The tragedy of the downfall of the USA

We were vexed to nightmare by a total slob, his hour come at last, who slouched into Washington with the Great Whore of Babylon.

Reply to Bitter Crank So why was he let in?

He was let in because the body politic has been degraded to the point where large numbers of people can no longer tell shit from shoe polish.

This didn't just happen last year -- it's been a gradual process of degradation of public affairs, public discussion, national narratives, factual knowledge about the country, about the world. Many have fallen prey to the dislocations of globalization, and have been left without any way of understanding the world rationally. We are sitting ducks for all sorts of rubbish.

Had Hillary Clinton won, what I just said would still be true: Clinton would have made a better president than Donald Trump, but her win would not have disproved that the quality of public discourse was degraded. We would just have been lucky.

And Trump isn't the first. We need not go back to Warren G. Harding (1920) for examples of bad presidents. We have Richard Nixon (1968), Ronald Reagan (1980). and George Bush (2000). Trump may top them all, but he is not a first.

Quoting Banno

What went wrong?

Not to distract from your question, but why do you care? Americans have no idea who governs other countries and how they govern. I know that the US is the king-sized world-wide turd in the swimming pool, but if my worrying about it won't change things, why would all the rest of you worrying about it.

For what it's worth, I like my country and feel responsible for what it does. I know from our own national discussions that saying "Trump, what a boob," won't solve the problem. Bitter Crank is right, this has been coming for a long time. At least since Richard Nixon and his buddies formulated the southern strategy to appeal to racial animosities in southern states to break the south away from the Democratic Party.

Quoting Banno

What went wrong?

Read Why America Failed: The Roots of Imperial Decline, by Morris Berman.

If you do not feel like doing that, read Berman's blog, DARK AGES AMERICA.

Boomer here. Of the generation getting blamed for it. I can tell you exactly when I saw it go wrong. The Vietnam war. I was a college student. College students got a deferment from the draft. The kids of the working class, the "deplorables" of the day, went to die in the jungle. That was was no joke. Several hundred men -- and it was almost all men -- died every week.

Dropping or flunking out of college was a ticket to the jungle. Professors then as now were liberals. That's when grade inflation started. If you give a kid a C you may be condemning him to a horrible death in a steaming jungle on the other side of the world, in a war that the country was starting to hate.

So they gave out A's. And that was the real start of the split. College-type kids are the elite, non-college kids are fed into the meatgrinder.

All of our politics comes from that. That's when the split between the elite and the deplorables really got bad. In WWII everyone served and everyone sacrificed. After Vietnam only the high school grads served. The college kids were too good for that. That's your elitism and your moral degeneration of the country.

Quoting fishfry

Dropping or flunking out of college was a ticket to the jungle. Professors then as now were liberals. That's when grade inflation started. If you give a kid a C you may be condemning him to a horrible death in a steaming jungle on the other side of the world, in a war that the country was starting to hate.

So they gave out A's. And that was the real start of the split. College-type kids are the elite, non-college kids are fed into the meatgrinder.

All of our politics comes from that. That's when the split between the elite and the deplorables split this country apart. The liberal college kids took over the culture and hate the rednecks.

This is the first time I have heard that. But it is an interesting theory, and it makes sense.

Quoting Banno

What went wrong?

What makes you think that anything "went wrong"?
We are a nation of ideas Banno and best I know, there is no manual nor map for this road less taken, that we as a collective union have chosen to walk down together. I am interested in what you can see from Australia that appears to have "gone wrong" in the USA that I am not able to see from within her borders.

Quoting ArguingWAristotleTiff

I am interested in what you can see from Australia that appears to have "gone wrong" in the USA that I am not able to see from within her borders

We became a torture regime. We've been at war in half a dozen MIddle East and North Africa countries since 2001. We spy on all our citizens. I hope this isn't new information for anyone.

Reply to Bitter Crank I agree that it has taken years; the Marshall Plan strikes me as a highpoint positive contribution, a plan that made both economic and moral sense.

Perhaps Trump's election will shock folk back into reality, in a way that would have been delayed had Clinton won.

Quoting fishfry

We became a torture regime. We've been at war in half a dozen MIddle East and North Africa countries since 2001. We spy on all our citizens. I hope this isn't new information for anyone.

How about we judge the nation based on a totality of her citizens actions rather than based on one aspect alone.

Reply to T Clark Reply to WISDOMfromPO-MO I don't care that much. Where's the Reader's Digest version?

Reply to fishfry So is identity politics a symptom or a cause?

Reply to fishfry

Any sources for this? Also my first time ever hearing anything like this and am very curious to see it backed up.

Quoting ArguingWAristotleTiff

How about we judge the nation based on a totality of her citizens actions rather than based on one aspect alone.

Never mind that torture thing! We're really good people!

And those wars? Nothing to do with us. That's the volunteer army. We barely even heard of them. Illegally invaded half a dozen countries since 9/11? Hey we're Americans, we're the world's policeman.

My God man. What are you saying? Do you know any history? We killed a million people in Iraq. Our invasion of that country is an international war crime by the standards of the Nuremberg trials. You are unaware of this or think that our being Americans makes it ok?

From what I can piece together, the main issue was that the societal bottom was essentially kicked away after the economic miracle of the post-war boom, entrenching inequalities, stalling social mobility, and upwardly distributing the means of capital accumulation. The effects of these dynamics were themselves 'covered over' by the expansion of credit and a relatively well-functioning economy, but which nonetheless fueled rising household debt that was not, importantly, coupled with a rise in real average income, leaving households ever more vulnerable to contingent life shocks, and ever more incapable of doing anything about such shocks. Any wonder why the electorate is so 'angry?'.

And then of course, there's the racial component of America's fucked up social dynamics, with the above economic considerations differentially and disproportionally affecting black Americans, who, starting at the bottom of the social ladder after and because of slavery, have largely been forced to stay there as a result of that kicking-away of the bottom. Even the expansion of the credit market mentioned above was largely for the benefit of whites, who, because of their better economic position, were extended loans denied to blacks, which afforded them the ability to buy suburban houses while blacks languished in cities which have been chronically under-maintained and over-subject to policing - this 'white flight' feeding back into, and amplifying the very differential economic dynamics that led to it in the first place.

And from here, feedback loops have continued to amplify: differential geographic distributions have in turn allowed politics to peddle itself to like-minded and closed communities polarizing the political landscape and destroying the basis of democracy, leading in turn to identity politics which, far from being a cause, is a symptom of the political-historical dynamics of the US. And of course the fact that the US is ever more transforming into a plutocracy - with corporations now granted the standing of 'people', coupled with the systematic undermining of labor law and class action claims, and corporate donations essentially now being legal bribes - has more or less dismantled the public-oriented focus of governance in the US for the sake of private interests. And this being only the most rudimentary of sketches of American decline.

Trump is simply the logical outcome of years of the festering wound that has been American social and political dynamics, and I agree that Hilary's election would have simply prolonged the mis/non-recognition of these issues.

