Dana Blankenhorn

2018: Halfway Through the Gauntlet

Kids are taught in history that Gettysburg was the turning point of the Civil War, and that Operation Torch, the invasion of North Africa, was the turning point in World War II.

From July 4, 1863, the South never invaded the north again. From January 1943, the Nazis and Japanese never again had the initiative.

That’s not the way things were to the people living through these crises. While these events were celebrated, people knew better.

I believe it will be seen that November 6, 2018 represented a similar turning point in the crisis represented by Donald Trump, and the invasion of the West by Russia that is, even now, escalating in Europe and the Ukraine. But a turning point isn’t final victory. It doesn’t even mean victory is in sight.

Nostalgia

Nostalgia is derived from two Greek words. Nostos means home, algos means pain.

I have never been one for nostalgia. I prefer to look ahead. I’m not into pain.

So, 40 years ago I looked forward to people moving into central cities, and 30 years ago I was so high on the Internet. It’s why 20 years ago I was thinking about what’s now called the Internet of Things, and why 10 years ago I was big on clouds.

Throughout my life, better and better has gotten faster and faster. American lifestyles seem little changed from what they were when I was growing up on Long Island. But a half-century ago, in The Shoes of the Fisherman, mass starvation was a reality in China. It was a reality in India, too, and across Africa.

Tsunamis vs. Waves

As soon as it became apparent that Democrats would win the U.S. House, analysts began asking whether this was a “wave” election.

It wasn’t. It was a tsunami.

It’s easy not to understand this because most political scientists aren’t taught the difference between a wave and a tsunami.

The waves that daily hit the shore of the Bonzai Pipeline, on Hawaii’s northwest coast are often 12 feet high. But a wave, no matter how high, will break upon the beach and do no damage, except perhaps to the surfer who doesn’t catch it right.

A tsunami, on the other hand, is caused by forces deep inside the Earth.  A tsunami may be shorter than an ordinary wave, but it will do tremendous damage, because of the enormous power behind it.

The Climax State

One advantage that biologists have over economists and political analysts is a clear understanding of a “climax state.”

A climax state, whether it’s a swamp filled in by peat, a redwood forest, or a planet filled with huge dinosaurs, is the most vulnerable thing in nature. It only looks stable. But a fire, or any sudden conflagration, can destroy it utterly. Mankind has, in the last thousand years, created such a climax state.

This was all described to me in the summer of 1991, when we took our family vacation around our home state of Georgia and found ourselves riding in a canoe through the Okefenokee swamp. Our guide described how the life-and-death competition among plants and animals leaves organic matter behind, which fills in the water and creates little islands, which are eventually connected as more water disappears. But these islands are highly flammable. A fire in the swamp clears them out, leaving a new swamp for creatures to compete in.

It's lack of competition that makes ecologies vulnerable.

The 1978 Game: Dialing Nixon to 11

I hate to brag, but I wrote about 2018 over a decade ago, when I first published this blog’s most important piece, “The Nixon Thesis of Conflict.” 

Here is how I described it then.

“Its assumptions include the ideas that political adversaries are enemies, that politics is a form of war, that attack is always better than defense, and that the system is always under threat from outside.”

It is only because those people who came of age during the Nixon period still live, and dance to its tune, that we have Trump. Trump is the Nixon Thesis of Conflict, dialed to 11.

• Trump supporters deny the reality of trans people.
• Trump supporters are racists.
• Trump supporters are sexists.
• Trump supporters hate Hispanics.
• Trump supporters hate gays.
• Trump supporters hate China.

Trump supporters distrust technology. They ignore climate change even while Florida drowns. They want to give health care to the “free market,” even knowing that doesn’t work. They want to kill Social Security and Medicare, having already handed that money to defense contractors and billionaires. They hate Medicaid. They prefer private colleges to public ones.

Oh, and they want to privatize the VA.

Isn’t there something wrong with this picture?

If you’re hating on most people, and calling them “haters” when they resent it, aren’t you just asking for trouble?

