I would offer an amendment to your timeline: I believe we entered the “Trump era“ in 2017. Biden‘s term is the one that should be considered the anomaly, as evidence by the public’s dissatisfaction with Biden and the reelection of Trump in 2024.
I entirely agree with you about the end of an era, but I feel that its downfall was inherent from the beginning. The 60s and 70s should not be cast as a national nightmare, but rather the last time we were took fundamental steps to address civil rights and women's rights. I would also say to end a war, but Biden finally got us out of Afghanistan, which should have been celebrated rather than a fatal blow to his standing.
I felt all along that that the GOP's promotion of family values, right to life, patriotism, small government, anti-Communism, states rights, personal responsibility, etc., were hollow and hypocritical tactics to maintain power and give tax cuts and other advantages to the rich. I feel the easy acceptance of Trump proves my point.
I appreciate that prosperity is necessary for freedom and a decent society, and that Capitalism is the best way to achieve it, but these are clearly not sufficient. We are better off today economically, but people don't feel it, some because of inequality, others because of social media algorithms and the very prosperity which has shielded the young from true hardship.
To me, the last 50 years show a national failure to take action needed to fulfill the promise of America. We failed to ratify the Equal Rights Amendment, and I will almost certainly die without ever becoming an equal citizen in my own country. Sandy Hook happened, and we failed to deal with gun violence, unlike every other advanced country. Covid happened. The initial praise of frontline workers, doctors, and nurses was turned into vilification for political gain, rather than finally prompting us to guarantee paid sick leave. The hypocrisy of the "right to life" movement is shown by the acceptance of maternal deaths in Red states and failure to support child care after the end of Roe v Wade. Our failure to pass comprehensive immigration legislation because scapegoating immigrants is more useful as a political cudgel is another example.
The one bright spot for me is the Bulwark and other Never Trumpers I have come to "know" virtually. It's clear there were a few Republicans who weren't hypocrites and who are capable of learning in the face of facts and applying those principles to new solutions. Sarah's focus groups show me that most undecided voters and Trump voters were actually thoughtful and decent people rather than idiots, and that the basket of deplorables isn't that large. There is still some hope. Thank you!
The masks are off on the GOP side. We now know who is true and who is craven. During the next few years we're going to see what each Democrat is made of, whether a new coalitions can form and solve problems, or whether democracy is a failed experiment. The one thing I know is that the Bulwark will be part of the solution, if there is one. Again, I can't thank you enough!
I've really cut back on my TV viewing of talking heads, the same ones who assured us all of what could not possibly happen, yet of course did. I'm not giving anyone any money to any one right now yet I'm not really licking my wounds. I'm really just sick of it.
At this point, the vote is in, the bullshit absorbed and the credits for inferior intellects being pushed at every level will entertain us all if we choose to let them. Now is the time to wait and see who does what to whom. Will the Country actually benefit from a foam at the mouth bunch? Maybe? I doubt it. The question I will really want answered is what the ill informed group known as MAGA reacts to what Trump delivers as opposed to what they wish that they knew they wanted. For MAGA, look for more ignorant anger as the MTG bunch rage at Jewish Space Lasers.
MAGA isn't getting their old jobs back as a miracle. Technology and demand move on. Promises of deporting a bazillion migrants will stall out but it will change the job market for lower wage laborers and raise costs. Tariffs and the creation of an IRS for Tariffs collection will not work out all. Foreign countries don't pay tariffs, American consumers do. An assault on the Panama Canal and Greenland simply distract the electorate from watching the ball.
I do think it likely that the decisions in the defense dept will trigger a lot of global posturing for regional controls in SE Asia and the Baltics. I don't think I can do a damn thing about that until we're in the next election cycle of '26 and then I'll be 76 years old, wishing for some younger politicians who would address the enemy of us all- our failing planet. We collectively still don't get it. The planet will fail ALL of us It's not the elephant in the room. It's the Carbon Dioxide in the room. The rest of it: "The Sound and the Fury, signifying nothing." ( you know who.)
