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The Great Divide of Our Time (1 Viewer)

Gary Coal Man said:
Would you then say that Bernie and the Democratic-Socialists crusade against “the 1%” is left wing populism?
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i grew up thinking that populism was the purview of the left wing, because the word was most often used to characterize the coordinated effort by midwest liberal stalwart Senators Harold Hughes, Eugene McCarthy, George McGovern & HHHumphrey to elevate the common man of rural America.

my sense is that populism is used mostly nowadays as a euphemism for a certain Italian word that the owner of FBG doesnt like to see bandied about here

the SJW branch of the left wing certainly has the same Puritan streak that was characteristic of the Tea Party on the right. there will always be a percentage of the population, on all segments of the political spectrum, who crave a party line - specific criteria around which to rally and by which to put opponents on the rack - and i'm guessing that judgemental part of the political urge is about to be exercised en masse, with little judgement at all, by Puritans of multiculturalism

 
timschochet said:
I won’t include AOC because she can be thoughtful at times. And she reads. 
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Neither being thoughtful nor a reader means that person isn’t thin-skinned, defensive, and prone to lash out.  

AOC suggesting that the leader of her party may be motivated by racist tendencies because that leader criticized the extent of AOC’s influence certainly suggests that AOC is thin-skinned, defensive, and prone to lash out.

This does too.

 
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Jayrod said:
Good article.

It makes our current world appear a little less intentional more inevitable.
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I don't know how old you are but I'm certainly old enough to remember something mentioned in the article -- that in the middle part of the 20th century working at the giant traditional corporations was indeed a prestigious gig. And we have evolved significantly away from that now but economic policies really haven't kept pace with the rates of creative disruption that now occurs. I think that kind of creative disruption is generally a good thing if people can get some basic economic protection from the inevitable negative ramifications.

I don't think we're going back to the age of giant corporations. Even the current tech giants probably don't have a long lifespan ahead of them.

 
Encumbrance said:
I know the visceral reaction to the book. I'm aware of it. I actually lost friends over having the book in my presence, actually. I don't want to go through anything but the basic thesis of heritable IQ, a cognitive divide, and what flows thenceforth, minus race. That's all I'm adding to the general discussion. A consideration of that possibility. This isn't the Bell Curve thread.  
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I'm only peripherally aware of this book/ author, but am interested in hearing more if you have the time.

 
timschochet said:
I recommend American Carnage about this subject. I’m reading it now. Very well done. 

Obama and the Republicans has the opportunity to bridge a lot of the divide. Both sides blew it: Republicans led by McConnell were determined to pursue a scorched earth policy instead of compromise; Obama, obtuse and arrogant and thought himself smarter than anyone else, responded in the worst possible way. Neither side addressed the concerns of people losing their jobs to automation and trade, which helped pave the way for 2016. 
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"There were bad people on both sides......"

 
Gary Coal Man said:
Today corporations are merging at an unprecedented rate to form even bigger, more powerful corporations.
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I should have said "traditional, long lived" corporations instead of referring to them by size. Mergers are just part of the creative disruption/destruction process. 

But if we are heading towards an economy dominated by a few powerful corporations, that is cause for worry and something that voters can try to disrupt through legislative processes.

 
Hawkeye21 said:
It's getting even worse under Trump so I'm assuming you will hold him just as accountable then.
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absolutely - its his 4 years isn't it ? has he REALLY tried to unite vs divide?

but it started 11 years ago IMO

 
Hawkeye21 said:
It's been there before Obama and Trump has done little to unite anyone.  I believe he's made it much worse.
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he's not helped nor have Democrats who play the game Trump likes ...... and honestly? isn't it egg or chicken first here ? Trump reacts to the attacks, or does the media react to Trump? Its both isn't it ?

but you cannot pinpoint Clinton and division, other than GOP stupid Monica thing .... neither Bush saw a truly divided country did they ? 

 
Stealthycat said:
he's not helped nor have Democrats who play the game Trump likes ...... and honestly? isn't it egg or chicken first here ? Trump reacts to the attacks, or does the media react to Trump? Its both isn't it ?

but you cannot pinpoint Clinton and division, other than GOP stupid Monica thing .... neither Bush saw a truly divided country did they ? 
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All I know is that this is the worst I've seen in my lifetime and it falls on Trump's shoulders.  The media does not help at all either but Trump is our President, he's the leader, he holds the responsibility.  If he doesn't like it then don't run for President. 

 
Hawkeye21 said:
All I know is that this is the worst I've seen in my lifetime and it falls on Trump's shoulders.  The media does not help at all either but Trump is our President, he's the leader, he holds the responsibility.  If he doesn't like it then don't run for President. 
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lets say Bernie is elected in 2020 ./... in 2021 when the USA is even more divided, is it all on Bernie ?

but yes I agree ..... Trump has made it worse, on the heels of 8 years of worse. I don't see in the future it getting any better ... hate is easy to acquire, hard to get rid of

 
Stealthycat said:
lets say Bernie is elected in 2020 ./... in 2021 when the USA is even more divided, is it all on Bernie ?

but yes I agree ..... Trump has made it worse, on the heels of 8 years of worse. I don't see in the future it getting any better ... hate is easy to acquire, hard to get rid of
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If Bernie is actually causing it because of what he's saying and doing then, yes.  Just because you're President does not make it 100% your fault.  Trump is pouring gas on the fire and fanning it.  He seems to love doing it and his supporters do too.

