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Re: GOP: the Good, the Bad & the Ugly
I could be wrong, and so I'll state that straight out. But my guess is that there's a transition happening.
The Lockner Era lasted a long time. It was only a Great Depression and someone with the brass balls of FDR that changed things. This is 1880-1930: the great period of polarization. It's marked by rapidly increasing wealth inequality, spiteful north-south politics (mostly due to the civil war), and volatile economic swings that leave the majority worse off each time they occur.
Now I think we're still in the Reagan Era. Even democrats are mostly free-trade, free-market-incentive, right wing economists. We polarize on social issues. When republicans take a step to the left, democrats take two steps to the left. But every time the democrats move right on economic issues, the republicans take three steps right to keep their distance. The libertarian republicans are basically anarchists now, even willing to let corporations take a hit if it just means they can destroy government. When in fact, Obamacare is Romneycare and the Republican Chafee-Dole plan of 1993. I'd say it's going to be another 15-20 years before we hit the tipping point on this one. And even then, having a leader willing to stand up and provide an alternative to the 50-year Reagan era is not something guaranteed.
We're undergoing a demographic shift in America. The previous shift had a ton to do with American identity. Catholics were coming in like gangbusters. In the end, the Irish became white along with the Italians. The third generation is when assimilation happens. It's going to take another generation before that happens for Hispanics. In the meanwhile it's an economic race to the bottom while regular people try to hold onto their perceived identity of the country.
Unfortunately, I think that a depression in the next 20 years is all but inevitable too. Even in a purely rational neoclassical economic system, highly unequal wealth distributions increase market volatility. And people cannot put their economic concerns foremost when their social status is threatened. So wealth inequality will continue to accelerate. As self-perceived whites go from majority to plurality, the transition will be rough. It's just natural. Unless there is a conceptual adjustment to accept further groups into the white category or eliminate it all together, the group will lose its status by sheer force of demographics. So the polarized environment is bound to break at that point regardless.
But I'm not sure that communication or further loosening of immigration standards, or anything else offered as a solution form the left is sufficient. What really has to happen is a reconceptualization of ethnic groupings in America. Such things tend not to happen until the group that perceives its status as "on top" in the social hierarchy has to make a hard choice to extend its group-conception to include people it previously excluded (as it did with Catholic immigrants in the last period of polarization), or to fade into irrelevance due to demographic shifts forcing the group into an increasingly smaller minority status.
We'll see. I don't have a crystal ball. And it's nothing more than an informed theory. But the parallels are striking. My guess is that in creating the category 'hispanic', the census bureau did many people a great disservice. In the end, time will tell. But MK was surprised about Asians going 70% Obama. I'm not surprised. I see the Tea Party movement today - not the Tea Party movement of 2010 - as mostly a desperate attempt to maintain whiteness. And the East Asians, not the southeast asians, are the first in line to be welcomed into the group. The Tea Party of today threatens that. So East Asians respond by going the other way.
This all might be prejudice. It might be my grandfather who hated the masons because they hated the irish speaking through me. But I know that the know nothings worked their whole lives as a political party to keep my people out of the game. It seems that at least elements of the tea party - if not the majority of it in 2013 - is working towards similar ends for a different population. You might have let us mc's in. But most of us will never side with wasps. Once stung, twice shy.
And that's the real danger for the GOP. It's not ideological. It's American. Who you gonna let in? It's dead as a dinosaur here in the Northeast. It's not a surprise that it's full of us mcs. Even those of us with money and businesses have seen the hate turned on our people before - or at least we have parents and grandparents who have. Keep turning the heat up, and you'll keep loosing people. This isn't about ideology. Romney the Utah Mormon won the governorship in Irish Mass. But the Tea Party is something new to us up here. And we see these people calling Obama a foreign muslim, and not going after him for what he actually does or believes in, and we get it. It's about keeping people out of the club, not about politics.
Originally posted by Milton Kuo
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The Lockner Era lasted a long time. It was only a Great Depression and someone with the brass balls of FDR that changed things. This is 1880-1930: the great period of polarization. It's marked by rapidly increasing wealth inequality, spiteful north-south politics (mostly due to the civil war), and volatile economic swings that leave the majority worse off each time they occur.
Now I think we're still in the Reagan Era. Even democrats are mostly free-trade, free-market-incentive, right wing economists. We polarize on social issues. When republicans take a step to the left, democrats take two steps to the left. But every time the democrats move right on economic issues, the republicans take three steps right to keep their distance. The libertarian republicans are basically anarchists now, even willing to let corporations take a hit if it just means they can destroy government. When in fact, Obamacare is Romneycare and the Republican Chafee-Dole plan of 1993. I'd say it's going to be another 15-20 years before we hit the tipping point on this one. And even then, having a leader willing to stand up and provide an alternative to the 50-year Reagan era is not something guaranteed.
We're undergoing a demographic shift in America. The previous shift had a ton to do with American identity. Catholics were coming in like gangbusters. In the end, the Irish became white along with the Italians. The third generation is when assimilation happens. It's going to take another generation before that happens for Hispanics. In the meanwhile it's an economic race to the bottom while regular people try to hold onto their perceived identity of the country.
Unfortunately, I think that a depression in the next 20 years is all but inevitable too. Even in a purely rational neoclassical economic system, highly unequal wealth distributions increase market volatility. And people cannot put their economic concerns foremost when their social status is threatened. So wealth inequality will continue to accelerate. As self-perceived whites go from majority to plurality, the transition will be rough. It's just natural. Unless there is a conceptual adjustment to accept further groups into the white category or eliminate it all together, the group will lose its status by sheer force of demographics. So the polarized environment is bound to break at that point regardless.
But I'm not sure that communication or further loosening of immigration standards, or anything else offered as a solution form the left is sufficient. What really has to happen is a reconceptualization of ethnic groupings in America. Such things tend not to happen until the group that perceives its status as "on top" in the social hierarchy has to make a hard choice to extend its group-conception to include people it previously excluded (as it did with Catholic immigrants in the last period of polarization), or to fade into irrelevance due to demographic shifts forcing the group into an increasingly smaller minority status.
We'll see. I don't have a crystal ball. And it's nothing more than an informed theory. But the parallels are striking. My guess is that in creating the category 'hispanic', the census bureau did many people a great disservice. In the end, time will tell. But MK was surprised about Asians going 70% Obama. I'm not surprised. I see the Tea Party movement today - not the Tea Party movement of 2010 - as mostly a desperate attempt to maintain whiteness. And the East Asians, not the southeast asians, are the first in line to be welcomed into the group. The Tea Party of today threatens that. So East Asians respond by going the other way.
This all might be prejudice. It might be my grandfather who hated the masons because they hated the irish speaking through me. But I know that the know nothings worked their whole lives as a political party to keep my people out of the game. It seems that at least elements of the tea party - if not the majority of it in 2013 - is working towards similar ends for a different population. You might have let us mc's in. But most of us will never side with wasps. Once stung, twice shy.
And that's the real danger for the GOP. It's not ideological. It's American. Who you gonna let in? It's dead as a dinosaur here in the Northeast. It's not a surprise that it's full of us mcs. Even those of us with money and businesses have seen the hate turned on our people before - or at least we have parents and grandparents who have. Keep turning the heat up, and you'll keep loosing people. This isn't about ideology. Romney the Utah Mormon won the governorship in Irish Mass. But the Tea Party is something new to us up here. And we see these people calling Obama a foreign muslim, and not going after him for what he actually does or believes in, and we get it. It's about keeping people out of the club, not about politics.
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