It starts today

I'm not coming from hippy far left fairy land on this. I happen to think that societies don't function well when folks stop trusting each other and start hating each other. I'm not saying that Trump has some kind of black magic that makes it happen. I'm arguing from transactions cost economics which is the best explanation out there for why societies stabilize and prosper.

I'm also saddened by the venom I read on facebook. Folks today on my feed saying that Trump's decision to stop sending tax payer money to foreign organizations that support abortion -something roughly more than half the country has trouble with- is barbaric. That's lunacy. When people start calling each other barbarians over political beliefs, the society experiences upheaval. And it's already happening. Look at the last two years. Crime is up, life expectancy is down. People are angry. People on both sides, but especially the POTUS, need to quit feeding that beast or it will have some very dire consequences. If that makes me a snowflake, I guess I'll wear that label.


http://pdf.usaid.gov/pdf_docs/PNABM255.pdf

 

Countries that fix their institutions (property rights, rule of law, and especially corruption) start to prosper because people are not afraid to invest in the future (whether it's business, education, etc.). Folks in a messed up society live for today and distrust those not in their family or in-group.

 

I'll have to respond in more detail later, but I think I see the issue through a different lense more than I disagree with what you're saying. I guess I see our stagnant economy as the culprit for a lot of this. It can explain increased crime, declining life expectancy and general discontent. I see the distrust and vitriol as a consequence of economic upheaval rather than the other way around.

 

Well, I must be a snowflake too, then.

Because I believe that it's possible to have disagreement over political beliefs without being a [penis] about it. I'm sick of hyper partisanship. I'm sick of one side hating an idea just because someone not from their party proposed it. The worst of all this is when folks voice more support for foreign entities than leaders that are from a different party. That happened with Bush and Obama. My views on the Russia stuff and the vigorous defense of them by some simply because it was hurting the candidate they didn't support and helped their candidate is that it is utterly appalling. No, not pointing out anyone in particular, but it happened. A lot. In many places. That's getting close to treasonous talk to me. There's absolutely no use for it. It's putting party over country. To quote Sean Spicer, "PERIOD!".

 

https://youtu.be/GLG9g7BcjKs

Pretty good rant I saw today about how Trump won.

 

On behalf of south dakota . . .

 

Well, sure, North Dakota . . .

 

Did a liberal just say this silliness?

 

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There's definitely a lot of endogeneity (feedback loops) between institutions and economic strength. It's a chicken/egg type thing. Damage to one can definitely hurt the other. But I am not seeing this economic downturn right now, though you might argue that chickens are coming home to roost --I'm using a lot of chicken analogies-- from 2008. (As in the chronically unemployed/underemployed have had enough.) I think people are more angry because they're being incited towards anger though. For instance, I sometimes watch FoxNews. They are constantly (like every time I tune in) doing a story about some random lib behaving badly to try to fire folks up and then act like it's everywhere. Like before Christmas they ran this story about someone leaving a note on a napkin at a Starbucks that they would like more generic Christmas music w/o religious references. Apparently the server took a picture of it and put it out there and it went viral because the libs are upping their attacks on Christmas. The horror. And then I hear two of my family members at Christmas talking about how bad it is out there for Christians-that we're being persecuted and something needs to be done and hopefully Trump does it. It's nonsense. Last night they spent 10 minutes out of every hour talking about a Trump supporter who was being belittled on a plane by a woman. National news apparently. It never stops

 

Yeah I almost mentioned the chicken/egg thing in my post. As for the economic downturn, that's to some extent my opinion that can't be fully supported with evidence. I don't believe employment statistics, stock market data and other metrics can capture reality for the average American as well as many believe.

I'd have to search for it but there's an interesting clip of Obama talking about this when someone asked him why he thought there was so much discontent despite the fact that traditional metrics pointed towards a reasonably healthy and improving economy.

 

Silliness. This implies the other side was somehow believable but only the gullible came down with populism.

Populism is an idiotic descriptor here. I'm America first and for some level of protectionism. He has said he's going there and is proving it. All the other issues are complete crap to me. There is one existential threat to our way of life and it's economic.

 

You had more sides than two. If you choose to believe the Democratic side was a populist side as well, that's fine. It doesn't diminish the fact that the Republican side was also populist.

That's great. You are cherry picking. The entire tree is still a cherry tree, even if you only take a few good cherries, and leave the rest.

 

Agreed. Trump will use any instance of media bias as an opening to attack and start telling outright lies, and people seem to react by saying, "Well, both sides are equally questionable, so I'll just believe whatever agrees with me."

 

That's the long & short of it. Feelings are greater thsn facts in today's society.

 

The sad part is that we've pushed it, and now we're reaping it. I also think it's going to have to get a whole lot worst, before it self corrects too.

 

24 hour news network. There isn't 24 hours of legit news

 

Which leads CNN to list events on the bottom of its screen as "BREAKING:" for like 8 hours after they happen

 

There is an hour of news. It's ok to repeat. They never cover foreign events much these days because that doesn't get the ratings of the stuff I mentioned. And I agree, stop calling it "breaking" if it's more than an hour old.

 

I agree that we live in a political climate which is too often and easily shaped (manipulated?) by the loudest to claim any grievance, be it honest-to-goodness legitimate or purely hypothetical and imagined, from whichever political bent it may arise or hopes to achieve.

We'll disagree on which side has perfected this into a systematic art-form, but that's well-ploughed ground which we are well familiar with, and requires no further argument or debate. That long-dead horse has been beaten in two.