 
Stealthycat said:
he's not helped nor have Democrats who play the game Trump likes ...... and honestly? isn't it egg or chicken first here ? Trump reacts to the attacks, or does the media react to Trump? Its both isn't it ?

but you cannot pinpoint Clinton and division, other than GOP stupid Monica thing .... neither Bush saw a truly divided country did they ? 
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Bush II's Iraq War fractured the country in a way it hadn't been since Vietnam.  

 
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Stealthycat said:
lets say Bernie is elected in 2020 ./... in 2021 when the USA is even more divided, is it all on Bernie ?

but yes I agree ..... Trump has made it worse, on the heels of 8 years of worse. I don't see in the future it getting any better ... hate is easy to acquire, hard to get rid of
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Even if things were to temper down to something less than vitriolic hate for the other side, the worldview of both sides is now so drastically different that they can’t be harmonized or have a compromise reached between them.  Extreme division is here to stay into the foreseeable future.

 
rockaction said:
Bush II's Iraq War featured the country in a way it hadn't been since Vietnam.  
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disagree

Congress was united in passing the resolution for conflict and Americans rallied to revenge for 9-11

misplaced revenge .... we did oust a dictator .... but overall, the USA people were united. War does that .... if Iran attacked us today, Trump would see a resurgence in support nationwide overall. not 100% never is .

 
Stealthycat said:
I submit it'll get even worse because we're not USA anymore ... we are hundreds of groups that want to be treated special and identify with something else other than American first 

:(
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The Great Melting Pot that made our country stand above all others is just about gone.

 
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identikit said:
The Great Melting Pot that made our country stand above all others is just about gone.
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yes and no

it DOES make this country strong ..... until the people coming here want to turn this into their country or origin 2.0

come to the United States and embrace it ... don't fly another flag, speak another language, for weird religious beliefs that breach our Constitutional values, don't try and change this country to what your home country was like ........... that's not making the USA stronger IMO 

 
Alex P Keaton said:
"There were bad people on both sides......"
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You know sometimes there really are. 

But actually since you were responding to my post, it’s more like there were people who screwed up on both sides. Or who were lazy, stubborn, pride-filled. I wouldn’t go so far as bad. Bad is pretty rare. I think Trump is a bad human being (though not evil.) I don’t know a lot of politicians I would say that about.  

 
Gary Coal Man said:
Bill was accepted into the elite class only when he became President of the United States.  Same for Obama who was also not born to the elite class.

Hawley has a way to go.
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I guess this is the place where I say “I have no idea what your definition of ‘elite’ is”.

 
OrtonToOlsen said:
I guess this is the place where I say “I have no idea what your definition of ‘elite’ is”.
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Seems like people are using “elite” synonymously with how Hawley used “Cosmopolitan Class” in his speech.  He does a pretty good job defining what he means by that class.

 
Gary Coal Man said:
Seems like people are using “elite” synonymously with how Hawley used “Cosmopolitan Class” in his speech.  He does a pretty good job defining what he means by that class.
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And they subscribe to a set of values held by similar elites in other places: things like the importance of global integration and the danger of national loyalties; the priority of social change over tradition, career over community, and achievement and merit and progress.

Call it the cosmopolitan consensus.

On economics, this consensus favors globalization—closer & closer economic union, more immigration, more movement of capital, more trade on whatever terms. The boundaries between America and the rest of the world should fade and eventually vanish.

The goal is to build a global consumer economy, one that will provide an endless supply of cheap goods, most of them made with cheap labor overseas, and funded by American dollars.

But it’s about more than economics. According to the cosmopolitan consensus, globalization is a moral imperative. That’s because our elites distrust patriotism and dislike the common culture left to us by our forbearers.”
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Yeah, OK.   Mostly horse ####.  

I’m out.

 
Documentarians are missing a great chance, because there is largely one person responsible for creating the Great Divide, who executed a specific plan as a powerful entity in our federal govt to make his wing of the Republican party legislatively powerful and pervasive in public perception to complete the mission Reagan had started as President, who would absolutely love to take his due credit for that achievement, as well as recognizing and implementing the power of obstructionism which made it possible and is a fat old man who could stroke out at any time

 
wikkidpissah said:
Documentarians are missing a great chance, because there is largely one person responsible for creating the Great Divide, who executed a specific plan as a powerful entity in our federal govt to make his wing of the Republican party legislatively powerful and pervasive in public perception to complete the mission Reagan had started as President, who would absolutely love to take his due credit for that achievement, as well as recognizing and implementing the power of obstructionism which made it possible and is a fat old man who could stroke out at any time
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The Great Divide that Hawley speaks of, which is occurring throughout the nations that comprise Western Civilization, likely has its origins in the immediate post-WWII period where the most influential and powerful people of the nations involved wanted to deempahsize nationalism, and underwent doing so by opening up immigration, eventually promoting multiculturalism, and taking on a more “citizen of the world” as opposed to nationalist mindset.

