Like most people caught up in a football game, there’s a tendency to get drawn into the wave of the moment. One team is winning, and the other is losing, and one has the momentum. As a Ravens fan, time has taught me that there is no score that cannot be undermined in the last two minutes or even the last 10 seconds of a game. It’s like the rest of the game never happened. So it is with the political environment. Nothing is as it seems when it comes to ‘winning’. I think I have the appearance of pulling notions out thin air but then events transpire and at the last minute, it all becomes clearer. Referencing a few of those notions that I’ve written in the past few years and maybe a few new ideas pulled in, here are some observations:
I’ve said a couple of times, that Trump won’t run again. For the most part, right now, as I ‘watch the game’ with its present momentum, that seems absurd. I question my own rational’ in making that declaration but yet, I suspect events will conspire to force that circumstance. Maybe I’m wrong, but this is still what I see.
I wrote a piece that implied that a new wave of Socialism was due to sweep the US. The Socialists make loud headlines but have no real clout or money, but don’t underestimate the force of grass root social movements. In the last 100 years, they’ve overcome much higher barriers. It would be very easy to write off the very un-bright Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the new Dem Socialist congress-person. She recently suggested replacing the Columbus Day holiday with a voting holiday. That actually makes sense and plays well with her base on a national level. Conservatives are so caught up ridiculing her civics knowledge that they’ll totally miss her learning curve. Plus, she’s not too bad looking when her choppers aren’t showing.
What’s to become of the present conservative movement that’s enjoying a heyday? The foundations are somewhere between weak and illusions. As quickly as it turned one way, it can turn another. Demographics play a big part. Even with a low birthrate and younger generations trending left or non-committal, the voting older generations that may have balanced that out are leaving us in even larger numbers. Trump himself could dispatch large chucks of his base – a many faceted bunch with varying loyalties. Its easy to be MAGA when stocks are up, but will they all tolerate the shit-show when things go south or even more profound, if Trump takes a sudden hard turn for the exit door late; not that that’s guaranteed, but what if?
News flash: Trump had a beginning and he’ll have a demise. He’ll be winning until he is not. The pendulum swung one way in response to the effete Obama administration and the same fate will occur when Trump’s time is up. I don’t see my conservative friends really grappling with that. At all. And there will be wreckage and vengeance and most likely but not certain, an even wilder swing to the other side.
The platform upon which we stand is changing. Traditional causes like pocket book issues and jobs? Gone. Washington will be powerless to address jobs with the scale of the robotization coming. Privacy? None, just ask Alexa or her friends, all reporting back to mothership Alphabet-Google.
Winning is elusive, transitory, ephemeral. Buckle up because there is a lot of game left.