have survived, but many returning black veterans and others of the GI Generation learned how to evade it (Go North or West, young and talented black man!) or developed the means to challenge it (Thurgood Marshall, Ed Brooke, Rosa Parks).  Say what you want about Dr. Martin Luther King and other Silent figures who appealed successfully to the conscience of white people -- GI blacks did their share in the struggle for the rights of fellow blacks.

Don't forget that one small religious minority in America whose brethren were the scapegoats and sacrificial host to the Moloch of gas chambers in one of America's enemies became an essential part of the American Establishment. We Americans found how useful the smart and canny Jewish scientists and entrepreneurs could be. Just imagine Good and Evil being twisted around in World War II, with Germany rejecting the Nazis, Japan going democratic, and America coming under the Invisible Empire. Germany gets the smart Jewish scientists and canny Jewish entrepreneurs on its side and defeats in turn the Soviet Union and a Klan-dominated America with miracle weapons like jet fighters and bombers, Klan-dominated America having wasted many talented people in its own Moloch.  It is far easier to win with human decency than with bestial cruelty. One wins most effectively by ensuring that the Other Side has nothing for which to fight. (SF novel under imagination, something that makes more sense than The Man in the High Castle).

GIs set a tough example for the Millennial Generation to follow. I am satisfied that the Millennial Generation will meet the current Crisis as well as the Crisis demands. We may see the redemption of America by the end of this decade.