America..a Failed State?

[EvilEyeFleegle]

Enjoyed this article in Atlantic...comments? It's long, and there is some I disagree with..there is enough meat here to justify ignoring the fat..LOL

We Are Living in a Failed State

The coronavirus didn’t break America. It revealed what was already broken.

www.theatlantic.com

This second crisis, (the Great Recession) drove a profound wedge between Americans: between the upper and lower classes, Republicans and Democrats, metropolitan and rural people, the native-born and immigrants, ordinary Americans and their leaders. Social bonds had been under growing strain for several decades, and now they began to tear. The reforms of the Obama years, important as they were—in health care, financial regulation, green energy—had only palliative effects. The long recovery over the past decade enriched corporations and investors, lulled professionals, and left the working class further behind. The lasting effect of the slump was to increase polarization and to discredit authority, especially government’s.


Both parties were slow to grasp how much credibility they’d lost. The coming politics was populist. Its harbinger wasn’t Barack Obama but Sarah Palin, the absurdly unready vice-presidential candidate who scorned expertise and reveled in celebrity. She was Donald Trump’s John the Baptist.

The virus should have united Americans against a common threat. With different leadership, it might have. Instead, even as it spread from blue to red areas, attitudes broke down along familiar partisan lines. The virus also should have been a great leveler. You don’t have to be in the military or in debt to be a target—you just have to be human. But from the start, its effects have been skewed by the inequality that we’ve tolerated for so long. When tests for the virus were almost impossible to find, the wealthy and connected—the model and reality-TV host Heidi Klum, the entire roster of the Brooklyn Nets, the president’s conservative allies—were somehow able to get tested, despite many showing no symptoms. The smattering of individual results did nothing to protect public health. Meanwhile, ordinary people with fevers and chills had to wait in long and possibly infectious lines, only to be turned away because they weren’t actually suffocating. An internet joke proposed that the only way to find out whether you had the virus was to sneeze in a rich person’s face.


When Trump was asked about this blatant unfairness, he expressed disapproval but added, “Perhaps that’s been the story of life.”

I have to say...that Trump spoke the truth--hard and bitter--but 'it is what it is' sometimes. There is no question in my mind that our incessant faction fighting is hurting us. It crippled our decision making process in the beginning..and now it threatens to taint our recovery.

 

[Billy_Kinetta]

These are not "factions" in the usual sense. While the Republicans have their issues, it is The Democratic Party that is diametrically opposed to all things Constitutional. They are in effect a foreign interloper into American politics that seeks to undermine our founding principles in favor of a governing philosophy based upon deceit, statutory theft and totalitarian rule.

Sorry, but there can be no compromise.

 

[EvilEyeFleegle]

These are not "factions" in the usual sense. While the Republicans have their issues, it is The Democratic Party that is diametrically opposed to all things Constitutional. They are in effect a foreign interloper into American politics that seeks to undermine our founding principles in favor of a governing philosophy based upon deceit, statutory theft and totalitarian rule.

Sorry, but there can be no compromise.

LOL! I look to your post as a classic example of an attack by an adherent of one faction upon its rival faction. Your reply is more a 'manifesto' than any cogent response to the OP..IMO.

These are factions in the very usual sense..competing adherents to one or another issue...running in allied packs--attacking their rivals in every forum..at any time...buying into realpolitik and conditioning their ethics situationally..with one filter..does it help/hinder my goals.

 

[Billy_Kinetta]

These are not "factions" in the usual sense. While the Republicans have their issues, it is The Democratic Party that is diametrically opposed to all things Constitutional. They are in effect a foreign interloper into American politics that seeks to undermine our founding principles in favor of a governing philosophy based upon deceit, statutory theft and totalitarian rule.

Sorry, but there can be no compromise.

LOL! I look to your post as a classic example of an attack by an adherent of one faction upon its rival faction. Your reply is more a 'manifesto' than any cogent response to the OP..IMO.

These are factions in the very usual sense..competing adherents to one or another issue...running in allied packs--attacking their rivals in every forum..at any time...buying into realpolitik and conditioning their ethics situationally..with one filter..does it help/hinder my goals.

If "American" is a "faction" within its own nation, I'm guilty.

