There’s No Going Back – Ever

 

We can never go back to the “good old days.” That was a thought that occurred to me today, and I realized how that fact—and I believe it is a fact—defines not only how we see the world, but how we see our political reality. It colors how we see those who agree with us, and those who vehemently disagree with us. I also realized that all the Trump/Never Trump arguments are not really about Trump at all. The people who get stuck on either side of that conflict are struggling with something else entirely. And realizing that truth, with honesty and sincerity, might actually bridge the seemingly insurmountable polarization that has plagued this country, particularly the Conservatives, for years.

Think about it. There is no denying that life today is vastly different from the life we experienced, say, 20 years ago. And many people have a predisposition to living lives that are relatively predictable, familiar, and consistent. When they have occurrences that disrupt that predictability, they can feel beleaguered—life has turned upside down and has let them down in a way, so that they become confused, stressed, and even angry at the new and unanticipated outcomes. They feel betrayed and disappointed, and once they wrestle down these reactions, they are ready to go to war. They can decide to fight for what they once anticipated for their lives, demand that life return to some kind of normalcy, and rebel against those who think they should be prepared to go in a new direction. Even if that direction has some merit, they will reject it because it is not the life that they expected or desired.

I propose to you that this mindset evolves from that sense of life’s betrayal, and Donald Trump has become the scapegoat for those who reject Trump and life’s demands.

Before you reject my proposal, let me describe those who are on the other side of this chasm.

Many of us do prefer to have predictable lives, for one reason or another, but we have learned that life doesn’t acquiesce to our expectations. The best planning in the world can be victim to life’s vagaries, and no matter how strenuously we’ve worked to correct course, life seems determined to design its own path. We learn, either as a child, or sometimes not until we are adults, that rejecting life’s whims doesn’t always work—it smiles at us, even laughs sometimes, at our foolish beliefs that we have the power to change its course. Eventually, we learn how to ride the rapids, tolerate the roller coasters, and even swim with the sharks. Over time we begin to learn how to balance the usual patterns of our lives with the unforeseen events that meet us. If we are wise, we learn that the changes we encounter can even be enjoyable and rewarding, stretch us beyond our understanding or our limitations and expand our possibilities. The patterns we follow allow us to grab hold of the familiar so that we can take a breath and find our footing, but also free us to try something new and creative, ripe with potential.

I propose to you that this mindset characterizes the people, whether reluctantly or with vigor, who support Donald Trump.

*     *     *     *

How can these descriptions of these two groups of folks be helpful? For those of us who hope that one day the disruption among Conservatives can be mended, these factors are important and valuable to understand:

The Trump/Never Trump conflict is much deeper and primal than a fight over one man.

For those who reject Trump-

  • This conflict has to do with the loss and dread that comes with losing the past, either the past of our imagination or the past that truly existed. (In many respects, it doesn’t matter if it’s real or not—we are wedded to it.)
  • It is more comforting to hold onto our memories than to have the uncertainty of creating new ones.
  • They confuse “preferences,” such as decorum and good manners, with “values” such as truth and integrity, and struggle with having to compromise either type.
  • It’s so much easier to create a scapegoat, than to find a way to work with the reality of “what is,” rather than to insist on “what should be.”

For those who accept (however fully or reluctantly) Trump—

  • For our own peace of mind, we benefit from reminding ourselves of the depth of the rejection of Trump by others and what it represents.
  • We can find a way to talk about Conservative values and what they mean to us, and see if the people we support can live those values, and to what degree.
  • We can remember that both sides of this disagreement can be determined to win over the other side, denigrate those who disagree with us, or simply “make them wrong.”
  • Remember that the differences in beliefs are often not “values based”; they are also not fact-based but opinion based. We can accept, therefore, that we are unlikely to change the minds of those who prefer to fight to maintain the past rather than suffer through creating a new future.

For me, I have some empathy for those who desperately hold on to the past. I understood, and at one time even preferred, that outlook on life. It is the outlook with which I was raised.

