thoughts in regard to the “Meathead” / Archie Bunker dichotomy

it harks back to a conception of America … over about ten generations (circa 1700–1950)

white, northern European, Protestant (with integration of Christian-Europeans who were Catholic/Orthodox … Irish, Italian, Polish, Slavic)

industrious in a land with enormous resources … working, innovating, developing, creating with the result of enormous success: a major world-historic dynamic toward building up, farming, mining, industrializing America into a Great Power

dynamic … profitable … aggressive-expansionist extractive … technocratic the creation of American Wealth and Power

then a transition

a) the flooding in from all over the world to partake (when much of the European immigration was played out, the immigrants then came from Other Places) changing demographics

b) reflection upon, attempts to ameliorate the exploitations and oppressions of the building-up process (slavery / discriminations / imperialism / pollutions and depletions) starting with Rooseveltian governmentalism … then, additionally, affirmative action, DEI, etc. and “The Sixties” liberation movements of those who had been oppressed or discriminated against

the reflection, amelioration, liberation movements were seen as being enabled by the affluence being well and feeling secure, the progeny of success were educated, enlightened, sophisticated cosmopolitan, liberal … proactive about affirmative action, anti-discrimination, multiculturalism represented by leftists and welfare-state liberals of the Democratic Party

the critiquing of the exploitations and oppressions was inevitable the flooding in by Others to a wealthy place was inevitable but layers of the population were averse to and resentful about the transitions involved they blamed the leftists and welfare-state liberals of the Democratic Party

as is the case with any revolution or major transition: there developed a constituency of those nostalgic for the old days and old ways those who viewed themselves as the originals, the builders the salt-of-the-earth Americans … Silent Majority / “Archie Bunkers” “we did it without any special treatment”

identifying with the old days … “the better days” … they felt critiqued by, even attacked by and culturally threatened by the counterculturalists of The Sixties

the nostalgic, resentful constituency got represented by the Republicans Nixon, Reagan, Buchanan, Bush, Trump … Make America Great Again

a twist is that they were not fiscally conservative because to keep the Greatness going required a lot of money printing and deficit spending

the economy will crash … and each side will blame the other 2008 was a first iteration of the process … it caused a Republican defeat

both parties are at fault striving for successful administrations, continuing affluence they both persist in the profligate money printing and deficit spending such that debt and inflation are gradually undermining both the welfare-state and the Economic Greatness projects

the second leg of the crash may explode under Trump he’s so temperamental that his reaction to it would be a real concern