 

[EvilEyeFleegle]

These are not "factions" in the usual sense. While the Republicans have their issues, it is The Democratic Party that is diametrically opposed to all things Constitutional. They are in effect a foreign interloper into American politics that seeks to undermine our founding principles in favor of a governing philosophy based upon deceit, statutory theft and totalitarian rule.

Sorry, but there can be no compromise.

LOL! I look to your post as a classic example of an attack by an adherent of one faction upon its rival faction. Your reply is more a 'manifesto' than any cogent response to the OP..IMO.

These are factions in the very usual sense..competing adherents to one or another issue...running in allied packs--attacking their rivals in every forum..at any time...buying into realpolitik and conditioning their ethics situationally..with one filter..does it help/hinder my goals.

If "American" is a "faction" within its own nation, I'm guilty.

An American is any citizen of the United States of America. Your attempt to define and limit the use and definition is part of the problem. You know full well what I'm talking about and yet choose to write otherwise--that's a tactic.

As to being a tiny part of the problem..I accept your plea...do better.

 

[Mikeoxenormous]

Enjoyed this article in Atlantic...comments? It's long, and there is some I disagree with..there is enough meat here to justify ignoring the fat..LOL

We Are Living in a Failed State

The coronavirus didn’t break America. It revealed what was already broken.

www.theatlantic.com

This second crisis, (the Great Recession) drove a profound wedge between Americans: between the upper and lower classes, Republicans and Democrats, metropolitan and rural people, the native-born and immigrants, ordinary Americans and their leaders. Social bonds had been under growing strain for several decades, and now they began to tear. The reforms of the Obama years, important as they were—in health care, financial regulation, green energy—had only palliative effects. The long recovery over the past decade enriched corporations and investors, lulled professionals, and left the working class further behind. The lasting effect of the slump was to increase polarization and to discredit authority, especially government’s.


Both parties were slow to grasp how much credibility they’d lost. The coming politics was populist. Its harbinger wasn’t Barack Obama but Sarah Palin, the absurdly unready vice-presidential candidate who scorned expertise and reveled in celebrity. She was Donald Trump’s John the Baptist.

The virus should have united Americans against a common threat. With different leadership, it might have. Instead, even as it spread from blue to red areas, attitudes broke down along familiar partisan lines. The virus also should have been a great leveler. You don’t have to be in the military or in debt to be a target—you just have to be human. But from the start, its effects have been skewed by the inequality that we’ve tolerated for so long. When tests for the virus were almost impossible to find, the wealthy and connected—the model and reality-TV host Heidi Klum, the entire roster of the Brooklyn Nets, the president’s conservative allies—were somehow able to get tested, despite many showing no symptoms. The smattering of individual results did nothing to protect public health. Meanwhile, ordinary people with fevers and chills had to wait in long and possibly infectious lines, only to be turned away because they weren’t actually suffocating. An internet joke proposed that the only way to find out whether you had the virus was to sneeze in a rich person’s face.


When Trump was asked about this blatant unfairness, he expressed disapproval but added, “Perhaps that’s been the story of life.”

I have to say...that Trump spoke the truth--hard and bitter--but 'it is what it is' sometimes. There is no question in my mind that our incessant faction fighting is hurting us. It crippled our decision making process in the beginning..and now it threatens to taint our recovery.

I refer you to the Cloward and Piven strategy.

Cloward–Piven strategy - Wikipedia

Cloward–Piven strategy - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

The Cloward–Piven strategy is a political strategy outlined in 1966 by American sociologists and political activists Richard Cloward and Frances Fox Piven that called for overloading the U.S. public welfare system in order to precipitate a crisis that would lead to a replacement of the welfare system with "a guaranteed annual income and thus an end to poverty".

The liberals since the 1960's who became old and are now leading in Congress, have always wanted to turn this country into a USSofA, United Socialist States of America, where they can keep the serfs under their control while they eat cake.


Here is Nan Sanfransiko being such a bitch..



Here is what i think of her.