But I also realized that it limited my own growth and creativity. It was an insular way to live, protecting me from considering other ways to live. It was, in fact, frightening to contemplate new directions and new ideas. Along the way, however, I encountered ideas that challenged me to explore, and people who supported my thinking about other pursuits. I enjoyed the ups and (some of) the downs that greeted me. Not everyone who resists moving forward, however, will be able to do so.

But I hope and pray they will.

Because there is no going back—ever.

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  1. Misthiocracy has never Member
    Misthiocracy has never
    @Misthiocracy

    Susan Quinn: We can never go back to the “old times.”

    Disagree.  Wholesale civilizational collapse qualifies as going back to the old times.

    One can never go back to “the good ol’ days”, but one can certainly go back to “the old times”.

    • #1
  2. Susan Quinn Contributor
    Susan Quinn
    @SusanQuinn

    Misthiocracy has never (View Comment):

    Susan Quinn: We can never go back to the “old times.”

    Disagree. Wholesale civilizational collapse qualifies as going back to the old times.

    One can never go back to “the good ol’ days”, but one can certainly go back to “the old times”.

    I will correct it to “good old times.” Thanks for the correction, Mis@

    • #2
  3. Ole Summers Member
    Ole Summers
    @OleSummers

    The essentials of making the “goods times” remain the same, they are the eternals, the truths that we try to glean from our experiences that remain the same in changing times – times will always change or we are not growing, learning. 

    The disagreements come when those eternals and truths have to be determined and preserved so they apply to the times we are in. In the case of Trump, it was just as much the message as the messenger. And the test of the message is if it “works”. The biggest problem so many have with Trump is that what he brought was not just simple and plain but that it works in such a way that the “experts” of the party which claimed to be the defender of all those truths never had and would never work. Those “experts” had rejected the message before if brought by Goodwater, Reagan, Newt and Armey or the Tea Party. 

    The real problem with the message was the truth of it and that that it didnt need the “experts”. Trump is just a flawed and somewhat vain human who is better at implementation than explanation. The “experts” are left defending a status quo that has served no one but them.

    • #3
  4. Susan Quinn Contributor
    Susan Quinn
    @SusanQuinn

    Ole Summers (View Comment):
    The real problem with the message was the truth of it and that that it didnt need the “experts”. Trump is just a flawed and somewhat vain human who is better at implementation than explanation. The “experts” are left defending a status quo that has served no one but them.

    You are so right, Ole. In these situations, truth doesn’t seem to matter. People are prepared to destroy the country just to meet their preferences. It is so petty and selfish. We need to find better ways to cope with our disappointments so that we don’t lose everything that’s precious to us.

    • #4
  5. Franco Member
    Franco
    @Franco

    I largely agree with your insights, but I think there’s another (albeit shallower) dimension here.

    I’ve noticed through the years that the split is also blatantly political. The Republican Party is essentially two parties, with or without Trump the man. There was an illusion of unity and solidarity – at least to some extent – in our coalition which began to unravel around 2010. The TEA party emerged and certain entrenched Republicans fought covertly and sometimes overtly against the agenda. It’s a very real split on policy.

    Immigration

    Foreign Adventurism  

    Globalism and Corporatism

    Also, there a strong  difference in strategy to win –  i.e. confronting the press versus incrementalism, and who or what the threat is.  

    These are  very crucial and pressing issues at the forefront of the political split.

    It seems there’s little crossover regarding Trump the man and these policy issues. That is, there are few people who agree with these policies associated now with Trump but which clearly pre-dated him, who are squarely against Trump, while very few -if any- of those who are, shall I say ‘traditional Republicans’ from the Bush school, are able to accept Trump.

     

    • #5
  6. Flicker Coolidge
    Flicker
    @Flicker

    Susan Quinn: There is no denying that life today is vastly different from the life we experienced, say, 20 years ago. And many people have a predisposition to living lives that are relatively predictable, familiar and consistent.