I honestly think that what we are fighting at the moment is more than just an "America Only" war - I think it is a worldwide culture war.
For centuries, patriarchy has been top dog in many cultures. Right now, what we are struggling with is a radical change in the way many people want the world to go - not with more masculine toxicity, but with a female nurturing bias. And this isn't JUST coming from women - a lot of men also want to get away from the testosterone driven slash and burn approach to life. The men (and women, God help us) who have that attitude are fighting a desperate last ditch battle to remain "top dogs" - and don't care what weapons they use.
This isn't a new thing - think how the Suffragettes suffered more than a hundred years ago. I think our greatest (if not our only) weapons are attrition and education. The mills of matriarchy may grind extremely slowly - but they grind exceeding small and with the "education" side of things - what did St. Ignatius Loyola say? "Give me the child until he is seven - and I will give you the man." Woman - Arise!
I keep thinking about this, too. One way of looking at what happened to the GOP is that white men got the tiniest taste of what African-American men have experienced for the last 400 years and all women from the dawn time by no longer being deferred to as automatically at the top of the imaginary pyramid. Rather than think, OMG, is that how black people and women have felt all along, maybe I should treat others as I would like to be treated, they lost their minds and turned our country over to the worst possible con man and whoever bribes him, legally or otherwise, in exchange for permission to be their worst possible selves.
Obviously, not all men, and there are also many women who have drunk this koolaid, but the mere existence of people who say they voted for Donald Trump over Kamala Harris because she is stupid proves my point.
I don't disagree, and it's a powerful framing - but to put a note of caution there - there are millions of "swing voters" in this sort of culture war. And they can be won over if the excesses of current gender fashions + a basic "boys-and-white-people-are-bad" moral calculus finally cease being defended as a rote orthodoxy that every right-thinking person must conform to. It's really, really, really annoying, for one; and I don't see how - present company excluded, of course - an overbearing rhetorical drive on all the above (even the word patriarchy can be loaded - Ruxandra Teslo compared it dryly to the pre-modern miasma theory of medicine) has helped, even the people it's supposed to help. Liberalism is losing almost everywhere. My particular little crusade is to raise a kind of cultural centrism to normative respectability. There's a lot of work to do without letting eager gender studies department staff choose our values for us, forever.
Yes, we did have a good run. And I am blessed as an 81 yo that I lucked out and had the best of all lives (I read ancient history a lot). And I read Turchin. We're at a turning point. And it won't be pleasant. Good luck America!
Interesting, I had not heard of Turchin but his Wikipedia page is fascinating. What would you recommend that I read by him (taking account of my lamentably short attention span, please).
I've been reading its every 80 years there is a revolution or change. Saying with President Roosevelt in the 1930's, Eighty years before that was reconstruction(1860's). Unfortunately, most of us who didn't pay attention till politics till 2016. Took government for granted. I also think that many people, democrat and republican supporter can't believe what is to come on Monday. They are all up for a rude awakening. Especially us who are older who depend on Social Security. Right now, my Dad, 88 years old thinks Trump is the greatest. He thinks he will have his inheritance to give to us, including real estate. Either they will start to realize they have been duped, or the propaganda will continue. Which is Putin's game.
Sorry your Dad doesn't read much history. I'm 81 and I think we're in for national collapse. Or worse, world collapse of humanity. The climate wars are coming now. We pissed away our last opportunity.
The1938 "first foretaste of a bitter cup" that Churchill talked about was pretty f'ing bitter, and we had to sip from that cup until 1945, with 10's of millions dying. I think we need some pain to readjustment attitudes, I hope it's not that kind of readjustment.
A quibble. Support of the war in Iraq was "wrong", but politically it looked like a reasonable choice for Dems who didn't want to look weak on terrorism. (Sort of like not supporting gay marriage too "early", viewing it as political suicide; or like Lincoln not campaigning as an abolitionist in 1860.) Similarly, the 1994 crime bill was to show Dems were not weak on crime. And was supported by many liberals at the time. You can't complain about Dems losing the votes of blue collar whites, and not recognize that the 1994 bill was a gesture to those blue collar voters. And it worked for a while.