 
Gary Coal Man said:
The Great Divide that Hawley speaks of, which is occurring throughout the nations that comprise Western Civilization, likely has its origins in the immediate post-WWII period where the most influential and powerful people of the nations involved wanted to deempahsize nationalism, and underwent doing so by opening up immigration, eventually promoting multiculturalism, and taking on a more “citizen of the world” as opposed to nationalist mindset.
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Let's not forget the second key component, and I want to do this like the Economist would. Economic liberalisation. 

 
Hawkeye21 said:
If Bernie is actually causing it because of what he's saying and doing then, yes.  Just because you're President does not make it 100% your fault.  Trump is pouring gas on the fire and fanning it.  He seems to love doing it and his supporters do too.
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This was absolutely the goal of some of Trump voters, blow it up, disrupt the system, make the establishment uncomfortable, etc.

 
rockaction said:
Let's not forget the second key component, and I want to do this like the Economist would. Economic liberalisation. 
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This is exactly right.  For most of my life, there has been a bipartisan consensus in favor of economic liberalization.  (To hell with spelling it with an s).  Carter deregulated the airline and trucking industries, Clinton reduced financial regulations, leaders in both parties supported free trade, etc.  Trump's stupid trade war serves as a good reminder that the "bipartisan consensus" ignored the fact that the average voter is a mercantilist.

 
Gary Coal Man said:
The Great Divide that Hawley speaks of, which is occurring throughout the nations that comprise Western Civilization, likely has its origins in the immediate post-WWII period where the most influential and powerful people of the nations involved wanted to deempahsize nationalism, and underwent doing so by opening up immigration, eventually promoting multiculturalism, and taking on a more “citizen of the world” as opposed to nationalist mindset.
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interesting point and one i'd like to embrace, but i know all too well, most recently from the example of the personal greediness of liberated classes being the cherry on top of 1000s of years of examples that people will be greedy of anything that is greedworthy, that the Hawley Divide will never occur politically before it occurs behaviorally. Humans simply do not evolve except to gain something and, as we are currently constructed, magnanimity is a loss, as y'all younger than me are about to discover in terms of great extremity

 
Encumbrance said:
That book will always be really misunderstood, apparently. That must be frustrating for the author. Oh well. Like I said, I'm not going to discuss race and IQ in regard to any "divide" at hand for this topic.  
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The IQ test is reliable and valid. Is the most psychometric test ever designed by social scientists as predictor long term life outcomes. It's the best test we have right now.

 
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Stealthycat said:
I thought the 8 years of Obama divided this country more than anything I've ever seen.

white vs black, rich vs poor, Christian vs muslim, gay vs straight, left vs right, liberal vs conservative, public vs police, citizens of this country vs illegally here people ... in those 8 years it seemed everyone learned to hate someone and self justify it
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I can see the argument, I really can.  Now we are on the road to easily passing the amount of damage Obama did.  All the things you list here are popular political divides that people have argued about for decades.  And we can argue til the cows come home over who's "worse" in every instance and make lists throughout history and we'll most likely never agree.

Trump's "hold my beer" response to this reality is to now blow past all things political and dig right down into the morality of it all and it's gotten really dark really fast.  At the end of four years, we'll be resigned to the fact that what was commonly accepted as "moral" and what wasn't prior to Trump was significantly more clear prior to him taking office than when he leaves office and that's taking politics completely out of it and just looking at the morality of the individuals.

 
James Daulton said:
How can an IQ test be built to take into account the differences in education, health, culture, etc of a country?

It can't.
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I'm telling you what it can do. Ask the Armed Forces why they won't accept a score of 83 or lower. In fact it's been made a law.

 
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GROOT said:
I'm telling you what it can do. Ask the Armed Forces why they won't accept a score of 83 or lower. In fact it's been made a law.
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Do the armed forces test people from other countries?  That's my beef, attempting to correlate scores across countries. 

 
urbanhack said:
What were some of the key events or specific incidents that happened 11 years ago?
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“Obama was caught in an uncharacteristic moment of loose language. Referring to working-class voters in old industrial towns decimated by job losses, the presidential hopeful said: "They get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations." (April 2008)

 
James Daulton said:
How can an IQ test be built to take into account the differences in education, health, culture, etc of a country?

It can't.
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Chicken or the Egg Argument — What if the differences in education, health, culture, etc. among countries are a reflection of the IQ of the people who comprise those countries?

 
An obvious alias account with a My Little Pony avatar spouting off racist nonsense about The Bell Curve? Welcome to my ignore list, friend. Thanks for making it so obvious.

 
Stealthycat said:
I thought the 8 years of Obama divided this country more than anything I've ever seen.

white vs black, rich vs poor, Christian vs muslim, gay vs straight, left vs right, liberal vs conservative, public vs police, citizens of this country vs illegally here people ... in those 8 years it seemed everyone learned to hate someone and self justify it
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:goodposting:

 
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