I believe that Christopher Lasch diagnosed all of it in The Revolt of the Elites and the Betrayal of Democracy--published in 1996.

Everybody else--including the "experts"--is still scrambling to figure out what has happened.

One factor that hasn't been mentioned, but which is probably impossible to quantify, is the nefarious influence of various interest groups and 'think tanks' and PACs which are pulling the strings behind the scenes. I'm not into conspiracy theories but I think interests like the Koch Bros and also, probably, a lot of others who none of us will ever know the names of, are gaming the system for their own advantage. One of the cardinal facts is that the disparity between the very rich and everyone else, is wider than at any time except for right before the Depression. So these interest groups plant fake news - there really is a lot of fake news, but it's not coming from the media that Trump is always complaining about. It's the stuff that filters out through late night TV, social media, and 'think tank' publications. Part of that is the 'war on truth' - the obvious war on the truth of climate change being an egregious example. But there are many others, mainly aimed at loosening regulations, cutting taxes, and eliminating anything which stands in the way of the pursuit of the Holy Dollar (which is exactly what the incumbent is doing.)

The SMH has a good column by Peter Hartcher today on the idea that the USA has gone completely post rational. You have people lining up to take down the Affordable Care Act, even though they or their immediate loved ones might owe their lives to it.

Another egregious example is the mass murder epidemic, and the inevitable response that 'nothing can be done about it', in the one country where it continues to happen.

Examples are many. Confusion, misinformation, spin, lies, half-truths and untruths piled deep like snowdrifts in a Northern winter. And plenty of people not sufficiently educated to tell truth from lies.

America is great and has greater days ahead. Counting it out doesn't change things.

Quoting Banno

What went wrong?

The Marshall Plan spent $132 billion 2017 dollars between 1948 and 1952 to rebuild European economies after WWII. The United Kingdom received about 26% of the total, followed by France (18%) and West Germany (11%). The plan was both humanitarian and strategic.

Prior to WWII, France and the United Kingdom were the two leading colonial powers. The US was not an "also ran" prior to WWII, but the French and British umpires were still intact and functioning. After WWII, the France and the UK were no longer in a position to maintain hegemony over large parts of the world, especially the Middle East. US policy was clear after WWII: Control over Middle Eastern oil was a non-negotiable priority. It isn't that the US didn't have any oil -- we had a lot of it -- but we wanted to make sure that we had control over their customer base.

Oil and communism steered US policy for decades. I hasten to add that our competition and conflict with the Soviet Union was substantive, not merely symbolic or cultural--not that anti-communist policy was always well founded. The domino theory in Vietnam didn't hold water, but East/West competition and conflict was still quite real.

Euro-Japan-American capitalism required a clear defense around the world. We were in a position to provide it, and we did. The demise of the Soviet Union didn't solve all our problems. World-wide Capitalism still needed its champion and defender. Thus it was that we were targeted by conservative Arab/Islamist agents on 9/11. It might have made more sense for the US to attack and conquer Saudi Arabia than Iraq, but for various reasons that didn't seem like a good idea (apparently -- I wasn't included in the White House planning.)

Middle East management has become a debacle, but not because we were cruel and weak. Bad strategy was pursued, unworkable goals were embraced. It was a mess waiting to happen, and it happened very expensively.

Our conflict in the Middle East was not a culture war. It was in the defense of the world-capitalist-operation that we were there, to make sure vital energy supplies were not disrupted.

So, Australians may feel that with Donald Trump we have gone to hell in a hand basket. Don't be too critical, though. As far as I know, you all are part of the same Euro-Sino-Japan-American economic structure that the rest of us are part of, and there are no guarantees of anyone's continued prosperity. If the Economy of China contracts severely, we will all be up to our eye-balls in fresh worries.

(There is a lot of epiphenomenal cultural crap going around, and Australia is privileged to be as much a part of the crap circuit as we are.

Quoting Wayfarer

The SMH has a good column by Peter Hartcher today on the idea that the USA has gone completely post rational. You have people lining up to take down the Affordable Care Act, even though they or their immediate loved ones might owe their lives to it...

I don't see anything in the column that suggests that there has been some rupture from rationality and leap to "completely post rational".

I see the column saying that Americans are now divided completely along party affiliation lines. Education, age, race, sex/gender, religion, etc. no longer predict voter behavior. Identity as Democrat or Republican now completely predict voter behavior.

But polling is not an exact science, and there are always exceptions, right? The good news is that I have a convenient exception to use as an illustration: me. I identify as Democrat, but I do not blame everything on Republicans, oppose anything Republicans support, seek to undo anything that Republicans do, etc. Contrast that with the voters used as examples in the column: they oppose the other party in any way and support their own party in any way, even if it means they lose their health insurance.

The column arrives at this conclusion:

[b]"We are now really right on the cusp of a real fracturing of the political system and a reorganisation of the parties," says Hetherington.

When irrationality and dysfunction prevail and good government is impossible, perhaps it's time."[/b]

What that conclusion leaves out is the possibility and threat of secession. Rather than the party system getting a shake-up, the United States of America might break up.

For anybody who does not know what I mean about secession, here's an article from only 2 months ago that is evidence of the possibility and threat of secession: Group files another 'Calexit' initiative in push for California's independence .

Speaking of Morris Berman, I believe that I have read that he says secession might be a good thing, the only solution, or something like that. I am not necessarily saying that I agree. But it further illustrates how the most keen observers see the U.S. as extremely divided politically.

Quoting fishfry

That's your elitism and your moral degeneration of the country.

And when the British empire dominated, it owed it's success to egalitarianism and a disdain of elitism? Which monarch do you think was the most common?

Quoting T Clark

At least since Richard Nixon and his buddies formulated the southern strategy to appeal to racial animosities in southern states to break the south away from the Democratic Party.

Bingo.

REDMAP gets an honorable mention. I believe we are the only democracy on Earth that allows elected officials to draw electoral maps.

Quoting WISDOMfromPO-MO

I don't see anything in the column that suggests that there has been some rupture from rationality and leap to "completely post rational".

The title of the article on the SMH Homepage is different to the one on the article page - it's 'The moment US politics moved beyond reason' - that is what I paraphrased as 'completely post rational' to highlight that it's even more egregious than plain old 'post truth'.

I was just watching a pressroom exchange between Sarah Huckabee Sanders, where a reported asked 'why does the President keep saying that the US is "the highest taxed nation in the world?" when we're not?' And she answers, straight-faced, 'what he means is we have the highest corporate tax rate.' The reporter says, 'that's not what he said, though' - to which she responds, 'but that's what he meant.' Then cuts him off.

So the press secretary of the President can now adjust Trumps' untruths on the fly, off the cuff, and we're supposed to accept that this is OK. Total disregard for facts is 'post -rational'. No question.

Quoting Wayfarer

The title of the article on the SMH Homepage is different to the one on the article page - it's 'The moment US politics moved beyond reason' - that is what I paraphrased as 'completely post rational' to highlight that it's even more egregious than plain old 'post truth'.

