All human civilizations seem to grapple between the forces of progression and regression

[Yavin4]

Seems to me that there is always a battle between humans that want to have a better future and those that think that things were always better in the past. Some of it self interested. Those humans that benefit from a rigid social-economic-political-religious order want things to always remain the same because they're the ones on top, and there are those humans who want to correct the injustices and incorrect thinking of that rigid order in order to create a new hierarchy, a hierarchy built on the knowledge that we gain over time.

What Trump, Bannon, Moore, and the Republicans represent is that rigid order where White males, regardless of their talent, will always sit atop the hierarchy. Being born an American White male automatically should mean a middle class life, no matter the broader economic forces, no matter the education/skills level, no matter the changes in the social culture. White males have to be on top because that's how it was in the 1950s.

In the end, the forces of progression have to win because if they do not, humanity will cease to exist on planet earth.

[Hortensis]

1. Starting in the 1970s, planetary wealth quadrupled and most of it

was engineered into the pockets of new super-wealthy classes in the vast majority of nations. With that went power and the rise of a grave, existential threat to not just all the new democracies that had recently formed, but old ones.

There's nothing new about white males. What's new is the development of small classes of extremely wealthy people that are incompatible with democracy.

[Corgigal]

2. White men

who, for now are middle class are on Trumps list. See how much Putin govt steal from its people? Well, they don't steal from the rich and the middle class is next. That how Trump wants us like good broke soviet citizens.

They just don't want to believe it, cause scary.

[Orsino]

3. Who is thy neighbor?

Humanity unfortunately seems divided. Somewhere around half of us are able to feel empathy for people we haven't met, and are willing to spend some of our resources to help those in need.

The other half of us tend to vote Republican. Their empathy seems limited to fake concern for fetuses as an escuse to oppress women.

[Caliman73]

5. I don't think the split is even.

There are a lot of factors that go into having conservative ideas. I think most of us have a blend of progressive and conservative leanings. I do not however, think that we are split 50/50. I think that more people lean progressive, though there is always some fear of the direction of change and whether we can control the change or will it go places we do not want it to go.

Many people simply do not participate in the political process because they are too busy trying to survive, because they do not feel their vote/voice matters, or other factors.

Conservatives are at least a slight minority. The problem, at least in the US has been that Republicans have been successful in suppressing the vote of large enough numbers of people, or to effectively limit the effect of the vote of many people, that they are able to carry elections with less than the majority of the vote. In the last several elections, Democratic politicians have received more votes, but have lost elections because of how those votes were partitioned. Trump's margin of victory in the EC was less than 110 thousand votes over 3 important states and there is evidence that a significant number of voters, likely to vote for Hilary, were stopped from voting.

There is a good deal of apathy and that is concerning, but there are not that high a number of people who aggressively pursue the policies of the Republican leadership.

[Orsino]

7. I don't think we can measure precisely enough to be sure...

...or agree on what criteria to use. We can all invent our little tests, but the divide seems to be over whom we can feel empathy for and whose welfare we wish to promote.

[L. Coyote]

4. How can anyone know about "All human civilizations"?

So many have come and gone with no knowledge of what they grappled over, if anything. Some enjoyed 1,000 years of peace.

What seems to happen is civilizations create a social environment where economic stratification can occur. When the power of the elite class becomes too great, social stratification becomes extreme and the civilization collapses.
But, humanity does not cease to exist each time a civilization collapses. Well, at least not the previous 1,000 times ....

[Yavin4]

6. We've studied a large enough sample size of human civilizations to make statements

about all civilizations in general.