 

[White 6]

Enjoyed this article in Atlantic...comments? It's long, and there is some I disagree with..there is enough meat here to justify ignoring the fat..LOL

We Are Living in a Failed State

The coronavirus didn’t break America. It revealed what was already broken.

www.theatlantic.com

This second crisis, (the Great Recession) drove a profound wedge between Americans: between the upper and lower classes, Republicans and Democrats, metropolitan and rural people, the native-born and immigrants, ordinary Americans and their leaders. Social bonds had been under growing strain for several decades, and now they began to tear. The reforms of the Obama years, important as they were—in health care, financial regulation, green energy—had only palliative effects. The long recovery over the past decade enriched corporations and investors, lulled professionals, and left the working class further behind. The lasting effect of the slump was to increase polarization and to discredit authority, especially government’s.


Both parties were slow to grasp how much credibility they’d lost. The coming politics was populist. Its harbinger wasn’t Barack Obama but Sarah Palin, the absurdly unready vice-presidential candidate who scorned expertise and reveled in celebrity. She was Donald Trump’s John the Baptist.

The virus should have united Americans against a common threat. With different leadership, it might have. Instead, even as it spread from blue to red areas, attitudes broke down along familiar partisan lines. The virus also should have been a great leveler. You don’t have to be in the military or in debt to be a target—you just have to be human. But from the start, its effects have been skewed by the inequality that we’ve tolerated for so long. When tests for the virus were almost impossible to find, the wealthy and connected—the model and reality-TV host Heidi Klum, the entire roster of the Brooklyn Nets, the president’s conservative allies—were somehow able to get tested, despite many showing no symptoms. The smattering of individual results did nothing to protect public health. Meanwhile, ordinary people with fevers and chills had to wait in long and possibly infectious lines, only to be turned away because they weren’t actually suffocating. An internet joke proposed that the only way to find out whether you had the virus was to sneeze in a rich person’s face.


When Trump was asked about this blatant unfairness, he expressed disapproval but added, “Perhaps that’s been the story of life.”

I have to say...that Trump spoke the truth--hard and bitter--but 'it is what it is' sometimes. There is no question in my mind that our incessant faction fighting is hurting us. It crippled our decision making process in the beginning..and now it threatens to taint our recovery.

Over all another great and accurate article from The Atlantic, possibly dwelled on useless Kushner, longer than necessary, but a very good article. I keep coming back and being drawn back to The Atlantic, by quote and citation on Drudge, Memeorandom, and of course this message board. Guess I'll subscribe. Bet I can use a credit card, unlike this board where in order to support I have to use a PayPal account or send a check on one of my personal bank accounts. Thanks for the link, EvilEye.

 

[Tumblin Tumbleweed]

These are not "factions" in the usual sense. While the Republicans have their issues, it is The Democratic Party that is diametrically opposed to all things Constitutional. They are in effect a foreign interloper into American politics that seeks to undermine our founding principles in favor of a governing philosophy based upon deceit, statutory theft and totalitarian rule.

Sorry, but there can be no compromise.

What the fuck are you babbling about?

 

[candycorn]

Enjoyed this article in Atlantic...comments? It's long, and there is some I disagree with..there is enough meat here to justify ignoring the fat..LOL

We Are Living in a Failed State

The coronavirus didn’t break America. It revealed what was already broken.

www.theatlantic.com

This second crisis, (the Great Recession) drove a profound wedge between Americans: between the upper and lower classes, Republicans and Democrats, metropolitan and rural people, the native-born and immigrants, ordinary Americans and their leaders. Social bonds had been under growing strain for several decades, and now they began to tear. The reforms of the Obama years, important as they were—in health care, financial regulation, green energy—had only palliative effects. The long recovery over the past decade enriched corporations and investors, lulled professionals, and left the working class further behind. The lasting effect of the slump was to increase polarization and to discredit authority, especially government’s.


Both parties were slow to grasp how much credibility they’d lost. The coming politics was populist. Its harbinger wasn’t Barack Obama but Sarah Palin, the absurdly unready vice-presidential candidate who scorned expertise and reveled in celebrity. She was Donald Trump’s John the Baptist.

