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How do you see current society playing out? Headed towards Civil War Lite?


TheGreatBuzz

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2 hours ago, PeterMP said:

 

Yes and no.  Yes, they heavily elected Trump, but that's partly because younger people don't vote.  No, in the context if you look at things like Pizzagate, I don't think many boomers were involved in that.

 

There's sort of the xenophobic (anti-immigration, anti-free trade, etc.) component to the current GOP, which is heavily boomers (though not entirely, the Sanders Bros fit into that same group, and they are younger), and then the just crazy part of the conservative movement where I think that trends younger (4chan, etc.).

 

In terms of something like large scale violence, I don't worry much about the older generation, but in terms of some of this younger craziness, I get concerned.

 

(I agree about the GOP and the role tv (and more generally media personalities).  The GOP leadership (Hannity, Limbaugh, and even now Alex Jones and InfoWars, etc) have become separated from actually governing where all they care about is ratings.  The GOP political leadership, which actually has to govern, has to somehow take back the mantle of leadership of the larger movement.  I don't think it is possible at this point in time though so I'm not sure what is going to happen.)

 

I'll just add that you can see the future generation of the GOP on Youtube, and it's not pretty. That and...

 

 

:kickcan:

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Is there really a higher percentage of white supremacists in this country then say the early 20th Century?  Yes, there's more then we thought and there's a sitting president pandering to them, but really what kinda effect are they gonna have when the next president denounces them instead?

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The other thing that worries me is that Trump was gathered a lot of the politicial crazies out there on one side.  Before, you had anti-vaxers that tended to lean left, and you had the anti-globalization/NAFTA/WTO (anarchist) that were "leftist" but now that he's (somewhat) embraced the anti-vaccine idea, you've seen that divide more down political lines toward Republicans:

 

https://www.cnn.com/2017/05/11/health/texas-house-vaccinations/index.html

https://www.politico.com/story/2015/09/vaccines-2016-republicans-213811

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/fox-and-friends-flu_us_5a6f2144e4b0ddb658c897f9

 

And Trump has certainly embraced an anti-NAFTA/WTO concepts.

 

If you start concentrating the craziness, do they re-enforce one another (do anti-vaxers become anti-WTO to support the other people on their side and then anti-climate change) and will you get to the point where things just get really bad.

 

In terms of the Civil War, you had a pretty clear dividing issue (slavery).  At this time, we don't seem to have that, we have lots of little dividing issues, but if you start to gather all of the extremes to one side do those little issue coalesce into a larger divide.

Edited by PeterMP
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in 1968 the president had been assassinated less than 5 years earlier. the country was immersed in an immensely unpopular war.   Martin Luther King,  the conscience/racial uniter of the country was assassinated, and then the next president of the the USA was also assassinated, opening the gate for a cartoonishly paranoid, authoritarian and corrupt Richard Nixon to become president....

 

.... and we did fine.   

 

 

Donald Trump will serve his term.  the shame and villainy is already readily apparent, but his core fans will canonize him and a bunch of tools will worship him for generations... but we will go on...   

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4 hours ago, CousinsCowgirl84 said:

 

 

I think the best case for armageddon is that it is always “them” being 100 percent culpable... ... middle east, ww2, crusades, civil war, etc... each time the problem was “them”... if we could only get rid of “them”.....  let’s secure the peace and prepare for war...

 

Not getting rid of them. However, there is currently one group that is willfully suppressing the vote, one group voting for and into office openly racist people, one group that is anti-LBGTQ, one group openly cheering for authoritarian language from this POTUS, one group almost voting in a pedophile because the belief that all Dems are evil, one group that loves the confederate flag while claiming kneeling for the anthem offends them. Now, I'm not saying all members of the GOP fit into all these categories, but it's not currently a bunch of Democrats. 

 

IF the Dems are going to mess up society, it's through the crazy anti-vaccine groups.

 

 

 

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50 minutes ago, mcsluggo said:

in 1968 the president had been assassinated less than 5 years earlier. the country was immersed in an immensely unpopular war.   Martin Luther King,  the conscience/racial uniter of the country was assassinated, and then the next president of the the USA was also assassinated, opening the gate for a cartoonishly paranoid, authoritarian and corrupt Richard Nixon to become president....

 

.... and we did fine.   

 

 

Donald Trump will serve his term.  the shame and villainy is already readily apparent, but his core fans will canonize him and a bunch of tools will worship him for generations... but we will go on...   

 

Things were different.  In 1985, Philadelphia dropped a bomb on a row home housing African American extremists, shoot people as they were running out of the building, and let the resulting fire destroy more row homes so that essentially a whole city block was destroyed.

