.

[Roch + 537]

.

 

Edited April 24, 2021 by Roch

[Roch + 537]

NOW Nikki praises Trump for his "strong"  CPAC speech.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/good-news/haley-flip-flops-on-trump-praising-his-strong-speech/vi-BB1e82QT 

 

A couple of weeks ago Nikki Haley's Wall Street Journal Op-Ed blames Liberal media for inflaming the rift between Trumpsters and GOP Elites.

Nikki , it's too late.  You shot yourself in the proverbial foot.  

You and Liz Cheney should join Kasich and Christie as a CNN commentator. The pay is good.

The leading Republican women is now South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem.

Wall Street Journal Article :

https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-media-tries-to-divide-republicans-11613580575 

 

Edited March 2, 2021 by Roch

[Gerry Maddoux + 3,627]

There is no doubt about it: Donald J. Trump has a long arm. And a solid base that, as Mr. Biden stumbles, he can build on. 

What Ms. Haley and Mr. McConnell failed to recognize is that the 75M people who voted for Mr. Trump haven't--for the most part--changed their minds. They voted for Mr. Trump well aware of his warts. Those votes were cast to 1) keep a thumb on China and Iran, 2) keep the country out of war unless attacked, 3) drain the swamp of creatures both within the Democrat Party and the Republican Party. 

As Ben Sasse simply can't understand, that will take one "weird dude."

[Roch + 537]

Supreme Court Justice Thomas delivered a strong rebuke after court turned down and refused to hear two ligit Pennsylvania Election related cases. 

https://www.newsmax.com/t/newsmax/article/1011008/16

[Symmetry + 109]

On 2/19/2021 at 7:24 AM, Gerry Maddoux said:

There is no doubt about it: Donald J. Trump has a long arm. And a solid base that

but small hands.

Trump has a fan base for sure, but if you had occasionally taken a peak at reality over the last year you would notice they have no actual power.

The wolf-crying children are no longer listened to. The courts, the media, the people, have stopped listening to Trump fanatics.

 

[Symmetry + 109]

34 minutes ago, Roch said:

Supreme Court Justice Thomas delivered a strong rebuke after court turned down and refused to hear two legit Pennsylvania Election related cases. 

https://www.newsmax.com/t/newsmax/article/1011008/16

They are not legit as defined by the ruling not to hear them.

Edited February 22, 2021 by Symmetry

[Jan van Eck + 7,558]

On 2/19/2021 at 9:24 AM, Gerry Maddoux said:

What Ms. Haley and Mr. McConnell failed to recognize is that the 75M people who voted for Mr. Trump haven't--for the most part--changed their minds. They voted for Mr. Trump well aware of his warts.

Gerry, this is all true.  And the dissension and debate within the Republican Party and the stalwarts for Trump and the mainstream Republicans is rocking even the staid Vermont part of the Party - where the Party State Chair is a lunatic woman who cannot keep her composure (unfortunately) and rails against the Governor  (who is an exceptionally decent man, I get along really well with him), and the City of Burlington Republican Chair who has now quite publicly resigned, declaring that the State party has been hijacked by the crazies.  I scarf a portion of the Letter of Resignation just to give you a flavor of how far the dissension reaches, into the backwoods of rural Vermont:

---------------------------------

The unfortunate truth is that the Vermont Republican Party has now been hijacked by far-right extremists who have attached themselves (and thereby the party) to a dangerous crusade against the basic foundations of American democracy. Rather than doing the hard and necessary work of improving Vermonters’ lives and engaging constructively to move our state forward, they would rather embrace the easy answers of bigotry, divisiveness and destruction. They have undermined our institutions and have abandoned the decency and respect which have allowed our democracy to function for centuries. 

At some point, we all must ask ourselves whether we can continue to sacrifice our principles and morals by embracing unbridled populism and division. If Vermont Republicans wish to be seen as the party of values, as they so long have been, then they must recognize the moral imperatives of the moment and abandon the racism, recklessness and radicalism that have driven us to become a party so unrecognizable to many of its proudest and longest-serving members. 

.............

We should work to make Vermont affordable for everyone, not just for those with the resources and privilege to buy their way in, with a particular focus on meeting the needs of the most vulnerable among us. 

