How Democracies Die

This 2018 book by Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt came up with two main reasons for the death of democracies.  Democracies depend on tolerance and forbearance.  When one party is intolerant of the other side and never declines to take advantage of the other side at every opportunity, democracy is in trouble.  Restraint is essential to democracy and Trump's endless parade of norm breaking and law breaking threatens democracy.  Low information voters are perfectly gullible swallowing whole Trump's 20,000 lies in office as documented by the two papers of record the New York Times and Washington Post.  Many of Trump's supporters consider him frank and honest.  Frank, yes, honest, no way.

Conservatism

This is not your grandfather's Republican Party.  Barry Goldwater, the political candidate who birthed the radical brand of conservatism in 1964, led the delegation of Republican Senators who told Richard Nixon to resign in 1974.  Ronald Reagan, who nominated Goldwater in 1964, put America on the path of militarism and extremism by cutting the tax rate on the rich 60%.  Millions of small business owners vote Republican despite being sold out in favor of big business every time there is a tax cut.  Conservatism needs champions of business, but small business has been coopted by the big business owned by the 1%, the elephant triumphs again.

Religion

The gospels of Jesus never mention anything about abortion.  Jesus in his devotion to human equality keeps warning us about the rich, hypocritical religious pharisees that often resemble church going Republicans with their prejudices, and the false prophets warned about in the apocalypse.  Funding the rich and defunding the poor is not what Jesus would want.  Trump reminds me of the musical "The Music Man" as a con man takes over a small town.  The cult around Trump has been created by endlessly bullying everyone in sight who slights Trump in any way.  Trump serves only himself not others, hardly the way of religion.  Jesus warned us about the excessive clubbiness in religions and Country Clubs.  This leads to looking down on others rather than helping them.  Good Samaritan forget about it.

Lawlessness

Trump is easily running one of the most corrupt presidencies ever, compared to no charges against Obama cabinet members while he was in office.  Turnover is record setting, as Trump keeps firing Secretaries and National Security Advisors.  When Trump's people try to be honest, they are fired and replaced with much more pliable acting Secretaries and agency heads.  Most of the cabinet is as corrupt as Trump in their self-dealing expense reports.  Already Impeached and guilty of countless acts of obstruction of justice, Trump intimidated the Mueller investigation.  William Barr, Trump's current Attorney General, lied about the Mueller report and keeps exonerating corrupt officials (Flynn) and campaign aides (Stone).  He also lied to congress, both chambers, and tried to keep his former fixer in jail to stop his tell all book.  When honest officials cross the liar in chief, they are bullied relentlessly, even firing acting FBI director McCabe just one day before pension vesting.  No level of cruelty is too much for Trump, who rips apart families at the border.  How can such a president even dare to run on a law and order platform?  I guess it works with the blind believers.

Less Military

The Reuschlein economic model, so scientifically precise, will force over time all governments to recognize that strong defense cannot be prioritized over the economy, as high military spending blocks manufacturing growth.  Some military may be necessary, but too much too soon will only weaken the economy and thereby the long-term national defense.  Deluded by military Keynesianism, US presidents of both political parties have used military spending to inject growth in local economies, failing to recognize the boomerang effect of reduced manufacturing jobs that goes with all military buildups.  Check the record, the graphs are obvious.

Nature in these times

Hurricanes, typhoons, and wildfires have been very impactful in recent hot years.  This year, the United States was impacted by the most major hurricanes (four) since 1916 and the most landfalls of tropical storms and hurricanes (eight) since 1856.  Of course global warming has warmed the oceans, but cyclical better explains these events.  Two 54-year cycles ago would be 1912 and three 54-year cycles would be 1858, so the repetition of events is only four years and two years off respectively.  A couple years ago here in the American Midwest our skies were faced with a light haze thanks to fires in Alberta Canada tar sands area.  Today the haze has returned thanks to the orange sky smog of fires over California and Oregon.  Each of the two states has a record setting fire with about three times as much fire overall.  The American West Rocky Mountain states all have major fires going on.  Trump's style of climate denial is extreme even by corporate standards, with Amazon promising to be carbon neutral by 2030.

Conclusion

Coronavirus deaths in America by month, 60,000 April, 40,000 May, 27,000 June, 27,000 July, 30,000 August, 24,000 September.  Not much evidence of slowing down, will probably spike in flu season.  Time for the traditional notion of national security to be expanded beyond military force to include global warming and public health, both nationally and internationally.  The pandemic did slow down most European economies in the first quarter more than in America.  The Spanish flu of 1918 (thirty million died) and the Hong Kong flu of 1968 (one million deaths) and the coronavirus 2020 (one million deaths so far) all seem to be on the 54-year cycle.  The confluence of major wars and civil rights protests during these times periods suggests that the end of the 27-year high growth period in the long cycle creates multiple tensions that play out the three ways.  The first period had World War, Spanish flu, and women's right to vote.  The second period had the Tet offensive in Vietnam, the nearby Hong Kong flu, and Martin Luther King death riots.  Now we have the pandemic, Black Lives Matter protests, and the major war scheduled for 2025 give or take a couple years.  The Reuschlein research proves both the empire theory and long cycle theory are accurate and reliable scientific theories that can and will change the world.

Reuschlein 17 Key Findings and Claims:

https://www.academia.edu/37217512/Findings_and_Special_Claims_November_2017_2_pages

Please cite this work as follows:  Reuschlein, Robert. (2020, September 29), "Most Unusual Times Update" Madison, WI, Real Economy Institute.  Retrieved from:  https://www.expertclick.com/NewsRelease/Most-Unusual-Times-Update,2020236573.aspx

Dr. Peace, Professor Robert Reuschlein, Real Economy Institute, Nobel Peace Prize nominee 2016-2020 with accelerating interest from Norway.  Intense interest in an unusually consistent pattern shows up on my website as following my work, hard looks per year went from 2 to 3 to 48 to 128 to 196 (projected).

Contact: bobreuschlein@gmail.com  Info: www.realeconomy.com