Polyticks: Bob Butler's Perspective

[John]

Wow!!!

[Bob Butler]

This is what Strauss and Howe say...

What the S&H books say are fine. It’s what they don’t say that could be said that is relevant. My own perspective on history includes turnings, ages and civilizations. S&H are properly focused on turnings. Taking a wider perspective is appropriate.

S&H did a good job of saying there would be a cultural conflict. They did less well in identifying specific issues. With 20 20 hindsight they might have. Prior crises involved a stay the same conservative faction struggling against a progressive faction attempting to fix major flaws in the culture… independence, freedom for the slaves, government regulation of the economy, containment. The progressive faction trying to fix the problem generally did. Oh, there were conservative kickbacks such as the KKK and McCarthy, but by the time the next crisis rolled along, the radically new progressive ideas of the previous crisis had been absorbed and accepted by the culture. The people moved on to new issues to struggle over.

As a result, S&H correctly identified new values made common by the various crises, but were slow to recognize they were all progressive values at the time, that crises fixed flaws in the culture. I pointed this out to Strauss in the Nashville get together. He wasn’t entirely pleased. At the time they were trying to present their system as non partisan, while in fact it was very very progressive. Being aware of it, they might have become aware of the future flaws that might rise to the top next crisis. I don’t think that ever became a strength.

Another point was the difference is ages. In the Industrial Age, crises usually involved a full scale war. A conflict seemed necessary to change the culture. In the Information Age, democracy has matured to the point of being able to change the culture without war. Oh, we had demonstrations, murders and the insurrection, but nothing that could compare to Yorktown, Gettysburg or the Bulge. As a result you can see in S&H a little extra emphasis on conflict.

We are currently struggling over a number of issues. Abortion is a key one. The women’s vote over controlling their families is likely to be decisive in near future elections. That will give the Democrats the advantage to settle other issues. Trump will age out, and MAGA will be stuck without a leader. Crisis over?

We’ll see.

[Bob Butler]

It will be very telling when Trump debates Kamala on Fox news, this time with unbiased mediators.
She may come off worse than Biden did.

There was an earlier agreement between Biden and Trump that the 2nd debate was to be hosted and moderated by ABC. I doubt Harris would agree to switch it to Fox after Murdoch confessed under oath to telling the Fox audience what they wanted to hear.

[FullMoon]

It will be very telling when Trump debates Kamala on Fox news, this time with unbiased mediators.
She may come off worse than Biden did.

There was an earlier agreement between Biden and Trump that the 2nd debate was to be hosted and moderated by ABC. I doubt Harris would agree to switch it to Fox after Murdoch confessed under oath to telling the Fox audience what they wanted to hear.

Biased mediation or not, just having people see how they talk and handle themselves will expose a lot. Trump was average and let Biden self immolate in the 1st debate. Hopefully he'll keep the same strategy. It won't take long for people to see what she's like. Unless she somehow makes herself look better than usual and Trump say something worse than usual. Here's a consummate Trump hating liberal on the he qualities of our current vice president:
https://youtube.com/shorts/NdSTftbJvbQ? ... _zqjcLNH25
She's been unlikable for years and a rather terrible politician. But I wouldn't underestimate Trump's ability to blow his advantage. In an election that'll be determined by the pettiest and simple-minded things. All while the world burns.

[Bob Butler]

She's been unlikable for years and a rather terrible politician. But I wouldn't underestimate Trump's ability to blow his advantage. In an election that'll be determined by the pettiest and simple-minded things. All while the world burns.

Unlikable by criminals for sure, but she did win a bunch of elections. I doubt she would have got the VP nod in 2020 without the double minority thing. I suspect the female desire to control reproduction and families might be central in 2024. That is a killer issue.

[Bob Butler]

Is it my imagination, or are things going well for the Democrats? The new Republican VP choice Vance seems unpopular. Switching from Biden to Harris seems to have really invigorated the Democrats in polls, donations, volunteers and in general energy. Project 2025 is generating a lot of flack and Democratic talking points. Trump is blowing a lot of events of late, moving the growing senile old man theme to favor the Democrats. They spent a lot of energy with the talk of age and everybody wanting another choice, seemingly without considering what would happen if one was given.

Still a lot of time, though. Let's see the Democratic convention and Veep pick.

[Bob Butler]

It will be very telling when Trump debates Kamala on Fox news, this time with unbiased mediators.
She may come off worse than Biden did.

There was an earlier agreement between Biden and Trump that the 2nd debate was to be hosted and moderated by ABC. I doubt Harris would agree to switch it to Fox after Murdoch confessed under oath to telling the Fox audience what they wanted to hear.

Whoops. Guessed wrong.

It will be interesting how unbiased Fox will really be, and whether Trump can keep his act together. Trump really hasn't been doing good lately.