We should advocate for a balanced budget, not undermine our funding system by slashing revenues and expecting working families to pick up the tab.

We should be proud to stand for racial equity, not fan the flames of civil unrest by spewing racist dog whistles and supporting the elements of white supremacy found within Vermont communities. 

We should work to conserve our precious environment by taking meaningful, sensible action to fight climate change, rather than selling our grandchildren’s future to the highest-bidding corporate interests.

We should stand for individual freedoms by working to ensure those freedoms for all citizens, not to undermine civil rights through voter suppression and the use of violent, discriminatory policing. 

Since it is abundantly clear that current party leadership is determined to destroy the party’s integrity and electoral future for their own personal gain, I see no way for me to stay true to my own principles while remaining within the party. That is why, with great sadness, I am also announcing my departure from the Vermont Republican Party. 

-----------------------------------------------

Definitely food for thought.

While The Donald started out with a ton of great ideas, he has gotten bogged down in the politics of the self.  And that leads to the Dark Side of the Force.  

Edited February 22, 2021 by Jan van Eck

[Symmetry + 109]

^

Trump not only lost, he destroyed the party.

[Spuds McKenzie + 8]

That’s odd. 
She’s done nothing but kiss his azz. 
 

 It’s almost as if the man has no loyalty to anyone or anything. 
 Odd. 
 

🙄
 

[El Gato + 251]

1 hour ago, Jan van Eck said:

Gerry, this is all true.  And the dissension and debate within the Republican Party and the stalwarts for Trump and the mainstream Republicans is rocking even the staid Vermont part of the Party - where the Party State Chair is a lunatic woman who cannot keep her composure (unfortunately) and rails against the Governor  (who is an exceptionally decent man, I get along really well with him), and the City of Burlington Republican Chair who has now quite publicly resigned, declaring that the State party has been hijacked by the crazies.  I scarf a portion of the Letter of Resignation just to give you a flavor of how far the dissension reaches, into the backwoods of rural Vermont:

---------------------------------

The unfortunate truth is that the Vermont Republican Party has now been hijacked by far-right extremists who have attached themselves (and thereby the party) to a dangerous crusade against the basic foundations of American democracy. Rather than doing the hard and necessary work of improving Vermonters’ lives and engaging constructively to move our state forward, they would rather embrace the easy answers of bigotry, divisiveness and destruction. They have undermined our institutions and have abandoned the decency and respect which have allowed our democracy to function for centuries. 

At some point, we all must ask ourselves whether we can continue to sacrifice our principles and morals by embracing unbridled populism and division. If Vermont Republicans wish to be seen as the party of values, as they so long have been, then they must recognize the moral imperatives of the moment and abandon the racism, recklessness and radicalism that have driven us to become a party so unrecognizable to many of its proudest and longest-serving members. 

.............

We should work to make Vermont affordable for everyone, not just for those with the resources and privilege to buy their way in, with a particular focus on meeting the needs of the most vulnerable among us. 

We should advocate for a balanced budget, not undermine our funding system by slashing revenues and expecting working families to pick up the tab.

We should be proud to stand for racial equity, not fan the flames of civil unrest by spewing racist dog whistles and supporting the elements of white supremacy found within Vermont communities. 

We should work to conserve our precious environment by taking meaningful, sensible action to fight climate change, rather than selling our grandchildren’s future to the highest-bidding corporate interests.

We should stand for individual freedoms by working to ensure those freedoms for all citizens, not to undermine civil rights through voter suppression and the use of violent, discriminatory policing. 

Since it is abundantly clear that current party leadership is determined to destroy the party’s integrity and electoral future for their own personal gain, I see no way for me to stay true to my own principles while remaining within the party. That is why, with great sadness, I am also announcing my departure from the Vermont Republican Party. 

-----------------------------------------------

Definitely food for thought.

While The Donald started out with a ton of great ideas, he has gotten bogged down in the politics of the self.  And that leads to the Dark Side of the Force.  

Your segment from the letter sounds exactly like a Democrat press release.

So the question is, what is your definition of an extremist? To the Press, it's anybody right of Romney To the rest of America, David Duke and beyond. This gent sound like a Rino and not a true conservative, and therein is the problem in the Party and for Teunp supporters.

