The Sound of 'Splainin'
I've been through a few presidential cycles in my cycles around the sun. Not as much as many, but more than a few. I know there are differences and similarities in each. But this time, this time feels ... different.
( Cut for my rocking chair on porch moment. )
( Cut for my rocking chair on porch moment. )
Whoa, there, Sunshine! Those are some scattershot assertions! Let's break things down.
...the average American really isn't all that enamored with FDR's policies....
Really? Um, no. To get a handle on what the average American feels, yes, you have to ask. And on FDR's policies, perhaps that average would feel negative. After all, plenty of ink and sound bite time has been wasted blasting him.
When you ask about the programs he started, though, things change drastically. Social Security is really, really liked, for one example. Same with unemployment insurance and the kind of banking reform he pushed. Heck, once you plug actual numbers into the reality of the program, estate taxes are also favored. Even though some of that stuff has been repealed (like the Glass-Steagall Act), it's still popular.
That might not be the case in your neighborhood, but as I've said before, that burg is far from "average." ;-)
...the reason you like to suggest that the country is right leaning.
And when did I claim that?
Politics has leaned far right; the people have not. If anything, this new group of kids will lean waaaay to the left, and that has surprising little to do with their fate currently.
I've listened to lots of interviews of people who were, through their long careers, pretty much ignored. Young people are now flocking to their lectures. We're talking about socialist economists, radical agricultural professionals, public banking advocates. This group really supported Bernie, and they are far more upset at the Dems for fast-tracking Hillary than I am.
And don't sell your prospects for sticking around and seeing this new world. Not many people I know went up rooftops in their 70s!
And the potatoes are thriving, albeit under a thick recent cover of morning glory. Stew weather is near.
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While you are correct, young people are becoming more left leaning, on the other hand "boomers" are becoming more conservative, and as badly as we have messed up the country, it will be a few more years before we are no longer the 'ruling' class.
It is the nature of things for the younger generation to be more liberal (partially due to the fact they are ruled more by emotions while people tend to get more pragmatic as they get older) Think about it, it is often said Reagan couldn't be nominated by today's republicans, but what I think is glossed over is Kennedy couldn't make the democratic ticket.
The bottom line is so much of philosophy and belief is predicated (or perhaps merely reinforced)by the people we hang with, listen to, and even where we live :D
At any rate, hopefully, this afternoon I will have the time to read your discussion with 133tminion.
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