sigh this is going to be the inequality election
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The gods of impossible problems drew cards in 2014 and decided to go in low-to-high order. Traumatized whiteness in 2016, middle class precarity in 2020, climate in 2024. 3-act tragedy. No problem actually solved. Just 3 groups of people allowed their scream-to-be-seen turns.
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One reason big problems rarely actually get solved is that most people are easily bought off by being given an opportunity to be seen/heard as having the problem. Not only are they satisfied with the recognition, they resist actual solutions because the problem is their identity.
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These problems are not solvable. Only crashable. As in a Flight 93 takeover and crashing of the institutions seen (mostly incorrectly) as responsible, without better ones ready to fill the vacuum, and without regard to actual functions. So in each case “now you have 2 problems.”
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It’s like how in riots over any issue, small businesses get looted because they are visible targets that vaguely rhyme with the obscure root causes of whatever is angrying up the mob. 2016-28 is going to be “riot democracy” with the vote being about “who gets to loot next?”
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A tale of 3 democracy riots 2016: Traumatized whiteness = “nationalism” = loot elite and impersonal state institutions 2020: Traumatized precariat = “inequality” = loot market institutions and large corps of the Buyback 500 2024: Traumatized planet = “climate change” = loot ?
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In 2016, clueless institutional elites like me had NO idea how much disaffected whites were directing (however inappropriately) their hulk-smash energy towards us. In many cases targeting institutions they weren’t aware they were dependent on. 2020 = clueless billionaires.
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They think it’s about defeating Warren the way we thought it was about defeating Trump. They think “reasonable” explanations pointing out how their mental models are misframed and the anger misdirected will defuse the anger just as in 2016.
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Replying to @vgr
Was this system always about managing anger? Redressing grievance?
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Didn’t seem that way 1997-2015 in the US. It was only a small, contained subproblem.
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