Look. The political battle going on today is between generations who
have a very different life style and most importantly, a very different idea of
who should by rights run America. The conservatives are the older generation
who grew up in an America dominated mostly by small towns and in farming
communities. Those communities were last seen as really dominant on TV in the
1950's with White families living in houses behind white picket fences.
That older America was a caste society in which if you were born White you were superior and you got handed the things that non-whites had to fight and struggle for. It was a caste society because you were born to a social level and could not leave it. But check the population figures for America. Since WW II the population has more than doubled and ALL of that increase has moved into large cities. Worse, most of those farms from before WW II are now abandoned in the countryside. The jobs people perform in the cities require more education and are a lot more specialized.
The cities are also largely populated by minorities, and to a greater extent are now run by minorities. White Privilege is now mostly gone in the cities! White Privilege got Paul Ryan his current job in the House of Representatives, but only because the Constitution gives greater weight to rural agricultural-economy votes than it does to city votes - and the writers of the Constitution specifically said that was the reason they created our government structure. They trusted the yeoman farmer more than the city "mob."
Now, in spite of the remaining dregs of White Supremacy, an African-American has occupied the White House. Mexicans are leaving the subsistence farms killed by NAFTA and moving to the U.S. (because Mexico has no ability to create industrial jobs - no water, no ports or cheap transportation especially.) Interracial marriage is totally acceptable and not especially unusual - in the cities. The rare individuals born as gay, lesbian, or even transgender are now accepted in society.
One result is that older White workers are killing themselves off through drugs and alcohol because they cannot adapt to the changes. The angry older whites are fighting as conservatives now. That's what the current politics is all about. The skinheads Trump is inciting want the U.S. to return to the old days where they did not have to get educated to find a good job, but those days are over and good riddance!
Trump is emotionally appealing to the last of the White Supremacists, and if he tries to move away from him they will drop him. Trump's reaction has been to ramp up the violence he incites. There will be more violence, and Trump is going to fail as he tries to move to a kinder, gentler general election position. He has nowhere to go but more violence.
When Trump gets the nomination he is probably going to take the GOP down worse than Goldwater did. Unfortunately, Ted Cruz is worse - and much smarter- than Trump, and Cruz has set himself to pick up the pieces if Trump collapses before the General Election. Cruz is a dominionist. He fervently believes his father when his father says God has anointed Ted Cruz as America's next leader. He is going to try to pick up the pieces left by Trump and recreate America as a so-called Christian Nation.
I think the American politics in the next nine months are going to be truly frightening and quite violent. Trump thinks he can control the violence so that it mostly just shows up on TV. He's wrong.
That older America was a caste society in which if you were born White you were superior and you got handed the things that non-whites had to fight and struggle for. It was a caste society because you were born to a social level and could not leave it. But check the population figures for America. Since WW II the population has more than doubled and ALL of that increase has moved into large cities. Worse, most of those farms from before WW II are now abandoned in the countryside. The jobs people perform in the cities require more education and are a lot more specialized.
The cities are also largely populated by minorities, and to a greater extent are now run by minorities. White Privilege is now mostly gone in the cities! White Privilege got Paul Ryan his current job in the House of Representatives, but only because the Constitution gives greater weight to rural agricultural-economy votes than it does to city votes - and the writers of the Constitution specifically said that was the reason they created our government structure. They trusted the yeoman farmer more than the city "mob."
Now, in spite of the remaining dregs of White Supremacy, an African-American has occupied the White House. Mexicans are leaving the subsistence farms killed by NAFTA and moving to the U.S. (because Mexico has no ability to create industrial jobs - no water, no ports or cheap transportation especially.) Interracial marriage is totally acceptable and not especially unusual - in the cities. The rare individuals born as gay, lesbian, or even transgender are now accepted in society.
One result is that older White workers are killing themselves off through drugs and alcohol because they cannot adapt to the changes. The angry older whites are fighting as conservatives now. That's what the current politics is all about. The skinheads Trump is inciting want the U.S. to return to the old days where they did not have to get educated to find a good job, but those days are over and good riddance!
Trump is emotionally appealing to the last of the White Supremacists, and if he tries to move away from him they will drop him. Trump's reaction has been to ramp up the violence he incites. There will be more violence, and Trump is going to fail as he tries to move to a kinder, gentler general election position. He has nowhere to go but more violence.
When Trump gets the nomination he is probably going to take the GOP down worse than Goldwater did. Unfortunately, Ted Cruz is worse - and much smarter- than Trump, and Cruz has set himself to pick up the pieces if Trump collapses before the General Election. Cruz is a dominionist. He fervently believes his father when his father says God has anointed Ted Cruz as America's next leader. He is going to try to pick up the pieces left by Trump and recreate America as a so-called Christian Nation.
I think the American politics in the next nine months are going to be truly frightening and quite violent. Trump thinks he can control the violence so that it mostly just shows up on TV. He's wrong.