The virus should have united Americans against a common threat. With different leadership, it might have. Instead, even as it spread from blue to red areas, attitudes broke down along familiar partisan lines. The virus also should have been a great leveler. You don’t have to be in the military or in debt to be a target—you just have to be human. But from the start, its effects have been skewed by the inequality that we’ve tolerated for so long. When tests for the virus were almost impossible to find, the wealthy and connected—the model and reality-TV host Heidi Klum, the entire roster of the Brooklyn Nets, the president’s conservative allies—were somehow able to get tested, despite many showing no symptoms. The smattering of individual results did nothing to protect public health. Meanwhile, ordinary people with fevers and chills had to wait in long and possibly infectious lines, only to be turned away because they weren’t actually suffocating. An internet joke proposed that the only way to find out whether you had the virus was to sneeze in a rich person’s face.


When Trump was asked about this blatant unfairness, he expressed disapproval but added, “Perhaps that’s been the story of life.”

I have to say...that Trump spoke the truth--hard and bitter--but 'it is what it is' sometimes. There is no question in my mind that our incessant faction fighting is hurting us. It crippled our decision making process in the beginning..and now it threatens to taint our recovery.

I read the article. Excellent prose.

What did you disagree with?

 

[EvilEyeFleegle]

Enjoyed this article in Atlantic...comments? It's long, and there is some I disagree with..there is enough meat here to justify ignoring the fat..LOL

We Are Living in a Failed State

The coronavirus didn’t break America. It revealed what was already broken.

www.theatlantic.com

This second crisis, (the Great Recession) drove a profound wedge between Americans: between the upper and lower classes, Republicans and Democrats, metropolitan and rural people, the native-born and immigrants, ordinary Americans and their leaders. Social bonds had been under growing strain for several decades, and now they began to tear. The reforms of the Obama years, important as they were—in health care, financial regulation, green energy—had only palliative effects. The long recovery over the past decade enriched corporations and investors, lulled professionals, and left the working class further behind. The lasting effect of the slump was to increase polarization and to discredit authority, especially government’s.


Both parties were slow to grasp how much credibility they’d lost. The coming politics was populist. Its harbinger wasn’t Barack Obama but Sarah Palin, the absurdly unready vice-presidential candidate who scorned expertise and reveled in celebrity. She was Donald Trump’s John the Baptist.

The virus should have united Americans against a common threat. With different leadership, it might have. Instead, even as it spread from blue to red areas, attitudes broke down along familiar partisan lines. The virus also should have been a great leveler. You don’t have to be in the military or in debt to be a target—you just have to be human. But from the start, its effects have been skewed by the inequality that we’ve tolerated for so long. When tests for the virus were almost impossible to find, the wealthy and connected—the model and reality-TV host Heidi Klum, the entire roster of the Brooklyn Nets, the president’s conservative allies—were somehow able to get tested, despite many showing no symptoms. The smattering of individual results did nothing to protect public health. Meanwhile, ordinary people with fevers and chills had to wait in long and possibly infectious lines, only to be turned away because they weren’t actually suffocating. An internet joke proposed that the only way to find out whether you had the virus was to sneeze in a rich person’s face.


When Trump was asked about this blatant unfairness, he expressed disapproval but added, “Perhaps that’s been the story of life.”

I have to say...that Trump spoke the truth--hard and bitter--but 'it is what it is' sometimes. There is no question in my mind that our incessant faction fighting is hurting us. It crippled our decision making process in the beginning..and now it threatens to taint our recovery.

I read the article. Excellent prose.

What did you disagree with?

I think the writers spent too much time Trump-bashing--and not acknowledging that they themselves, are part of the problem..to some extent. the article is cogent and well-written..and slants left. Not enough to warp the facts...but more than enough to take a side.

 

[Olde Europe]

I have to say...that Trump spoke the truth--hard and bitter--but 'it is what it is' sometimes. There is no question in my mind that our incessant faction fighting is hurting us. It crippled our decision making process in the beginning..and now it threatens to taint our recovery.

Not failed, but a state with issues - like every state has.

But, one of the issues is that one of the two major parties has abandoned governing altogether, rejects constitutional and legal limits and guidance, and serves the plutocracy to the detriment of everybody else.