The Republican Party has too many politicians who only take care of them selves and don't listen to the people. Trumps actually listened to the people and didn't just gaslight them, like most do,

[El Gato + 251]

1 hour ago, Symmetry said:

^

Trump not only lost, he destroyed the party.

It's not destroyed yet, but if it is, it was done by the Party's placeholders. Trump just exposed the rot

[Jan van Eck + 7,558]

15 minutes ago, El Gato said:

Your segment from the letter sounds exactly like a Democrat press release.

I assure you that you have no idea just how far Left the "mainstream" Democrat Party is in Vermont.  And then for the serious Leftists, there is a large "Progressive Party" to absorb those folks!

17 minutes ago, El Gato said:

So the question is, what is your definition of an extremist?

Kinda like that definition of pornography:  "I don't know how to define it, but I know it when I see it!"

18 minutes ago, El Gato said:

This gent sound like a Rino and not a true conservative, and therein is the problem in the Party and for Trump supporters.

Nah.  I assure you he is a pure-blood Republican, and far too young to be one of those politicians, in your words, "politicians who only take care of them selves and don't listen to the people."   He listens carefully - as you can see from his writing that I quoted above.  Further, on a personal note, I am not convinced there is such a thing as a "RINO," that seems to be a convenient catch-all for some who portrait themselves as republicans to denigrate the mainstream.  I can't go there. 

Vaya con Dios, El Gato!

[surrept33 + 609]

Parties frequently change policies, and people swap parties frequently. I remember when Trump was a democrat. I remember when Bloomberg was a republican. I grew up in NYC and never really associated him with anything related to conservatism. I saw him as a guy who learned marketing and the news media in NYC (and politics from Roy Cohn), which is a great place to learn those "traits" because the NYC media market is so tough. 

Republicans will have to figure out if they want Trump the brand, or go back and figure out if good governance is what really should be promoted, IMHO. Right now, it's way too early to determine the long term popularity of Trump. I think he'll eventually be defenestrated by the Republicans en masse. Trump's name brand is known, but will it be forever? I think there is a decent shot (i'd wager a coin flip), that his company goes bankrupt within the next four years because of lawsuits and other financial crime charges (which are largely prosecuted by the southern district of new york). No bank is likely willing to provide liquidity to him anymore, even Deutsche Bank. A lot of his richer donors left him, and he doesn't have possession of his internet megaphones to amp his messaging.

Maybe he can cash out from these favors? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_people_granted_executive_clemency_by_Donald_Trump

Edited February 23, 2021 by surrept33

[Roch + 537]

9 hours ago, Jan van Eck said:

I assure you that you have no idea just how far Left the "mainstream" Democrat Party is in Vermont.  And then for the serious Leftists, there is a large "Progressive Party" to absorb those folks!

 

We kinda do know.  After all Bernie is one of your U.S. Senators.

[Dan Warnick + 6,100]

14 hours ago, Jan van Eck said:

Gerry, this is all true.  And the dissension and debate within the Republican Party and the stalwarts for Trump and the mainstream Republicans is rocking even the staid Vermont part of the Party - where the Party State Chair is a lunatic woman who cannot keep her composure (unfortunately) and rails against the Governor  (who is an exceptionally decent man, I get along really well with him), and the City of Burlington Republican Chair who has now quite publicly resigned, declaring that the State party has been hijacked by the crazies.  I scarf a portion of the Letter of Resignation just to give you a flavor of how far the dissension reaches, into the backwoods of rural Vermont:

---------------------------------

The unfortunate truth is that the Vermont Republican Party has now been hijacked by far-right extremists who have attached themselves (and thereby the party) to a dangerous crusade against the basic foundations of American democracy. Rather than doing the hard and necessary work of improving Vermonters’ lives and engaging constructively to move our state forward, they would rather embrace the easy answers of bigotry, divisiveness and destruction. They have undermined our institutions and have abandoned the decency and respect which have allowed our democracy to function for centuries. 

At some point, we all must ask ourselves whether we can continue to sacrifice our principles and morals by embracing unbridled populism and division. If Vermont Republicans wish to be seen as the party of values, as they so long have been, then they must recognize the moral imperatives of the moment and abandon the racism, recklessness and radicalism that have driven us to become a party so unrecognizable to many of its proudest and longest-serving members. 