    I’ll have to reread your post again more carefully, but I would like to comment upon this statement, which is expanded on later in your post as representing, it looks like, specific disgruntlements with how fast our culture has changed and that we need to keep up and adjust.

    Let me quote @She ‘s perfect summation of a psychological principle that I am now reading about in The Crowd by Le Bon: “[T]here might be something to be said for a system which invests so much of its national identity in a thousand-year continuum of history and all the “mystic chords of memory” that entails…”  These mystic chords of memory go back hundreds of years and many generations and are fundamentally unconscious and unconsciously transmitted and very durable.

    I tend to think (and I certainly hope) that the chords of American psyche are durable enough to resist stretching and snapping under the cultural and psychological assaults that it has been undergoing.

    My point is that I have spent the last 25 years visiting the world and for every country but one, we’ve said, “I can live here” but there were always other more or less deal breaking considerations that were inferior to the US.  Second most important was the right to speak, known as the Right of Free Speech.  But the most important, to me at least, was that desire to live in a culture in which certain, actually many, underlying assumptions and predispositions were understood by anyone I was talking to — what She called “the mystic chords of memory”.  We finally made our decision to remain in the US largely because of its culture — and the Bill of Rights which is part and parcel with it: corny, but, Truth, Justice, and the American Way.

    What has gotten me down, really since 2008, but most significantly since 2016 is the dissolution of — or the governmental prohibition of — this American personality.  This isn’t growing old and saying, “Eh, the young are so decadent these days, wasn’t it so good when we were young.”  And this wasn’t a gradual evolution of character, but a deliberate destruction of a national character and its historical pillars.

    What “Trumpers” are struggling against is not a natural or psychological resistance to inevitable change, but to this forced dissolution of American character.

    • #6
  7. Susan Quinn Contributor
    Susan Quinn
    @SusanQuinn

    Franco (View Comment):

    I largely agree with your insights, but I think there’s another (albeit shallower) dimension here.

    I’ve noticed through the years that the split is also blatantly political. The Republican Party is essentially two parties, with or without Trump the man. There was an illusion of unity and solidarity – at least to some extent – in our coalition which began to unravel around 2010. The TEA party emerged and certain entrenched Republicans fought covertly and sometimes overtly against the agenda. It’s a very real split on policy.

    Immigration

    Foreign Adventurism

    Globalism and Corporatism

    Also, there a strong difference in strategy to win – i.e. confronting the press versus incrementalism, and who or what the threat is.

    These are very crucial and pressing issues at the forefront of the political split.

    It seems there’s little crossover regarding Trump the man and these policy issues. That is, there are few people who agree with these policies associated now with Trump but which clearly pre-dated him, who are squarely against Trump, while very few -if any- of those who are, shall I say ‘traditional Republicans’ from the Bush school, are able to accept Trump.

     

    Franco, we don’t disagree, do we? I think maybe we complement each other’s ideas. Perhaps my approach is too simplistic. It seems that if you are willing to confront the press, you’re likely to support Trump (open to change) and if you believe in incrementalism, you probably don’t support him and want to go back to the traditional. I think it might apply to the policy differences, too. What do you think?

    • #7
  8. Franco Member
    Franco
    @Franco

    Susan Quinn (View Comment):

    Franco (View Comment):

    I largely agree with your insights, but I think there’s another (albeit shallower) dimension here.

    I’ve noticed through the years that the split is also blatantly political. The Republican Party is essentially two parties, with or without Trump the man. There was an illusion of unity and solidarity – at least to some extent – in our coalition which began to unravel around 2010. The TEA party emerged and certain entrenched Republicans fought covertly and sometimes overtly against the agenda. It’s a very real split on policy.

    Immigration

    Foreign Adventurism

    Globalism and Corporatism

    Also, there a strong difference in strategy to win – i.e. confronting the press versus incrementalism, and who or what the threat is.

