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Thursday, November 7, 2024

The Long Term Significance of the Trump Victory.

 I am conservative with regard to economic, security, and social matters.  That gets me in trouble with all of my liberal friends.  I am an internationalist with regard to foreign policy.  That gets me in trouble with a very large proportion of my conservative friends.  My view of nirvana would be a wealthy America leading an equally wealthy world.  A world without conflict.  In order to achieve such a world, I would need a strong military and a strong domestic legal system, because far too many human miscreants exist inside and outside of our country.  I would also need a justice system that is equitable and free of manipulation, an education system that is free of political bias, and a population that is capable of thinking.  We do not have any of this at the present time and the world around us has, during my lifetime, gotten far more complex and dangerous than ever before in human history.  

As I see it, our political system rests on top of, and is entwined with, our social system.  Accurately understand our society and you will understand our politics.  As I see it, our society is in constant change and always has been.  Several hundred years ago we were colonists invading a foreign land that was underpopulated with relatively small groups of people possessing less advanced technology and organization.  We invaded and conquered, and then explained what we had done in ways consistent with the maintenance of our domination.  John Wayne was the hero and the redskin was the villain.  Once we had things under control across s continent, some of us began questioning the narrative and we ended up with Indians taking over Alcatraz.  Other Americans questioned the morality of slavery and asked what we should do about it now.  At one point, that crack in our social facade led to open war which ended without resolving the underlying issues.  In the period following Antietam, these issues resurfaced in a wide variety of ways.  Today, some us suggest that we make a financial settlement with the progeny of slaves, as though that would make up for injustices done centuries ago.  


We also argue among ourselves about all manner of other unresolved issues, in most cases because we can, rather than a pressing real need.  Never before in our history has the argumentative nature of humans gone this far.  Today, we are ever more intensely arguing about absolutely everything imaginable, including our sexuality.  Literally from soup to nuts across the board.   In times past, foreign threat brought us back together long enough to cooperate sufficiently to win a war with whomever was threatening us at the moment, but today we have technology that moves us from threat to total destruction in the blink of an eye.  The amount of time that we have to procrastinate has been dramatically reduced and the destructive power of the threat has been massively increased.  Satellite guided ballistic missiles carry multiple, independently targeted nuclear warheads, each of which is capable of erasing entire cities.


So, here we are arguing with each other about physical men that believe themselves women being permitted to compete in sports with physical women who believe that they are women, while simultaneously ignoring the threat that is closing in on us from abroad.  I oversimplify when I credit WOKE thinking as being the most fundamental crack in our social fabric, but I honestly believe that it is the best way to envision the problem that we have.  I see Donald Trump’s re-election as recognition of this fundamental point by half of the country and I fear that he will mismanage the opportunity that he has - not just because he is a mere mortal, but because the opposition is so formidable.  In football, one of the tactics used to evade a tackle is to permit your body to momentarily go slack.  I suggest that the liberal side of our internal debate is in the process of going slack.  The long term significance of Trump’s second shot at the Oval Office is how well he handles the social challenge and whether Vance can carry it forward into the future.  War in wherever is an important immediate problem, as is the price of groceries, but the long term viability of America will be determined by how well we, you and I, handle our relationship with each other.  I am frankly worried that we are not proving to be up to the challenge.

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