.............

We should work to make Vermont affordable for everyone, not just for those with the resources and privilege to buy their way in, with a particular focus on meeting the needs of the most vulnerable among us. 

We should advocate for a balanced budget, not undermine our funding system by slashing revenues and expecting working families to pick up the tab.

We should be proud to stand for racial equity, not fan the flames of civil unrest by spewing racist dog whistles and supporting the elements of white supremacy found within Vermont communities. 

We should work to conserve our precious environment by taking meaningful, sensible action to fight climate change, rather than selling our grandchildren’s future to the highest-bidding corporate interests.

We should stand for individual freedoms by working to ensure those freedoms for all citizens, not to undermine civil rights through voter suppression and the use of violent, discriminatory policing. 

Since it is abundantly clear that current party leadership is determined to destroy the party’s integrity and electoral future for their own personal gain, I see no way for me to stay true to my own principles while remaining within the party. That is why, with great sadness, I am also announcing my departure from the Vermont Republican Party. 

-----------------------------------------------

Definitely food for thought.

While The Donald started out with a ton of great ideas, he has gotten bogged down in the politics of the self.  And that leads to the Dark Side of the Force.  

Respectfully, Jan, I disagree with your statement. 

I have no idea about Burlington, but Vermont is the home of Bernie and the State showed a true love for Hillary, even more love for Barack, and apparently leans by far to the Left.  Those are known facts.  Not a secret.  Now, starting with Barack, the Democrats began their main strategy to bring the look and feel of a reversal of perceived racism and the hopeful harvest of the majority of the black community.  That strategy then called for the extension of the Obama admin with a woman named Hillary.  That Donald Trump thwarted that effort and did not allow Hillary to continue on with the strategy, and more, crossed a line with mainstream high level bureaucrats and tech moguls alike.  Tech moguls, for their part in the preparations of the larger Democrat strategy, purchased and transformed the 5 major news media companies in America over the last decade, give or take. 

In fact, the Democrats, and you know this, were so pissed off that Donald Trump, of all people(!), could get in the way of their grand strategy that they commenced calls to the Republican Party and Republican Voters to oust him before he could be nominated.  Once nominated, they commenced calling for impeachment before the man was elected.  Investigations into supposed collusion (since that sounds so cynical) with that old chestnut "Russia" (just to ensure all Americans knew he was a traitor of the worst sort) started, yes, you know it, before he was even elected or sworn into office.  And then those so-called investigations continued, along with the tech moguls promulgating every sordid but false detail, for the entirety of his administration, capped off by one of the strangest 4 year assaults on a U.S. President that I can remember, culminating in the last year from The Twilight Zone with plagues, lockdowns, crashed economies, bankrupt Americans and American small businesses, confusion, and on and on and on.  ALL blamed on President Trump; AS IF!  Those people are crazy; not me or us!  If there are those in Vermont Republican politics that are showing signs of craziness, I think it's to be expected, such has been the unrelenting barrage of bullwhackey that has been hammered on us all.

To the article that you show excerpts of:  It was said by another commenter that it sounds like a Democrat statement, and I agree with that completely.  These last 4 years have shown us repeatedly that the Dems speak with forked tongue, to put it extremely lightly.  Saying just the right words but doing the opposite.  Doing incredibly bad things, but telling us that they did not (think peaceful demonstrations with burning buildings in the background and elderly people being beaten, not to mention attacks on law enforcement under nefarious pretenses).

You may know the Chair that resigned, and I don't doubt you that he is a good man, but if he is not with the Dems then where is he going?  He says he's leaving the Republican Party, so where does that leave him?  I'm not saying even that he subscribes to what the Dems have been up to for the past 12 years, but I will say that at a minimum he has decided that the (Democrat laid foundations of) instability needs to stop.  The crazies that you speak of?  Well, I'd say about 75 million other Americans feel pretty crazy watching and living through what the Left has put us through over the last 12 years, especially the last 4, and sure as hell the last one!

So, call me crazy, but I ain't buying what your comment is selling.  Respectfully, of course.