    These are very crucial and pressing issues at the forefront of the political split.

    It seems there’s little crossover regarding Trump the man and these policy issues. That is, there are few people who agree with these policies associated now with Trump but which clearly pre-dated him, who are squarely against Trump, while very few -if any- of those who are, shall I say ‘traditional Republicans’ from the Bush school, are able to accept Trump.

     

    Franco, we don’t disagree, do we? I think maybe we complement each other’s ideas. Perhaps my approach is too simplistic. It seems that if you are willing to confront the press, you’re likely to support Trump (open to change) and if you believe in incrementalism, you probably don’t support him and want to go back to the traditional. I think it might apply to the policy differences, too. What do you think?

    Yes, absolutely. And then maybe it goes to the general ‘type’ of person which your post explores.

    • #8
  9. Susan Quinn Contributor
    Susan Quinn
    @SusanQuinn

    Flicker (View Comment):
    What “Trumpers” are struggling against is not a natural or psychological resistance to inevitable change, but to this forced dissolution of American character.

    Very deep. Let’s see if I understand you. Are you saying that resistance to change for people who support Trump is due to our values being trampled; that these are the folks who are against change, not the people who are anti-Trump, who are willing to let their values be trampled by the changes that have occurred. That’s probably a crude way to explain it (my problem). I need to think this over a bit.

    • #9
  10. Susan Quinn Contributor
    Susan Quinn
    @SusanQuinn

    Flicker, let me try this in our current circumstances–

    I think that the people who support Trump are actually for change, given the changes that have been forced on us and are destroying our country. We are willing to defy the current forces that have committed this dastardly heresy against our country. So we are prepared to change to take us to the values (not the preferences) that are foundational to our country.

    The people who hate Trump are against change, either because they like this sick direction we are heading, and can’t tolerate anything new. They support some of the things that Franco mentioned–globalism, fascism, and the destruction of traditional values, because at least some of them are misguided in believing that will take us back to the good old days; instead it will solidfy the anti-American steps we have already taken.

    I think this may sound convoluted because some of us may feel we have whiplash–where are we now? How did all these things seem to happen so quickly? (They didn’t, but we weren’t paying attention. Am I making sense?

    • #10
  11. Ole Summers Member
    Ole Summers
    @OleSummers

    “What “Trumpers” are struggling against is not a natural or psychological resistance to inevitable change, but to this forced dissolution of American character.”

    Flicker hit this nail on the head. And I believe these people comprise a larger number than we realize (least I sure hope so) but have been consistently denied an avenue to effectively challenge that dissolution. 

    Franco is correct in the division or camps in the Republican Party and that split has been between those mentioned above and the elites of the party which have been more concerned with status quo and its benefits than fighting to preserve that American Character (I prefer to capitalize both) – the plebs realize, or at least feel, we are in a culture war which the elites refuse to either realize or fight.

    • #11
  12. Raxxalan Member
    Raxxalan
    @Raxxalan

    Franco (View Comment):

    I largely agree with your insights, but I think there’s another (albeit shallower) dimension here.

    I’ve noticed through the years that the split is also blatantly political. The Republican Party is essentially two parties, with or without Trump the man. There was an illusion of unity and solidarity – at least to some extent – in our coalition which began to unravel around 2010. The TEA party emerged and certain entrenched Republicans fought covertly and sometimes overtly against the agenda. It’s a very real split on policy.

    Immigration

    Foreign Adventurism

    Globalism and Corporatism

    Also, there a strong difference in strategy to win – i.e. confronting the press versus incrementalism, and who or what the threat is.

    These are very crucial and pressing issues at the forefront of the political split.

    It seems there’s little crossover regarding Trump the man and these policy issues. That is, there are few people who agree with these policies associated now with Trump but which clearly pre-dated him, who are squarely against Trump, while very few -if any- of those who are, shall I say ‘traditional Republicans’ from the Bush school, are able to accept Trump.