Now, the "faction fighting" does hurt, but Trump's failure starting in mid-January, when his intelligence community warned him against the coming pandemic, which he didn't want to hear, has had nothing whatsoever to do with faction fighting. It's a "chief magistrate" who is every Reagan-Republican's wet dream, demonstrating that government is the problem in ways really unimaginable - and that is after Katrina. What we get to observe is Republicanism in its purest form at work.

As to the recovery being tainted: The recovery can start when folks can be sure it's safe to go out to work and consume. The central precondition for that is testing. Ample, reliable, swift, with a near unlimited supply of swaps, reagents, chemicals. What we get to observe is another wild-west bonanza for private price gauging because Trump refuses to be involved, States (and the federal government) outbidding each other, taxpayers and healthcare premium payers fleeced up and down the country.

Did I mention, what we get to observe is Republicanism at work? Yep, I did. Privatizing public assets to be gobbled up by fat cats while leaving ordinary Americans, and communities of color in particular, to suffocate, literally and financially. I really, really cannot begin to understand how you find it in your own good self to decry "our incessant faction fighting" when governors from both parties beg Trump, after more than three years in office, finally to start to do his job.

 

[Mac1958]

If it happens, it will have been a self-inflicted wound.

The two fringes of our political DNA have allowed themselves to become convinced that they're in a "war", the other "side" is the "enemy", and that they must "defeat" them.

In a war, there's no right and wrong, lying is just fine, and collateral damage comes with the territory.

Our fringes are getting what they want, and the country is paying for it in real time.

 

[Correll]

These are not "factions" in the usual sense. While the Republicans have their issues, it is The Democratic Party that is diametrically opposed to all things Constitutional. They are in effect a foreign interloper into American politics that seeks to undermine our founding principles in favor of a governing philosophy based upon deceit, statutory theft and totalitarian rule.

Sorry, but there can be no compromise.

LOL! I look to your post as a classic example of an attack by an adherent of one faction upon its rival faction. Your reply is more a 'manifesto' than any cogent response to the OP..IMO.

These are factions in the very usual sense..competing adherents to one or another issue...running in allied packs--attacking their rivals in every forum..at any time...buying into realpolitik and conditioning their ethics situationally..with one filter..does it help/hinder my goals.

If "American" is a "faction" within its own nation, I'm guilty.

An American is any citizen of the United States of America. Your attempt to define and limit the use and definition is part of the problem. You know full well what I'm talking about and yet choose to write otherwise--that's a tactic.

As to being a tiny part of the problem..I accept your plea...do better.

If part of the reason America is a failed state, is the split between native born and immigrant, that would make high immigration a failed policy that should be reversed, asap.

Right?

 

[candycorn]

Enjoyed this article in Atlantic...comments? It's long, and there is some I disagree with..there is enough meat here to justify ignoring the fat..LOL

We Are Living in a Failed State

The coronavirus didn’t break America. It revealed what was already broken.

www.theatlantic.com

This second crisis, (the Great Recession) drove a profound wedge between Americans: between the upper and lower classes, Republicans and Democrats, metropolitan and rural people, the native-born and immigrants, ordinary Americans and their leaders. Social bonds had been under growing strain for several decades, and now they began to tear. The reforms of the Obama years, important as they were—in health care, financial regulation, green energy—had only palliative effects. The long recovery over the past decade enriched corporations and investors, lulled professionals, and left the working class further behind. The lasting effect of the slump was to increase polarization and to discredit authority, especially government’s.


Both parties were slow to grasp how much credibility they’d lost. The coming politics was populist. Its harbinger wasn’t Barack Obama but Sarah Palin, the absurdly unready vice-presidential candidate who scorned expertise and reveled in celebrity. She was Donald Trump’s John the Baptist.

The virus should have united Americans against a common threat. With different leadership, it might have. Instead, even as it spread from blue to red areas, attitudes broke down along familiar partisan lines. The virus also should have been a great leveler. You don’t have to be in the military or in debt to be a target—you just have to be human. But from the start, its effects have been skewed by the inequality that we’ve tolerated for so long. When tests for the virus were almost impossible to find, the wealthy and connected—the model and reality-TV host Heidi Klum, the entire roster of the Brooklyn Nets, the president’s conservative allies—were somehow able to get tested, despite many showing no symptoms. The smattering of individual results did nothing to protect public health. Meanwhile, ordinary people with fevers and chills had to wait in long and possibly infectious lines, only to be turned away because they weren’t actually suffocating. An internet joke proposed that the only way to find out whether you had the virus was to sneeze in a rich person’s face.