Edited February 23, 2021 by Dan Warnick

[Gerry Maddoux + 3,627]

13 hours ago, Jan van Eck said:

The unfortunate truth is that the Vermont Republican Party has now been hijacked by far-right extremists who have attached themselves (and thereby the party) to a dangerous crusade against the basic foundations of American democracy. Rather than doing the hard and necessary work of improving Vermonters’ lives and engaging constructively to move our state forward, they would rather embrace the easy answers of bigotry, divisiveness and destruction. They have undermined our institutions and have abandoned the decency and respect which have allowed our democracy to function for centuries. 

At some point, we all must ask ourselves whether we can continue to sacrifice our principles and morals by embracing unbridled populism and division. If Vermont Republicans wish to be seen as the party of values, as they so long have been, then they must recognize the moral imperatives of the moment and abandon the racism, recklessness and radicalism that have driven us to become a party so unrecognizable to many of its proudest and longest-serving members. 

.............

We should work to make Vermont affordable for everyone, not just for those with the resources and privilege to buy their way in, with a particular focus on meeting the needs of the most vulnerable among us. 

We should advocate for a balanced budget, not undermine our funding system by slashing revenues and expecting working families to pick up the tab.

We should be proud to stand for racial equity, not fan the flames of civil unrest by spewing racist dog whistles and supporting the elements of white supremacy found within Vermont communities. 

We should work to conserve our precious environment by taking meaningful, sensible action to fight climate change, rather than selling our grandchildren’s future to the highest-bidding corporate interests.

We should stand for individual freedoms by working to ensure those freedoms for all citizens, not to undermine civil rights through voter suppression and the use of violent, discriminatory policing. 

Since it is abundantly clear that current party leadership is determined to destroy the party’s integrity and electoral future for their own personal gain, I see no way for me to stay true to my own principles while remaining within the party. That is why, with great sadness, I am also announcing my departure from the Vermont Republican Party. 

The fellow who wrote his resignation was only a member of the Republican Party in name, not in soul. He uses all the cliches of the far left (dog whistle, selling our grandchildren's future, voter suppression, etc.). In Vermont this fellow may be a staunch Republican but I can assure you that where I live he would be "one of the crazies" on the other side.

In saying that "we should work to make Vermont affordable for everyone," he basically espouses a socialist agenda--because his statement blatantly fights with the entire concept of capitalism. Suppressing the natural rise in real estate, groceries, and snow machines is socialistic. Helping "the most vulnerable among us" is a Christian attitude that most conservative Republicans support. I would imagine that the Muslims in Vermont support it as well, and perhaps even the atheists.  

I'm sorry, but this guy is about as much a poster-child for the current Democrat Party as you can get. He may be a hell of a guy, but he clearly is not a conservative Republican in the conventional definition. He sounds to me much more of a flip-flopper due to the emergence of a rough fringe element in the Republican Party, someone whose friends and contemporaries influenced, better to be on the winning team. 

Social liberalism in the face of fiscal conservatism is fine with me. But you're right, the progressive extremists are so far to the left that they're way past being just social liberalists. We're headed straight down the gullet of socialism . . . in my view much due to the willingness of the many to acquiesce to the rigid beliefs of the few. In this case, a weak person with malleable belief systems easily morphed into one or the other. 

There is a cancer growing in America. If this fellow got under my skin I'd take him to the dermatologist.  

[Gerry Maddoux + 3,627]

Dan, I must have posted my comments just as you posted yours.

You said it much better, of course. 

I too have great respect for Jan van Eck and sometimes even feel a moral obligation to rescue him from the land of Tom and Jerry. 

😂

[Dan Warnick + 6,100]

43 minutes ago, Gerry Maddoux said:

Dan, I must have posted my comments just as you posted yours.

You said it much better, of course. 

I too have great respect for Jan van Eck and sometimes even feel a moral obligation to rescue him from the land of Tom and Jerry. 

😂

Your prose is superior, IMHO.  But I try.

[Jan van Eck + 7,558]

5 hours ago, Roch said:

We kinda do know.  After all Bernie is one of your U.S. Senators.

