Add gore in 2000, Hillary’s delayed concession in 2016, and the summer ‘20 race riots to this discussion and maybe there’s enough context to have a rational discussion here. Otherwise your bias is showing. You can have the last word I’m done posting in this thread.

Attempting get back on topic: In the big picture it seems the normal ebb and flow of market forces is getting verbally amped up and ‘over-leveraged’ by non economic political and social forces so much to the point that it’s hard to discern what’s actually true anymore.

Thank you for your post.


Americans still mostly respect Americans and the lives of our countrymen. I'm so glad the police did not open fire with lethal force until the inner perimeter of where our Representatives were, the bombs placed around town did not go off and the guns across the river remained across the river. I am thankful for the restraint. I am even more thankful that Mark Esper told the President **no**, twice, when Donald Trump ordered the 82cnd Airborne, our first line combat troops, to engage Black Lives Matters protesters. Demonstrators, even protesters, have every right to do so, as long as they aren't breaking, burning, stealing or killing.


This fall will be a referendum. Americans are very understandably concerned about their economic fall as "taming inflation" means taking money away from the middle class until they just can not afford to spend it anymore. That hurts. The Republicans have not offered any plan for a soft landing. Much of this is out of the control of either party. I doubt Putin is going to give up and go home.


So I really think the best answer is the rise of a "rule of law" conservative who will revitalize the Reagan-minded side (pro immigration, pro democracy here and around the world). I do not agree with Liz Cheney on much, but damn if she hasn't shown herself to be a fine American. The Committee's use of almost entirely **Republican** witnesses have demonstrated that there are people who respect the law, capable of thinking through policy, in the party. Without them, Trump would have remained in power and democracy would be over. It was close. That was the beginning of a tumultuous period that probably will not be resolved one way or another until 2028 or 2030. At that point I think the odds favor us being a democracy in name only. As Putin says, quoting Stalin, "He who counts the votes is all that matters."

I expected the economy to become more unstable as we transitioned from fossil fuels to closed-loop systems that diversified and decentralized and distributed energy production to locals. Most of the funding for culture wars starts in the out-of-date offices of energy producers. I think much of what we see is the dying gasps of this industry attempting to hold on to energy and power.

The shift is absolutely inevitable. People want what is cheaper and better. We will alwas have oil & gas production, but as they lose their lead they will lose their political relevance. Then we have a chance that the people will actually get what they want our of government.

You make a couple of excellent points. There is no logic to the "big lie." Gore could not deem himself President. Neither can KamalaHarris. And Pence could not either. It is not up to one person.

I’ve been on MLOA for a couple of years. Is this the type of cockpit banter I can expect to come back to? Judging by the drift of nearly every thread on this forum into this crap, I may not be coming back. No job, no matter how much it pays, is worth having to listen to this junk 6-9 hours a day.

It really is a war between those that drive Miata's against those that sleep on a MyPillow.

In the days and weeks after the riot, five police officers who had served at the Capitol on Jan. 6 died.

• Officer Brian D. Sicknick of the Capitol Police, who was attacked by the mob*, died on Jan. 7.
  
• Officer Jeffrey Smith of the Metropolitan Police Department killed himself after the attack.
  
• Officer Howard S. Liebengood of the Capitol Police also died by suicide four days afterward.
  

*The Capitol Police had previously said that Officer Sicknick died from injuries sustained “while physically engaging with protesters.” The Washington medical examiner later ruled that he had died of natural causes...

A bipartisan Senate report, released in June, found that the seven deaths were connected to the Capitol attack. But the report was issued a month before two Metropolitan Police officers — Gunther Hashida and Kyle DeFreytag — died by suicide in July.


SOURCE:
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/05/u...ol-deaths.html

I heard Trump pulled out all the stops for his coup. He called up Pence and told him he was a “wimp” and a “pu**y”. Our country was hanging by a thread. Good thing Trump didn’t pull out any harsher words or
it would have all been over.

So according to the NYT, a bastion of pro-Trump reporting, no police officers were "murdered" by the crowd on January 6th :rolleyes:

No, this forum is nothing like flying the line.

The blue dog Democrat is dead. The party has been hijacked.