RE: Biden... He's DOA. In fact he's so irrelevant at this point, I won't be the least bit surprised if the DNC isn't having conversations right now about how to get somebody else that's not Bernie in there.
"Rising up in the streets" is totally misinterpreting what I was saying in our text thread the other day. I wasn't talking about a "riots and anarchy" style revolution. As you say, these kids want everything handed to them without having to do the real heavy lifting. (They want it to look like they worked their asses off though. This is important.) I'm talking about a coup, perhaps done within the system but possibly with combat, based on parliamentary action and (probably) civil war. More of a Bolshevik revolution than an Arab Spring.
Remember, I kept referencing Oliver Cromwell the other day. Trump is Charles I here. All his policies are moving away from what all these complacent kids want. I can't see him embracing student loan forgiveness, universal basic income and health care, climate reform, and all the other quasi-socialist policies that, yes, today's college kids indeed lean toward... even the conservative confederate flag waving kids in WV. (Racist doesn't always equal stupid. We armchair liberals would do well to remember that.) The Trump well is far too poisoned. He could maybe offer these policies up and get a weird consensual complacency, but the animus against him will remain. The throttle on the Trump train is simply too hot to hold without a complete U-Turn that
I believe Trump is psychologically incapable of.
I don't know who Cromwell is in this situation, but they'll likely be someone in Congress or the Senate (who may not even be around yet) who will rally enough of a base to be a threat to Trump's ridiculously incompetent and self serving status quo. (Yes they're all self-serving and incompetent, but Trump is too narcissistic to hide that behind experts.
He has to be the face of everything.) Like the other Cromwell*, 21st Century Cromwell will be reformist
and religious. They will likely be just as fascist at Trump, but not really as corrupt. They'll simply want to clean house of years of corruption by big business. The media will love them because Cromwell-21 will by necessity, be as charismatic (and initially divisive) as Trump.
And as you say, this new dictator will get all the kids behind them because Cromwell-21 will free the kids of all their debt. (That's what they want. Freedom to them is that
everything is free. College, movies, music, books, healthcare, travel, all of it. They think it's their right.) And they'll be social media say enough to make the kids feel like they're really making change with minimal effort. They'll use the way Bernie and Warren took far left ideas an made them palatable to the middle, and "hyper-normalize" it to attract moderates to their cause. (The old Teddy Roosevelt "Trump Buster" line will suddenly seem attractive to middle class folks promised low interest rates and a modicum of 20th century capitalist-style happiness for the next 20+ years.) The older folks who want the security offered by Cromwell-21 will also buy into it. Remember, Cromwell-21 does not need consensus. They only need consent by a majority. Trump has proven that.
You and I are too fat and happy. (And moderating to the right in our middle age.) We think fixing the economy will make everyone all love Trump and fall in line because it allows
us to return to the status quo. It'll make us love the reform you're talking about. Cromwell-21 will be smart enough to set policies that keep the middle class happily in a quasi-capitalist illusory state. But poor and hungry is still poor and hungry if the same system stays in place across the board.
So you're right: The kids up won't rise up. But those interested in consolidating power will do so in the name of righteousness. (They may even believe their own stink.) But it stands to be worst than Trump. In fact, the post-"revolution" stands to be a Stalin-esque
Handmaid's Tale place that will make us beg for Trump to be back. The U.S. will probably look a lot more like the old Soviet Union than anyone will like. However, all these government services will keep the kids poor and "wave-slave" strung out as possible, but
just comfy enough not to do anything about it.
Finally (and I may be be completely underestimating the intelligence and/or awareness of the common American here), the state response so far on COVID-19 has been far more decisive than the federal. Even here in WV, people aren't sure about Trump anymore. But they love old Jim Justice whose ability to string words together to form a complete and/or rational thought is minimal at best. It's foolish to think that people are going to turn against their local officials, particularly out here in the sticks where a) the virus has yet to hit as badly, b) those officials (unlike Trump) are using every resource available to provide relief, and c) people are completely distrustful of federal control under the
best of circumstances.
Again, we may not have seen this person, but there's somebody out there who's going to use the power of Jesus and righteousness to unite poor rural young and middle-aged Americans and urban millennial/Gen Z-ers.
They will be the ones to set up an autocracy that you and I will think horrifying.
In a way, we're both arguing the same thing. Except I'm using my old Bush43 Patriot Act argument that Trump has teed up the ball for the next dictator, the *smart* dictator, to come in and hole-in-one the real dystopia.
*Everybody's fucking homework is to watch
Cromwell, which if the connection isn't already clear, uses the same font for it's titles as
Ilsa: She-Devil of the SS.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M7QHFm2AeMo