Nah.  In Vermont, Bernie is mild.  The hard-core Leftists are way past Bernie, he is considered a harmless old grandpa, everybody likes him, nobody takes him too seriously.  The far Left here has no time for Bernie.  The place seems to be over-run by Leftists from Massachusetts that decided Mass. was not Left enough, so they went to Vermont to set up their far-left ideas.  Some of it is seriously wild. 

[Jan van Eck + 7,558]

2 hours ago, Gerry Maddoux said:

sometimes even feel a moral obligation to rescue him from the land of Tom and Jerry. 

Tom and Jerry are migrants from Brooklyn!  And yes, they liked to espouse Leftist ideas, but not so much when it cam to the ice-cream business.  First up, they were not exactly fair-trade when it came to purchasing raw milk.  What they did was classify any milk the dairymen sought to sell as "second grade," a commodity grade of milk that commanded much lower prices.  But most of the milk bought was in fact first-quality, stuff for which there was no home because of massive over-production.  SO, it is not as if the ice-cream plants "shared the wealth," they paid a low-grade price for high-grade stuff. 

Then, when all was said and done, the boys sold out to Unilever.  Now, admittedly Unilever is a Dutch company, but that outfit applies tough ideas towards the communities it sits in and towards the workforce.  Not like Unilever managers brought in from outside were gentle at the helm. But Unilever offered the boys a big pile of dough, so our socialist pair went capitalist in a great big rush.  Do the Boys walk the walk, or simply talk the talk?  You tell me. 

So much for the migrants from Brooklyn. P.S.  I am giving up on the place and moving on to another State.  Not going anywhere here.  Cheers.

[Roch + 537]

18 hours ago, Symmetry said:

but small hands.

Trump has a fan base for sure, but if you had occasionally taken a peak at reality over the last year you would notice they have no actual power.

The wolf-crying children are no longer listened to. The courts, the media, the people, have stopped listening to Trump fanatics.

 

As @ORO said it's not about Trump, it's about what he stands for.  It's about the fact Trump is the only one to stand up to the entrenched establishment and their anti American , anti Constitution rule while enriching themselves.  

Trump started it.  Now it's time to find dynamic leaders to finish what so many forgotten people want.  That's  75 million+ people.  

You think that 75 million Trump voters are fanatics ?  Please. 

Edited February 23, 2021 by Roch

[Roch + 537]

1 hour ago, Jan van Eck said:

Nah.  In Vermont, Bernie is mild.  The hard-core Leftists are way past Bernie, he is considered a harmless old grandpa, everybody likes him, nobody takes him too seriously.  The far Left here has no time for Bernie.  The place seems to be over-run by Leftists from Massachusetts that decided Mass. was not Left enough, so they went to Vermont to set up their far-left ideas.  Some of it is seriously wild. 

Does this sentiment carry over to UVM ? 

If Bernie is considered mild I hate to see the real Vermont Left.

[Dan Warnick + 6,100]

Trump should back Candice Owens.  That'd tick at least a few of the boxes.  She even looks black, and we could start a rumor that she's got Injun blood in her (or may have had at some point, you know, that night at the casinos on Spring Break.  Sorry, I'll get my coat...).

[Ward Smith + 6,615]

17 hours ago, Jan van Eck said:

they would rather embrace the easy answers of bigotry, divisiveness and destruction.

 

16 hours ago, El Gato said:

We should be proud to stand for racial equity, not fan the flames of civil unrest by spewing racist dog whistles and supporting the elements of white supremacy found within Vermont communitie

 

3 hours ago, Dan Warnick said:

We should stand for individual freedoms by working to ensure those freedoms for all citizens, not to undermine civil rights through voter suppression and the use of violent, discriminatory policing. 

Sorry Jan, but I respectfully disagree with you and agree with El Gato. Those phrases (misattributed to the other posters because it's too difficult on this mobile device to tell where I am copying quotes) come right out of the DNC handbook! What "racial" unrest exists in freaking Vermont? The use of race to "excite" the base is 100% demoncrat playbook and you know it. Meanwhile they've just "placed" the most racist President in 50 years in office. Xiden is the one who publicly declared that blacks were too stupid to use the internet!! 

That guy who quit was never a Republican, just a democrat in Republican clothing. A RINO. 