Maybe not so wrong. Apparently Trump made an agreement, but didn't consult with Harris or Fox?

[spottybrowncow]

I encourage everyone to read this. I think this is the best place to post it.

https://www.lewrockwell.com/2024/08/dav ... -politics/

[Bob Butler]

I encourage everyone to read this. I think this is the best place to post it.

https://www.lewrockwell.com/2024/08/dav ... -politics/

Interesting. Able as the productive son working for the future? Another way of looking at it would be...

One aspect of the Democratic approach, a more bilateral approach, is building for the future. Infrastructure. Building computer chips at home. Health care, including both in general Obamacare and more recently women’s health and family planning. Voting rights. The Republican center point seems to be Project 2025. Revenge. Hate. Weaponizing the justice department. This begs the question, which party is metaphorically with Able, and which Caine? Who is building for the future and who is into petty self satisfaction.

Another way of looking at it is fixing flaws. I see a central issue of any crisis as fixing flaws in the culture. Two relevant ones this tlme are prejudice and forcing religious doctrines on others. My assumption is that the culture is still flawed, we are still working towards that more perfect union, and that each crisis introduces new values which purge these flaws. If the flaws are embedded in some believing old patterns of belief are true and worth keeping rather than flaws, what then? Do we work to maintain prejudice and superstition? Isn’t the primary point of this crisis to squish these things? Do we work against the founding ideals of equality and religious freedom?

Again, people can worship as they please, but they should not impose on others.

And then there is Trump himself: criminal, rapist, fraudster, insurrectionist, defamer narcissist. In what way is he saving for the future? Changing long held positions if a billionaire contributes towards his legal defenses? Tax cuts for the rich resulting in bigger deficits? He is into immediate gratification.

Spotty’s article reviews an interesting myth, but who is really Able and who is Caine?

[Bob Butler]

Normally I don’t repeat coverage MSNBC puts out. Most of it gets covered by other news agencies. This week they covered two conspiracies involving Trump that I had never heard of before, that weren’t widely reported. I thought I’d report them here.

One involved a campaign contribution of 10 million dollars given in the last days of the 2016 election against Hillary by the dictator of Egypt. This would be illegal under US law. The CIA got wind of it by various classified sources and confirmed that the $10,000,000 was withdrawn from an Egyptian government bank, and contained most of the Egyptian reserves of US currency. The FBI was going to get copies of Trump’s bank records to see if the money showed up there, a fairly routine step taken frequently in such conditions. This step was blocked by Bill Barr, and involved removing several investigators that were part of the Mueller investigation. The investigation was not restarted by the later Garland justice department. No reason why was given, but it is conjectured that the Justice Department was rather busy just then with the January 6 persecutions.

In return, the Egyptian dictator was one of the first who got together with Trump during his presidency and considerable funds held away from Egypt due to human rights violation were freed up by Trump.

Rachel Maddow then steered an interesting question to a legal expert. If Trump had squished the federal persecution, could a state invoke prosecution? This was done in the hush money case which got the 34 convictions. Could something similar be done? It turns out possibly yes. If the statute of limitations had run out during a certain Covid period, or if the person involved had left the state around that time, the statute of limitations could be extended and a case brought. It could possibly involve the falsification of business records in furtherance of another crime, in this case a foreign government contributing financing to a US election. So this might possibly lead to another felony case being launched in the Manhattan state courts.

News to me. An interesting suggestion by Maddow.

The second case involves a plot for the 2024 election. Recently Trump in various rally speeches, notably the recent Atlanta affair, told his followers he didn’t need their votes, and introduced members of the Georgia election commission as great contributors to the Republican cause. What gives? Maddow had a theory. The Republicans of late have been placing election deniers on various county boards responsible for verifying the election results. It is normally a formality. Such boards meet well after the various news agencies report the informal counts. Still, the theory is that if a county doesn’t get a majority of people verifying, and there are usually an equal number of Republicans and Democrats on such boards, the county is not officially verified and thus the state cannot be considered verified. Thus, many state electoral college electors don’t get appointed. If enough states don’t contribute, the would be winner of the vote would not have enough electoral college votes to reach a majority. In such a case, who would be president would be decided by the congressional delegations, with each state getting one vote. As the Republicans control more states, they could claim the White House.

This has already been tried. A little of it was done it 2020. More was done in 2022. There is a pro Democratic legal eagle who has noted the practice and fought against it with considerable success. If the denial of certification is not based on any evidence, which it seldom is, the courts generally force the verification and persecute the election deniers who try to purge the votes. There is anticipation, however, that Trump is counting on this approach working this time, and a legal team is preparing to fight back in the courts. Maddow had the leader of said team on as a guest.

So, shenanigans as usual. We’ll see what develops.