I think that that is misleading. I would say "moved completely beyond reason".

Or was voting for the same party every election based on your sex/gender, race, etc. within reason?

Reason, it seems to me, would mean weighing every option and acting according to the one that you rationally conclude is in your best interest. I do not think that voting for Democrats because you are a woman, Republicans because you are Southern Baptist, etc. ever fell within reason.

Then again, I do not have a PhD in history, but I doubt that a period characterized by what is being called reason can be found anywhere in the past in the U.S.--or anywhere else.

Quoting Srap Tasmaner

REDMAP gets an honorable mention. I believe we are the only democracy on Earth that allows elected officials to draw electoral maps.

Coincidentally, I was discussing that a few hours ago with somebody.

I said that liberals/progressives/Democrats are spending their energy and other resources on the wrong thing if they want to abolish the Electoral College. Gerrymandering, not the Electoral College, is the problem, I said.

A solution that I thought of many years ago goes like this: amend the U.S. Constitution to say that every congressional district must be drawn with at least one right angle.

I do not know if one right angle in every congressional district on the map would work, but something needs to be done about the gerrymandering. I believe that more than anything else it is why the U.S. is so divided politically and government is so gridlocked at the state and federal (and probably local) levels.

Quoting Bitter Crank

Euro-Japan-American capitalism required a clear defense around the world. We were in a position to provide it, and we did...

As far as I know, every scholar interested in the topic traces "development"--you know, Third World development; the policies, programs, interventions, etc. that have comprised the West's attempts to "develop" the economies of the "Third World"--back to Harry Truman's inaugural address in January, 1949.

Do you think that development, including the U.S. Peace Corps, has, by design, been part of that defense of Euro-Japan-American capitalism around the world?

Do you think, as many scholars do, that "development" has been a disaster? A disaster worth mentioning alongside things like the invasion of Iraq?

Reply to Wayfarer It's interesting that the rebuilt Europe went with social justice policies that where never taken on by the USA - universal health care being the most obvious and costly example.

The myth of the self-suporting individual strikes me as a potent source for this; in a world were each man (!) looks out only for himself, any common, shared wealth is abhorrent. Support structures that allow folk to get back on their feet after adversity never developed in the US, leading to what you describe as the "societal bottom (being) essentially kicked away".

Quoting WISDOMfromPO-MO

Do you think, as many scholars do, that "development" has been a disaster? A disaster worth mentioning alongside things like the invasion of Iraq?

Of course it would depend on what we mean by "development". Here's two examples: Land-O-Lakes, headquartered in Minnesota, has a dairy promotion project in rural Uganda. They are encouraging milk production for export to places like Saudi Arabia. (It would be products like yogurt or cheese, not raw milk). Good? Bad?

I'm not sure that export dairy is what Ugandans need. I like the idea of very small dairy or meat operations (1 or 2 cows) where a family can raise it without too much difficulty. But a dairy herd is quite demanding, given the climate and so on.

I read an article about a disastrous development project by a large Swedish charity on Lake Turkana in Kenya to promote fishing. It was a total failure because the Swedes had evidently overlooked the fact that the people they were working with were cow herders and loathed fisherman. Nobody died, but it was a total waste of money and effort.

Another project in Uganda is promoting the growing of passion fruit as a local crop because it is high in vit. A and C, neither overly plentiful in the rural Ugandan diet. Another development project is training rural women to be health promotion workers--information providers, basically. These are sustainable and fit the local culture.

Development can end up being destructive and counterproductive. It depends on a lot of different things.

Quoting Banno

Wayfarer It's interesting that the rebuilt Europe went with social justice policies that where never taken on by the USA - universal health care being the most obvious and costly example.

The myth of the self-suporting individual strikes me as a potent source for this; in a world were each man (!) looks out only for himself, any common, shared wealth is abhorrent. Support structures that allow folk to get back on their feet after adversity never developed in the US, leading to what you describe as the "societal bottom (being) essentially kicked away".

Oversimplification.

If you want a brief source that tells you a lot of the story, take a few minutes to read A history of why the US is the only rich country without universal health care.

Quoting Banno

Support structures that allow folk to get back on their feet after adversity never developed in the US, leading to what you describe as the "societal bottom (being) essentially kicked away".

Actually I believe it was SLX who said that, but I definitely agree.

I've often mused that there's a major omission in the US Constitution - where it talks of 'the pursuit of happiness'. As 'money is human happiness in the abstract', this idea simply morphed into 'the pursuit of the holy dollar'. If only that phrase had been 'the pursuit of the common good'.

Reply to WISDOMfromPO-MO Whatever the detail, the fear of collectivism is pivotal to the USA rejecting universal health care, and symptomatic of the mythology of the individual - as the article you cite explains.

Quoting Wayfarer

Actually I believe it was SLX who said that, but I definitely agree.

My error.

I understand that it was originally going to read "the pursuit of property". Things could have been worse.

Quoting Wayfarer

If only that phrase had been 'the pursuit of the common good'

indeed.

Quoting WISDOMfromPO-MO

A solution that I thought of many years ago goes like this: amend the U.S. Constitution to say that every congressional district must be drawn with at least one right angle.

It would be more fair if each district were drawn with at least one right and one left angle.

Quoting Banno

The myth of the self-suporting individual strikes me as a potent source for this; in a world were each man (!) looks out only for himself, any common, shared wealth is abhorrent. Support structures that allow folk to get back on their feet after adversity never developed in the US, leading to what you describe as the "societal bottom (being) essentially kicked away".

Twas me indeed! The history of the public support arm of the US government makes for inordinately depressing reading. Not only because - despite the recent rewriting of history - the upswell against it has only been a relatively recent 'invention' - dating specifically from around the time of Reagan - but because policy initiatives like the New Deal and the Great Society reforms were trending in the exact opposite direction! That is, there was nothing inevitable about the current US malaise, and it was brought about by consciously instigated policy choices set into motion by concrete historical actors. In fact, much of the discourse regarding the 'self-made individual' has been something of an after-the-fact ratiocination that was made to justify policy, rather than motivate it. It was, after all, politically expedient at time when the Evil of Communism - with all it's collectivist ways - could simply be diametrically set against the virtue of the individual. To blame it is again to mistake symptom for cause, although at this point in history, it has become a cause where it was once myth.

Another point about the so-called 'self-sufficient' individual is that at the level of policy, it has everywhere only ever been invoked along with the necessity of family. The logic has been as simple as it has been brutal: having decimated the social state, the burden of social care simply shifts to the family, who is at every point called upon to sustain the 'self-sustaining' individual, without any hint of irony (hence the oft-forgotten second part of Maggie Thatcher's declaration that 'there is no society, only individuals... and their families'). The American obsession over 'good, strong families' is of a piece with it's neoliberal efforts to gut the social state and render hollow the demos, along with any political power it might have to act collectively.