When Trump was asked about this blatant unfairness, he expressed disapproval but added, “Perhaps that’s been the story of life.”

I have to say...that Trump spoke the truth--hard and bitter--but 'it is what it is' sometimes. There is no question in my mind that our incessant faction fighting is hurting us. It crippled our decision making process in the beginning..and now it threatens to taint our recovery.

I read the article. Excellent prose.

What did you disagree with?

I think the writers spent too much time Trump-bashing--and not acknowledging that they themselves, are part of the problem..to some extent. the article is cogent and well-written..and slants left. Not enough to warp the facts...but more than enough to take a side.

Ok.

I thought he took it much too easy on the blob and kushy . He could have quoted the “miracle” guarantee, the “zero cases” prediction, the “it’s our stockpile” lunacy or any one of a dozen other bizarre statements.

 

[Camp]

America's current political and institutional difficulties will cease and become stronger than ever when they remove the buffoon currently residing in the White House pretending to be a President.

 

[Correll]

America's current political and institutional difficulties will cease and become stronger than ever when they remove the buffoon currently residing in the White House pretending to be a President.

No, they won't. Those that Trump spoke for, will still be here, being ignored by the Political Class and those who hate us, will keep attacking US.

 

[Billy_Kinetta]

These are not "factions" in the usual sense. While the Republicans have their issues, it is The Democratic Party that is diametrically opposed to all things Constitutional. They are in effect a foreign interloper into American politics that seeks to undermine our founding principles in favor of a governing philosophy based upon deceit, statutory theft and totalitarian rule.

Sorry, but there can be no compromise.

LOL! I look to your post as a classic example of an attack by an adherent of one faction upon its rival faction. Your reply is more a 'manifesto' than any cogent response to the OP..IMO.

These are factions in the very usual sense..competing adherents to one or another issue...running in allied packs--attacking their rivals in every forum..at any time...buying into realpolitik and conditioning their ethics situationally..with one filter..does it help/hinder my goals.

If "American" is a "faction" within its own nation, I'm guilty.

An American is any citizen of the United States of America. Your attempt to define and limit the use and definition is part of the problem. You know full well what I'm talking about and yet choose to write otherwise--that's a tactic.

And you know full well what I'm talking about when I vehemently disagree.

 

[candycorn]

Enjoyed this article in Atlantic...comments? It's long, and there is some I disagree with..there is enough meat here to justify ignoring the fat..LOL

We Are Living in a Failed State

The coronavirus didn’t break America. It revealed what was already broken.

www.theatlantic.com

This second crisis, (the Great Recession) drove a profound wedge between Americans: between the upper and lower classes, Republicans and Democrats, metropolitan and rural people, the native-born and immigrants, ordinary Americans and their leaders. Social bonds had been under growing strain for several decades, and now they began to tear. The reforms of the Obama years, important as they were—in health care, financial regulation, green energy—had only palliative effects. The long recovery over the past decade enriched corporations and investors, lulled professionals, and left the working class further behind. The lasting effect of the slump was to increase polarization and to discredit authority, especially government’s.


Both parties were slow to grasp how much credibility they’d lost. The coming politics was populist. Its harbinger wasn’t Barack Obama but Sarah Palin, the absurdly unready vice-presidential candidate who scorned expertise and reveled in celebrity. She was Donald Trump’s John the Baptist.

The virus should have united Americans against a common threat. With different leadership, it might have. Instead, even as it spread from blue to red areas, attitudes broke down along familiar partisan lines. The virus also should have been a great leveler. You don’t have to be in the military or in debt to be a target—you just have to be human. But from the start, its effects have been skewed by the inequality that we’ve tolerated for so long. When tests for the virus were almost impossible to find, the wealthy and connected—the model and reality-TV host Heidi Klum, the entire roster of the Brooklyn Nets, the president’s conservative allies—were somehow able to get tested, despite many showing no symptoms. The smattering of individual results did nothing to protect public health. Meanwhile, ordinary people with fevers and chills had to wait in long and possibly infectious lines, only to be turned away because they weren’t actually suffocating. An internet joke proposed that the only way to find out whether you had the virus was to sneeze in a rich person’s face.