     

    I think it is further than just a difference in strategy and temperament.  I think the entrenched Republicans don’t share the base’s end goals on Immigration, Foreign Adventurism, and especially Globalism and Corporatism.  In fact I think on the last one they share the views of the democratic party.  This has led to the often vicious interparty fights.  

    • #12
  13. Raxxalan Member
    Raxxalan
    @Raxxalan

    Flicker (View Comment):

    Susan Quinn: There is no denying that life today is vastly different from the life we experienced, say, 20 years ago. And many people have a predisposition to living lives that are relatively predictable, familiar and consistent.

    I’ll have to reread your post again more carefully, but I would like to comment upon this statement, which is expanded on later in your post as representing, it looks like, specific disgruntlements with how fast our culture has changed and that we need to keep up and adjust.

    Let me quote @ She ‘s perfect summation of a psychological principle that I am now reading about in Crowds by Le Bon: “[T]here might be something to be said for a system which invests so much of its national identity in a thousand-year continuum of history and all the “mystic chords of memory” that entails…” These mystic chords of memory go back hundreds of years and many generations and are fundamentally unconscious and unconsciously transmitted and very durable.

    I tend to think (and I certainly hope) that the chords of American psyche are durable enough to resist stretching and snapping under the cultural and psychological assaults that it has been undergoing.

    My point is that I have spent the last 25 years visiting the world and for every country but one, we’ve said, “I can live here” but there were always other more or less deal breaking considerations that were inferior to the US. Second most important was the right to speak, know as the Right of Free Speech. But the most important, to me at least, was that desire to live in a culture in which certain, actually many, underlying assumptions and predispositions were understood by anyone I was talking to — what She called “the mystic chords of memory”. We finally made our decision to remain in the US largely because of its culture — and the Bill of Rights which is part and parcel with it: corny, but, Truth, Justice, and the American Way.

    What has gotten me down, really since 2008, but most significantly since 2016 is the dissolution of — or the governmental prohibition of — this American personality. This isn’t growing old and saying, “Eh, the young are so decadent these days, wasn’t it so good when we were young.” And this wasn’t a gradual evolution of character, but a deliberate destruction of a national character and its historical pillars.

    What “Trumpers” are struggling against is not a natural or psychological resistance to inevitable change, but to this forced dissolution of American character.

    This is part of the split as well.  Never Trumpers do not see a qualitive difference between the democrats of today and the democrats of a generation ago.  In their mind we are still just in the realm of policy differences.  I think they thought Obama’s threat to fundamentally change America was just idle rhetoric.  In actually he succeeded.  He has put America and the world on a Post American path.  As you say the “Trumpers” see this and are determined to fight against it.  Never Trump doesn’t and thinks we can go back to “normal” political disagreements.

    • #13
  14. David Foster Member
    David Foster
    @DavidFoster

    Good post.  Of course, the view of most ‘liberals’ and ‘progressives’ is that it is the Trump supporters who fear change…’Bitter Clingers’, etc…not themselves.

    • #14
  15. Susan Quinn Contributor
    Susan Quinn
    @SusanQuinn

    This is an amazing appearance. With the help of the Commenters, we’re able to clarify what the heck I was saying. It’s just that ( I think) changes have happen so swiftly that it’s hard to explain.

    Flicker (View Comment):
    Let me quote @She ‘s perfect summation of a psychological principle that I am now reading about in Crowds by Le Bon: “[T]here might be something to be said for a system which invests so much of its national identity in a thousand-year continuum of history and all the “mystic chords of memory” that entails…”  These mystic chords of memory go back hundreds of years and many generations and are fundamentally unconscious and unconsciously transmitted and very durable.

    I also think She was absolutely right; let me know what you think of LeBon’s book. Those mystic chords of memory might actually form our psychological framework and even though they are unconscious they are “transmitted and durable.” 