 

And there were really no resulting protests, much less violence.

 

Today, we have riots over much smaller things.

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1 hour ago, Busch1724 said:

 

I can see where you're coming from. However, kids say the most horrible things to each other these days over social media. I'm a principal, and the things kids say are just plain terrible because they don't have to face the person they said it about/to. Unless that changes, the current political landscape will stay the same or even get worse. 

 

There's always been some form of bullying. However, the fact kids can say whatever they want, to whoever they want without immediate repercussion helps foster an environment like this. That was one of the appealing things about talk radio initially. I sound like an old fuddy duddy, but there was an element of fear that if you said the wrong thing to the wrong person, you'd get something physical in return. I'm not saying that violence is OK, but the fear of it helped. Am I wrong about that?

 

No, but I don't think people saying nasty **** to each other over social media is limited to kids.  I also think that people have always had the same thoughts, even if they didn't voice those thoughts due to threat of violence.  

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I’ll point out here that one of the goals of Russia’s election interference campaign was to sow conflict and discord among Americans across political and racial lines. 

 

We we made it too easy for them to succeed. 

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1 hour ago, Renegade7 said:

Is there really a higher percentage of white supremacists in this country then say the early 20th Century?  Yes, there's more then we thought and there's a sitting president pandering to them, but really what kinda effect are they gonna have when the next president denounces them instead?

Based from no facts whatsoever, I suspect there is.  It used to be a parent would pass their messed up views to their children.  But as the children grew and were exposed to society, some of them realized that their parents were wrong.  And the numbers would have gotten smaller each generation.  Now, you have plenty of leaders and echo chambers online that those kids learn that not only were their parents "right" but that they actually weren't racist ENOUGH!

1 hour ago, mcsluggo said:

in 1968 the president had been assassinated less than 5 years earlier. the country was immersed in an immensely unpopular war.   Martin Luther King,  the conscience/racial uniter of the country was assassinated, and then the next president of the the USA was also assassinated, opening the gate for a cartoonishly paranoid, authoritarian and corrupt Richard Nixon to become president....

 

.... and we did fine.   

 

 

Donald Trump will serve his term.  the shame and villainy is already readily apparent, but his core fans will canonize him and a bunch of tools will worship him for generations... but we will go on...   

Few things have been added to the equation.  More powerful and easily accessible firearms............and the internet.

 

 

So after thinking more about it today, I have come up with what I think is the most likely.  If I am right, I will demand to be called Nostradamus going forward.

 

Trump wins again in 2020 but with even less popular votes.  The GOP has puts their foot on the gas with voter suppression and other things.  Dems have more control in Congress but still don't have the power to actually have the POTUS removed.  There is even more evidence of election interference.  But the right people don't have enough power to do much about it.  Massive protests break out across the country.  Some of the farther Left people start rioting.  Trump comes out and says something stupid like that people should defend their cities/towns with deadly force if necessary.  Billy Bob and his cousin/boyfriend start shooting rioters.  And the fire is lit.  

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1 hour ago, Hersh said:

IF the Dems are going to mess up society, it's through the crazy anti-vaccine groups.

 

 

Even this I doubt. Studies actually show no real divergence between anti-vaccination beliefs between liberals and conservatives. 

 

The extreme ends of both ideologies seem to be equally likely to believe in that nonsense.

 

https://theconversation.com/anti-vaccination-beliefs-dont-follow-the-usual-political-polarization-81001

 

Because the GOP is essentially a far right extremist party at this point, the anti-vaccination threat is from them as well. Let’s not forget that Trump was ready to convene a “vaccination safety” commission until Bill Gates talked him out of it. In fact, Trump is openly an anti-vaccination nut.

 

Considering the rise in popularity of goons like Alex Jones on the right, I would not be surprised that if you conducted a poll on this issue in 2020, even moderate GOP voters will have shifted to the extreme.

1 hour ago, FanboyOf91 said:

 

I'll just add that you can see the future generation of the GOP on Youtube, and it's not pretty. That and...

 

 

:kickcan:

 

I don’t buy this. The alt right is highly visible but polling actually shows that millennial age conservatives dislike Trump in majority and want him primaried in 2020. If the GOP does become even more extreme, they will lose a solid chunk of that crowd. 

Edited by No Excuses
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My neighborhood had a Memorial Day pool party.  About 400 people.  I was there all day and talked to a ton of people all day. 

 

Guess how many talked any form of policies?   

 

 

Zero 

 

 

I talk politics here about 100 times more than the real world.  

 

Its to just not on most people’s radar. 