[surrept33 + 609]

5 hours ago, Gerry Maddoux said:

The fellow who wrote his resignation was only a member of the Republican Party in name, not in soul. He uses all the cliches of the far left (dog whistle, selling our grandchildren's future, voter suppression, etc.). In Vermont this fellow may be a staunch Republican but I can assure you that where I live he would be "one of the crazies" on the other side.

In saying that "we should work to make Vermont affordable for everyone," he basically espouses a socialist agenda--because his statement blatantly fights with the entire concept of capitalism. Suppressing the natural rise in real estate, groceries, and snow machines is socialistic. Helping "the most vulnerable among us" is a Christian attitude that most conservative Republicans support. I would imagine that the Muslims in Vermont support it as well, and perhaps even the atheists.  

I'm sorry, but this guy is about as much a poster-child for the current Democrat Party as you can get. He may be a hell of a guy, but he clearly is not a conservative Republican in the conventional definition. He sounds to me much more of a flip-flopper due to the emergence of a rough fringe element in the Republican Party, someone whose friends and contemporaries influenced, better to be on the winning team. 

Social liberalism in the face of fiscal conservatism is fine with me. But you're right, the progressive extremists are so far to the left that they're way past being just social liberalists. We're headed straight down the gullet of socialism . . . in my view much due to the willingness of the many to acquiesce to the rigid beliefs of the few. In this case, a weak person with malleable belief systems easily morphed into one or the other. 

There is a cancer growing in America. If this fellow got under my skin I'd take him to the dermatologist.  

I think socialist and capitalism have odd connotations -  maybe it's an holdever from the cold war propaganda, dunno.

I love American and world history, but I can't say I grew up scared of the soviet union (I don't remember it at all, plus much of the most useful stuff I learned was from fellow humans that were "stuck" on the other side via randomness, and then in the '90s, there was a renaissance of ideas from the east after the iron curtain fell. For example, Andrey Kolmogorov's ideas about probability and randomness: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrey_Kolmogorov revolutionized a lot fields for example (especially computer science, math, and physics). I spent a while "digital nomading" in early 2010s (I was working mostly remotely, so I decided to "slow travel") so I got to travel a lot of places and observe "culture" (every continent except for Antarctica). I think people's cultural quotient is what is going to be the most important "thing" in an increasingly interconnected world where people work with people from other places. Culturally sensitive collaboration and competition requires strong opinions, weakly held (maybe we can modulate our own synaptic plasticity by always thinking like a beginner?)

Maybe we can "concept blend those two historical ideas" and call it "social capital"? That's actually a common term at least in some circles, particularly in silicon valley (the greater SF area, but I'll zoom into Sand Hill Road) or silicon alley (NYC), but really originated from the industrial revolution, I think. If you go to the Ford museum in Detroit, or the Carnegie museum(s) in Pittsburgh, you can kind of see what the titans of industries of the past kind of regretted from the stuff that they curate in their museums. Let's add a few other terms called "human capital" and "cultural capital". How do you create some other currencies (an valuation system), a fiat currency (aka the fluid mechanics of money), and/or cryptocurrencies that are trustworthy? 

I think we are in an era of change, which IMHO is great. Building systems that are resilient in the face of change and encourage inclusionary practices so that cross-pollination of "best practices" are important. I think the most amazing thing about humans is how adaptable we all are. These days, many jobs are automatable via application of automation (lets just call it computer robotics, the study of information and cyber-physical systems and how to automate the dirty or unsafe work that humans may not want to do). Of course, this depends on the individual, for example, I may not want to type out a bunch of text, and it's not hard to automatically generate context sensitive text with modern "AI" relative to other context. I would create virtualize myself, give myself multiple "brains" (hats), and be very multilingual (so my virtual person could "auto complete" a lot text, of course, there are errors, but my higher order "grammar" checker could learn some style guides, but how formal would it get? A legal blue book?). What do you choose to automate or move to autonomy? I thinks kind unsafe working conditions (or preventing unnatural deaths) should be first, IMHO (think about all the jobs on for example oil/gas rigs that required a lot of human labor but were dangerous - what do you do about lost jobs?).

