2 ms·

>Always wondering exactly what people mean when they talk of "civil unrest", and who and how will it start. Do the various riots in 2020 America or the Jan 6 st

>Always wondering exactly what people mean when they talk of "civil unrest", and who and how will it start. Do the various riots in 2020 America or the Jan 6 storming of the capitol count? A whole lotta people, mostly outside the HN demographics, are real pissed off about a decade of public policy that has amounted to making their lives worse and worse at every juncture and now it's finally getting to the point where ends are hard to meet. I am not dumb enough to try to make specific predictions but that's a pretty substantial powder keg.

coldpie 5y ago
It's been a lot longer than a decade. Reagan kicked off the looting of the middle-class in the 80s, and both parties officially adopted that policy by the mid-90s, almost 30 years ago. It takes a long time to drive an airplane as big as the US into the ground, but we're finally starting to see the tires hitting the ground now.
- snikeris 5y ago
  Please expand on this: > Reagan kicked off the looting of the middle-class in the 80s, and both parties officially adopted that policy by the mid-90s, almost 30 years ago.
krapp 5y ago
>A whole lotta people, mostly outside the HN demographics, are real pissed off about a decade of public policy that has amounted to making their lives worse and worse at every juncture and now it's finally getting to the point where ends are hard to meet. They had four years under Trump threatening the city-dwellers and neo-liberals, a literal armed rioting mob, sympathy within the government and law enforcement and a gallows in front of the Capitol on Jan. 6th. They had the half of the country with all of the guns and all of the dreams of patriotic revolutionary glory convinced the election was being stolen at that moment by Chinese communists and the very party they blamed for all of their problems. If they couldn't make it happen then, when all of the stars were aligned and the winds of populist ferver were at their backs, I don't think anything more than an occasional riot is going to happen in the future.
- throwaway0a5e 5y ago
  >If they couldn't make it happen then, when all of the stars were aligned and the winds of populist ferver were at their backs, I don't think anything more than an occasional riot is going to happen in the future. Gas was cheap and shelves were full then.
  - krapp 5y ago
    I remember $5.00 a gallon gas during the recession, and there were two gas crises in the '70s and '80s. We've been here before.
    - throwaway0a5e 5y ago
      Your average person wasn't being crushed by their rent in '08 and wasn't over leveraged on consumer debt in the 70s and 80s. Those are just two factors that are different this time around. The information and media landscape is also very different now in ways that make disseminating "be a good little boy and everything will be all right" messages far less effective and the institutions such messages would come are more reputationally bankrupt than ever.

coldpie 5y ago

It's been a lot longer than a decade. Reagan kicked off the looting of the middle-class in the 80s, and both parties officially adopted that policy by the mid-90s, almost 30 years ago. It takes a long time to drive an airplane as big as the US into the ground, but we're finally starting to see the tires hitting the ground now.

snikeris 5y ago
Please expand on this: > Reagan kicked off the looting of the middle-class in the 80s, and both parties officially adopted that policy by the mid-90s, almost 30 years ago.

krapp 5y ago

>A whole lotta people, mostly outside the HN demographics, are real pissed off about a decade of public policy that has amounted to making their lives worse and worse at every juncture and now it's finally getting to the point where ends are hard to meet. They had four years under Trump threatening the city-dwellers and neo-liberals, a literal armed rioting mob, sympathy within the government and law enforcement and a gallows in front of the Capitol on Jan. 6th. They had the half of the country with all of the guns and all of the dreams of patriotic revolutionary glory convinced the election was being stolen at that moment by Chinese communists and the very party they blamed for all of their problems. If they couldn't make it happen then, when all of the stars were aligned and the winds of populist ferver were at their backs, I don't think anything more than an occasional riot is going to happen in the future.

throwaway0a5e 5y ago
>If they couldn't make it happen then, when all of the stars were aligned and the winds of populist ferver were at their backs, I don't think anything more than an occasional riot is going to happen in the future. Gas was cheap and shelves were full then.
- krapp 5y ago
  I remember $5.00 a gallon gas during the recession, and there were two gas crises in the '70s and '80s. We've been here before.
  - throwaway0a5e 5y ago
    Your average person wasn't being crushed by their rent in '08 and wasn't over leveraged on consumer debt in the 70s and 80s. Those are just two factors that are different this time around. The information and media landscape is also very different now in ways that make disseminating "be a good little boy and everything will be all right" messages far less effective and the institutions such messages would come are more reputationally bankrupt than ever.