Quoting StreetlightX

it has become a cause where it was once myth.

:D

Puts me in mind of Tolkien's "The tale grew in the telling"...

Mmm, and the fucking liberals here - the party - actually believe it; hence their slow but obvious uptake of cancerous American political values into the Australian system.

Quoting StreetlightX

having decimated the social state, the burden of social care simply shifts to the family,

I understand the relation between state and family the other way around. The labour of women - grandmothers - in extended families was cheap and experienced. Families survived because granny looked after the kids while mum and dad worked. But families had to become more mobile in order to compete in the jobs market, so they left granny in an old people's home and went to find another job. So the burden of social care went unmet, unless by the state. Hence childcare and old people's homes and payments for stay-home carers.

Reply to StreetlightX The local Liberals are a leaderless rabble, reliant on a plebiscite to decide their policies.

US may be fucked up in many ways, but it still has the largest economy in the world. The Marshal Plan is over, and here is one point I agree with Trump, it is time for other countries to ante up.

Quoting Cavacava

but it still has the largest economy in the world.

Third to China and the EU, GDP (PPP); The Marshal Plan is over, but one belt, one road has just started. The USA can do its own dirty work.

The following based on World Bank data 2017:

Third to China and the EU, GDP (PPP); The Marshal Plan is over, but one belt, one road has just started. The USA can do its own dirty work.

Funny that's not what EU said when Trump threatened to leave NATO because they were not paying their fair share.

GDP (PPP) measures what that money can actually buy. But that green bit in your picture - what's that?

How much in arrears are the payments from the USA to the UN?

You have an internet, use it,

Reply to Cavacava As do you.

Quoting Banno

I understand the relation between state and family the other way around. The labour of women - grandmothers - in extended families was cheap and experienced. Families survived because granny looked after the kids while mum and dad worked. But families had to become more mobile in order to compete in the jobs market, so they left granny in an old people's home and went to find another job. So the burden of social care went unmet, unless by the state. Hence childcare and old people's homes and payments for stay-home carers.

Hmm, I have in mind other criteria though, such as declining family welfare support, deepening asset debt lubricated by low interest rates (particularly over family homes), student debt (in the US, a family matter), the fragmentation of the Fordist family wage into precarious low-level jobs so that wealth has to be pooled, etc etc. Admittedly, I've not looked at investment flows into either childcare or geriatric care, although I wouldn't be surprised to see a withdrawal of the state from those sectors either.

Quoting Banno

The local Liberals are a leaderless rabble, reliant on a plebiscite to decide their policies.

What worries me though are things like the recent welfare drug test 'trial', taken straight out of the US playbook for punishing the poor, along with the (Labour supported) flood of 'security legislation', with the parliament house fence being its most egregious and depressing symbol. And don't even get me started on the barely existent energy policy, where what does exist involves doing everything possible to support a dying, dirty, energy form while subsidising foreign investment into a long-term economic black hole that will be the Galilee basin. Aghhhh.

Reply to StreetlightX I loved that we buried our parliament house in a hole in the ground so that our kids could fly kites and roll down the grass over it. The fence shows that our politicians take themselves far more seriously than we do. Bollards to them all, says I.

Stick that in my ASIO file.

Quoting StreetlightX

The history of the public support arm of the US government makes for inordinately depressing reading. Not only because - despite the recent rewriting of history - the upswell against it has only been a relatively recent 'invention' - dating specifically from around the time of Reagan - but because policy initiatives like the New Deal and the Great Society reforms were trending in the exact opposite direction! That is, there was nothing inevitable about the current US malaise

Depressing, indeed.

There was strong opposition to social welfare legislation from the beginning. Social Security, Unemployment Insurance, welfare, Medicare, Medicaid, ObamaCare--every single piece of legislation building a social safety net was opposed in Congress, and once passed, hindered--where possible--by local implementation.

There isn't much mystery about who opposed social welfare: conservative business interests, reactionaries, propertied elites, and so forth. Where these groups have the most power -- generally in the south and west, opposition and resistance is strongest.

Sometimes the reactionary elites have been proactive. Beginning in the 1930s, there was explicit policy in Federal housing and welfare programs to keep black and white people from living in the same neighborhoods, and to maximize the poverty of blacks. Of course this policy was challenged, but to little effect until the 1970s-1980s. By then the separation was pretty well cemented into place.

What was done to blacks is being done to the white working class as well, though slightly different means have been employed. Tax law, downward pressure on minimum wages, anti-union laws, trade law, etc. have combined to enrich the elite and impoverish the working class.

For the millions of the baby-boom who grew up in the years when the Great Society legislation was passed, and the economy was strong, all of this seems unreal and inconceivable. "It wasn't supposed to work out this way." No, it wasn't, but progressive politics was beaten in the 1980s, and it has not recovered.

Reply to Banno

GDP (PPP) measures what that money can actually buy.

Nope:

gross domestic product (at purchasing power parity) per capita, i.e., the purchasing power parity (PPP) value of all final goods and services produced within a country in a given year, divided by the average (or mid-year) population for the same year.

Using GDP (PPP) Qatar is top country for the IMF & World Bank, your claim is ludicrous.

Who is missing from this list?
http://www.un.org/en/ga/contributions/honourroll.shtml

Reply to Cavacava You are looking at per capita. see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(PPP)

Quoting Bitter Crank

We need not go back to Warren G. Harding (1920) for examples of bad presidents. We have Richard Nixon (1968),

Was Nixon a bad president - aside from being a crook? From what I've heard of historical accounts of his presidency, there were some good and unexpected things that came out of it. I was under the impression that he founded the EPA and started the process of rebuilding a relationship with China - in fact that as far as policy went, he was quite good on a number of fronts.

Maybe I'm trying too hard to be generous to somebody on the 'other side of politics' (as if there were only two sides, hah!) I'm happy to be corrected by people with tales of terrible policies he promoted. Well, actually I won't be happy. It's always sad to hear bad things about somebody - anybody. But I'll accept it.

Quoting StreetlightX

with the parliament house fence being its most egregious and depressing symbol.

Yes it's disgusting. I wish they'd be honest and concrete over the lawns so that the building really looks like the fortress of paranoia it has become, rather than the celebration of democracy and egalitarianism that it was designed to be, and of which the freely accessible lawns rolling over the top were such a potent symbol.

Reply to Banno I'll stick with GDP, it gives a clearer picture of size than Purchasing Power Parity, which,

takes into consideration the relative costs of local goods and services produced in a country valued at prices of the United States. It factors in exchange rates and the inflation rates of each country. Further, GDP at PPP reflects the purchasing power of a citizen in one country to a citizen of another. For example, a pair of shoes may cost less in one country than another, so purchasing power parity is needed for fairness in the calculation.

It is not measuring size, it is measuring purchasing power.

Reply to Cavacava What? You are agreeing with me? Where's the fun in that?

Reply to andrewk (Y)

Quoting Banno

Families survived because granny looked after the kids while mum and dad worked.

