Paul Krugman:
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Paul Krugman:
“How did a great, sophisticated nation, one of the world’s longest-standing republics, end up so fragile that it can be undone by one man’s dementia? …The answer…lies in the straight line from Bush vs Gore & the Roberts Supreme Court, to January 6th, to the execution of Renee Good. However, what’s more important is that we realize where we are right now, that we don’t try to sugarcoat & sanewash what’s happening: A petulant, violent and deranged individual is running America.”@NinaBernstein1 It probably started much earlier. Reagan? It's hard to see how 40+ years of market fundamentalism won't kill democracy and make the country politically unstable. This is not new and has been covered by philosophers like Locke, Smith and Marx 150+ years ago. Plato probably considered this as well. Almost seems like the cycle of power concentration and self destruction is unavoidable...
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@NinaBernstein1 It probably started much earlier. Reagan? It's hard to see how 40+ years of market fundamentalism won't kill democracy and make the country politically unstable. This is not new and has been covered by philosophers like Locke, Smith and Marx 150+ years ago. Plato probably considered this as well. Almost seems like the cycle of power concentration and self destruction is unavoidable...
@NinaBernstein1 actually, US liberal democracy could probably be considered dead 10+ years ago. If it ever really existed. Because of the huge and accelerating economical inequality, and implied political inequality. Trump just made it explicit. The Dems lost because they seemed (were/are?) fine with status quo. Many European countries are in the same situation.
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Paul Krugman:
“How did a great, sophisticated nation, one of the world’s longest-standing republics, end up so fragile that it can be undone by one man’s dementia? …The answer…lies in the straight line from Bush vs Gore & the Roberts Supreme Court, to January 6th, to the execution of Renee Good. However, what’s more important is that we realize where we are right now, that we don’t try to sugarcoat & sanewash what’s happening: A petulant, violent and deranged individual is running America.”@NinaBernstein1
It is important to remember that this isn't only Trump's doing. Without the near complete support of the Republican Party, this damage wouldn't be happening. A vote for a Republican, ANY Republican, is your blessing to all that this administration is doing. Any decent person would have left the GOP by now. -
Paul Krugman:
“How did a great, sophisticated nation, one of the world’s longest-standing republics, end up so fragile that it can be undone by one man’s dementia? …The answer…lies in the straight line from Bush vs Gore & the Roberts Supreme Court, to January 6th, to the execution of Renee Good. However, what’s more important is that we realize where we are right now, that we don’t try to sugarcoat & sanewash what’s happening: A petulant, violent and deranged individual is running America.”@NinaBernstein1 TBH I don't think its helpful to claim that Trump is demented, or deranged. It's not really true (yet) and it just makes his base draw closer around him, driven by the effects of identity fusion.
He is immensely self serving, narcissistic and greedy and has hit upon the highly effective techniques of keeping himself in the news by continually shocking people with his utterances and keeping opponents off-balance by being entirely unreliable in character and in action.
And here we are again, giving him oxygen.
And yes, the ultra rich are given access because they can give Trump what he wants. Money, and the power that flows from it.
But IMO the really dangerous people are the ideologues who have entered a symbiotic relationship with Trump. Miller, Yarvin, Vought, Roberts, Wiles et al.
He lets them operate largely out of sight, but they are the true danger to your democracy. They are what changed between 45 and 47.
Just my two cents.
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@NinaBernstein1 actually, US liberal democracy could probably be considered dead 10+ years ago. If it ever really existed. Because of the huge and accelerating economical inequality, and implied political inequality. Trump just made it explicit. The Dems lost because they seemed (were/are?) fine with status quo. Many European countries are in the same situation.
@NinaBernstein1 I wonder what part the joker, weirdo or "The Mule" plays in this cycle. The catalyst. The Hitler or Trump that just takes over without any significant resistance. Against all odds. Probably because systems and norms are unstable or in transition. I.e. is it more probable that the joker takes the role of the catalyst?
Probably time to sleep instead of speculating into the void. And I should probably read the Foundation again.
