As the Election Season begins: Why I believe the U.S. will ultimately fail.

Limbaugh got an unearned medal from a rapist, insurrectionist, soon-to-be broke and convicted Putin lackey.

Rush was a serial philanderer as well as a food and drug addict. His career made the world a worse place and his death made it better.

 

This is from a speech by President Reagan the day before he left office. It represents almost the exact opposite of the original post as to what makes an American and what makes America great. Hint it's not homogeneity:

This, I believe, is one of the most important sources of America's greatness. We lead the world because, unique among nations, we draw our people -- our strength -- from every country and every corner of the world. And by doing so we continuously renew and enrich our nation. While other countries cling to the stale past, here in America we breathe life into dreams. We create the future, and the world follows us into tomorrow. Thanks to each wave of new arrivals to this land of opportunity, we're a nation forever young, forever bursting with energy and new ideas, and always on the cutting edge, always leading the world to the next frontier. This quality is vital to our future as a nation. If we ever closed the door to new Americans, our leadership in the world would soon be lost.

A number of years ago, an American student traveling in Europe took an East German ship across the Baltic Sea. One of the ship's crewmembers from East Germany, a man in his sixties, struck up a conversation with the American student. After a while the student asked the man how he had learned such good English. And the man explained that he had once lived in America. He said that for over a year he had worked as a farmer in Oklahoma and California, that he had planted tomatoes and picked ripe melons. It was, the man said, the happiest time of his life. Well, the student, who had seen the awful conditions behind the Iron Curtain, blurted out the question, ``Well, why did you ever leave?'' ``I had to,'' he said, ``the war ended.'' The man had been in America as a German prisoner of war.

Now, I don't tell this story to make the case for former POW's. Instead, I tell this story just to remind you of the magical, intoxicating power of America. We may sometimes forget it, but others do not. Even a man from a country at war with the United States, while held here as a prisoner, could fall in love with us. Those who become American citizens love this country even more. And that's why the Statue of Liberty lifts her lamp to welcome them to the golden door.

It is bold men and women, yearning for freedom and opportunity, who leave their homelands and come to a new country to start their lives over. They believe in the American dream. And over and over, they make it come true for themselves, for their children, and for others. They give more than they receive. They labor and succeed. And often they are entrepreneurs. But their greatest contribution is more than economic, because they understand in a special way how glorious it is to be an American. They renew our pride and gratitude in the United States of America, the greatest, freest nation in the world -- the last, best hope of man on Earth.
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Remarks of President Reagan at the Presentation Ceremony for the Presidential Medal of Freedom

 

The MAGA people will need a new hero to con them if Trump doesn't win this year. Don't worry, there will be a new con-man that will show up and tell them what they want to hear.

 

U.S. National Debt Clock : Real Time

 

Propaganda media feeds the trolls of each side stoking fear towards their goals. Each side claims true believer status, when they are just morons

 

The pervasive homogeneity of thought that is being pushed on the American people today is worse than any xenophonic rant. In the 50's, it was McCarthyism vs. un-American activities with the aid of television. Today it's wokism vs. threats to Our Democracy™ with the aid of social media. Every time I hear somebody say "Our Democracy™, the hair on the back of my neck stands up because I know it's an appeal to conformity of thought.

 

I don't think people have fully realized how much control the government has over their lives. As tech innovates and things become more transparent, there's going to be a large contingent of folks who are very unhappy. I could see it turning into a civil war. Remember, every day, information moves faster. We could go from peaceful, typical January morning to civil war in a matter of hours. That said, I wonder how a civil war plays out. Will it be state by state or will the front lines dictate who is what, etc?

 

And under presidents of which party did the national debt experience its greatest increases?

 

If anything, people are bombarded with all sorts of competing modes of thought daily. That's why people have largely lost their shit and are completely incoherent politically speaking, or cant stay focused on anything. Even the older more authoritative media outlets have trouble "manufacturing consent" on a wide array of issues. I cant believe anyone would describe the US media landscape as being "pervasively homogenous." Its quite literally a capitalist marketplace of ideas where you can find whatever you want and someone telling you what you want to hear.