As tradition had it, dad went off to work while mom cared for the kids. That granny (as opposed to paw paw) was at home is evidence that that was her traditional role.

I don't harken back to the old days of relegating women to the domestic role, but see that as a shared role. I do believe, though, that the drive to work harder, which results in less parenting, is less driven by survival needs than it is consumerism and the desire for more stuff. The material expectations of the average guy have increased dramatically in my lifetime.

Quoting Pierre-Normand

It would be more fair if each district were drawn with at least one right and one left angle.

Priceless.

I think some of what's happened socially is just a numbers game. There was a time when a white guy competed for the best jobs with the best pay and benefits only with other white guys. Now he competes with women and non-white guys. When the economy was growing, you could pretend this was not going to be an issue. Now you've got some pretty unhappy older white guys who don't understand why their lives aren't going as planned.

Every country has social problems, but you address those politically. It's a simple fact that in the US today, you've got one party that spends a lot of time enrolling voters and trying to increase access to the vote, and one party that spends a lot of time restricting access to the vote and diluting the power of those voters they can't disenfranchise through the most extreme gerrymandering this country has ever seen. There is more than policy difference between the two major parties in the US. One of them has gradually become an anti-democratic institution.

As it happens, that party is now laser focused on those white guys from the first paragraph.

Quoting ArguingWAristotleTiff

What makes you think that anything "went wrong"?
We are a nation of ideas Banno and best I know, there is no manual nor map for this road less taken, that we as a collective union have chosen to walk down together. I am interested in what you can see from Australia that appears to have "gone wrong" in the USA that I am not able to see from within her borders.

Yes, I agree. I'm very liberal and unhappy that Donald Trump was elected. On the other hand, Obama was the best president in my adult lifetime. As far as foreign policy is concerned, which is what it makes sense for people in other countries to care about, I think the openings to Iran and Cuba are worthy of the Nobel Peace Prize they gave him previously for no reason. He made significant errors in foreign policy: I count Syria, efforts to undermine the fairly elected pro-Russian Ukrainian president, and the erratic response to the crack down in Egypt among them, but generally he started turning the US in a better direction.

Although there are definitely signs of danger, the world has become a better place in the past 20 years in terms of the important criteria - the security and well-being of the people of the world.

Quoting fishfry

Boomer here. Of the generation getting blamed for it. I can tell you exactly when I saw it go wrong. The Vietnam war. I was a college student. College students got a deferment from the draft. The kids of the working class, the "deplorables" of the day, went to die in the jungle. That was was no joke. Several hundred men -- and it was almost all men -- died every week. .

As an Iraq veteran I thank you for saying that. My father fought in Vietnam. It does seem that there are two different nations: those who believe in the cause and sacrifice heavily for it, and those who are entitled and take it for granted - so much so that I'm pretty disillusioned.

The biggest issue is that those of us who live within the safety of the wall, with the privileges and gains from the sacrifices of those on the wall, need to act with gratitude. We need to live in ways that do the most to be the best version of ourselves as a nation, and to think of more than ourselves, to further the common good. That's the America the troops fight for. If ever they realise, as I did, that really they are only fighting for the furtherment of greed, then they won't stay in uniform, and there will be no one left to defend us.

So, I'm not a NFL player, but I stand for the anthem, and I put my hand on my heart. I struggle with this, but I give my allegiance to our nation as it could be, though tragically not as it is.

Quoting MysticMonist

It does seem that there are two different nations: those who believe in the cause and sacrifice heavily for it, and those who are entitled and take it for granted - so much so that I'm pretty disillusioned.

As a liberal who hangs around with people who agree with my politics, it is really discouraging to hear the level of disrespect they feel for people who are different from them socially and politically. I've spent a fair amount of time in the south and I enjoy being around people who don't feel ironic about what are considered traditional values. I had an interesting conversation with a lay preacher about the difference between primitive and free will Baptists. Sitting in a Panera in Tuscaloosa, I watched a group of students in what I assumed was a class study group. When walked by, I found it was a bible study group. I can't imagine seeing that around where I live. I do not discuss politics when I am down there.

I belong here. I feel at home here. I have a skeptical and ironic view of the world, but I just don't see this great divide in values. For example, throughout the country, rich and poor; educated and not; you will find that people hate the Patriots.

Quoting MysticMonist

I struggle with this, but I give my allegiance to our nation as it could be, though tragically not as it is.

Thank you for your service and for believing in what we can be as a nation.

Quoting andrewk

Was Nixon a bad president?

Nixon was not all bad. True enough, he did get the EPA going; he did establish diplomatic relations with China; he was in favor of treatment rather than imprisonment for drug offenses. His response to the Arab oil boycott was rational. So yes, he did have some good policy initiatives.

Nixon won the nickname "tricky Dick" in California politics years before he ran for President in 1968. The Watergate episode--the break-in through the cover-up, on to his impeachment and resignation, was pretty bad, however. So was his escalation of the war on Vietnam.

Whether Hubert Humphrey, Democratic challenger in '68, or George McGovern D. challenger in '72, would have succeeded in extricating the US from Vietnam is unknown, of course. My guess is that Humphrey would have been unsuccessful.

Quoting Bitter Crank

Nixon was not all bad. True enough, he did get the EPA going; he did establish diplomatic relations with China; he was in favor of treatment rather than imprisonment for drug offenses. His response to the Arab oil boycott was rational. So yes, he did have some good policy initiatives.

During the Obamacare debates I found out that Nixon offered Ted Kennedy a deal on universal health care which was similar to Obamacare, but that Kennedy refused because he wanted single-payer. He said it was the worst political mistake he ever made.

Quoting MysticMonist

I stand for the athemn and put my hand on my heart. I struggle with this. But I give my alliegence to our nation as it could be, tragically not as it is.

I stand and put my hand on my heart because that's how I was raised.

I stand and put my hand on my heart, because whether this country really was founded on an idea, not a race or a religion, we used to believe it was, and it still could be.

Loyal to nothing but the dream.

Reply to T Clark The perfect has quite often driven out the considerably better. Alas.

I can't remember how I got there (a link from somewhere in my regular reading) but there was an article in GQ about Ted Kennedy that went into his heavy drinking and womanizing -- interesting adjective that -- TK comes off pretty badly.

You might find it interesting -- but it's quite unpleasant.

Quoting ?????????????

Which direction is this?

Away from confrontation and towards conciliation. More evenhanded. Away from military solutions - admittedly stops and starts. Focus on the Pacific countries. Changing relationships with allies that may not be acting in our best interests.

Quoting Bitter Crank

You might find it interesting -- but it's quite unpleasant.

As one of his former constituents, when I travelled out of the northeast people would ask me how we could keep voting him into office. I always said "Be fair, he hasn't killed anyone in more than 40 years."

Reply to ?????????????

When I wrote what I wrote I didn't expect agreement. I don't claim that US foreign policy doesn't have significant problems, but it's better.