When Trump was asked about this blatant unfairness, he expressed disapproval but added, “Perhaps that’s been the story of life.”

I have to say...that Trump spoke the truth--hard and bitter--but 'it is what it is' sometimes. There is no question in my mind that our incessant faction fighting is hurting us. It crippled our decision making process in the beginning..and now it threatens to taint our recovery.

Over all another great and accurate article from The Atlantic, possibly dwelled on useless Kushner, longer than necessary, but a very good article. I keep coming back and being drawn back to The Atlantic, by quote and citation on Drudge, Memeorandom, and of course this message board. Guess I'll subscribe. Bet I can use a credit card, unlike this board where in order to support I have to use a PayPal account or send a check on one of my personal bank accounts. Thanks for the link, EvilEye.

Seconded. Thanks for bringing it to our attention

 

[Olde Europe]

America's current political and institutional difficulties will cease and become stronger than ever when they remove the buffoon currently residing in the White House pretending to be a President.

You couldn't be more wrong. At least it's hard to see, how.

If you were right, you would see Republicans all over the country stand up to the Orange dunce, demonstrating they have a grasp of the "political and institutional difficulties". Trump is just the latest symptom Republicanism presents. The rot is not Trump, the rot is Republicanism, and it made Trump possible. And that rot will not go away if Trump is run out of office to a hail of jeers.

 

[EvilEyeFleegle]

I have to say...that Trump spoke the truth--hard and bitter--but 'it is what it is' sometimes. There is no question in my mind that our incessant faction fighting is hurting us. It crippled our decision making process in the beginning..and now it threatens to taint our recovery.

Not failed, but a state with issues - like every state has.

But, one of the issues is that one of the two major parties has abandoned governing altogether, rejects constitutional and legal limits and guidance, and serves the plutocracy to the detriment of everybody else.

Now, the "faction fighting" does hurt, but Trump's failure starting in mid-January, when his intelligence community warned him against the coming pandemic, which he didn't want to hear, has had nothing whatsoever to do with faction fighting. It's a "chief magistrate" who is every Reagan-Republican's wet dream, demonstrating that government is the problem in ways really unimaginable - and that is after Katrina. What we get to observe is Republicanism in its purest form at work.

As to the recovery being tainted: The recovery can start when folks can be sure it's safe to go out to work and consume. The central precondition for that is testing. Ample, reliable, swift, with a near unlimited supply of swaps, reagents, chemicals. What we get to observe is another wild-west bonanza for private price gauging because Trump refuses to be involved, States (and the federal government) outbidding each other, taxpayers and healthcare premium payers fleeced up and down the country.

Did I mention, what we get to observe is Republicanism at work? Yep, I did. Privatizing public assets to be gobbled up by fat cats while leaving ordinary Americans, and communities of color in particular, to suffocate, literally and financially. I really, really cannot begin to understand how you find it in your own good self to decry "our incessant faction fighting" when governors from both parties beg Trump, after more than three years in office, finally to start to do his job.

The solution to most of your issues is unity. Every problem is not Trump..every failure is not Republican. We, the people, elect our govt. top to bottom. If we get bad governance--we did it to ourselves. Olde Europe....I think the issue is that you...and most on both sides of the divide..want a win--and it just ain't coming. Until the one faction has total control..super-majority status all three branches---no one wins. I note..that the Civil War became inevitable when the South--ruled by the Democratic party of the time...realized that they had permanently lost control of the Congress.

All you say of Trump is true...and is nothing that an election can't cure. But if your solution is to replace Trump's pandering to his faction with some Democrat pandering to their faction...the wheels are going to come off sooner or later. It has gotten to the point where Trump really can't win with the left..so why blame him when he doesn't even try?
If Trump gets involved...he's wrong..if he does not...he's wrong. I've seen both arguments made lately..sometimes by the same person!

I'm a King Log guy..not a King Stork type. I'm comfortable with the States taking the lead. In fact, the degree of independence that some states are exhibiting is downright healthy..IMO.