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9 minutes ago, TheGreatBuzz said:

Based from no facts whatsoever, I suspect there is.  It used to be a parent would pass their messed up views to their children.  But as the children grew and were exposed to society, some of them realized that their parents were wrong.  And the numbers would have gotten smaller each generation.  Now, you have plenty of leaders and echo chambers online that those kids learn that not only were their parents "right" but that they actually weren't racist ENOUGH!

Few things have been added to the equation.  More powerful and easily accessible firearms............and the internet.

 

If they were worse then their parents, there would be more black men getting hung from trees for whistling a a white woman, not nearly non-existent right now. 

 

We're not even close, so if they just want to march around with tiki torches, more power to them, the Internet will put the face out for everyone to see.  And no, I don't believe as a percentage of the country more people support white nationalism then 50 or 100 years ago.  These conversations about racism sometimes I feel take a turn without context of when it was truly out of control, that's not what's happening right now. 

 

I agree it is easier to find and feed those views via the Internet, but we didn't tear the country apart over Jim Crow, we passed the Civil Rights Act.

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12 minutes ago, Kilmer17 said:

My neighborhood had a Memorial Day pool party.  About 400 people.  I was there all day and talked to a ton of people all day. 

 

Guess how many talked any form of policies?   

 

 

Zero 

 

 

I talk politics here about 100 times more than the real world.  

 

Its to just not on most people’s radar. 

 

So glad you posted this. 

 

Most people I know "don't like watching the news", on a lot of topics if I want to get the most out of it this is a better starting point because there's so many different perspectives here that do follow current events. I typically don't enjoy having an extensive conversation with someone on a policy if they don't even know what it is, they will either "I didn't know that", or "I don't believe you". 

 

If I feel like they are going to look into what I talked about, that's encouraging, but you follow up with them a lot of times its like "ya, I was busy with the kids, I don't know, I guess that makes sense".  End of the day, this is a discussion forum, and it serves its purpose (sometimes a little too well).

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2 hours ago, PleaseBlitz said:

 

This.  I think our current state, which sucks in terms of politics, is going to be short-term.  A whole lot of our societies problems stem from a certain older generation being very self-centered.  I think the following generations have largely seen the folly in that and will do better.  Certainly, certain factions of the younger generations have problems, but they are small portions of the whole. 

I don't buy the whole boomers demonizing thing.  Call me old fashion but I still think much of the big "problems" in stem from wealth/income inequality and the access/influence wealth buys to government.  Everything else is a distraction.  Name the issue, and follow the money.  The discord comes from political groups paying political strategists to scare people into acting against their own interests, so that some rich guys can get richer, or keep getting paid.  Health care, private prisons, college costs and related loans, housing costs... the list is endless.  

 

Even racism plays into it.  Imagine if poor, or nearly poor, whites and nonwhites united under the common banner of "we're all getting ****ed"?  That's a huge piece of the electorate and its present in large numbers in both rural and urban areas.  Can't have that, so it's better to fan the flames of racism and keep the lower classes nicely divided between the two major parties.  I'm not saying racism is the result of some political conspiracy, racism never went away.  What I'm saying that racism is useful to the major parties.  

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17 minutes ago, Destino said:

I don't buy the whole boomers demonizing thing.  Call me old fashion but I still think much of the big "problems" in stem from wealth/income inequality and the access/influence wealth buys to government.  Everything else is a distraction.  Name the issue, and follow the money.  The discord comes from political groups paying political strategists to scare people into acting against their own interests, so that some rich guys can get richer, or keep getting paid.  Health care, private prisons, college costs and related loans, housing costs... the list is endless.  

 

Even racism plays into it.  Imagine if poor, or nearly poor, whites and nonwhites united under the common banner of "we're all getting ****ed"?  That's a huge piece of the electorate and its present in large numbers in both rural and urban areas.  Can't have that, so it's better to fan the flames of racism and keep the lower classes nicely divided between the two major parties.  I'm not saying racism is the result of some political conspiracy, racism never went away.  What I'm saying that racism is useful to the major parties.  

 

That's an interesting take, and certainly the money issues are a big deal, but I believe totally that the boomer's collective worldview is a huge driving force behind the wealth/income inequality (they vote for leaders and accept policies that contribute/exacerbate it) and access/influence being for sale (Citizens United happened because their generation pushed for it and accepts it).  Health care, private prisons, college costs and related loans, housing costs... the list is endless.  I agree (and would add the destruction (or at least benign neglect) of the environment and our country's infrastructure as well as the exploding debt) are all solvable problems that boomers have chosen to not solve because that would be taking responsibility and helping other people and they don't do that.  They are only concerned about themselves on an individual level.  