I think people's expertise can greatly be leveraged, but often people are tunnel visioned into some rigid way of thinking. Your profession does not define you, IMHO, and most skills transfer over between professions. I'm guessing most next generation "computers" (I'll call them tool automation factories, but perhaps the "language of the machines" is not very intuitive for a lot of people) will be similar to https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/hololens where people's "perception" will be enhanced via computational generated holography. We'll also able to "collaborate" with people theoretically anywhere in the world with very low latency. How do you handle asynchronous communication? Adult "attention deficit" disorder? Exchange currencies? Account for who owes who what? Different laws and business environments in different jurisdictions? Different "tools" of the trade for different professions? Align the incentives of special interest groups? There is a lot of ecosystems to handle a lot of this stuff, but it'll be interesting to see what the market selects an an era of acceleration of more immersive "tools". What are the other knobs that may need to change? Theoretically, any of them depending on what you care about. 

In 2021, let's think about what a social democracy is - that's Germany's term for it anyways, but practically every western country has a market based economy, and a social safety net. For example, the US banned debtors prisons a long time ago, but perhaps we can just give the people who work at a company a seat at any corporation's board of directors? It seems to work well in germany. Perhaps predatory loan sharks should be selected out? For better or worse, poverty tends to beget more poverty, and wealth tends to beget wealth. If anything, how would you let people self-actualize relative to their own life (the finite amount of seconds they have on the planet?) Technology tends to be an ultimate lever. This is especially true in a digital world, you can create uncontrollable growth by attaching to network effects, and constructing a digital product has extremely high margin (and you can create a market around it), but how do you slow down institutional inertia of special interests whose "historical" ideas may or may not relevant? IMHO, the best way is to change incentive structures and give people compromises, and then entice them with more reach, which is good, no matter what profession.

Different fields move at different paces, some for good reason, but sometimes, it's just because bottlenecks weren't easy to identify with previous generation information processing systems. Since now, one may be able use neural translation to translate between glossaries (jargon) between glossaries (jargon). For example, a "spider" which crawls every international patent office with the physical intuition of say, einstein, but with more (context sensitive) legal knowledge? How do you do that in 500 languages? How do you increase people's reach so everyone has access to much more global industry cross cutting markets? One way, is to give people in different fields much more advanced tooling and better ways to "do useful work" (use their expertise to empower them to create jobs for the many, but keep in mind most information systems really desire information entropy). I think things like infrastructure have been neglected for too long in, for example, the United States, but maybe it's good that we waited. I'd urge for example, experts in grids, bridges, and transit systems to look at for example, countries which had to catchup on such things to look at what they did, and then copy the patterns, but one may also want to think about other fields to figure out what to build. To me, one problem is what people think about in terms of "business size" in the era where business formation really can scale higher thanks to improved ways to collaborate and communicate over long distances (think smart contracts!), so most small(er) businesses should really be thinking about much bigger picture goals. 

I think Doug McMillon, the CEO of walmart "gets" what a reformed nuanced perspective of capitalism looks like: https://www.businessroundtable.org/walmart-president-and-ceo-doug-mcmillon-named-chairman-of-business-roundtable

His personal story is actually more interesting, he worked himself up the bottom up from stocking shelves @ Walmart so more or less he's 'seen' the problems of each step of his org chart and the communities that they serve. He's been the "working class" and the CEO and every step in between. 

McMillion made a lot of astute business decisions, especially buying Jet.com (this was started by Mark Lore, a frenemy of Bezos) to gain a lot of digital chops and buying Flipkart to take advantage of hypergrowth of e-commerce in Asia and Africa. He's truly modernized Walton's business. McMillion became the spokesman of many CEOs after he assumed that position. You can call him a "influencer". He more or less said the nature of business needs to change to focus on human capital first, and I agree with him.

Now, let's take at the perspective of Blackrock:

https://www.blackrock.com/us/individual/larry-fink-ceo-letter

Blackrock, Vanguard, and State Street hold a lot of voting power (and thus can vote out many CEOs) since they are the largest shareholders in most companies (because of the rise of passive investing after the 2008 financial crisis. if you have a 401k, they represent you). Many of these companies have become trumpets of change, because they realize most of the growth is in ESG-funds and a focus on CSR. How do you interpret ESG and CSR? I'll leave you to find out!

Edited February 23, 2021 by surrept33