One of the flies in the ointment for any group intending to actually govern is trade policy. Manufacturing is not going to be the basis of a healthy middle class ever again. Even if we grow this sector somewhat, the wages simply are no longer what they were.
Cyborg repair (ie medical care) becomes the closest replacement, but the good jobs require much more education than old school manufacturing did. And CR probably doesn't have the potential to employ as great a percentage of people in the workforce as manufacturing did at an American Dream level.
Hill mentions this from time to time, (her coal comments) but any politician talking seriously about this is going to get into trouble. The AmDream jobs are just not going to keep pace to sustain a 50's, 60's middle class. (At some point, not sure where, I saw a mash up of Trump and Archie Bunker. It worked well enough, although not as well as the masher-uppers thought it did.)
I'm not sure how either party figures this out as a feature of their coalition. It's likely to be one of the structural features that keep unhappy politics careening forward.
I have a hard time taking the reformicons seriously on either policy or politics. The quest for "conservative solutions" seems to stress the conservative part to the exclusion of the solution part. O Care as an erstwhile reformicon policy idea becomes unacceptable as soon as its acceptable. The rest of their agenda such as it exist is tax cuts and deregulation.
And Boehner seemed to never to be able to deliver his caucus after making a deal. They need to improve their political muscle to entice any D shift to the center.
B Clinton moved right to make liberalism conceptually palatable again. The Rs can't expect the Ds to do all the heavy lifting and then get anywhere.
H Clinton has her own worries needing to protect her left flank from the Bern-ers. The reformicons need to give her something to work with.
Not to minimize the breathtaking leap of faith this would require.
As good a summary of the current proceedings and their history as I've seen.
Maybe it's a too obvious point, but I was surprised by not explicitly discussing the Jacobin cleansing of the party of RINO's. In 2008, after O took office, ID-ing RINO's seemed a pervasive activity where ever R's gathered on or off line. With the process as complete as it could be without actual violence, the need for the insult has all but disappeared.
Now the party itself is itself Republican in name only. It's a ham handed irony worthy of any in O. Henry or the Twilight Zone.
One of the flies in the ointment for any group intending to actually govern is trade policy. Manufacturing is not going to be the basis of a healthy middle class ever again. Even if we grow this sector somewhat, the wages simply are no longer what they were.
Cyborg repair (ie medical care) becomes the closest replacement, but the good jobs require much more education than old school manufacturing did. And CR probably doesn't have the potential to employ as great a percentage of people in the workforce as manufacturing did at an American Dream level.
Hill mentions this from time to time, (her coal comments) but any politician talking seriously about this is going to get into trouble. The AmDream jobs are just not going to keep pace to sustain a 50's, 60's middle class. (At some point, not sure where, I saw a mash up of Trump and Archie Bunker. It worked well enough, although not as well as the masher-uppers thought it did.)
I'm not sure how either party figures this out as a feature of their coalition. It's likely to be one of the structural features that keep unhappy politics careening forward.
I have a hard time taking the reformicons seriously on either policy or politics. The quest for "conservative solutions" seems to stress the conservative part to the exclusion of the solution part. O Care as an erstwhile reformicon policy idea becomes unacceptable as soon as its acceptable. The rest of their agenda such as it exist is tax cuts and deregulation.
And Boehner seemed to never to be able to deliver his caucus after making a deal. They need to improve their political muscle to entice any D shift to the center.
B Clinton moved right to make liberalism conceptually palatable again. The Rs can't expect the Ds to do all the heavy lifting and then get anywhere.
H Clinton has her own worries needing to protect her left flank from the Bern-ers. The reformicons need to give her something to work with.
Not to minimize the breathtaking leap of faith this would require.
But hey, it aint't beanbag.
As good a summary of the current proceedings and their history as I've seen.
Maybe it's a too obvious point, but I was surprised by not explicitly discussing the Jacobin cleansing of the party of RINO's. In 2008, after O took office, ID-ing RINO's seemed a pervasive activity where ever R's gathered on or off line. With the process as complete as it could be without actual violence, the need for the insult has all but disappeared.
Now the party itself is itself Republican in name only. It's a ham handed irony worthy of any in O. Henry or the Twilight Zone.