 

TL;DR:  You have your cause and effect backwards. 

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1 hour ago, TheGreatBuzz said:

Trump wins again in 2020 but with even less popular votes.  The GOP has puts their foot on the gas with voter suppression and other things.  Dems have more control in Congress but still don't have the power to actually have the POTUS removed.  There is even more evidence of election interference.  But the right people don't have enough power to do much about it.  Massive protests break out across the country.  Some of the farther Left people start rioting.  Trump comes out and says something stupid like that people should defend their cities/towns with deadly force if necessary.  Billy Bob and his cousin/boyfriend start shooting rioters.  And the fire is lit.  

I see a different outcome.  I think the Dems get back control of the house this year and then take that whore out of office in 2020.  His supporters take to the streets and they are the ones that get their billy badass/soldier of fortune/delusional/bigoted asses kicked by the National Guard.

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47 minutes ago, PleaseBlitz said:

 

That's an interesting take, and certainly the money issues are a big deal, but I believe totally that the boomer's collective worldview is a huge driving force behind the wealth/income inequality (they vote for leaders and accept policies that contribute/exacerbate it) and access/influence being for sale (Citizens United happened because their generation pushed for it and accepts it).  Health care, private prisons, college costs and related loans, housing costs... the list is endless.  I agree (and would add the destruction (or at least benign neglect) of the environment and our country's infrastructure as well as the exploding debt) are all solvable problems that boomers have chosen to not solve because that would be taking responsibility and helping other people and they don't do that.  They are only concerned about themselves on an individual level.  

Who isn't?  Very few are rush to lay down on the alter of sacrifice to appease the gods, but there's no shortage of people with very good arguments for who should be sacrificed for the greater good. 

 

Nothing sells as easily as a cause that makes supporters feel like the good guys, but costs them nothing (or benefits them).  It's the prosperity gospel of politics.  These days everyone is being sold on the evil of what someone else is doing that has to stop... by people that would gain financially as a result.  Those other people are being told that no one should ever be allowed to stop them... by people that would lose financially if they ever did. 

 

 

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2 minutes ago, Destino said:

Who isn't?  Very few are rush to lay down on the alter of sacrifice to appease the gods, but there's no shortage of people with very good arguments for who should be sacrificed for the greater good. 

 

Nothing sells as easily as a cause that makes supporters feel like the good guys, but costs them nothing (or benefits them).  It's the prosperity gospel of politics.  These days everyone is being sold on the evil of what someone else is doing that has to stop... by people that would gain financially as a result.  Those other people are being told that no one should ever be allowed to stop them... by people that would lose financially if they ever did. 

 

 

 

No generation, before or after, is as self-interested than the baby-boom generation.  Here, I already covered this in another thread.

 

On 5/18/2018 at 11:13 AM, PleaseBlitz said:

 

I think it is primarily due to the fact that Boomers were born into, and raised in, an environment where they had so many advantages and, having pissed them away for future generations, can't comprehend why those future generations are pissed off and want to do things a different way.

 

When Baby Boomers were in their formative years, the United States was the worlds only economic superpower.  The US had just won the greatest war in history, largely due to building up industry, not spilling blood, and the rest of the normally economically prosperous regions of the world were devastated by the war.  China and India were still backwaters and the US dominated nearly every industry and the global order.  College was not required to have a good job where you could raise a family with a modest-to-nice home, and if you wanted to go to college, it was affordable.  

 

So now, Boomers call everyone else entitled when, in reality, they are the only living generation that expected to have everything handed to them and actually received it.  Then, due to their entitlement, decided that they were just receiving what they deserved and felt no compunction whatsoever to preserve anything for future generations (as every generation prior to them had done).  Instead, they just want to cut their own taxes instead of pay for long-term infrastructure or the education of the following generations, preserve their own social security and Medicare benefits (which were designed to support a much smaller population of recipients) and pay for it with debt they won't have to pay during their lifetimes and the list of selfishness goes on and on. 

 

They hate the Millennials because, after wrecking the economy through greed, starting two unnecessary wars, and being the unhealthiest generation in history, Millennials looked at them and decided they were living wrong and now refuse to follow suit.  

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44 minutes ago, PleaseBlitz said:

 

No generation, before or after, is as self-interested than the baby-boom generation.  Here, I already covered this in another thread.

 

The entire country was sold a bill of goods by the rich and powerful.  For example "they just want to cut their own taxes" ignores that the entire electorate was told that cutting taxes lead to economic prosperity and even greater tax revenue.  People believe(d) that.  You're skipping the part where a lot of money went into selling the country on deregulation which goes hand in hand with tax cuts.  A lot of money is still going into pushing those ideas and those ideas are still winning today. 

