Generational Dynamics Forum - New Site

Well, wrong. His obsession with tariff based economics is rewriting world economics to eliminate America and American jobs. His racist attitute towards latinos and jews is getting him into legal and conflict trouble. His popularity is tanking.

Belief in a political ideology can divorce one's relationship with reality. If a fact doesn't mesh with reality, it gets discarded. You might want to check yourself.

Trying to please everyone is a fool's errand.
Trying to please the people who voted you into office is the best way to stay in control.
He's doing a pretty damned spectacular job of that.

It seems that a lot of Americans get some form of benefit from the federal government, be it weather prediction, medicare, tax breaks or whatever. Many of the recent money saving service reducing actions make somebody mad, shifting votes for the future. Trump is going to be leaving politics, between the two term limit and senility. How long the Republicans will put up with his alienating voters is the question. His administration seems built on loyalty rather than competence, but even then folks like Musk are jumping ship.

We’ll see,

Technically, 'Congress shall make no law' does not cover the current situation. Congress allocated the funds. The executive just reallocated them. Yet, Congress is supposed to spend money, the executive just supervise the execution.

Still, it rubs me wrong.

I do see Liberty University, Notre Dame and Boston College subtly (or not so subtly) slanting their teachings to reflect various religious points of view. Should the government try to control their agendas and teachings, or is this a conservative one way street?

Anyway...

Yes, lots of academic departments back specific theories. Does the government have a right to punish schools whose theories a particular party or individual disagrees with? Or is this the purpose of Freedom of Speech. 'I may not agree with a word you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it."

Congress wrote:Amendment I
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

A few nights ago I watched an MSNBC review of all the folks mad at Trump: colleges, medical folk, aviators, lawyers, judges, fired federal employees, Social Security recipients, farmers, importers… I sent a message to my niece. She runs a great white shark museum out on Cape Cod. I just had to ask, is anyone organizing the great whites? Everyone else is organizing.

I used to think this crisis was something of a dud. Compare it to the American Revolution, American Civil War or World War II, it sure looked that way. Now? It looks like one man might create a global economic crash, a constitutional crisis, plus a war or two.

If the Revolution resulted in independence and purged nobility, the Civil War in freedom for the slaves and increased influence by the industrial over the agricultural sectors, and FDR’s time by government regulation of the economy and containment. You might claim the new values resulting from the crisis are strengthened by the magnitude of the crisis. If so, the new values Trump causes will be strengthened by the amount of trouble he causes. Is there too much prejudice against minorities and people with unusual sexual preferences? Do the rich have too much say in government? What should be done about it?

I am waiting for the courts to declare various people in the administration in contempt, and Trump to respond by pardoning them. There would be little that could be done about it without two thirds of the Senate, and that would require a bunch of Republicans.

In the short term? Trouble. In the long term? The more trouble the greater the strength of the new values. However the crisis was solved, the solutions are set in stone. If the rest of the Republican Party stays loyal to the administration, they could well be gone.

I should probably start another thread for this - it's a bit outside the scope of this one, just out of respect - but I've long thought that this 4t might be most like the 17th century one - for the nascent UK.

That was the one, of course, following the Armada Crisis, when England became a great power - economically, politically, militarily, culturally. Ditto for America with the Depression and Second World War.

And the saeculum (forgetting how to spell this) that followed was all or at least significantly about whether or not England and the emerging British Empire would be Protestant, or go back to being Catholic. So, in that sense, the English Civil War is maybe kinda like the counterculture and all the changes - politically, culturally, and otherwise - that were seeded in the last Awakening.

But in the end Cromwell kinda succeeded in death (at least vis the vis the things he maybe deserved to win at: nobody really wanted bans on music and merrymaking...the latter day analogue might be political correctness, which is just another form of liberal puritanism). And I'm sure that three or four years before the downfall of James II he looked pretty unstoppable - the way Trump might kinda look today.

Yes to everything *you* say Bob - you are wise. The clueless criminal for sure; he's like a mob boss in that sense. And for sure is in some kind of cognitive decline. (From what I've observed with family members and others, the late 70s/early 80s are when big health and cognitive challenges can really start to show up - even in previously healthy seeming people. And he's not like the actually healthy people I've known - who still run or walk every day, and eat well - but have heart attacks or strokes or are diagnosed with dementia. I mean, famously, his diet is literally cheeseburgers and diet coke. If he makes it the next four years without a significant health or cognitive diagnosis, he'll be quite lucky.)

I hope sanity prevails on the tariffs and things - I really don't want to see a major economic downturn. But the layoffs of federal workers are enough that the job numbers are likely to be bad for the first few months of the year, and maybe after that too. And if people's benefits - SS, medicare, medicaid - start being disrupted, things could really get bad before long. Oh, and also still: inflation. It was probably going to take some pretty creative actions to actually bring down prices, but the imagination let alone the will just doesn't seem to be there.

Yes. I sympathize with much of the above. I'd add that he is a casual criminal, disregarding the law, yet acting surprised when he is prosecuted. He is also growing senile. His accusations that Biden was getting old and mentally challenged were projection. I;m not that much into psychology, or in understanding narcissism, but I have seen it used to explain Trump often enough.

More interesting is the delay in implementing some tariffs in response to pleas from Republicans and elites. What seem to be happening is the worst of both worlds. Trump is backing down on parts of his economic agenda, but Canada, Mexico, China and Europe are going ahead with their responses. They are retaliating in advance to policies which might not be implemented. Too soon to see how this might play out.