    • #15
  16. Flicker Coolidge
    Flicker
    @Flicker

    Susan Quinn (View Comment):
    Am I making sense?

    Yes, I think so, but I think that our perspectives are so very different that I’m having trouble understanding.  I see at least three groups; two who are comfortable but very different, and one which is uncomfortable.  Group 1: those who are discontented but are comfortable with the country changing toward the way of CRT, ESG, child sexual mutilation and castration, AGW economic and infrastructure destruction, etc., and social and financial cancellation and election “fortification” to ensure these changes.  Group 2: Those who are comfortable and see no effectual, significant or permanent changes from Group 1, and who challenge and dismiss Group 3.  Group 3: Those who see irrevocable, unnatural and destructive changes being forced upon society and will likely never be comfortable with the way Group 1 would have us go, and can’t understand why Group 2 is so quiescent.

    Is this more or less in accordance with what groups and conflicts you see?

    • #16
  17. Red Herring Coolidge
    Red Herring
    @EHerring

    I can’t go back to the Never Trumpers..

    • #17
  18. Rodin Member
    Rodin
    @Rodin

    @susanquinn, great framing. And I will add this: America had a destination when it adopted the constitution. It wasn’t there yet. Some people think it arrived at some point in the past and others think it has yet to arrive. In reality it never arrives because every generation is called upon to take up the journey. The constitution is a compass pointing toward the destination. The debate is now and ever whether we have strayed from the path and what to do to get back on the path. If we see this as a common journey and debate about the direction our constitution points us to, fine. If your goal is to throw away the compass, then we should have a real problem. 

    • #18
  19. Susan Quinn Contributor
    Susan Quinn
    @SusanQuinn

    Raxxalan (View Comment):
    I think it is further than just a difference in strategy and temperament.  I think the entrenched Republicans don’t share the base’s end goals on Immigration, Foreign Adventurism, and especially Globalism and Corporatism.  In fact I think on the last one they share the views of the democratic party.  This has led to the often vicious interparty fights.  

    So in a sense, they are not legitimate Republicans. Maybe it’s clearer if we refer to Conservatives as I did in the OP. If we can agree on what makes up Conservative values, anyone else doesn’t fit in.

    • #19
  20. Susan Quinn Contributor
    Susan Quinn
    @SusanQuinn

    Flicker (View Comment):

    Susan Quinn (View Comment):
    Am I making sense?

    Yes, I think so, but I think that our perspectives are so very different that I’m having trouble understanding. I see at least three groups; two who are comfortable but very different, and one which is uncomfortable. Group 1: those who are discontented but are comfortable with the country changing toward the way of CRT, ESG, child sexual mutilation and castration, AGW economic and infrastructure destruction, etc., and social and financial cancellation and election “fortification” to ensure these changes. Group 2: Those who are comfortable and see no effectual, significant or permanent changes from Group 1, and who challenge and dismiss Group 3. Group 3: Those who see irrevocable, unnatural and destructive changes being forced upon society and will likely never be comfortable with the way Group 1 would have us go, and can’t understand why Group 2 is so quiescent.

    Is this more or less in accordance with what groups and conflicts you see?

    I think the problem for us is that you and I are using different sets of categories and trying to make them fit each other. I am not trying to create an overarching category to eliminate others. I am only focusing on Trump and Never/Trump and their values.  Group 1 doesn’t necessarily fit either pro- or anti-Trump group. What are they discontented about? Does it relate to Trump? Group 2 somewhat relates to those who are Never/Trump. Group 3 fits comfortably in the pro-Trump catetory. So I don’t think we can merge our categories because they have different criteria. That doesn’t mean yours isn’t legitimate, but it’s more like apples and oranges.

    • #20
  21. Susan Quinn Contributor
    Susan Quinn
    @SusanQuinn

    Red Herring (View Comment):

    I can’t go back to the Never Trumpers..

    And I don’t think you ever should. I’m only saying that having a sense of their perspective might make them just a bit easier to tolerate.