I find it incredible that the country that rebelled against their King 250 years ago and decreed that we will have no king finds itself completely unable to get rid of a crook, a liar, a rapist, a seditionist, most likely a traitor because of some stupid rule that someone decided that we can't do anything about a president. Look at other countries - South Korea right now going after their president for declaring martial law, Britain literally killed their kings (and even queens), France, Germany, the list goes on and on. But the US can't???????? When Ds take over, and they will, there needs to be a constitutional amendment at best that no president is above the law and no president should be treated any better than the worst person in the country. It is insane, and most of the civilized world agrees.
Well, the civilized world agrees, but what does it do? Seemingly, nothing. It certainly doesn't stand up to Oligarchs well at all. Look to the surge of simpletons who supported getting rid of Trudeau, Macron, the more liberal German govt. Poland finally shed itself of the far right and now is building bomb shelters in Warsaw.
Our real enemy is our complacency about climate and its true result as we watch virtually tens of millions die in an environment which won't support as much life. Most don't really realize that's true. To see it, you have to pay attention, so that's seemingly impossible in our current mode. Trump will come and go, a clown but an effective one. What comes after Trump would interest me but I doubt I'll be alive to see that.
The Felon and Hegseth keep talking about war within. I hate to tell them, but it's a battle they won't ever win. Do they honestly think we will all march happily back to the Dark Ages? Do they really think we will all embrace fascism and bow to the "dear leader?" Have they lost their cotton pickin' minds? Evidently, they have. There are tens of millions of us out here who will resist by choice and can fight when necessary. They might wanna rethink their hubris.
Sorry, but I have a news flash for you: half the country is already back in the Dark Ages. They have rejected the Enlightenment. Reached Terminal Ignorance. They are happily marching back to the Dark Ages. They have lost their "cottin pickin' minds".
Maybe the Republicans don’t care if Hegseth is an alcoholic sexual predator mismanager because they are too. Or at least “Markwayne” seems to be since he apparently would be in prison if not for his wife. What did she do? Give him an alibi? Destroy the evidence? Inquiring minds want to know.
Prior to that we never really adhered to the letter of the Constitution. High-minded stuff, that: equality before law, rights and freedom for all. In lieu of that, we were guided by norms that allowed various forms of repression from slavery and expropriation of lands to segregation and the violence used to uphold it. It wasn't just Blacks and Hispanics: included in that were waves of immigrants who came over and were exploited for their labor and in many cases beaten and even murdered should they complain of their conditions or even talk of organizing. Elected officials saw no conflict in swearing an oath to uphold the Constitution after having campaigned on "segregation forever" or doing something about whatever minority had it in store for them.
To push us away from those norms into more inclusive society, Civil Rights bills were passed. Supreme Court decisions reversed past injustices. Companies, schools and public places could no longer explicitly discriminate against others. Asking women what they did to make him mad went by the wayside.
On the bright side, we've seemingly socially evolved from the violence prior to our awakening. You want crazy? Witness the Coal Wars in Appalachia. See how the Wobblies blew up a former governor and took on the Pennsylvania State Police. Then you have lynchings, destruction of entire communities in Tulsa and Rosewood.
Hopefully, we won't revisit that violence. But given how our president-elect has made friends with the Proud Boys, 3%ers, and other extremists both in and outside the ranks of law enforcement and the military, don't be surprised.
https://open.substack.com/pub/johnadamsingram/p/peoples-march-live?r=1dgcz&utm_medium=ios
"He was forced from one presidential bid by a plagiarism scandal."
