I believe it was Oscar Wilde who said “The world is divided into two kinds of people, those who divide the world into two types and those who do not.”
Oscar always knew how to turn a phrase like a knife in the ribs.
A lot of pixels and ink has been used to describe the two sides forming in these here United States, so I ask the readers and writers and assorted porch swing pundits over the crackerbarrel here at BDB to chime in and let us know how you see the split going.
Let me offer my own unworthy variant:
America is drifting with two tectonic plates that are moving apart. I call one the Deplorable Republic and the other the Coastal Degeneracy.
The major characteristic of one is the complete focus on trivial and useless crap that when the SHTF means nothing to the survival of the body politic. Statues, microagressions are just the current crop of abstract issues that take on earth shattering importance. In the past we have had busing, affirmative action, racial balance and more. Economies do not grow, schools do not teach, stuff falls apart but all energy is directed to how things look and feel.
The other one mostly wants to be left alone to live their lives, but worries about crime, jobs, economic growth, and not getting invaded by nasty little tinpot dictators.
The Deplorable Republic is usually quiet and ignores government, but lately is getting active, and the Coastal Degeneracy is throwing ever more intangible stuff into the battle. White Supremacy, Racism are far more important that jobs and actual prosperity to them.
Finding interpreters who can translate from Deplorable to Coastal Degenerate may be impossible to avert the coming conflict.
How do you folks see the two sides?



I think the two groups can be drawn between those who believe in magical thinking and those who believe in reality. I think Paul Johnson called the former Utopians in Modern Times. The former as Thomas Sowell has pointed out see costs and trade-offs to do the good.
Typo. I meant to write
“The latter(not former) as Thomas Sowell has pointed out see costs and trade-offs to do the good.”
One side: those who seek and appreciate truth, beauty and God.
Other side: those who enjoy tricking people, scribbling on the walls and yelling obscenities.
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As these two sides exist the former is shrinking as it is hell bent on funding the latter.
I do not see a split occurring I see an evolution toward monolithism (it’s a word now, I say so) a transition away from a split to a unified downward spiral.
The single monolithic state we are transitioning to prioritizes a debt funded welfare state to socialize consequences, assuage prosperity guilt, and revel in consumption.
Once upon a time ~25-30 years ago there were two distinct sides: conservative and progressive that had some disagreement over this. Then conservatives surrendered the high ground, adopted prosperity guilt writ large, the academy collapsed, and now the only difference is an occasional kerfuffle over abortion.
Both sides (individuals and legislators) are majority addicted to surrendering individual liberty, private property, and the prosperity of posterity to fund everything now as we turn away from God toward a utopian vision of everyone is gonna be alright with all grievances real and imagined addressed.
Brent, I think the word you want is unipetrification .
No, Centime – uniPUtrification
I almost went for that word too, Dev, but one long word at a time for Brent. ;-)
Hey, ease up you guys. We got naval aviators on this thread. No more than 2 syllables per word or you have to add stick figures and captions.
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Another way to group it is one group believe in voluntarily helping and the other in forced redistribution.
I think this is a good analysis.
We’ve gotten to the point where we’ve completely abandon fiscal prudence and now it is turning into everyone trying to grab some for themselves.
The present regime will not survive.
Tedious rambling deleted.
‘Mrica has always been a mercantile nation. From our conception we were active in using the land and selling stuff in exchange for other products. We divided, in the early days, between Protestant Reformationists from East Anglica and Protestant Cavaliers from Wessex. While neither side particularly liked the other, they managed to get along. Perhaps in part because travel was slow and so it was harder to get between one and the other regions.
With the advent of the 20th century, distance became a far smaller thing. Beginning with trains, and then with the government-sponsored road building to insure the preeminence of the auto, things changed. Still, business was a local thing, even when it wasn’t. So you found in small towns the country over larger corporate headquarters were found, with the “rich” section of town led by the officers of the company HQ’d there.
FDR changed all that. He went about assaulting companies, taking away rights, and generally meddling in commerce in a haphazard way. Companies fought back — and lost. And learned. If Congress can pass these laws, then Congress can pass other laws. Soon companies began gathering their own influencers (lobbyists). And so the rise of DC – and the East Coast.
The Old Line always lived along the upper East Coast, centering their power in NYC and Philly. NYC has held its place but Philly has fallen. And then there’s the rise of DC, where so many of the grads of the 3 top colleges go.
The Republicans once represented the Midwest, complete with average Joe’s, corporations, large farming complexes, etc. No longer. They gave up the ghost when they decided the money was in DC and large corporations. Companies like AMD keep the corn production lucrative via ethanol, a purely gov-sponsored addative to fuel that does nothing useful and some harmful. It is not for nothing that the old Reagan airport in DC looks like a giant shark pool of corporate jet tails sticking up in the air.
There has not been a champion for the masses for the last 40 years at least, perhaps more. Trump has come out of the bastion of eastern mercantilism but speaks the words of small cap business. Perhaps it’s because the old money doesn’t like him. Supposedly no one in business “trusts” him and banks won’t deal with him. Like one can trust any of the other organizations about, especially banks.
So finally the great middle of the country has found a voice. No matter the amount of screeching the NYTs does, the middle country loves it. SOMEONE finally is listening, at least somewhat. Judge Moore may well take the AL senate seat from a long-time favorite of the GOP establishment. How great would THAT be. Nikki Haley won the governorship against the GOP establishment of her state, too. I wouldn’t be surprised to see Flake go down in AZ.
The barbarians are at the gates! Finally! Turn loose chaos and mayhem (politically speaking).
Sorry that was so long.
Don’t apologize for copious amounts of high quality commentary.
It’s good. You expressed some interesting thoughts there. Republicans had better embrace core American values soon (versus core globalist values) lest the party become irrelevant.
You meant ADM (agribusiness), not AMD (microprocessors).
You’re right – I get those acronyms mixed up from time to time. They are all mostly nasties.
When it comes to corn ask me, Dev. When it comes to megaflops ask John Walker.
Nah! No one megaflops as much as the GOP.
Read Hillary’s new book, Dev. That was close to a gigaflop.
Not enough time in my life to read trash like Hillary’s BS.
…lest the party become irrelevant.
The party is already irrelevant.
Note that the already-mentioned Roy Moore is well ahead in that Alabama Senate race, despite millions of dollars spent against him and Trump’s endorsement of his opponent, or how quickly the gop folded when presented with Trump’s Harvey deal with Chuckie Schumer.
It seems to me our present government is led by the same sort of folks who made up the Slavocracy destroyed by the Civil War, or the people who pushed through the Smoot-Hawley tariff. That is, people who prefer the narrow interests of their pocketbooks over the greater interests of the rest of society. Of course they think very well of themselves, and devote a great amount of time and effort paying people to shill for them and their view of what’s good and right.
I’m thinking of you, Kevin Williamson. In any case, this can’t last. Not politically, fiscally, or economically- and I won’t even attempt to get into the damage these imbeciles have done to the military.
I suggest everyone go look up a book entitled The Fourth Turning, by a William Howe and Neil Strauss.
History doesn’t repeat, but as Mark Twain said it rhymes- and Strauss and Howe did a fine job describing it all.
Oscar Wilde was wrong. Actually, the world is divided into 10 kinds of people: those who understand binary and those who don’t.