The Future is Not American

I was noodling on a story about the cost of Trump when I realized an important truth. (This is Ladi Delano, Nigeria's youngest billionaire. From millionaire.ng) 

Because of Trump, the future is not American.

I don’t know whether the future will be based in China, or in India, or even in Africa. I just know it’s not going to be here.

Because of Trump.

Barack Obama had a dream, of an inclusive society, multi-ethnic, diverse, and tolerant, that would attract people from all around the world and keep America from falling down the demographic cliff single-ethnic societies were falling into. We would beat China by attracting their best minds, renew ourselves with immigrants from every land and remain forever young.

It would have worked.

Look Around, Look Around

At times like this, when it seems the political world’s going to hell in a handbasket, it helps to take the long view.

My life is infinitely more comfortable, and will likely be longer, than that of my parents or (especially) my grandparents. I have a large, air-conditioned house, next to a train that will get me to an Airport in under an hour and from which, for under $5,000 round-trip, I can travel to anywhere in the world.

The medicines I take prevented the heart attack that began claiming my father in his 40s. The miracles of our time saved my wife from cancer. The technology I began covering in its infancy, this Internet, has given us both fulfilling and independent careers. Our kids are taking this to the next level, studying ecology and the mechanics of life, so their children’s lives will be even richer than our own.

It’s especially important, at times like this, to understand American history and what drives our politics.

Business drives our politics.

The business of America is business.

The industry, or industries, that provide the most added-value to each generation inevitably winds up controlling our politics. What they do, in their own self-interest, is filtered through the actions of each generation into the genie we call progress.

The Eye of the Hurricane

The 1978 election, my natural analog for 2018 based strictly on economic history, was not a great one for Republicans.

True, they won 15 House seats and two in the Senate. But Democrats retained control of Congress, both houses.

If history were to repeat itself in 2018, this would give Democrats the Senate and keep the House in Republican hands. History rhymes, it doesn’t repeat.

Jimmy Carter was very popular at this point in his term, in the wake of the Camp David accords. His approval rating was 56%. The fact that Republicans won in 1978 despite this shows their issues had saliency. The Wikipedia entry on the election notes that it set the stage for the Reagan Revolution, and that the Republicans who won were far more conservative than those they replaced. 

No More Mr. Nice Liberal

I have led a charmed life.

When I moved into our present house, in 1983, we were in the lower middle class.

I had just lost my job at a weekly newspaper. My wife had just gotten work and, with her employer’s help, was going to grad school. We could barely afford the interest on the $44,500 we borrowed. Her dad gave us $5,000 down, but grudgingly. He thought we were wasting our money.

My new neighbors changed me.

Moore’s Law of Politics

Moore’s Law does many things. It is deflationary, and it accelerates the pace of change. It has given us longer lifespans, with more ease, than any generation before.

Moore’s Law was originally a prediction that chip densities could double, every year or two, as far out as Gordon Moore, later co-founder of Intel, could foresee, at least in 1965. But it is much more. Moore’s Law infects every technology, and everything technology touches, accelerating the pace of change in every direction.

For example.

I should be dead by now, or infirm, as my father was at my age. But the discovery of statins and ARBs keep my cholesterol, measured at 373 in 2000, and resulting hypertension under control. (My dad had his first heart attack at age 47.) My dear wife should be crippled, or dying, but advances in treating cancer and implanting artificial joints mean she still walks ahead of me.

This is Moore’s Law in action. Call it Moore’s Law of Health. We live longer because of the technology created by Moore’s Law, and for those who can afford it, an active life to age 100 is within reach.

But there is no Moore’s Law of Software. Software only improves as new tools are created and implemented.

There is no Moore’s Law of Education. You learn only as fast as you learn.

There is also no Moore’s Law of Politics. If there is one, it acts in reverse, against change. We don’t change our political beliefs in reaction to technology. Our assumptions remain those we started with. Very few people change political sides.