 

The Rush Limbaugh stuff has convinced me this is all just a bit (I think)

 

Saw this today:

 

I agree with this. But at least he didn't call himself a journalist like all the hacks at the the mostly (but admittedly not all) left-wing news outlets do. They make nothing of value, either. All they do is inflame and stir up anger, too.

 

I think what the far right/left are peddling is a divisive paradigm. As David Brooks had noted in a recent column, a lot of the US (and the world) is infected with a zero-sum mindset in re: to our challenges and the path forward. "life is not about conquest and domination but regulated competition and voluntary exchange. Not about antagonism but interdependence." Our only way out is to look for common ground that we can all point to. Sure, we'll always have our differences, but as someone else had noted in this thread, when you sit down and communicate with someone face to face, you will realize you have more in common than you originally thought. If you are following someone who tells you different, then maybe rethink who's interest they are looking out for.

Opinion | What Biden Needs to Tell Us

"Populism thrives on a zero-sum mind-set. The central story that populists tell is: They are out to destroy us. Populist leaders invariably inflame ethnic bigotry to mobilize their own supporters.

America’s populist in chief, Donald Trump, exemplifies this mentality. Trump grew up in a zero-sum world. In the world of New York real estate, there’s a fixed amount of land. Trump didn’t have to invent a new concept, just screw the other side. In 2017, the Vox writer Dylan Matthews and his colleagues read all of Trump’s books on business and politics, and concluded that zero-sum thinking is the core of his mind-set. “You hear lots of people say that a great deal is when both sides win,” Trump and his co-author wrote in “Think Big and Kick Ass.” “That is a bunch of crap. In a great deal you win — not the other side. You crush the opponent and come away with something better for yourself.”

MAGA is the zero-sum concept in political form. What’s good for immigrants is bad for the American-born. What’s good for Black people is bad for whites. Trade deals are exploitation. Our NATO allies are out to screw us. Every day for Trump is an Us/Them dominance game.

Zero-sum thinking is surging on the left as well. A generation of college students has been raised on the dogma that life is a contest between groups — oppressor versus oppressed, colonizers versus colonized."

 

Profound stuff, there. I would also add that it largely explains Trump's support among poor to lower-middle class whites. These are people less capable of competing for high salaries that would make them feel better about their position in life. They'll never be able to compete with higher performing white people. Therefore, they can feel better about themselves if entire classes of non-white people (or LGBTQ people) can be held back in life. Those people can be demonized wholesale as welfare queens, thieves, perverts, and dirty immigrants, stealing "our women" and "our jobs". So that's what they do. And Trumps supports them. It's like a union for Archie Bunker people. I know of very few people of the higher income classes that are big Trump fans, and they tend to be extremely arrogant, loudmouth people that don't feel a need to listen to anyone else.

Maybe we need to bring back the TV series "Archie Bunker" to help these people see themselves more clearly.

 

As I was saying @thelouisianagator, he was nothing but a worthless grifter providing nothing of substance or value. You should choose your idols better.

 

Your mischaracterizing Archie. Yes, he was ignorant and uneducated but he harbored no hatred for individuals different to himself nor was he violent. Trumpers have shown they will turn to violence on a moment's notice at the bequest of their cult leader.

 

The problem in this country is how ascendant accusation is over disagreement. Check pretty much any thread on this board to see how few posts one needs to scroll through before the accusations fly. Disagreements can lead to compromise, collaboration, or at least coexistence. Not so much when you accuse someone of being somewhere on a scale of flawed to evil. I really blame the right for lighting this fuse during the Bush Admin, particularly in regards to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the War on Terror as a whole. Now, largely the left leads the charge in calling their political opponents some sort of -ist, -phobe, or "uneducated."

 

Each side pushes back harder relative to the degree it perceives it was antagonized. Fed by anger and resentments the ever escalating tension will ceaselessly continue.