The lines demarcating American tribes are hardening. In some ways they do not seem to be so firm. The Atlantic allowed George Packer to write on this phenomenon. It is a nice enlightened liberal view of the political arena for 2021. It is also a Boomer hand-waving of the problems the current configuration of America faces.
Four Americas conveniently called Free, Real, Smart and Just. He splits the sides as Free and Real (GOP) and Smart and Just (Democrats). He doesn’t want to live in any republic that was just one of these places. He does frame Free and Real in positive ways at times, which should earn him criticism from the left. What he ends with is the good, old Boomer call to learn to live with one another and make it work.
That cannot happen with the language and policies Just America wants to put into place. Packer calls this a bottom up movement when a quick review of donor pages show it is a tool for the top to cram on us. Something created Just America to upend the older order. The CRT push that infects any policy prescription makes this impossible. Several months ago, CDC employees were sharing slides that sure vaccinating the elderly would save more lives but it wouldn’t provide more racial equity. This is a big deal. When equity and racial justice begins to affect literal life or death decisions, you are done. Just America is the driver here as they disrupt each status quo per donor requests.
Packer does not discuss anything like leaning on federalism or using states as laboratories for not just left wing policies but right. Packer does not go anywhere near entertaining splitting the nation up. There’s always common ground. There’s not though. The gaps between the left and right grow and even in his own admission, there is no talking about complicated problems with Just America. It’s not allowed. He is also blind to the absorption of Just America’s ideas by Smart America. They parrot all the same lines and are in thrall to Just America. Smart Americans post Hate Has No Home Here signs in front of their $800,000 townhomes as they can’t make it to marches and protests due to their schedules.
Free America as the Paul Ryan wing has come under the thumb of Just America, too! We can look at 2020 and recall their rhetoric and pandering. Free America was the libertarian psy op, funded by big donors, to believe in any expansion of rights as liberation from government interference without worrying about consequences. Be happy! We’re all making money! Free America hijacked the get off my lawn or frontier impulse that has always been present for elite policy ends. The upper middle class that mouths the Free Anerica lines is not much different than Smart America. Free America and Smart America mix real well together; one just is not up to speed on proper progressive etiquette.
Packer gives Real America a fair hearing but as the crowd least open to Just America, it is framed as backwards. He writes of Palin crumbling on the campaign trail, but looking at polling numbers, McCain really lost when the financial crisis hit. There was no surviving that nor the well oiled Obama campaign. Packer portrays her as in touch with an America dead a generation ago. That isn’t the case. Something recent happened, and Packer should know as he wrote a book on the changes from 1978-2012. NAFTA was a ‘90s creation. China’s economic boom was even later. Immigration destroyed communal bonds in recent memory. Environmental laws hurt natural resource firms all in our near past and are set to do more damage in the name of climate change. The 2008-2010 bailouts showed to Real America that it is a rigged game, but this isn’t a justified grievance? In hindsight, didn’t Real and Free American zones handle covid better?
That is where an intriguing opportunity arises. No not splitting America into a few pieces; that’s too much for enlightened centrists. There is a chance for a hooked up candidate to emerge from our Deep State and go hard against Just America, set the clock to 1999 or 2010 and use Just America as the villain. Bill Maher pretends to be opposed to the woke but still wants those policies, yet one can almost hear him wish for 2008 to return. This figure could beat the Woke villain, but he needs more than that. Not just Just America but the crony capitalist bailouts and excesses of the big business-government relationship. Some big names must be sacrificed to appease Real America. Some protectionism but not too much so he could placate Smart/Free America. Things may have gone too far, and we can recalibrate the dials. The moderate mirage that Biden was could be made real, whether in left or right form, and stabilize the regime.
This would give the federal government a sell by date extension, and do not underestimate how even the right wing base would accept this. Today’s conservatives are yesterday’s liberals so this would not be a hard sell. The Trump administration sold the base on LGBT as long as they are our LGBT. This fix is, of course, only if you feel it required to keep the American sandbox in the same form and shape. Wouldn’t want to think of anything too unorthodox, and we wouldn’t want to admit we’re an empire with all the negative connotations that tag along with that word. We must muddle through and all be miserable together.
The American Sun 
People like Packer cannot preserve a Free country because they fail to understand the Real problems because, frankly, he’s Just not that Smart.
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as someone who is liberal on a lot of issues but not super woke – here is what I would institute:
Rule of 90 on the supreme court meaning the halfway point between age of appointment and the age of 90 means you have to retire. So if you are appointed at 50 – you have to leave by 70.
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Even granting that mandatory retirement would somehow drum out the worst judges, as though Breyer is the vanguard single-handedly driving leftist rulings and his replacement wouldn’t be worse, let alone looking beyond to replacing Thomas, it would be about as substantial a change as the color of the drapes in the Oval Office. The Federalist Society and related endeavors are the best efforts the GOP has made at politicking in decades, and despite a miracle happening and the opportunity to actually seize control of the courts falling in their lap, the best decades of planning could accomplish is three milquetoast judges who can’t be relied on to toe McConnell’s line, let alone a conservative one. The machine only ratchets left, and despite the occasional theatrics, absolutely nothing of value has been achieved by playing its rules.
