I really do try not to make a habit of wishing for the death of my political opponents, but I've been feeling for a while now that if Trump dies before 2024 of his own bad health, Western civilization will be dodging a bullet the likes of which we haven't seen since Attila the Hun conveniently died in 453 before he could finish finishing off what was left of Rome.
People should be focusing on flipping state legislative seats, and in particular on electing state legislators in purple states who are willing to ram through new maps to de-gerrymander, and ideally push for citizen initiatives that prevent gerrymandering going forwards. (possibly under threat of imposing a blue gerrymander if the red team refuses to agree to a truce). Texas 2003 proved that it's constitutional to re-district mid-cycle.
But, what about climate change -- both the disruptions it will cause (crop failures, catastrophic displacements of communities, forced migrations) and the political cynicism it will generate (no amount of incremental policy responses will ever be enough)? The mother of all externalities! I can also imagine a more unifying coming together across borders as nations respond to these challenges (an Earth Shot as a successor to the Moon Shot), but that's my imagination at work, not my more considered expectation. Many of the disruptions experienced in prior turns of history were climate driven.
I think there's a lot that seems correct here, but I do wonder if the ebb will be lasting.
First and foremost, unlike Nixon who resigned and basically disappeared from public life, Trump seems near certain to run again in 2024. Inasmuch as he is a driver of unrest, it is easy to see 2024 being dominated by Trump-driven unrest, especially in some nightmare scenarios about attempted election theft, a la what Rick Hasen has been banging the drum about. https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2021/08/trump-2024-coup-federalist-society-doctrine.html
Second, I wonder how the long-term pandemic conditions might impact things. We are seeing for example that airplanes have had huge amounts of passenger disruption and conflict, largely around mask mandates. On the flip side of that rage, there's a lot of palpable rage from vaccinated people against those refusing vaccines for things getting out of control. If variants keep popping up and we keep having tension over masks, vaccines, and other mitigation measures, that seems like it could be a big driver of unrest.
We are in uncharted waters with regard to government fiscal matters, the position of the dollar as the global currency, and other forms of actual or potential inflationary pressures. We could hit the rocks very suddenly and without much notice.
A sustained period of 1970’s style inflation in this country could be highly destabilizing.
I think what we have now is a hard core of racists and a big mushy middle that's tired of the whole thing and just wants to go back to the way life was. Meaning, the racism will continue until morale improves.
I really do try not to make a habit of wishing for the death of my political opponents, but I've been feeling for a while now that if Trump dies before 2024 of his own bad health, Western civilization will be dodging a bullet the likes of which we haven't seen since Attila the Hun conveniently died in 453 before he could finish finishing off what was left of Rome.
Turns out having a boring president is pretty good for the country.
People should be focusing on flipping state legislative seats, and in particular on electing state legislators in purple states who are willing to ram through new maps to de-gerrymander, and ideally push for citizen initiatives that prevent gerrymandering going forwards. (possibly under threat of imposing a blue gerrymander if the red team refuses to agree to a truce). Texas 2003 proved that it's constitutional to re-district mid-cycle.
But, what about climate change -- both the disruptions it will cause (crop failures, catastrophic displacements of communities, forced migrations) and the political cynicism it will generate (no amount of incremental policy responses will ever be enough)? The mother of all externalities! I can also imagine a more unifying coming together across borders as nations respond to these challenges (an Earth Shot as a successor to the Moon Shot), but that's my imagination at work, not my more considered expectation. Many of the disruptions experienced in prior turns of history were climate driven.
I think there's a lot that seems correct here, but I do wonder if the ebb will be lasting.
First and foremost, unlike Nixon who resigned and basically disappeared from public life, Trump seems near certain to run again in 2024. Inasmuch as he is a driver of unrest, it is easy to see 2024 being dominated by Trump-driven unrest, especially in some nightmare scenarios about attempted election theft, a la what Rick Hasen has been banging the drum about. https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2021/08/trump-2024-coup-federalist-society-doctrine.html
Second, I wonder how the long-term pandemic conditions might impact things. We are seeing for example that airplanes have had huge amounts of passenger disruption and conflict, largely around mask mandates. On the flip side of that rage, there's a lot of palpable rage from vaccinated people against those refusing vaccines for things getting out of control. If variants keep popping up and we keep having tension over masks, vaccines, and other mitigation measures, that seems like it could be a big driver of unrest.
We are in uncharted waters with regard to government fiscal matters, the position of the dollar as the global currency, and other forms of actual or potential inflationary pressures. We could hit the rocks very suddenly and without much notice.
A sustained period of 1970’s style inflation in this country could be highly destabilizing.
I think what we have now is a hard core of racists and a big mushy middle that's tired of the whole thing and just wants to go back to the way life was. Meaning, the racism will continue until morale improves.