@ANetliner, we have to win the midterms. Trump has said there will never have to be another election in this country, if his party wins the midterms. Because they will end the republic.
So we have to win. And everyone must help. Donate your money and your time. Make sure everyone votes.
Here is Newsom saying it plain and simple:
https://x.com/GavinNewsom/status/2102857064603394141?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
@jeanne-mayell “Vision I had of the midterms. Strange and unexpected therefore worth understanding. I saw a graph of a dynamic system…”
While reading your vision, I immediately had a sense that “there was a power vacuum.”
Two forces are at play:
*The MAGA movement will suffer a rapid, inexorable loss of energy and the ability “to control the narrative.”
At the same time,
*Energized citizens and professionals will work assiduously “to change the narrative and flood the polls.”
WE are the change agent.
@unk-p re: "Talarico says God is non-binary"
When I was a child, maybe 7 or 8 years old, I said to my mom and some other church-going adults, "I don't know why they always refer to God as a "He". It's not like there are a lot of Gods running around breeding." No one responded, but my mother was clearly embarrassed of me. 😀
(That must have happened been before I took an interest in polytheistic belief systems. Which I did quite early on, when I got hold of my older sister's Edith Hamilton's "Mythology" that she had to read for high school.)
@jeanne-mayell The diagram is also similar to the proverbial pendulum swinging from left to right and never remaining in the center . Once the light blue arrows reach the inside of the container, they too will begin descending and eventually be forced out and will have to rise again.
I do not particularly like that idea, but I don't like the pendulum either. My personal preference is to stay in a relatively sane and balanced center-ish place. (a Libra thing I guess.) But on the other hand, stability may lead to stagnation, so it doesn't hurt to have (seemingly) radical concepts proposed, thoughtfully considered, and adopted if they will lead to healthy evolution. I guess what I think is "unhealthy" is the pendulum going to extremes, like we have now.
@ana It is describing how a system maintains balance. Human consciousness is always shifting like waves on the ocean, but there is a ceiling and a floor. Every person has this within them and every culture as well. The big question is what is the limit that the American people will tolerate. The vision I had was showing me that it is a contained system that is going to hit the limit of extreme right. In the 1960's, Lyndon Johnson created The Great Society movement where he set up OEO, The Office of Economic Opportunity to help the poor rise above the poverty line. Civil rights were being addressed. These movements led to more opportunities in the 1970's when the minimum wage was as high in real dollars as it has ever been.
Then there was push back. Reagan's election showed that the tide had turned and the country started leaning right. Again.
I believe (and hope) we've hit the limit of what the country will tolerate in a right wing leader. Trump is more of a characture of extreme right than anything real. He behaves like a mentally ill King, an American version of Caligula. And I believe he is a transitional figure, i.e., leading us back towards the center left. I pray with all my heart, as do most in this community, that the midterms will be the moment that those arrows turn at the top into the actual democratic governance. The system reminds us to understand how the system works. We must not go too far left.
I wish some of the leaders would find a better word for themselves than democratic socialist. I think that term repells many Americans but especially the wealthy who think it means communism.
I prefer the word"social democrat" for a "social democracy," one that has a livable minimum wage and social security levels, free public education, affordable housing expansion for our younger and mid level adults, civil rights, and affordable health care. But a system where every able bodied adult works. Don't ask me where AI fits into this. I don't have the answer to that. Yet. But I am certain that everyone is needed to make a healthy social democracy.
Am tagging people who I think would like to know we are talking about these issues: @bluebelle @lovendures @ANetliner @earthangel @dannyboy @TonyaW @Teriz @Seaholly @SeaLion @journeywithme2 @Tybin @cindy @joy @freya @unkp @freya @momo
@jeanne-mayell @ana This pendulum metaphor for the political consciousness of a society comes from Theosophy, a philosophy founded by Helena Blavatsky. Theosophy suggests that when social awareness shifts significantly in one direction, an intangible tension and counterforce develop within the collective unconscious. This eventually leads to a sudden and significant shift back towards a longing for the opposite pole. This shift is thought to be brought about by the dynamics within the collective, for Theosophy teaches that the thoughts and emotions of millions of people create real, energetic formations in the invisible realm. As I understand it, as soon as these shared thoughts reach a critical mass, they start to influence the whole country's mental atmosphere, capturing the voters' consciousness and bringing about the visible change in power, e.g. in a democracy. It is possible that, under T's presidency, a strong collective thoughtform may already have formed in the voters' minds.
The diagram I saw in my meditation on the election outcome also goes back to the Greeks.
For the turn at the boundary, Plato in Republic VIII, says that an excessive increase can bring about a reaction in the opposite direction, especially in government. classics.mit.edu
For the whole loop, Polybius’s ancient Greek theory of recurring political change is a better parallel. A regime develops, changes character, gives way to another, and the sequence eventually comes around again. penelope.uchicago.edu
A pendulum is a useful shorthand for a simple reversal, but my drawing shows something additional: the movement does not simply swing back along the same line. It divides, rises by two outer routes, and returns at the top. a political cycle with a turning point, rather than simply a pendulum. I think it describes different reactions in our society to the extremes of the MAGA Administration.
It doesn't assure that the Administration won't interfere with the election and even stop or win it illegally. But it tells us that a profound reversal is happening in how the populace is reacting to the Administration.
I think it is humoroujs that Trump is telling people to consider their vote as a vote for HIM. That could do more harm to midterm GOP candidates than help.
If the regime does effectively steal the election by a variety of means, some of which we have already observed, then the pendulum will still swing back eventually but I'd rather wait until after the election to contemplate that prospect.
My gut sense: The two sides of upward arrows in my diagram show how the shift and strength of public sentiment about the Trump Administration will fall into two groups of people:
On one side are people, more right leaning, who will not tolerate the worsening economic outcome of Trump's actions. Whether they are middle or lower income people who cannot earn a living wage due to rising costs, or wealthy people who are fearful at what is happening to high prices, to businesses, and a possible recession brought on by chief executive single-handed bungling.
On the other side of the diagram are those who are motivated by concern for the dismantling of our democracy, unspeakable cruelty to immigrants, the lack of due process, defiance of the courts, and a frozen cult-like Congressional majority.
There are other motivations that will cause people too vote against the incumbent party, but I think they fall into those two groups, economic and idelological.