    • #21
  22. Susan Quinn Contributor
    Susan Quinn
    @SusanQuinn

    Rodin (View Comment):

    @ susanquinn, great framing. And I will add this: America had a destination when it adopted the constitution. It wasn’t there yet. Some people think it arrived at some point in the past and others think it has yet to arrive. In reality it never arrives because every generation is called upon to take up the journey. The constitution is a compass pointing toward the destination. The debate is now and ever whether we have strayed from the path and what to do to get back on the path. If we see this as a common journey and debate about the direction our constitution points us to, fine. If your goal is to throw away the compass, then we should have a real problem.

    Thank you for the reminder of our journey, Rodin! And I think my framing fits with your perspective. I think that people who support Trump essentially accept the Constitution, and know that we must not stray from the path while still continually exploring what the Constitution means. Unfortunately the Never Trumpers (whether they realize it or not) want to make it into their own image with their own values. They don’t see the difference between deep and long-standing traditional values, and beliefs that can change with the wind. The compass remains intact, but the path may require us to go into unfamiliar territory. That doesn’t mean making changes that suit those who have already drifted away, but changes that strengthen the Constitution.

    • #22
  23. Zafar Member
    Zafar
    @Zafar

    Flicker (View Comment):
    I have spent the last 25 years visiting the world and for every country but one, we’ve said, “I can live here”

    Which was the unlivable one?

    • #23
  24. Flicker Coolidge
    Flicker
    @Flicker

    Zafar (View Comment):

    Flicker (View Comment):
    I have spent the last 25 years visiting the world and for every country but one, we’ve said, “I can live here”

    Which was the unlivable one?

    I’d rather not say.  (And it’s not because of that picture of me hanging at Sûreté headquarters.  So. so.  Let’s not bring that up.)

    • #24
  25. Flicker Coolidge
    Flicker
    @Flicker

    Susan Quinn (View Comment):

    Flicker (View Comment):

    Susan Quinn (View Comment):
    Am I making sense?

    Yes, I think so, but I think that our perspectives are so very different that I’m having trouble understanding. I see at least three groups; two who are comfortable but very different, and one which is uncomfortable. Group 1: those who are discontented but are comfortable with the country changing toward the way of CRT, ESG, child sexual mutilation and castration, AGW economic and infrastructure destruction, etc., and social and financial cancellation and election “fortification” to ensure these changes. Group 2: Those who are comfortable and see no effectual, significant or permanent changes from Group 1, and who challenge and dismiss Group 3. Group 3: Those who see irrevocable, unnatural and destructive changes being forced upon society and will likely never be comfortable with the way Group 1 would have us go, and can’t understand why Group 2 is so quiescent.

    Is this more or less in accordance with what groups and conflicts you see?

    I think the problem for us is that you and I are using different sets of categories and trying to make them fit each other. I am not trying to create an overarching category to eliminate others. I am only focusing on Trump and Never/Trump and their values. Group 1 doesn’t necessarily fit either pro- or anti-Trump group. What are they discontented about? Does it relate to Trump? Group 2 somewhat relates to those who are Never/Trump. Group 3 fits comfortably in the pro-Trump catetory. So I don’t think we can merge our categories because they have different criteria. That doesn’t mean yours isn’t legitimate, but it’s more like apples and oranges.

    Oh, okay.  Got it.

    • #25
  26. Susan Quinn Contributor
    Susan Quinn
    @SusanQuinn

    Flicker (View Comment):
    Oh, okay.  Got it.

    But I’m curious now. How about writing a post that deals with the mystic chords of memory and how you relate to that premise? That would even make a great title. Think about it. I promise to read it. ;-)

    • #26
  27. Flicker Coolidge
    Flicker
    @Flicker

    Susan Quinn (View Comment):

    Flicker (View Comment):
    Oh, okay. Got it.