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The Supreme Court was a mistake, and has been for decades. We’re better off creating a third branch of Congress to decide what gets interpreted, and vastly expanding Congress in the hope that with 1000 senators and 3000 representatives they will be too numerous to cheaply bribe and to form a single ruling clique.
Or, better yet, switching to a Confederated Union and letting each state decide their form of government and tend only to their own affairs. Mandatory 9 month military training for all healthy young men to aid cohesion, and state defined militias to buttress local policing.
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Is radical centrism even a viable option though? Try to put antifa and the niggers back in the box after they got free reign for a year to reassert the dominance of the deep state. White America is stirring, rolling over in bed and mumbling. A civil war between the woke left and the deep state may very well serve white america as enough time to get out of bed instead of putting it back to sleep.
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Yes, it’s being called “populism.” Anti-woke social policies combined with a moderation of globalism and some basic protectionism and economic benefits to the working class. It would be an extremely popular platform and it would get all of the Trump coalition and combined with some basic political work, like registering non-voters, it could last a few cycles.
Republicans don’t want to do this because they don’t want to win, they are basically being paid – and blackmailed – to not win. For my entire life every time they have won Congress they simply do the tax cuts and never do anything structural to cement their gains.
The push back against Democratic election rigging may yet be a turning point. We see the state parties are angry and are openly attacking the GOP establishment. Plus they seem to get that structural changes have to be made at the state election level to prevent Democrats just more or less stealing elections.
The mainstream media – the TV stations, the two newspapers, everything has been equalized by the Internet and everyone to the right of Mitt Romney despises the media – one good thing we got from Trump.
A serious Internet platform, combined with a lot of money to pay journalist and content creators, maybe even some entertainment, would put us ahead quite quickly I think.
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No explosives inside the WTC. Derpstate did not coordinate with a sloppy elevator contractor who was installing a driver that is located on the roof. This message is not from Tel-Aviv.
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Having a solid right-wing platform has been the dream for decades, and we’ve had better and worse footings over the life of the internet, but today, between Google, Amazon, social media, and more behind-the-scenes tech companies, it simply won’t happen. It’s been the case for years that search engines, social media, hosting services, and such shamelessly surpress opposition with the same vigor that muh CCP does on their corner of the net. Power has consolidately to the point that they can effectively kick you off the internet altogether, as with the Stormer after Charlottesville, the forgotten insurrectionary massacre whose mass graves are yet to be uncovered, but even just hiding links, payment processors seizing funds, terminating domain names, etc. are enough to completely cripple engagement or force you to fold up. Our little circles persist because we’re out of the light and don’t pose much imminent threat, but if e.g. this site took off, I can pretty much guarantee you it would get cut down.
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>The push back against Democratic election rigging may yet be a turning point. We see the state parties are angry and are openly attacking the GOP establishment. Plus they seem to get that structural changes have to be made at the state election level to prevent Democrats just more or less stealing elections.
How can we maximize chaos within the Democratic party and the RINO/GOPe swampcritters?
We can be sure that the DNC will do their best to ensure that only people who pay them get elected, while everyone else sees vote counting stop at 11 PM before bags of votes are found at 3 AM. I’m not sure how we could capitalize on this or if we should (seems awfully risky for dubious benefit), but it will be a sight to see.
>A serious Internet platform, combined with a lot of money to pay journalist and content creators, maybe even some entertainment, would put us ahead quite quickly I think.
On the other side, how can we spoil libtard/RINO media operations?
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As some raised in the ‘left field” parking lot seeing the Marxist creep over the decades now finding them selves in the parking lot behind home plate and my values have not really changed. The rich are parasites along with 95% of the new comers. Homos need to stay in the closet (pride is the worst of the 7 deadly sins). Blue birds live with the blue birds.
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“Smart” should be called “credentialed” and “Just” should be called “entitled beneficiaries”. To a certain extent the realization among the elite that yes they are in fact just promoting whoever they choose and so now they can promote the least among us to greatness is true if you think that pretty much anyone can be the person at the top, i.e. if you accept that “leadership” means nothing more than promoting someone into a position of authority. Since they have been shown critically that their status and authority was the result of a rigged game they think that they can rig the game for someone else now. But this useless elite that climbed the greasy pole to get where they are now are wrong to think that their position was always acquired thusly. Truth matters. I guess I am in the “Real” nation hoping a real leader emerges to put this nonsense to bed. Also, boomers experienced diversity as new chinese buffets opening up near their subdivision. I groan when I think of Chris Wallace saying, at a critical moment in our present history, “What’s the matter with a little diversity training” to Trump during the debates. What a complete disconnect from reality these 70+ year old morons are experiencing. Like they want to start a fight thinking we are all going to morph into a big pillow fight, tumble into bed, and come away from all of this giggling and being best friends. But then I am reminded that I am “real so maybe that’s just how people like me see what’s happening.
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Just relax around blacks
Eat the bug
Take the jab
Live in your pod
Wear your face diaper
Watch your magic talking box
It’s all going to be alright, white man. You will be “taken care of” lol
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you can’t vote your way out of clown world . the court is just as rigged at the elections were.
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