(C) Daily Kos This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . America is Tattered and Facing a Storm But a New Day is Coming [1] ['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.', 'Backgroundurl Avatar_Large', 'Nickname', 'Joined', 'Created_At', 'Story Count', 'N_Stories', 'Comment Count', 'N_Comments', 'Popular Tags'] Date: 2023-05-24 The tattered flag represents America, the dark clouds symbolize the storm but the sun signals a new beginning Once again I am going to post a diary in response to both Kerry Elevid’s and Kos’ diaries of today, linked to below: Kerry Eleveld’s Diary: Trump's taint is scaring off Republican candidates Kos’ Diary: Rude awakening ahead for Republicans leading 'woke' battle Both diaries more or less concur with my overall philosophy regarding the current state of US’ politics and the forthcoming 2024 elections, as well as my expectation that the 2024 election will be a watershed election. My diary is more of a lengthy comment and may be of interest to some of you. It is written as a contribution to the debate and sort of reflects my current thoughts without going into a lot of detail. So here goes. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- These diaries show how a political party dies — one lost voter and one lost race at a time. That is how the Whigs died. They could not adapt to the new economic dynamic of “free labor”, because a large part of the support both monetary and voting came from the Southern oligarchy of the time. The voters shifted to the new Republican Party one at a time, until they first gained a sizable representation in Congress. Then 1860 came with the old Democratic Party splitting and what was left of the old Whig Party morphing into the Constitutional Union Party. The Republicans with Lincoln won. Then the South seceded and Fort Sumter was attacked. Something similar is happening at this time. When the Republican Party opted for the Southern Strategy beginning in 1964 and reaffirmed that choice in 1980, it found that to obtain the support of the South it had to adopt the entire Southern mindset including misogyny, white supremacy and conservative religious dogma along with a reactionary outlook. Meanwhile the remainder of the nation was moving into a new social milieu of diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) which includes tolerance for all and a new economic paradigm which emphasizes knowledge and creativity over manufacturing with centralized production and agriculture. The residents of urban, suburban and increasingly exurban areas are embracing that new mindset and economic paradigm. The Republican Party has deprived itself of the ability to adapt due to its emphasis on the Southern rural mindset and the old economic paradigm. In so doing they drove the more moderate Republicans out of the Party. That dynamic has been on going for years and decades. Also the Republicans have depended heavily for decades on monetary support from the wealthy and corporate elites. So they have tended to reduce taxation on their supporters and to enact economic policies favoring the formation of an oligarchy. This has slowly reduced the ability of the public sector to address economic and social issues created by the ongoing economic transformation. Trump was elected in 2016 using an authoritarian and cultist campaign, stating he was the only one who could fix the economic difficulties and the social issues. He emphasized white supremacy, misogyny and conservative religious dogma. This appealed to a sizable minority of the voters, but not a majority. That was sufficient to eke out a narrow victory via an electoral college inversion in 2016. But by 2018, his policies were so odious to most that he lost the mid terms, then lost the 2020 presidential election and the 2022 midterms, He refuses to accept that reality. The Republican Party has no alternative except more Trumpism with either Trump or someone else who does not have the baggage, because by emphasizing base politics so strongly, people who are willing to adapt have been driven from the Party and it is unable to accept a new paradigm, which is what happened to the Whigs during the late 1850s. Things seem to be developing towards a massive defeat for the Republican Party in 2024 up and down the ballot. At the Presidential Level the electoral vote will likely be moderately close, but I am positive the popular vote will be massively against Trump or any other candidate that that has the support of their MAGA base. The bias of the Electoral College towards the Republicans will be insufficient to overcome the desires of the people expressed in the popular vote even with Republican attempts at voter suppression and electoral manipulation. Trump or DeSantis presently seem to be the only two, that could satisfy the base. DeSantis might do a little better in the national popular vote, but that is an open question. Personally I believe he could very well do worse, because he is very uncharismatic, except to the MAGA base, which prefers Trump, regardless. There is also a possibility of a split developing in the Republican Party, but at this point that does not seem likely, to me. Unfortunately, because so many of the MAGA base seems prone to resort to violence, there could be significant domestic terrorism associated with this election. I hope it remains largely unorganized. The federal prosecution of many of the ring leaders associated with January 2021 insurrection will hopefully significantly dampen and quell various attempts at organization. Since the MAGA base is distributed throughout the nation, organizing at the state level will be difficult, unlike in 1861. So an organized secession does not seem likely, thought there could be attempts. I expect this all to come to a head during the presidential administration from 2025-2029. How it develops is hard to predict. But suffice it to say, I expect the dynamics for the 2028 election will be considerably different than those at present. I hope and expect the Democrats will win decisively in 2024. But as I mentioned previously with the predilection of the MAGA base towards violence, I am confident there will be considerable domestic terrorism. I believe the nation will quell that and by 2028 will be ready to put that behind us and move forward. However, because the US is the world’s greatest power both economically and militarily, that domestic turmoil will have significant international effects. There are two major nations that have been very unhappy and unwilling to accommodate the present international order. Russia first attempted to challenge it with the Russo-Ukrainian war, but has been unable to do so. China is also unhappy and is facing potential decline with a population decrease and some other significant economic issues. It wishes to establish dominance in East and Southeast Asia. The lynchpin to establishing that dominance is control of Taiwan. It could attempt to obtain that control by force in the near future, thinking the US will be too preoccupied with its domestic issues, to react. That will be mistaken. The US is in the process of resetting itself, as it has in the past, specifically the Civil War period and the Great Depression/WWII period. Hitler in Germany and the military junta in Japan made those mistakes during the 1930s. That then resulted in WWII and proved fatal for those regimes. As an aside, I believe these periods of resetting occur in the US because our governmental system encourages development of periods of stasis, when changes cannot be accommodated smoothly by democratic processes. Those occur when one party obtains overwhelming control facilitated by the development of oligopolies and oligarchy and fixes the electoral process so the system is not responsive to demands for change until finally a crisis develops. We have been in such a period since the early to mid 1980s. Finally the pressure builds and the ‘dam’ gives way resulting in a crisis. For our current ‘log jam’ the breaking and the ensuing crisis appears to be imminent. The US will surmount this challenge and things will stabilize during the 2025-2029 administration, which I hope and believe will be Democratic with Biden as President. After stabilization a new dawn will occur and a new political system will begin. I hope I am around to see it. But I am now in my late seventies and though in reasonably good health, that is a bit of time and I will be nearing my mid eighties. I believe the challenge for the American system is to develop political processes that allows for incremental change, without the periodic static periods developing. But that is a big task and will require Constitutional and governance revisions. Perhaps America can begin that task of modification and development after the coming storm. Betraying my political inclinations, perhaps Harris will be taking on a more prominent role during a second Biden Administration and will be in a position to make a strong run for the Presidency in 2028. However leveraging a vice presidency directly into the presidency is one of the most difficult tasks in American politics, barring an unforeseen event?? We shall see. 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