    But I’m curious now. How about writing a post that deals with the mystic chords of memory and how you relate to that premise? That would even make a great title. Think about it. I promise to read it. ;-)

    Sure.  If I can.  :)

    • #27
  28. Chris O Coolidge
    Chris O
    @ChrisO

    Agree with everything you said, Susan, and much in the above comments. 

    We forgot…

    There is only one generation that lived a “predictable” life, most everyone else is used to a bit of turmoil. When I entered the workforce, my parents expected me to find a career with a company, advance steadily, then retire with a gold watch. This was how they saw things working.

    It’s never worked like that except a brief period in our history, post-World War Two through, oh, probably the mid-to-late 80’s. A lot of people saw that stability and imprinted the expectation. Prior to that there was no such certainty, and those who lived through the Great Depression and fought WWII demanded and created the relative stability and peace of the following decades.

    Probably most of us had the virtues of this time preached to us, and its absence in any aspect of life is partly the source for the D’s claims of injustice. The WWII generation didn’t make a mistake in creating this time, their mistake was not perpetuating the values that propelled their own stamina and energy through uncertain times. Oddly, those who seem to most intensely expect predictability and prosperity promote policies that destroy both.

    Even now things are much easier than trying to sell spotty apples for a couple pennies to feed your family. We use the same language as they do, “Never, never, never give up!” and apply it to “struggles” generations before would see as easy and prosperous times.

    Nevertheless, we are fighting an existential fight, just as they were. Theirs was a life and death struggle, whereas we are fighting for the freedom to struggle. The freedom to start a business, the freedom to do what is best for our own interests, and we fight for the freedom to find our own way to the security others claim they’ll provide for us. Codswallop, their security is theirs, and if leaving us in a lesser position heightens their sense of it (as in “threats to democracy,” etc.”), they won’t hesitate to destroy what we think this country stands for.

    This is our fight, and those who promote the false narratives of the J6 Committee et. al. are sometimes unwitting enemies for all the reasons you said, Susan. Others are deliberate, intentional opposition and I’ll forgive the former while fighting tooth and nail against the latter.

    • #28
  29. Victor Tango Kilo Member
    Victor Tango Kilo
    @VtheK

    It occurs to me that if the Establishment GOP wants to defeat “Trumpism” (whatever that is), the only tactic they have used so far is to try to beat down Trump’s supporters, and that hasn’t worked thus far. It never occurs to them that the way to get past “Trumpism” is to offer a better alternative. Warmed-over Bush Republicanism (what the establishment really wants) isn’t going to cut it. But they cannot imagine anything else.

    • #29
  30. She Member
    She
    @She

    Flicker (View Comment):

    Let me quote @She ‘s perfect summation of a psychological principle that I am now reading about in The Crowd by Le Bon: “[T]here might be something to be said for a system which invests so much of its national identity in a thousand-year continuum of history and all the “mystic chords of memory” that entails…”  These mystic chords of memory go back hundreds of years and many generations and are fundamentally unconscious and unconsciously transmitted and very durable.

    I tend to think (and I certainly hope) that the chords of American psyche are durable enough to resist stretching and snapping under the cultural and psychological assaults that it has been undergoing.

    My point is that I have spent the last 25 years visiting the world and for every country but one, we’ve said, “I can live here” but there were always other more or less deal breaking considerations that were inferior to the US.  Second most important was the right to speak, known as the Right of Free Speech.  But the most important, to me at least, was that desire to live in a culture in which certain, actually many, underlying assumptions and predispositions were understood by anyone I was talking to — what She called “the mystic chords of memory”.  We finally made our decision to remain in the US largely because of its culture — and the Bill of Rights which is part and parcel with it: corny, but, Truth, Justice, and the American Way.

    Exactly.  Thanks so much for the shout-out.  I can’t take credit for the quote, which comes from a far greater speechifier than myself:

    I am loath to close. We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature–Abraham Lincoln’s First Inaugural Address 

    • #30
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