A PLAGIARISM SCANDAL. And just think, Trump quotes Hilter all the time without attribution.
how much influence does OPUS DEI have on these people. They all seem to wear crosses.
their goals certainly coincide
I would offer an amendment to your timeline: I believe we entered the “Trump era“ in 2017. Biden‘s term is the one that should be considered the anomaly, as evidence by the public’s dissatisfaction with Biden and the reelection of Trump in 2024.
I entirely agree with you about the end of an era, but I feel that its downfall was inherent from the beginning. The 60s and 70s should not be cast as a national nightmare, but rather the last time we were took fundamental steps to address civil rights and women's rights. I would also say to end a war, but Biden finally got us out of Afghanistan, which should have been celebrated rather than a fatal blow to his standing.
I felt all along that that the GOP's promotion of family values, right to life, patriotism, small government, anti-Communism, states rights, personal responsibility, etc., were hollow and hypocritical tactics to maintain power and give tax cuts and other advantages to the rich. I feel the easy acceptance of Trump proves my point.
I appreciate that prosperity is necessary for freedom and a decent society, and that Capitalism is the best way to achieve it, but these are clearly not sufficient. We are better off today economically, but people don't feel it, some because of inequality, others because of social media algorithms and the very prosperity which has shielded the young from true hardship.
To me, the last 50 years show a national failure to take action needed to fulfill the promise of America. We failed to ratify the Equal Rights Amendment, and I will almost certainly die without ever becoming an equal citizen in my own country. Sandy Hook happened, and we failed to deal with gun violence, unlike every other advanced country. Covid happened. The initial praise of frontline workers, doctors, and nurses was turned into vilification for political gain, rather than finally prompting us to guarantee paid sick leave. The hypocrisy of the "right to life" movement is shown by the acceptance of maternal deaths in Red states and failure to support child care after the end of Roe v Wade. Our failure to pass comprehensive immigration legislation because scapegoating immigrants is more useful as a political cudgel is another example.
The one bright spot for me is the Bulwark and other Never Trumpers I have come to "know" virtually. It's clear there were a few Republicans who weren't hypocrites and who are capable of learning in the face of facts and applying those principles to new solutions. Sarah's focus groups show me that most undecided voters and Trump voters were actually thoughtful and decent people rather than idiots, and that the basket of deplorables isn't that large. There is still some hope. Thank you!
The masks are off on the GOP side. We now know who is true and who is craven. During the next few years we're going to see what each Democrat is made of, whether a new coalitions can form and solve problems, or whether democracy is a failed experiment. The one thing I know is that the Bulwark will be part of the solution, if there is one. Again, I can't thank you enough!
I've really cut back on my TV viewing of talking heads, the same ones who assured us all of what could not possibly happen, yet of course did. I'm not giving anyone any money to any one right now yet I'm not really licking my wounds. I'm really just sick of it.
At this point, the vote is in, the bullshit absorbed and the credits for inferior intellects being pushed at every level will entertain us all if we choose to let them. Now is the time to wait and see who does what to whom. Will the Country actually benefit from a foam at the mouth bunch? Maybe? I doubt it. The question I will really want answered is what the ill informed group known as MAGA reacts to what Trump delivers as opposed to what they wish that they knew they wanted. For MAGA, look for more ignorant anger as the MTG bunch rage at Jewish Space Lasers.
MAGA isn't getting their old jobs back as a miracle. Technology and demand move on. Promises of deporting a bazillion migrants will stall out but it will change the job market for lower wage laborers and raise costs. Tariffs and the creation of an IRS for Tariffs collection will not work out all. Foreign countries don't pay tariffs, American consumers do. An assault on the Panama Canal and Greenland simply distract the electorate from watching the ball.
I do think it likely that the decisions in the defense dept will trigger a lot of global posturing for regional controls in SE Asia and the Baltics. I don't think I can do a damn thing about that until we're in the next election cycle of '26 and then I'll be 76 years old, wishing for some younger politicians who would address the enemy of us all- our failing planet. We collectively still don't get it. The planet will fail ALL of us It's not the elephant in the room. It's the Carbon Dioxide in the room. The rest of it: "The Sound and the Fury, signifying nothing." ( you know who.)
