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Modified by eDrek at Thu, Jan 14, 2021, 10:26:40
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Okay, I take back my criticism of Steve Hassan. I think he really breaks it down well. 12 minutes well spent.
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There's a kind of bred in the bone naivety about the guy which sits pretty badly with hard nosed political analysis.
Anyway, for people like me who believe Trump is a symptom not a cause, this sort of explanation is useless, & I have to say, boringly partisan.
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I'm curious as to what you think he is a symptom of. A sense of disenfranchisement? Increased partisanship? The damage caused by social media echo chambers? The disconnection from reality of the qanon people and folk like the proud boys? Overwhelming paranoia about Islam, immigrants, refugees and other 'others'? Fox news? Rabid talk show hosts? Rampant inequality? Fear of the Chinese?
No blame on Trump as he's a symptom rather than part of this awful malaise?
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I'd just like to add to your list occupy, antifa, black lives matter, the Russians stole the (2016) election legal shenanigans, none of which predates 2016 of course but then neither do qanon or the proud boys.
The C20th is now well gone & with it the prosperity & political stability of the 2nd half. Increasingly the share of wealth going to labour, especially of the low skill sort, is decreasing as is their political clout.
Trump is a spectacularly flawed 'solution' & the author of his own misfortune, but I'm not expecting Biden & his Hollywhoo happy clappers to even recognise the problem.
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Why is Trump any more of a solution to that than any other bullshitter standing for government?
I agree Biden isn't any more of a solution but Trump was more like a bull in a china shop where Biden might just steal the silver tea service, don't you think?
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Some would say that the Biden family has already stolen plenty, but as it was from such as Ukrainian peasants then who cares.
He'll soothe the fevered brows for a time of those who've been mentally disturbed by having an oaf as President, but it won't last & won't unite the nation.
I shouldn't care as I don't live there, but what happens in the US has consequences for everyone else, especially for those of us who share the same language.
For many years now my mind keeps coming back to the story of William III after the Battle of the Boyne. The Royal party, hastening to claim the victory, found themselves on the wrong side of the river. After riding up & down the banks they came upon a ferryman who rowed the King across. The ferryman was emboldened to ask the King 'who won', to which the King replied, 'what do you care, you'll still be a boatman'.
I find myself conflicted between agreeing with the King & telling him to fuck off & die. 
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funny, it all depends on the tone of his voice - is the king being respectful or dismissive towards the ferry man, you can't really tell from the words.
it's a scary old world, isn't it Pat.
I am a bit shaken at the moment as I recognise that I meet someone I see them as they are in that moment and then we are interacting and I am nice to be with so there they are smiling and I think what a nice person and then now I am sitting here trying to work out the truth of the matter because I need a nice tenant for my flat not a scary one and realising the dilemma I am in with my judgement.
Hopefully once I've had a good night's sleep I will know where I'm at. 
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Our Prince of Wales, who is nearly a king, claims ownership of the bottom of the river Dart, amongst others. He charges rent for you to float over it, even if you're just attached to your own anchor. When the harbour master first asked for payment, I made strong objections, to which the harbour master was sympathetic. He did take a payment, but turned a blind eye thereafter. 
The ferryman might have asked the king how he intended to pay for his battles, and whether some of the costs would be borne by him. It does matter who rules over us.
I'd like a say in it.
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Just re-read this poem by William Butler Yeats written 1919 WW1 & last pandemic era. Surely Trump, as others in history, slouched from somewhere we'd like to nail shut.THE SECOND COMING
BY William Butler Yeats Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity. Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?
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The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
Captures it for me.
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Article about this Yeats poem in relation to politics of Brexit and Trump is interesting.https://www.wsj.com/articles/terror-brexit-and-u-s-election-have-made-2016-the-year-of-yeats-1471970174?reflink=share_mobilewebshare
Modified by Quirky at Sun, Jan 17, 2021, 10:50:25
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awful isn't it. so different to what we imagined growing up.
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Thanks for that. I have only heard the 'slouches towards Bethlehem' part, probably from Allen Ginsberg.
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Thanks for posting this. My sister is a retired Renaissance prof and quotes this poem frequently, "The center cannot hold." Fits the times.
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Cool...so many phrases I had heard before but had not known the source. I looked up the poem on Wikipedia and there is a long list of references. Joan Didion's essay/book called Slouching Toward Bethlahem.
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Ugh! How totally and doubly stupid.
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OMG...too funny/not funny
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Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the great German pastor, theologian, martyr, spy was asked in 1943 how it was possible for the Church to sit back and let Hitler seize absolute power. His firm answer: "It was the teaching of cheap grace."
"Cheap grace is the preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance, baptism without church discipline, communion without confession, absolution without personal confession. Cheap grace is grace without discipleship, grace without the cross, grace without Jesus Christ." - Dietrich Bonhoeffer
We also live in a time and culture that not only teaches cheap grace but praises it.
Modified by karenL at Thu, Jan 21, 2021, 10:00:40
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