Greetings from an older post-Empire country. I am much more sanguine about this. This may be the last big gesture of a dying trend.
I think we have always had people who reason as follows…
things are not what they were
people like us have not changed
people not like us must be to blame
My old Latin teacher said to us in the sixties “The two things that bought down the British Empire were Association Football and the Beatles”. Seriously, he still thought could that lack of moral fibre lost us India, and Mods and Rockers meant the End Times. If you think he was one lone wackpot, remember Churchill’s “this was their finest hour” came after “if the British Empire and its Commonwealth last for a thousand years…”, and many people thought it might.
My guess is about 1/7th of any country thinks like this. They have taken away our jobs. They have sapped the vital force that drove our Great Nation. It’s easy to write this sort of stirring stuff, and it is much harder to come up with an equally stirring counter-argument. The real counter-argument is not to join in. Avoid direct conflict if you can. Avoid sudden, discontinuous change. Gently push back. They are mostly old, so there should be less of them each day.
Politics should change a bit. As the basic needs of most people are met, the struggle becomes less important for many, voter figures drop, and you end up with stalemates between two large parties and other smaller ones. If my one-in-seven-of-your-country-is-a-jerk is true, these people will get more leverage as they are more likely to hold the casting vote and are more likely to turn out to vote. But you don’t have to abolish democracy: just avoid referendums, or insist on a 60% majority for change.
With luck, we will escape the worst, and these days will provide a dark example of what might have happened to guide us for years to come. Or, you actually elect that bladder of hate, and we’re all boned.
When I was in middle school I said I wished we’d just elect someone (someone qualified) with as many such characteristics as possible just to get them out of the way.
Quit trying to absolve Clinton from being a terrible candidate. The only reason we are stuck with her is because Trump is so very bad. They don’t have to be equal for it to also be a tragedy that we will be stuck with her.
Typical Latin teacher, not knowing that the Beatles were small children when India went, in 1947. (He wasn’t Enoch Powell was he? Powell was so out of touch that when he talked about the Tiber foaming with blood, it was because he thought London was actually on the Tiber*.)
But what older post-Empire country? I’m British, just with strong links to the US.
*OK, not really. But in the end he actually went totally mad and went to Northern Ireland, which is where paranoia, hysteria and psychopathy are seen as positive qualities in Protestant politicians.
There’s a lovely comment on this from Edith Hall’s blog:
“If Powell had written this in an essay for me, I would have failed it and pointed out that it was no ‘Roman’ who said this, but the Greek Delphic Apollo, via his priestess at the equally Greek colony of Cumae, near Naples. She told Aeneas (no Roman, either), who was applying for an Italian work permit, ‘I see wars, horrid wars, and the Tiber foaming with much blood’ (bella, horrida bella / et Thybrim multo spumantem sanguine cerno’ (6.86-7).”
Powell was overrated as a classicist too. Gough Whitlam described him as a “textual maniac”. Personally, I think his problem was summarised in a different context by Eliot: “We had the experience but missed the meaning.”
Mussolini seemed actually to invite it.
There seems to be a rule with dictators; the more ridiculous their pretensions, the sillier the hat. The North Koreans extended this to dictator hairstyles, and then Trump extended this in turn to mere would-be dictators. Someone with academic credentials needs to write a book about this.
Will there be states seceding if he wins? Mass migrations of US citizens to Canada and/or Mexico, or anywhere else they can afford to go? Riots? I mean, if folks get out-of-hand when their favorite football team loses or wins a crucial game, what’s to say T-supporters won’t? I remember what happened in Detroit when the Tigers won the World Series in 1984.
If he loses…again, look at what has happened with some sports teams losing.
No. Just grumbling, support of the opposition, and comments like “Well, I didn’t vote for her!” Nobody did nothing when Obama was elected even though he was going to take their guns and whatnot.
[quote=“Enkita, post:117, topic:87451”]
Assuming HRC gets in and lasts two terms, followed by the Republicans for 2 terms, 2032 is going to be the year of the black woman President, probably opposed by a Republican candidate who has had plastic surgery to look like Lincoln and who turns out to be a serial killer, and whose running mate is a robot operated by remote control from the Cato Institute.[/quote] Abraham Lincoln? That would totally piss off the South. For that matter, libertarians aren’t too fond of him either.
I’m looking forward to 2132 A.D., when the Pan Sapients run an uplifted hermaphroditic Border collie against a Republican baseline-human white guy who refuses to get a media implant and needs to make press conferences in person in front of a camera.
Well, I hear there’s a service called Maple Match that helps Americans date Canadians, to help them escape a Trump-run USA (or just for fun.)
If I was a little more interested in dating right now, I might consider it… naaah. I mean, the guy would also have to put up with my dad, two dogs and a pet bird. That’s a lot to deal with, even for me!
I mean, the guy would also have to put up with my dad, two dogs and a pet bird. That’s a lot to deal with, even for me!