Quoting ?????????????

Yes, I understand that you don't claim that the US foreign policy is problem free; I'm just not convinced at all that it's better. Especially from the POV of "people in other countries". Hence the questioning.

I understand that. I would say that the Iran agreement by itself, even if that's all the happened, would be a major accomplishment. We'll see if it lasts.

Quoting ?????????????

Which direction is this?

One that looks to take care of her own citizens before taking care of others in other countries. We have done a lot of nation building in the last 30 years and it's time we turned our efforts inward and focus building our own nation. Our nation like a flower will not thrive without attention and frankly we have become cheap plastic flowers from abroad.

By the way: Merry Christmas (L) in advance

Quoting Banno

From the Marshall Plan to Trump in three score years and ten.

What went wrong?

Oh yeah, great tragedy, where's my handkerchief?

Reply to Agustino Perhaps it's wet with tears of joy after reading that thread about you. Nobody started a thread on the rest of us. What are we -- chopped liver?

Objectively, is it really a tragedy if you have a nation spending on warfare as much as the next seven nations down the list?

Most nations recognize that not ISIS or Russia or China or Al Qaeda are the real threats to peace and stability in the world.

Reply to Bitter Crank Oh, but why does that surprise you - it's not the first time there's been threads about me. By now I got used to them. Some people want to call me a sexist, others want to encourage the mods to ban me, others want to discuss my morality :s . I guess it's due to being unorthodox. An irony, since I am actually just an Orthodox Christian... :-O

Reply to Hanover Hm. Go back a hundred years and women worked as much as men, often from home. The notion that women should stay home and look after the kids is more recent.

Quoting Banno

Go back a hundred years and women worked as much as men, often from home. The notion that women should stay home and look after the kids is more recent.

That expectation is recent, but women working in jobs as much as men was conditioned by marital status, class, geography, demographics, economics, and custom.

Women have always performed labor, certainly. But women's labor apart from domestic labor has generally been limited because the demands of food, clothing, shelter, and child-care for a family required too much labor and attention to allow for extensive work outside the home. Think what doing laundry meant without a washing machine, hot water heater, and a clothes dryer. Even with lower expectations about how clean "clean" was, it was still a lot of work. A lot of clothing was made at home, and that was time consuming. Convenient foods were quite a ways down the road.

An additional demand on women's time, especially, was "community". Social services were pretty limited for most of history, so a lot of the help people needed was provided by people like one's self. Women couldn't hold society together (on the home front) if everyone was at the factory. Exploiting child labor eliminated some of that problem, literally, in many cases.

The idea that in the 19th century women worked as much as men (in paid labor outside the home) isn't true for the US, at least. By 1840 the percent of women working outside of the home was less than 20%. (I'm not including slaves because they really had no choice in the matter at all; slave women worked at whatever labor was needed, pretty much the same as men.)

Over the late 19th and 20th century it climbed to the levels it is now. During WWII women engaged in all sorts of non-traditional labor in the mobilization. There was a change after WWII. Many women didn't work in the post WWII boom because wages were high enough to allow one wage earner to support a family (adequately if not amply) and there was that expectation of women making a home rather than working at the factory.

Quoting Bitter Crank

By 1840 the percent of women working outside of the home was less than 20%.

Working class women would take home work; so their labour did not appear in such statistics.

Edit:
The discussion came from here: https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/114720

The primary source of care has long been the family; it was never the state. As the size of families shrank the state took on a role in supporting carers. Hence the need for preschools, aged homes, disability funds and so on. This, contra Street's contention that the role of the family has been increasing because of a reduction in state support (or have I read him wrong?)

Reply to ????????????? Of course the Marshall Plan was an imperialist enterprise. It wasn't the best thing that could have happened, but it was the best thing the US had done. If you think it would have been better for the US to simply leave Europe to itself, then I have no time for you.

Reply to ????????????? And why would it be preferable to leave Europe to the tender mercies of the Russian empire?

Reply to ????????????? And what do you say, Rock? You expressed your own preference. Can you justify it?

Reply to ????????????? So you have no opinion?

Quoting Bitter Crank

And why would it be preferable to leave Europe to the tender mercies of the Russian empire?

BitterCrank, surely you have heard those abroad tell me ad nauseam, that every time America has offered to help anywhere in the world, we have screwed things up worse than if we had never entered the picture.

Seeing as that is their attitude, we have elected someone who will respect their attitude and focus our energies and efforts into shoring up the United States. A bunch of states that belong to a Union is the perfect example of small group communication, which is one of the hardest to manage and we are doing our best. But it is essential to tend to those inner state relationships for without attention, it will wither on the vine. What good will we ever be able to do, if we are no longer capable of keeping our own house in order?

I think the primary issue contributing to the the demise of the US - and possibly the West and the entire world more generally - is the system of values we adhere to at the moment: Unrestrained consumerism is perceived as the highest form of life, with the most 'successful' among us almost always being understood as those with the most money, the most things, the most power, etc.

These guiding values then frame the way we design our educational system; the way we cultivate self-serving calculative and instrumental relationships with other people and things (e.g. exploitation of the environment); the way we pursue careers that will make us the most money regardless of what we have to do to get it; the way we flee from this alienating scenario into mind-numbing distractions and entertainment; etc.

Donald Trump is a complete jackass, make no mistake about that, but he didn't create this 'world' or the tacitly assumed values we average folk admire so much. This being the case, a shift in those dominant guiding values is far more essential than removing Trump, IMO, although that would be nice too.

I've yet to find a politician in the US who thinks along these lines, unfortunately.

Reply to Erik How can you stop the giant economic octopus? It's too large already, I'm afraid only a World War can restart things by this point, for those who are lucky to escape alive out of it. You think those who stand due to Fortune and Chance on the precipice of making great wealth for themselves will willingly let go of this economic system? That would be like taking their cheese away after they have waited for maybe years to get this opportunity.

Reply to Agustino I think you're probably right about this, unfortunately, and that there's little hope for the type of genuine change I'm referring to. Seems an obvious case of being up the creek without a paddle. But I'm also partial to the view that many people know, if only 'deep inside', that this global, technological, capitalist world order we find ourselves in is utterly corrupt and dehumanizing.

If someone - or some group of people (collaboration of artists, politicians, philosophers, etc.) - could tap into those intuitions and frame a vision of a more meaningful and humane world - one beyond the political Left and Right as they currently stand - then they may be able to awaken those latent possibilities and galvanize a sort of historically transitional and supra-political grassroots movement. Wishful thinking perhaps, but there's work to be done and this is the area I feel we should focus on.

Am I the only person that views this as a boon for the world and not only the myopic fixation with the US, prevalent on these forums?

Looking to the (so-called) natural, biological world for some sort of inspiration or grounding concerning human affairs is a traditional, if perhaps currently under-utilized, technique. It is not in itself a science, though it welcomes knowledge gained from scientific inquiry. But neither is it mere superstition or a fantastical divination like reading the future in the flight patterns and singing of birds. (Or is augery merely a lost art?).

