Is the empire too rotten at the core to be salvaged?

[Blue_Adept]

(accidentally posted in GDP by mistake)

Or does it need to be burned down and rebuilt from scratch?

Listening to a lot of what's been going on for a long, long time, it really seems like our due date for a revolution has long since passed (the usual is what, 200 years max?) and we're seeing the really stressed lines of that showing up in most areas of life. Combine that with the modern world of technology, global access and climate change and it's like a perfect storm in many ways.

I've been reading DU since it began, spent my time at other sites like APJ and the start of Salon prior to that among others, and there's always been that virulent strain of voter that we see with the Republican side. It's grown increasingly strident and as the candidates pander more and more to them, it converts more.

I'm no fan of any of the Republican candidates in any way. but the more I watch, the more I listen, the more I'm believing that only will Trump nab the nomination if he actually sticks it out - and I'm inclined to think he will, I think he'll take the top prize.

If there's someone that can finally end the empire, especially with the way it's rotted so much throughout GWB and then many continuing practices with Obama, it's going to be him.

And I don't think anyone on our side can change the narrative and shift things to where it needs to be. I can see it only happening with some radical world altering event causing that to happen, the kind of rare wake up event.

[AllFieldsRequired]

1. Trump? End the empire? LOL

He is the EPITOME of the rottenness you speak of, end it, hell he will ride it to the ends of the earth

[Blue_Adept]

5. Exactly, hence my saying he'd be the one to actually bring it to an end.

Not save it. goodness.

[bvf]

2. Rest assured

Trump will not be the nominee.

[dofus]

3. It's long been my observation

and belief that this country passed its peak some time ago, probably around the time we elected Reagan. That marks the beginning of unjustified invasions and an especially egregious and long lasting bit of union busting -- the air traffic controllers strike and the loss of PATCO, which was unfortunately supported by the then-President of the AFL-CIO, Lane Kirkland.

We still are a rich enough country to continue to fund endless wars, and the systematic impoverishment of the middle class has not yet reached the point where it affects how much money the top .1% has. And actually there is probably no point where that relatively small number of extremely rich people are affected. They'll certainly never care.

If Trump were to get the nomination (which I do find unlikely) and then win the election (difficult to imagine), then he would quickly drive this country into the ground. He has always depended on true Ponzi schemes to underwrite his businesses, and even then he's declared corporate bankruptcy four times.

If Bernie Sanders, my preferred candidate, wins in November 2016, there's a chance some things will turn around with him at the helm. Not everything, but certain things that matter a lot. I'd hope we'd get a true single payer health care system, a robust minimum wage, a jobs program that puts many people to work, greatly reduced costs for college.

I think if Hillary Clinton wins the election, we'll get much of the same-old same-old, including passing the TPP and that dreadful Keystone pipeline. She won't be quite as bad as a President Trump (or a President Bush the Third, or a President Walker, or you get the idea) but she won't move us in the direction many of us wish this country would go.

I have a lot of trouble imagining a genuine revolution in this country, a true shift of the narrative, but that's just me.

[Cleita]

4. Nice thing about rot, is that it does decompose.

Then is needs to be replaced with something newer and more solid. At least we can hope this might be the case.

[jonno99]

6. Yes. A revolution has been brewing - and is even now near the boiling point.

"The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants."
- Thomas Jefferson

[moondust]

7. 35 years of "greed is good"

has produced too much inequality with too many psychopaths wielding too much leverage over government and the economy. The options for a "correction" at this point may come down to peaceful change led by somebody like Bernie -or- violent upheaval including more wars if Republicans and greedy psychopaths were to somehow gain control of the WH and both houses of Congress.

Isn't T.rump basically a little emperor trying a new approach to becoming a bigger emperor?