Following Barack Obama’s historic victory in 2008, pundits posited that a new Democratic majority would dominate American politics for generations to come. But according to Michael Lind, no such majority will hold: political conflict is with us to stay, though traditional terms like 'left', 'right', and 'center' will take on new meanings. Thanks to a shift in generational values among Millennials, social conservatism is experiencing a rapid, terminal decline. As issues like “God, gays, and guns” become less and less relevant to Americans' worldviews and political preferences, the Left/Right axis will experience a radical realignment. Economic attitudes will become the central battleground of politics, leading to the emergence of two new groups, the populiberals and liberaltarians, each clustering in its own unique geographical niche. Forget “red states” and “blue states": the rural and peri-urban Posturbia and the urban Densitaria will be the key new constituencies on tomorrow's political map. The implications for American politics and policy couldn't be greater.The Breakthrough
The Coming Realignment — Cities, Class, and Ideology After Social Conservatism
Michael Lind
I think a neo-socialist movement is going to emerge and surpise everyone.
ReplyDeleteI think that Strauss & Howe and Ravi Batra are on target. I would estimate the next Awakening taking place around 2020. Obviously in it impossible to pin point a year since these movement build over time and then crest.
ReplyDeleteAn Awakening is the birthing of new historical era that will last the better part of a century. It's impossible to foresee with any degree of assurance what that will look like from out present perch.
The major trends that will affect it are a rising level of collective consciousness, the transition from the industrial age to the information age, climate change, which promises to be a game changer, globalization, technological innovation, the rise of a multi-polar world as the Global South gains steam, economic disruption resulting from institutional factors like cronyism and corruption.
The most significant is the rising level of collective consciousness, one effect of which is the waxing of social conservatism and the waxing of social liberalism.
I suspect we are going to see new ideologies developing in response to changing conditions. The present ideologies are 20th century. As we move into the 21st century with it characteristic challenges and opportunities, new worldviews will emerge based on the above major factors.
I like people like this. She has nothing left to lose besides her life. She has all the time in the world, she is peaceful in her resistance, and she is completely powerless. Yet she is a huge threat and target. The personal story of being a part of a crumbling society, economy and dysfunctional government but still surviving and holding off the hoards of bureaucrats and corporations holding their hands out for a piece of what you produce. It's not just her story, it is the story for the 100 million or so people that are in the scorned Walmart-Dollar store class and below.
ReplyDeleteFew outside the current political elite will morn the passing of "God, guns and gays" as the chief attractions in our political carnivals. It just means, though, that they'll have to re-tool the scam factory a bit. Don't think for a minute that the pols will actually become responsive to the legitimate aspirations and concerns of voters.
ReplyDeleteRyan,
ReplyDeleteCareful there she looks like your garden variety right libertarian:
"she turned to homeopathic treatments and other unconventional regimens: raw foods, colloidal silver, an avoidance of refrigeration and air conditioning, a focus on the promotion of regular bowel movements. ...without doctors, pharmaceuticals, or any medical assistance until his death..... She self-published a book about “freeing” him from the health-care system and “home deathing him naturally.”
You can tell with the 'colloidal silver' which is some sort of actual injection of the metal right into these people's bodies... she seems like she is a perfect example of an Alex Jones style right libertarian with her aversion to pharma (left libertarians go for the pharma but reject the metals...) and being 'off the grid', etc... probably has a few guns around the house, etc..
This looks like textbook right libertarianism at work here...
here is another example of a former GOP Congressman from my area who did a similar thing:
http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2014/01/roscoe-bartlett-congressman-off-the-grid-101720.html#.U8UAv_ldVVI
He'll be back 'on the grid' when he needs an angioplasty or something...
Its being more than a bit anti-social imo.
Although the "normal" way of living within "the system" is FAR from perfect... that said, I believe the economic aspects of "the system" can be greatly improved and we could get a great reduction of the occurrences of cases like these two people...
rsp,
ReplyDeleteIn my crazy mind at least, the burden is on society to solve basic economic problems of distribution and ensure the basics necessities of life are reasonably regulated, priced affordable, and are widely available to people that don't always behave nicely and make the best decisions.
She watched her partner wither away and die without insurance and all she could do was feed them silver and raw food as the government machine and corporate america mindlessly went on with it's business of collecting taxes, and producing whatever it does but had nothing of value to offer in this typical life situation, it treated her as disposable trash, and this is what happened. Obamacare is potentially a huge step forward. We'll have to see if colloidal silver and raw food become less common cancer treatments when people are insured!
Economically, these sort of medical train wrecks are just one slice of the problem. A doctor provided 6 months of services for an hour or two a month, a few drugs but took the life work and savings from people. It is euphemistically termed "medical bankruptcies" and pretty much of the nearly everyone in the 1/4 of the population that was uninsured for an extended period of time in their life would end up in the situation. The doctors blame the hospitals blame insurance blame the drug companies blame the government all the way to the bank.
This is but one governance failure but the most important one in her story. There are dozens of others when you look closely, places where government or corporations could have offered services but instead offered hard lessons to teach her how her behavior was wrong. It's a choice government officials and business need to make. Try and fix the humans, speed up evolution, or try and fix the government and economy to serve the humans that exist. There is a case for both, I guess. Can't have people cheating the system out of those basics like water and sewer.
Ryan yes I can see your points here and "can't blame someone" for reacting the way this woman did due to the conditions you outline well here...
ReplyDeleteWhat is the cause and what is the effect?
iow does libertarianism cause the problems or do the problems cause the libertariansism?
Or is like one of Roger's auto-catalytic processes that looks like it can actually "feed upon itself" or something?
This is what I am working on lately...
rsp,