To be fair, that’s quite a lot of territory covered in that third place…
Yes, we’ve all had a good long laugh, but perhaps it’s time to put all the Reaganomics toys back in the box for a bit…
Somewhat true, but at the same time you have actors like Tom Hardy who don’t exactly have a perfect set:
And we seem to be fine with taking him out in the daylight.
You’re quite right about the Democratic party’s trade-offs. We’ve all enjoyed in some form or another the benefits of greater social inclusion that have come about as a result of their work, but losing economic credibility has seriously hampered their current and future bargaining power with the American people.
It isn’t necessarily that their economic ideas are bad per se, its just that Republicans are allowed to control the narrative on the economy by default, as they are seen as the trusted party in these matters.
I think also that people see Republicans as more economically trustworthy because in their minds they try to compare the country’s economy to their personal economy. When you personally are in debt, you know that the best way out is to stop spending money on yourself and make some tough choices about what’s important.
However, balancing a country’s deficit is nothing like balancing a chequebook, and money that the government spends invariably finds its way back into the economy in one form or another, so government spending can be far and away the healthiest way to keep a country buoyant in tough times.
It’s a bitter pill to swallow for Americans in particular though, as their entire culture is rooted in notions of Individualism over Society (I almost said socialism then… could you imagine?). The key cornerstones of the American Dream are about securing your individual parcel of land and wealth, and jealously guarding it from everyone else (by force if necessary). The first thing I think most people picture when they think of the American Dream is the simplest component:
A white picket fence.
A simple hard boundary around ‘your property’ that tells everyone else in the world that they aren’t allowed to cross this line, because on the other side is your stuff.
We Europeans simply don’t seem to have that same mindset (we have other issues, certainly…). It’s why so many across the continent are baffled by the headlines coming out of the US sometimes.
Part of the reason the U.K. is in such a state right now is because that American Cult of the Self has started to be taken up here, starting with Thatcher’s playbook being cribbed from Reagan’s economic nonsense statement that the less government there is, the happier everyone will be.
But… uh… now I digress…
You can see my issue clearly enough though, can’t you? It all feeds into itself, and I just like characters on all paths. Getting rid of Radjack to tell a story with Ser Farah? Too tough a choice…
For now, at least.
That summary was so large I had to invent another dimension to store Mr Gray…
