I'm a sceptic that the 4th Turning started in 2008

[Eric the Green]

(07-22-2020, 12:34 PM)David Horn Wrote:

(07-21-2020, 09:31 PM)Marc Lamb Wrote: Frankly I think the big elephant in this "Generational Theory" room is a flawed consensus among you all is that a 4T somehow represents a "regeneration" of sorts, where a solid majority gets on the same page and attacks troubling issues in a singular mind.

Of course this was the case in 1933 Germany, right after FDR and the Democrat Party crushed Hoover & the Republicans in November, 1932.

But this was not the case in 1860, nor in 1776. Not even close. Not even remotely close. Many votes in those days were case in musket balls with lots of blood.

Only a sober look back at FDR's America in the 1930s, without the blinders of Democrat Party hackery, can reveal how closely Democrats & Republicans pols in this country attempted to mirror Hitler's Germany (perhaps, as one commentator called the New Deal "without the blackshirts").

Thank God, those attempts failed. Largely due the Founder's collective wisdom in writing the U.S. Constitution, but also in We The People's respect for that document and the rule of law.

If today's Democrats believe the Constitution is hopelessly flawed and invalid, win an election with the aim to settle that score in an undemocratic fashion, don't be surprised that a unpredictable resistance results in votes being cast as they were in days of old.

Come on Marc.  Even a died-in-the-wool Republican has to see that the Constitution was purposely biased when it was written, and had built-in resistances to change to assure that those biases were extremely hard to overcome.  Of course, the current reality is a funhouse mirror image of the original intent, but the biases are still there and still dominant, just not the way they were intended.  

For the sake of argument, let's assume that the two great biases -- the Senate and the Electoral College -- continue on as the are, but the imbalances between the popular vote and the representative vote continue to widen.  How great a mismatch between the popular vote and the Electoral vote should be tolerated before extralegal measures are justified?  The same applies to the Senate, where 18% of the population controls 50% of that votes in that body.

Some adjustment is needed and soon.  We now have the second minority POTUS by popular vote, and he's as good an example of how nuts this really is as I can imagine.  And don't get me started on Mitch McConnell's Senate.

Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn what Marc says...

Well, just a bit of 1930s hyperbole because Marc started his post about the 1930s with "Frankly"....

But I agree with him to the extent that a 4T is not a time of national consensus about a progressive way forward. It's just that a progressive victory has always resulted, even if there's some backtracking in the following 1T. But 4Ts are the time of a fight between the forces of progress and the forces of regression, and progress has always won. If it does not this time, it will be a sure sign of the impending failure of the republic. 

And Marc represents the regressive side.

There was a down-tick in Biden's lead today, and it may be because Trump was sounding a bit more reasonable in his approach to covid today. But he has a long way to go to turn it around, and the new cases continue to mount, and so do the new deaths. Back up over 1000 today.

FDR saved the country, and his life-saving measures were turned back by a reactionary supreme court appointed by three regressive 3T presidents. FDR tried to pack the court to overcome this, and failed, but his threats succeeded, and the court turned more progressive.

Now we may face a similar prospect. We have a reactionary supreme court, and if Trump wins it will be so reactionary that progress will be stifled and the republic will fail, as mentioned above. If Ginsberg were to pass on before Jan.3, then Trump could appoint a new conservative justice, and he might have time to get Mitch to put him on the bench. If that happened, then court packing schemes might be needed again. They might be needed anyway, even if the Democrats win the Senate and the presidency.

Trump is violating the constitution by attacking peaceful protesters. He refuses to answer subpoenas. I don't know how Marc and Classic Xer et al can call that legal; imagine what would happen if any of us did that. He uses his position for financial gain, and uses campaign funds for personal use. He tries to get foreign leaders to help him get re-elected. I'm sure this is not an exhaustive list.

Our constitution has given the Republicans the ability to block legislation in spite of what the people want, and put the two worst presidents in our history into the white house. But this advantage can be rectified in a new progressive era, in several ways. As states become more blue, which may be inevitable, they could require that their electoral votes go to the popular vote winner. This process has already started. And they could give DC and Puerto Rico 2 senators each, and make PR a state adding their votes to the electoral college. Reversing Trump's war on immigration and passing DACA and immigration reform could add to Republican nightmares by turning Texas, Arizona, Florida and other states permanently blue, which is being cemented now by Trump's attacks on immigrants. Biden and Trump are now already tied in Texas in the polls, and Biden leads in Florida by 6 points.