I honestly think that what we are fighting at the moment is more than just an "America Only" war - I think it is a worldwide culture war.
For centuries, patriarchy has been top dog in many cultures. Right now, what we are struggling with is a radical change in the way many people want the world to go - not with more masculine toxicity, but with a female nurturing bias. And this isn't JUST coming from women - a lot of men also want to get away from the testosterone driven slash and burn approach to life. The men (and women, God help us) who have that attitude are fighting a desperate last ditch battle to remain "top dogs" - and don't care what weapons they use.
This isn't a new thing - think how the Suffragettes suffered more than a hundred years ago. I think our greatest (if not our only) weapons are attrition and education. The mills of matriarchy may grind extremely slowly - but they grind exceeding small and with the "education" side of things - what did St. Ignatius Loyola say? "Give me the child until he is seven - and I will give you the man." Woman - Arise!
I keep thinking about this, too. One way of looking at what happened to the GOP is that white men got the tiniest taste of what African-American men have experienced for the last 400 years and all women from the dawn time by no longer being deferred to as automatically at the top of the imaginary pyramid. Rather than think, OMG, is that how black people and women have felt all along, maybe I should treat others as I would like to be treated, they lost their minds and turned our country over to the worst possible con man and whoever bribes him, legally or otherwise, in exchange for permission to be their worst possible selves.
Obviously, not all men, and there are also many women who have drunk this koolaid, but the mere existence of people who say they voted for Donald Trump over Kamala Harris because she is stupid proves my point.
I don't disagree, and it's a powerful framing - but to put a note of caution there - there are millions of "swing voters" in this sort of culture war. And they can be won over if the excesses of current gender fashions + a basic "boys-and-white-people-are-bad" moral calculus finally cease being defended as a rote orthodoxy that every right-thinking person must conform to. It's really, really, really annoying, for one; and I don't see how - present company excluded, of course - an overbearing rhetorical drive on all the above (even the word patriarchy can be loaded - Ruxandra Teslo compared it dryly to the pre-modern miasma theory of medicine) has helped, even the people it's supposed to help. Liberalism is losing almost everywhere. My particular little crusade is to raise a kind of cultural centrism to normative respectability. There's a lot of work to do without letting eager gender studies department staff choose our values for us, forever.
Yes, we did have a good run. And I am blessed as an 81 yo that I lucked out and had the best of all lives (I read ancient history a lot). And I read Turchin. We're at a turning point. And it won't be pleasant. Good luck America!
Interesting, I had not heard of Turchin but his Wikipedia page is fascinating. What would you recommend that I read by him (taking account of my lamentably short attention span, please).
I've been reading its every 80 years there is a revolution or change. Saying with President Roosevelt in the 1930's, Eighty years before that was reconstruction(1860's). Unfortunately, most of us who didn't pay attention till politics till 2016. Took government for granted. I also think that many people, democrat and republican supporter can't believe what is to come on Monday. They are all up for a rude awakening. Especially us who are older who depend on Social Security. Right now, my Dad, 88 years old thinks Trump is the greatest. He thinks he will have his inheritance to give to us, including real estate. Either they will start to realize they have been duped, or the propaganda will continue. Which is Putin's game.
Sorry your Dad doesn't read much history. I'm 81 and I think we're in for national collapse. Or worse, world collapse of humanity. The climate wars are coming now. We pissed away our last opportunity.
The1938 "first foretaste of a bitter cup" that Churchill talked about was pretty f'ing bitter, and we had to sip from that cup until 1945, with 10's of millions dying. I think we need some pain to readjustment attitudes, I hope it's not that kind of readjustment.