Plants and animals have an instinct and drive to stay alive, attain some level of stasis or comfort, and reproduce. Since there is not unlimited space and resources for unlimited numbers of countless species to exist simultaneously, there is a de facto competition for the means of survival. This all may be obvious, of course, but is stated here to establish a "starting point". Given that point then, it can be said that ethics and morality exist to put the individual's wants and needs in a dynamic, working perspective with others and world. And given that point, of organisms "needing to take", and therefore taking what they need (including killing other organisms for food), one can imagine an extreme case where one species or one individual tries to take all life and land to be their property. This would eventually include genocide and slavery by all probability, which all but the coarsest and most short-sighted of ethics condemn. Which is where we humans find ourselves: in between Jainism and genocide, so to speak. Between existing on sunshine and rainbows while avoiding stepping on bugs; or attempting to be Pharaohs of the universe and owning, consuming, or destroying all.

Which leads to many questions. A few examples: What is the optimal balance of give and take for an individual? Like a person's eating habits, how much is "too much"? In what way are nations similar to individuals concerning actions, intentions, responsibility, etc. and in what ways are they different? Do nations owe each other anything? If so, what? More ambiguously, what is the real difference between countries beyond their borders? Do religions somehow transcend borders, or merely offer different ones? What of the seemingly contradictory trends toward both unification and tribal states? Given the facts of the current state of affairs, the cycles of life and nature, and evolution... how are the sustainability of individuals, nations, and the Earth interrelated?

Quoting Erik

this global, technological, capitalist world order we find ourselves in is utterly corrupt and dehumanizing.

I don't see what's wrong with technology and consumerism if they are in a balanced environment. I don't think such a thing has existed for quite some time though, because of the nature of politics and tradition.

Quoting Erik

If someone - or some group of people (collaboration of artists, politicians, philosophers, etc.) - could tap into those intuitions and frame a vision of a more meaningful and humane world - one beyond the political Left and Right as they currently stand - then they may be able to awaken those latent possibilities and galvanize a sort of historically transitional and supra-political grassroots movement. Wishful thinking perhaps, but there's work to be done and this is the area I feel we should focus on.

Bertie Russell wrote a wonderfully astute essay on the nature of party politics, politicians, experts and the person in the street(gang) around 1930. ("The Need for Political Skepticism") The main strand is that everything political is sadly wrapped up in language and ideas that insists on positing an enemy of some sort. What is amazing is that it could have been written today for just about any western democracy. Nothing has changed! His solution is to break up party politics somehow. Of course he never had the net then, and never knew about the possibility of block chain voting and delegation....

Reply to Jake Tarragon Thank you for bringing Russell's essay to my attention.

Reply to Jake Tarragon [quote=Jake Tarragon]Bertie Russell wrote a wonderfully astute essay on the nature of party politics, politicians, experts and the person in the street(gang) around 1930. ("The Need for Political Skepticism") The main strand is that everything political is sadly wrapped up in language and ideas that insists on positing an enemy of some sort.[/quote]
I will read it as soon as I can. The question that immediately springs to my mind is how he might square that with the political stand he took against conscription in the Great War and the political stand he took against the nuclear arms race in the sixties and seventies.

Perhaps he sees it as consistent, and that positing an enemy is not necessarily a bad thing. Perhaps his enemies in those two campaigns were the white feather brigade and the military-industrial complex respectively.

Reply to andrewk Sorry for not being clear here. .... he observed that politics of the day always invoked some sort of enemy or opposing group . He wasn't advocating it.

Quoting Jake Tarragon

I don't see what's wrong with technology and consumerism if they are in a balanced environment. I don't think such a thing has existed for quite some time though, because of the nature of politics and tradition.

I actually agree with you here for the most part. Ideally, we could appropriate the many benefits of technology while also ameliorating its potentially destructive aspects, which are many and varied.

Regarding consumerism, while I would never expect a voluntary decision in favor of collective austerity to take place - or even find it necessarily desirable if taken to the extreme - I do think a more thoughtful approach to the role that money and material goods play in our lives would be helpful. Right now it seems as though many of us are enslaved to a very narrow interpretation of what a successful life looks like, and we channel our energies in this direction at the expense of other, perhaps 'deeper' and more fulfilling possibilities of being.

The tremendous amount of money and effort that advertisers and businesses more generally expend to inculcate a certain contingent set of values and ideals in us is hard to offset through alternative narratives, especially when our entire 'system' seems subordinated to economic considerations (the goal of education being the most prominent example of this IMO). As children we lacked the requisite knowledge, awareness and life experience to challenge this set of dominant values, and once you reach a certain age they've become so internalized that they're typically taken for granted as obvious goals that are beyond question. Even on philosophy forums like this, for instance, you find many posters (probably even most) who mock pursuing a particular educational degree on the grounds that it doesn't usually lead to things like social respect, a high-paying job, etc.

Anyhow these issues do deserve a much more detailed and nuanced analysis than what I presented here, as I didn't do justice to their complexity as it relates to our lives on both an individual and collective level. I would maintain, however, that a narrow fixation on the individual accumulation of wealth as a means of earning the respect of others is corrosive of more 'transcendent' social bonds that bind a community together in non-instrumental ways. Apologies for the word salad but hopefully you get the gist of the position.

I'll give the Russell essay a look.

On a related note, I've been thinking quite a bit about points of possible convergence between Left and Right on this particular issue. I find it an extremely fertile ground of possibilities for a future political platform beyond the tax breaks and deregulation for the rich of the Right and the identity politics and cultivated resentments (many of which are understandable) of the Left. Very quickly, I'm of the opinion that genuine conservatism quite naturally aligns with many policies that are usually associated with progressives: removing money from the political process; revamping the educational system from the ground up; taking a position of stewardship rather than exploitation concerning the environment; and other related things.

Of course, those ambiguous and fluid terms describing the Right and the Left need to be qualified to a considerable extent in order to make this position somewhat intelligible, but I do feel as though those who (e.g.) take the formation of a virtuous character to be an essential component of the educational process (concerned with the development of a way of being so to speak in addition to learning a body of useful knowledge) will tend in the direction of looking at things from a long-term and communally-responsible standpoint. That perspective is contrasted with narrow and short-term understanding of what we take to be our self-interest as atomized individuals in competition with others for limited resources.

Not trying to create more confusion here, but as mentioned I think this is an area worth exploring as it has the potential to rally people of seemingly diverse backgrounds and perspectives together for the sake of a greater goal. This is a rough sketch, obviously, and while the specific details are very important these need to be guided by a sort of 'big picture' thinking that seems sorely lacking these days.

Reply to Erik I think you should start a thread on this : )

Quoting StreetlightX

I think you should start a thread on this : )

(Y)

I think I will fairly soon. Would love to get feedback and advice from the members here.

Reply to Erik

Please do, we have a tendency to bash each other on a left / right basis (here and elsewhere), and it would be interesting to focus on developing a common core of sensible principles both sides could agree on.

