I keep saying to anybody who will listen that it's physics: the pendulum swings back and forth because it has to. The current political pendulum has swung so far so fast it cannot and will not hold. It's hell in the meantime, unfortunately.
As a late baby boomer, it seems like I grew up during a time of exceptional stability in the United States because from after WWII until the early 1990's there was a kind of predictability due to the US being one of the major economic beneficiaries after the war. And we had the Soviet Union as our "big bad." After the demise of the Soviet Union it seems like Americans have been scrambling to find a new villain and unfortunately we've turned on each other. My mostly intuitive take. My main concern at the moment is that politics feel like a WWF clown show in which none of the players seem to be encountering negative consequences from their behavior. In fact, I'd argue most of the consequences: media attention and money have been positive. At some point something will "break" and will piss enough people off that things will have to change. Just hoping what breaks won't be catastrophic like, you know, a civil war or a small pox pandemic, or a serious economic collapse.
Good ole Steve Bannon. Well I hope we can find a way to deal with the bs flood. It’s going to get worse. We’re smart I bet we can figure something out. Or maybe it needs to get a lot worse. Hope not.
I keep saying to anybody who will listen that it's physics: the pendulum swings back and forth because it has to. The current political pendulum has swung so far so fast it cannot and will not hold. It's hell in the meantime, unfortunately.
This is actually a very comforting post.
As a late baby boomer, it seems like I grew up during a time of exceptional stability in the United States because from after WWII until the early 1990's there was a kind of predictability due to the US being one of the major economic beneficiaries after the war. And we had the Soviet Union as our "big bad." After the demise of the Soviet Union it seems like Americans have been scrambling to find a new villain and unfortunately we've turned on each other. My mostly intuitive take. My main concern at the moment is that politics feel like a WWF clown show in which none of the players seem to be encountering negative consequences from their behavior. In fact, I'd argue most of the consequences: media attention and money have been positive. At some point something will "break" and will piss enough people off that things will have to change. Just hoping what breaks won't be catastrophic like, you know, a civil war or a small pox pandemic, or a serious economic collapse.
That's a good point about needing a new villain. From my view here in the D.C.-area, it feels like a blitz. This piece from Ezra Klein sums it up a bit -- that those in power are just flooding the zone so quickly that no one knows where to turn. https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/02/opinion/ezra-klein-podcast-trump-column-read.html
Good ole Steve Bannon. Well I hope we can find a way to deal with the bs flood. It’s going to get worse. We’re smart I bet we can figure something out. Or maybe it needs to get a lot worse. Hope not.