PART II
In order to appropriately look to the future of America, we do need to take a look back. Where we are now did not happen overnight and reversing our current course won't either.
This started long before Donald Trump came along, and it goes back to at least the administration of the late Ronald Reagan and HIS Republican party. The tendency to resort to division among Americans really either started or began accelerating during the early 1980's. I have no clue whether or not Russia had a hand in what was to happen going forward at this point but they certainly saw it happening and put their thumb on the proverbial scale early on. Others have to a certain extent but it is Russia who has done the most as an adversary to sow discord and division in an attempt to disrupt and ultimately destroy democracy, American style. They have tried the same tactics in Europe and elsewhere.
I am now going to seem to take a slightly different tack perhaps than people are used to seeing from me, but here is the deal. There are multiple schools of thought about how to approach all this. One is to realize that the vast majority of rank and file Republicans have been duped from party leaders/funders like Karl Rove, Donald Rumsfeld, the Koch Brothers, and those who feel that no matter what source you give it, the rankers have bought it all hook line and stinker and are beyond reaching, and thus they should be seen as the enemy and pushed to the curb at the bus stop JUST AS the bus pulls up. That is one theory or approach.
The other is that yes, the rank and file Republicans have been duped but through no fault of their own and thus need to be reached AND SAVED FROM THEMSELVES...a task needless to say easier said than done, especially since most of them are totally dug into their duped (but reality for them) fantasies.
Actually, I have under intense scrutiny decided to realize that it is a bit more complicated than that and will come down a bit more in the middle, or a third approach and in order to do that I think we have to look at what underlies the issues that seem to be dividing us.
There is no question that the emerging globalization of the early 80's combined with the rapid acceleration of high technology each displaced workers by the droves. For many this proved to be a catastrophic displacement of what they had come to believe was their life for life. No longer was it as true as before that you got a job when young and worked there until you died. This all built on the earlier changes in American mobility which began after World War II and began to escalate rapidly with the Eisenhower Administration and the construction of the Interstate Highway System which began in the 1950s and 1960s.
SUDDENLY, America found itself able to not only travel far greater distances by road and not just train or bus (or plane), but to be able to actually MOVE far away and yet be able to return to visit rather easily but in truth that scenario began to dissipate over time and it became much more a matter of moving away long distances and returning less and less often thus disrupting the nuclear family as a unit and making that somewhat vital in many of our lives. Parents and grown children became less a unit than previously. Grandparents and grandchildren became much more separated as a matter of course. It became far less a normal pattern to live separated lives for longer and longer periods.
Then we began to forge new friendships distant from what we were used to and many of us no longer NEEDED to rely on our families for the emotional support we had always been used to. But this new so-called mobility also tended to not only scatter us as people but our businesses and work places. We moved, and our workplaces also moved and not always to the same places and that caused a shift in our emotional balances. Many of us subsequently found ourselves losing our jobs while also now separated from our support mechanisms which were either now farther away or maybe now gone totally. This created an uneasiness not to mention fear bordering on panic which to this day has never totally gone away. Most Americans have over time adjusted to the new American reality but not completely.
Then, along with the rapid rise in technology, the outsourcing of jobs overseas, and then the new BIG BOX economy, along came subsequently a lowering of wages and benefits, and thus peace of mind. Businesses especially manufacturers needed less people as productivity became far more dependent on machines. It is understandable that for so many Americans a feeling of almost helplessness set in, and then a feeling of something akin to hopelessness...often held internally. I understand that and can sympathize. But HERE is where the NEW REALITY as composed and propagated by the Republican heirachy began to forge a different path. Rather than formulate ideas and programs to HELP the divisions to cause less pain and to help heal the divides, as the Democrats often tried to do (not always and often not successfully, but...) they made a 'divide and conquer' decision to capitalize on the feelings so many Americans had and use it to their advantage.
They turned a large group of mostly under-educated unsophisticated, mostly rural and working class Americans into what I call the 'Working Whinies' class and by constantly and relentlessly tweaking and stroking these feelings of aggrievance and 'I been had' among this group they just kept on tweaking their narrative until by the time Trump came along the pump was definitely primed.
I agree that many if not most of this large (but still minority) group of people are not reachable but if ANY of them are I think we should try...BY trying to educate them on how their situation came about in the first place AND THEN coming up with solutions to change the course for the better for THEM AS WELL as the rest of us.
THIS is where Biden comes in. Trump will never care enough about anything or anyone but himself to do ANYTHING for this 40% of Americans. Biden will...and here is why...
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