A quibble. Support of the war in Iraq was "wrong", but politically it looked like a reasonable choice for Dems who didn't want to look weak on terrorism. (Sort of like not supporting gay marriage too "early", viewing it as political suicide; or like Lincoln not campaigning as an abolitionist in 1860.) Similarly, the 1994 crime bill was to show Dems were not weak on crime. And was supported by many liberals at the time. You can't complain about Dems losing the votes of blue collar whites, and not recognize that the 1994 bill was a gesture to those blue collar voters. And it worked for a while.
I find it incredible that the country that rebelled against their King 250 years ago and decreed that we will have no king finds itself completely unable to get rid of a crook, a liar, a rapist, a seditionist, most likely a traitor because of some stupid rule that someone decided that we can't do anything about a president. Look at other countries - South Korea right now going after their president for declaring martial law, Britain literally killed their kings (and even queens), France, Germany, the list goes on and on. But the US can't???????? When Ds take over, and they will, there needs to be a constitutional amendment at best that no president is above the law and no president should be treated any better than the worst person in the country. It is insane, and most of the civilized world agrees.
Well, the civilized world agrees, but what does it do? Seemingly, nothing. It certainly doesn't stand up to Oligarchs well at all. Look to the surge of simpletons who supported getting rid of Trudeau, Macron, the more liberal German govt. Poland finally shed itself of the far right and now is building bomb shelters in Warsaw.
Our real enemy is our complacency about climate and its true result as we watch virtually tens of millions die in an environment which won't support as much life. Most don't really realize that's true. To see it, you have to pay attention, so that's seemingly impossible in our current mode. Trump will come and go, a clown but an effective one. What comes after Trump would interest me but I doubt I'll be alive to see that.
The Felon and Hegseth keep talking about war within. I hate to tell them, but it's a battle they won't ever win. Do they honestly think we will all march happily back to the Dark Ages? Do they really think we will all embrace fascism and bow to the "dear leader?" Have they lost their cotton pickin' minds? Evidently, they have. There are tens of millions of us out here who will resist by choice and can fight when necessary. They might wanna rethink their hubris.
Sorry, but I have a news flash for you: half the country is already back in the Dark Ages. They have rejected the Enlightenment. Reached Terminal Ignorance. They are happily marching back to the Dark Ages. They have lost their "cottin pickin' minds".
I don't think most people realize what they voted for.
I hear ya! I know that many of them are a lost cause and won't ever be a part of my life. I really was talking about the millions of US!!
Maybe the Republicans don’t care if Hegseth is an alcoholic sexual predator mismanager because they are too. Or at least “Markwayne” seems to be since he apparently would be in prison if not for his wife. What did she do? Give him an alibi? Destroy the evidence? Inquiring minds want to know.
"A good 50-year run..."
Oh, I'd give it a good 60, maybe 70 year run.
Prior to that we never really adhered to the letter of the Constitution. High-minded stuff, that: equality before law, rights and freedom for all. In lieu of that, we were guided by norms that allowed various forms of repression from slavery and expropriation of lands to segregation and the violence used to uphold it. It wasn't just Blacks and Hispanics: included in that were waves of immigrants who came over and were exploited for their labor and in many cases beaten and even murdered should they complain of their conditions or even talk of organizing. Elected officials saw no conflict in swearing an oath to uphold the Constitution after having campaigned on "segregation forever" or doing something about whatever minority had it in store for them.
To push us away from those norms into more inclusive society, Civil Rights bills were passed. Supreme Court decisions reversed past injustices. Companies, schools and public places could no longer explicitly discriminate against others. Asking women what they did to make him mad went by the wayside.
On the bright side, we've seemingly socially evolved from the violence prior to our awakening. You want crazy? Witness the Coal Wars in Appalachia. See how the Wobblies blew up a former governor and took on the Pennsylvania State Police. Then you have lynchings, destruction of entire communities in Tulsa and Rosewood.
Hopefully, we won't revisit that violence. But given how our president-elect has made friends with the Proud Boys, 3%ers, and other extremists both in and outside the ranks of law enforcement and the military, don't be surprised.
I like the Inflation act. But when Biden decided to re run his stock tanked to zero for me