 

People with a lot of influence and a lot of money have spent fortunes to push policy that benefits them.  They aren't spending that money and influence on strategies or strategists that consistently fail.  They protect a health care system that is great at making money, and bad at delivering actual care.  Coal mines are dead or dying, but politically they provide a useful argument for stripping the EPA of any real power.  Even the argument for reducing the size of government is a fraud, they're just replacing government employees with privately owned contractors that reap massive rewards. 

 

Every issue is sold to us as good versus evil, right versus wrong, but if you look closer it always comes down to profit and loss. 

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8 minutes ago, Destino said:

The entire country was sold a bill of goods by the rich and powerful.  For example "they just want to cut their own taxes" ignores that the entire electorate was told that cutting taxes lead to economic prosperity and even greater tax revenue.  People believe(d) that.  You're skipping the part where a lot of money went into selling the country on deregulation which goes hand in hand with tax cuts.  A lot of money is still going into pushing those ideas and those ideas are still winning today. 

 

People with a lot of influence and a lot of money have spent fortunes to push policy that benefits them.  They aren't spending that money and influence on strategies or strategists that consistently fail.  They protect a health care system that is great at making money, and bad at delivering actual care.  Coal mines are dead or dying, but politically they provide a useful argument for stripping the EPA of any real power.  Even the argument for reducing the size of government is a fraud, they're just replacing government employees with privately owned contractors that reap massive rewards. 

 

Every issue is sold to us as good versus evil, right versus wrong, but if you look closer it always comes down to profit and loss. 

 

I'm as much a dollars and cents guy as you are likely to find.  All of the things you said are true, but you seem to think that people don't have any agency.  Sure, people get told a lot of things by a lot of monied interests.  People ultimately make their own decisions.  Most people during the tax bill debate didnt buy the argument that cutting taxes was going to have some huge benefit for the economy.  Meantime, everyone knows that our country has too much debt.  Still, if you dig into the crosstabs in the polls, guess which group favors cutting taxes?  You guessed it.  Boomers.  Guess who prefers actually paying for stuff?  The younger generations.  I'm not skipping the part where a lot of money went into selling the country on deregulation which goes hand in hand with tax cuts.  I'm maintaining that they (we) are still responsible for their (our) own actions and beliefs.  So, i guess, i'm not surprised of your level of cynicism, there is certainly a lot to be cynical about.  But no, I don't believe that our corporate overlords are pulling all of the strings all of the time (just with today's extraordinarily corrupt R's in power ... who are mostly Boomers). 

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40 minutes ago, PleaseBlitz said:

 

I'm as much a dollars and cents guy as you are likely to find.  All of the things you said are true, but you seem to think that people don't have any agency.  Sure, people get told a lot of things by a lot of monied interests.  People ultimately make their own decisions.  Most people during the tax bill debate didnt buy the argument that cutting taxes was going to have some huge benefit for the economy.  Meantime, everyone knows that our country has too much debt.  Still, if you dig into the crosstabs in the polls, guess which group favors cutting taxes?  You guessed it.  Boomers.  Guess who prefers actually paying for stuff?  The younger generations.  I'm not skipping the part where a lot of money went into selling the country on deregulation which goes hand in hand with tax cuts.  I'm maintaining that they (we) are still responsible for their (our) own actions and beliefs.  So, i guess, i'm not surprised of your level of cynicism, there is certainly a lot to be cynical about.  But no, I don't believe that our corporate overlords are pulling all of the strings all of the time (just with today's extraordinarily corrupt R's in power ... who are mostly Boomers). 

 

Old people are more likely to be on fixed income and rarely have enough money to retire.  They don't need an overall economic benefit to favor tax cuts.  They want prices to rise more slowly and their own pennies to stretch a bit further.  Young people have different concerns and grew up watching supply side economics fail to deliver.  The situation you describe above is simple, and reasonable, self interest.

 

I'm not saying Boomers supporting republicans today isn't helping the wrong side.  They are.  I would very much like if they all simply sat out the next, of lets say four, elections.  I just can't blame old people for prioritizing their self interests when the rest of us are doing the same.

 

Young people are being manipulated for profit as well.  Look at student loans and college costs.  Who doesn't want more people going to college?  No one right?  Well that turned into a huge cash cow for lenders.  Who wants to tell me they saw it coming?  This isn't a small problem because those prices aren't coming back down.  We've succeeded in creating an incredible revenue stream that because so many are now getting degrees are now practically mandatory.  Our young people now have to start their professional lives with more debt than ever before.  Does that feel like progress? 

 

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