As the era is not yet completed, and that has been the primary determiner of prosperity for the last four years, those using salacious and false headlines to spread rage against the President for profit, it seems the best descriptor.

2020 is not over yet but don't give anyone any ideas

@busillis It is possible that the temple is held up by the columns and that the columns represents the ability of the citizens to uphold the virtues the state is based on. https://image.forskning.no/191262.jpg?imageId=191262&width=480&height=360

I’m just hoping 2020 hasn’t been the prelude!

you and me both

We're talking mystery culture or real world?

For US, the conservative American, the government has four functions: 1) To restrain government from the suppression of our inalienable rights in as much as that is humanly possible, 2) To restrain factions, organizations, and individuals from infringing upon the inalienable rights of others, 3) To punish those responsible for violations of the inalienable rights of citizens and lawful residents, whether the offender is a person or a nation, and 4) To assist lawful immigrants and minors to an understanding of what it means to be a citizen with Inalienable Rights and the Inalienable Obligations that come with them.

@busillis No mystery its the mechanism the Greeks described by that structure.

Trump inherited an economy that had the longest sustained growth in a generation. He artificially inflated it with a stimulus that caused our deficit to rise. The all of the first 3 years of the Trump presidency ran a deficit higher than the highest deficit in Obama's last 4 years. It was smoke and mirrors. Take away the excessive spending and account for the increased debt and his economy was pedestrian at best.

Well, it has been an intriguing conversation but I’m afraid it’s time for me to retire for the night! Early morn!

@Whithers Ok.

@Free2Think night!

@meglide good one about 2020 not being over I needed a good chuckle

If Democrats didn't screw so many things up the Right would not have to spend so much trying to fix it.

Only if we have a majority honest government...starting to wonder about that lately.

Two words... Great Recession.

Good night and nice to meet you. Until next time!

the smoke and mirrors have going on for much longer time than Trump's term in office

@meglide I hope 2020 isn't Preluded either

Caused by the greed of Corporatists, which are Establishment Dems, such as Clinton, and RINOs.

Sure... but the most economic upheaval in the last 30 years has occurred during Republican presidencies and none occurred during Democratic ones. Just sayin'...
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/factcheck/2020/05/28/fact-check-do-gop-presidents-oversee-recessions-dems-recoveries/5235957002/

2020 is the preamble for an even more intense action movie called 2021. But now that all the characters have been introduced, the sequal can get down to the action flick.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Brtfn_a-cO0

has nothing to do with who is president ... at least since Nixon anyway

The citizens held up the edifice of the state until, assimilated by a stronger state. I suppose it was great while it lasted.

Or the media didn't want to juice people up to an upheaval when the Dems were in power. After all, I still remember when my classmates cheered upon hearing the President had been shot.

Actually, the precipitating factor to our current economic woes was Reagan's elimination of the top tax bracket. It has resulted in the largest transfer and accumulation of wealth in history. It was the very thing that our founding fathers worried most about. Average CEO to employee pay has gone from about 14 times to nearly 400 times in the last 40 years.

@busillis civilizations die by suicide, never murder.

@Whithers and @TaLoN132 you can both see the problem but you don't know where the source is

Thanks for the chat. I will someday figure this all out. Night for now

Reagan was the ultimate salesman who convinced a whole generation to vote against their own best interests.

@busillis All that is needed for a state to fail is for its citizens to stop upholding its virtues. How it fails, is the consequence, not the cause.

Suicide by other country?

And I considered myself a Reagan Republican, at the time.

sure. A state can commit suicide by not being able to defend itself against a foreign enemy. @busillis

The cause then, is its inability to defend itself.

That sounds like an indictment of the Left to me.

Incorrect. Those effects did not occur because of Reagan. Reagan's response was the effort to reduce the penalty of blossoming globalism as the teleconference and private jet resulted in the ability of corporatists to manage facilities on the otherside of the globe where they could use slave labor or if forced to pay, pay only 10 cents an hour.

and that's different from the Right how?

I am quite aware of the corporate influence on everything... I have posted about it many times. There are things that occurred to allow that to happen.

@busillis nothing I say now, or in the future can be taken as endorsement of any side of the left-right spectrum. I regard that as a tertiary phenomenon and datapoints, of the same value as a where on a pain chart the patient points.

Despite the status of the state, the foundation, always the people.