Quoting Baden

Please do, we have a tendency to bash each other on a left / right basis (here and elsewhere), and it would be interesting to focus on developing a common core of sensible principles both sides could agree on.

Yeah, let's see how well that works out :P

Quoting Erik

I think I will fairly soon. Would love to get feedback and advice from the members here.

Well I have quite a few ideas for a political program that would cut across left and right divides, so I eagerly await :)

Reply to Banno Downfall; yes.
Tragedy; no.
The Marshall plan was not altruistic but wholly self interested. Nonetheless pay and spend economics do in fact work. In the UK the government spent its way to prosperity by providing homes, health and education to returning soldiers and their new families after WW2.

And we would do well to embrace that once again, rather than this idiotic self defeating Monetarism which causes inequality and snuffs out low end demand, upon which all healthy economies rely. We'll never get rich impoverishing the poor as if they cannot spend then there is no demand.

More billionaires means more poverty, more civil strife and conflict.

Reply to charleton The Marshall plan selfishly built a market for American produce, leading to a period of peace and prosperity in Europe, North America and the Pacific.

As the Chinese are now selfishly rebuilding the Road across Eurasia.

And the US? It has absented itself.

Reply to Erik

Typing on my phone waiting for a dentist appointment...

I have to say that what your pointing towards is the convergence of the left and right towards neoliberal economic policies. I don't think any side would fight against it, rather more to the matter of who benefits from neoliberal policies the most. I don't think you can build consensus on both sides of the aisle without addressing the current status quo. How can one go about that is a thorny issue.

Reply to Banno

What went wrong?

In a nutshell: very powerful immoral actors.

Regarding how America arrived at Trump holding the office of the presidency: that's quite a bit more nuanced. Here's a general description of the collective American thought that was operative leading up to Trump's election...

The average American is satisfied with neither their current quality of life nor their belief regarding the possibility of improving it and their children's, given where they're at combined with the current and recent past state of political affairs. That's increasingly been the case for decades. By "average American" here, I'm referring to anyone and everyone who is busy with their own everyday life, follows the rules, causes no harm, keeps to themselves for the most part, and still cannot seem to get ahead despite working full time or more. This includes small business owners, average blue and white collar workers, well educated or not. Some have one, but many have multiple jobs because one quite often isn't enough anymore.

Those people, by and large, no longer trust 'the government'.

Underlying cause: a huge wealth disparity has emerged as the direct consequence of numerous and varied pieces of legislation passed by both political parties of the American government over the past half century or so. These laws range from funding public education, to standardizing curriculums, to (de)regulating the financial industry, to revoking anti-trust laws, to NAFTA and other 'free trade' deals, to laws governing police behaviour, through citizens united and the 'war' on drugs, etc. They all have one thing in common: they've resulted in quantifiable unnecessary harm to the average American. The archaic bi-partisan system is part of the problem as well.

Shedding just a bit of light upon the nutshell mentioned above...

Those who govern 'write' the rules that largely create both, the individual socio-economic and the communal moral 'landscape'. The moral landscape effects everyone's socio-economic condition. Those who govern 'create' the landscape which effects their own socio-economic situation. Those who govern 'write' the ethical rules that everyone's behaviour, including their own, must follow. Those who govern - quite literally - legitimize the moral belief of whomever wrote a piece of passed legislation.

If those that govern do not care enough about those being governed to 'write' rules that create a landscape that provides the utmost possible opportunity for every socio-economic status or innate cognitive ability, then they have no business governing. The same holds true if those in power aren't intelligent enough to know how to write such rules. Neither is acceptable.

Here's something disturbing that few people know and even less have actually considered beyond a few moments:The United States government passes a tremendous amount of legislature that is not actually written by elected officials (hence, the scare-quotes above). It is often the case that laws which effect some specific sector or industry are written, in part or near entirely, by those with personal vested interest in that sector or someone specifically chosen by such people to do so. There's something inherently wrong with that.

Just in case that's a little obscure...

It is the case that some Americans - not in government - can have laws written, in part or nearly entirely, by someone of their own choosing who is not an elected official. It is also the case that that same American can also tremendously influence which candidate(s) get(s) elected.

Another interesting consideration...

The United States government consists of people who orate public speeches that are not written by themselves. The quality that a voter attributes to a candidate or an elected official's speech is unduly imparted upon the speaker, assuming that the listener isn't aware of this disconnect between speech act and speech author. Unwary citizens vote for a candidate based upon the quality of someone else's words being orated by the candidate. In this environment it is crucial to be an eloquent speaker - a good spokesperson, as it were. This offers reason for why politicians are believed to be dishonest writ large. Sometimes - perhaps - it's because they've made a social norm out of parroting another's words.

Speaking insincerely to the American public is not acceptable from either publicly elected governmental officials or anyone in the free press. Anyone who questions that basic fact of American culture will never understand why and/or how we've gotten to a place where Trump looked like the best option available, Russian meddling notwithstanding. Americans are tired of being misled by those who've become much wealthier during the same timeframe. Americans are tired of no knowing who to trust, who to believe. If things were they way they ought be, Russia wouldn't have the soil to plant seeds, and Trump wouldn't have been able to get away with publicly asserting that he had 'bought' every candidate on the stage during a nationally televised political primary debate. No one even blinked. That was and is the political norm.

Just in case that didn't quite sink in all the way...

A candidate for the highest office in the country, openly bragged about having basically bribed (he said "bought") every other candidate on the stage, and none even blinked. One denied it, but said he would be more than willing to take some his money...

It's the current state of the American political system itself - and it's recent (half century) norms - that has paved the way for the likes of Trump by creating ground fertile enough for it to happen.

I do not like Trump. I think his ignorance is dangerous. The American government ought be ashamed that it has allowed the situation to even happen. It's reprehensible. I do not think that Trump always speaks sincerely. I do find very good reason to understand how many Americans would come to believe that he was more honest than Hillary. The groundwork for the era of Trump is a thesis worth of material. Ah, but I digress because Trump's being in power doesn't bear upon the set of necessary pre-conditions for that possibility to become realized.

So, back to the inherent insincerity of political American parrots; specifically a bit more on the fact that unelected people write the words of the elected's speech and do the work of writing the elected's legislation.

The farther away an individual is from those over whom they wield such tremendous power, the less likely it is that they can ever be held accountable for the harm they cause with writing legislation. The farther away one is from those who they've knowingly harmed, the easier it is for one to live with doing such harm. The easier it is for one to live with knowingly causing unnecessary harm, the easier it is for one to do it.

There is no legal recourse to be taken against those who write the rules, whether elected official or otherwise, because the authors of those rules have made sure of it. The cause of the most recent economic crash ('08) and the American government's response to it is quite sickening when properly understood.

I think 'effortless gracelessness' would be a suitable title for this week's episodes. How To Insult Almost Everyone Whilst Saying You're The Best At Everything.