Terror 30 Politics

Polite folks really don’t talk politics.  For some years, going into 2017, I had a couple of friends, both middle aged men living alone, who had cultivated me rather than vice versa.  We would meet once a week for lunch, but the three of us would not gather.  One was quite right wing in his politics, the other quite left wing, and I doubted they would get along, so I’d lunch with one one day and the other another day.  Of course we discussed things of interest to them as well as what I have been talking about here.  But shortly after Mr. Trumps inauguration I mentioned that a lot of people had been surprised by his election, but I was not among them.  The liberals had been listening to themselves talk and had done the liberal thing of marrying far from family.  The conservatives had married in family a bit more.  So there was a gradual demographic shift towards nationalism, isolation, and populism (not that I really know what that means) and the elections were simply following the demographics.

Within a week, both of these worthies had made it clear that had no saw no further use in seeing me and broke off.

Please don’t take that attitude.  I’d rather you muttered “balderdash” and leave the topic.  You see, this is simply more important than politics.  In politics, basically any regime serves only at the will of the people.  That’s true of modern free republics like the bulk of the rich world and of places like ancient Rome, where it seems to me that an emperor’s term ended when his Praetorian Guard murdered him. 

A lot of people live in dread of their own government.  If you cruise the offerings on YouTube you may find such people.  And governments fear the people.  We used to have a saying, “She read him the riot act.”  That meant she scolded him.  It seemed to have meant that every government had a riot act, such that if civil disorder appeared it was put down with excessive savagery.  The say a riot about chariot racing in ancient Constantinople let to so much mayhem from the government that the city never recovered its power.  Of course, I doubt that.  Populations collapse from infertility, not from people getting killed on the street.  There is, after all, generally some inside space in most cities. 

There is a question as to whether nationalism is on the rise internationally.  There’s a bit of irony for you.  Countries insist on their national identity and proceed to do just what all the other countries are doing.

If, indeed, these political shifts are due to demographic shifts, I would expect them to continue.  But it won’t last.  Whoever seizes control of the moment may establish a semi-durable regime, but since the whole world is on the same demographic course that regime will collapse, and probably not many years later. 

Now run away and forget I said anything.  I have no numbers.  If you know how to put relevant numbers together, consider the topic yours for the taking. 

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