The neoliberal orthodoxy is what produced Trump. The lowest 20% of the economic pile in the U.S. were down 20% in buying power by the time 2016 came around, from 2000. Is it any wonder that they looked at their life and said we cannot afford another four years of this. It is only the top 40% that saw any income growth over that sixteen year period. The Blue Economy was and is brutal on the lower half of the economy. Without Trump, and the economy he produced, there very well might have been something worse.
For All that, Trump never quite understood how a Republican System works, especially with an Executive who has limited control over anything other than foreign affairs and the armed forces. His one good credit is no more foreign wars during his stead, may Biden do as well.
As for the average American’s view of Europe, Canada, and other such countries, they have sharp limits on Freedom of Speech, which is the successor to Freedom of Thought. Most Americans are not eager to impose limits on what can be said, other than those the Supreme Court has articulated. Simply because other countries are doing something is no reason for America to do so. It is not unlike what your mother may have said: If all your friends are jumping off a 50 foot bridge, would you?”
Definitely have a conservative bent, but with an insistence of Freedom of thought. There should be few if any limits as to how a parent(s) can raise their children, including their belief systems, up to, but not including any physical or psychological harm, that can be demonstrated easily, and not something that just goes against whatever the current thought is. Such as the right to have one’s child(ren) walk home from school, even if it is a mile or two away. Social Services do not need to be called. In addition, again unless there is physical violence, what happens between one spouse and another, should be strictly between them. Loud noises, yelling is not necessarily a reason for the police to be called. As for gay rights, that would be protected by me under Freedom of Thought, which is not far from Freedom of Expression, both precursors to Freedom of Speech.
What you call hyper masculinity a century or more ago would have been called survival instincts. What we lack as human beings, for the most part, is a willingness to say enough is enough. The number who are not willing to have more, get more, be more, may not be the majority, but the majority as a rule envies and idolizes them. We are not that far from when brute strength was needed on farm, as there were no tractors, just a horse and plow. Where hunting was a necessary means of eating. We have for the most part been overwhelmed by technology, and have yet to adjusted, as it has outpaced our ability, at least at present, to adjust to it. What we call hyper this or hyper that is an attempt to portray that which may be outmoded in the human psyche, but is still there and ticking.
McConnell only two years as majority leader, it took Harry Reid to destroy the judicial filibuster, and the executive filibuster. The Senate was never meant to be the House, it has rules, at least at present, to slow things down, which is what a Republic tries to do with the public passions of the day. Efficiency is something government can manage, but only in a dictatorship. Change the Senate enough, and a rollercoaster of laws that enacted, then removed, then enacted again. That is no way to govern a country.
As for the Electoral College, there were two objections, there was one in 2004 by the Democrats, and one in 2000 by the Democrats, this is the first by the Republicans to my knowledge. Cruz’s was misguided, one does not use an objection to gain a commission on electoral reform. Hawley’s on Pennsylvania, was legit, the governor, secretary of state, both Democrats, with a Democrat plaintiff, discarded the way voting was supposed to happen according to the Pennsylvania Constitution. It leaves me wondering if we are a nation of laws anymore, at least in Pennsylvania. Do not recall hearing any great hue and cry when the Democrats gerrymandered in the 50’s and 60’s, outrageously so, it was considered part of the game. Now when they are on the losing side of it, oh the crime, the horror. Forgive my crocodile tears, what goes around comes around. The system worked, Biden was elected, not for his policies, that for what he would do, but for not being Trump, eight years in a row is to much for most people.