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Paul Krugman:
“How did a great, sophisticated nation, one of the world’s longest-standing republics, end up so fragile that it can be undone by one man’s dementia? …The answer…lies in the straight line from Bush vs Gore & the Roberts Supreme Court, to January 6th, to the execution of Renee Good. However, what’s more important is that we realize where we are right now, that we don’t try to sugarcoat & sanewash what’s happening: A petulant, violent and deranged individual is running America.”@NinaBernstein1 If you don't stop idolizing your 'great, sophisticated nation' and ignoring that it was founded by genocidal slave owners, there is 0 chance that you will make a correct analysis of how maga came to power which will guarantee that you will not change anything meaningful. However painful it may be, you need to come to actual terms with your history, otherwise you will always repeat it.
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@NinaBernstein1 That paragraph makes no sense though. It starts out right; America, you did this to yourself - and then it makes a complete U-turn at speed & makes it all a problem of one man.
HOW did a deranged, corrupt madman come to run America? Because America wanted him, that's how.
Find out why, or it will happen again.
The poison has always been there. Before Reagan, there was Nixon. Before that, it was McCarthy. The segregationists, the anti Communists, the secessionists, the anti feminists, the Moral Majority, the billionaires. They’re all part of the insanity, the fear, the need for control. They are inherently anti democratic, with some more overt than others. I have always phrased it as this: They would rather be king of a dung heap than share any power. That’s where we’re headed.
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Paul Krugman:
“How did a great, sophisticated nation, one of the world’s longest-standing republics, end up so fragile that it can be undone by one man’s dementia? …The answer…lies in the straight line from Bush vs Gore & the Roberts Supreme Court, to January 6th, to the execution of Renee Good. However, what’s more important is that we realize where we are right now, that we don’t try to sugarcoat & sanewash what’s happening: A petulant, violent and deranged individual is running America.”@NinaBernstein1 And is enabled by Republicans in power. They must ALL be removed. Every single one of them. #USPol #VoteRepublicansOut
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Paul Krugman:
“How did a great, sophisticated nation, one of the world’s longest-standing republics, end up so fragile that it can be undone by one man’s dementia? …The answer…lies in the straight line from Bush vs Gore & the Roberts Supreme Court, to January 6th, to the execution of Renee Good. However, what’s more important is that we realize where we are right now, that we don’t try to sugarcoat & sanewash what’s happening: A petulant, violent and deranged individual is running America.”@NinaBernstein1 There are other starting points:
1. The rise of Murdoch's media.
2. We did not punish those guilty in Iran-Contra.
3. The senate confirmation of C. Thomas to SCOTUS was nothing but the approval of a know-little lawyer, with clearly expressed rejection of Constitutional law in favor if make-it-up-natural law, who was (and perhaps still is) a sexual predator, and who was the beneficiary of grossly misplaced "affirmative action" because he was a) black replacing the black Thurgood Marshall, and in some odd contrition for the rejection of the clearly unqualified Bork. (Guess who headed that confirmation committee and voted to confirm?)
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The poison has always been there. Before Reagan, there was Nixon. Before that, it was McCarthy. The segregationists, the anti Communists, the secessionists, the anti feminists, the Moral Majority, the billionaires. They’re all part of the insanity, the fear, the need for control. They are inherently anti democratic, with some more overt than others. I have always phrased it as this: They would rather be king of a dung heap than share any power. That’s where we’re headed.
The new means of production are information and infrastructure, and if US tech companies can manage to monopolise those areas and force individuals and States into tech dependency then they will have successfully recreated the conditions of the first industrial revolution, with all the same issues of war, poverty, wealth and class inequality and environmental degradation.
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The new means of production are information and infrastructure, and if US tech companies can manage to monopolise those areas and force individuals and States into tech dependency then they will have successfully recreated the conditions of the first industrial revolution, with all the same issues of war, poverty, wealth and class inequality and environmental degradation.
@ReggieHere @lucybeahere @NinaBernstein1 I always believed that the term "means of production" was just a phrasing of the time & the actual message of it is "means of value creation" - which, yes, means it applies to the information landscape now, just as it applied to factories & machines back in the day.
