I am in Canada. The dealer here is the corner weed store. In BC, there may soon be a local cocaine store, for the more productive drug users.
But yeah, ‘normal’ politics doesn’t mean going back to the old policies, both for Republicans and Democrats. If both parties got rid of 20% of their fringiest members, they’d both become more ‘moderate’, but ‘moderate’ will be a new equilibrium, not a repeat of the old one. It may skew left, or right.
I think about society in terms of complex systems, control and information theory. Left-Right dichotomies exist in almost every culture, probably because that’s an emergent control system - some common evolutionary difference that is useful but splits people down some line that emerges as a left-right outlook in politics. Locke Vs Rousseau. Some people go left, which triggers an opposing response on the right, and at some point in a civil society an equilibrium is reached. Stability is achieved because when one side goes one direction, the other goes the other way.
But when things get extreme and norms start to break, and your institutions get co-opted by one side and turned against the other, carefully evolved equilibria fail and you get increasingly large swings from left to right, increasing polarization, and there’s very little to tamp it back down and social media to amplify it.
So unless things get better, expect a right-wing backlash. We’re seeing it now on trans issues because the left pushed too hard and involved people’s children. This may ultimately set trans rights back by many years. This will be followed by an even bigger left-wing backlash, etc until something breaks and you get a Bolshevik revolution or an ascendant Nazi Party, or worst case a Hutu/Tutsi genocide or a khmer Rouge. Don’t think it can’t happen in a ‘civilized’ society. Look at recent history in Europe.
That’s what complex social and political systems look like when controls and norms break down. You get spiralling crises, each one worst than the last, increasing extremism, and cycles of power that become increasingly authoritarian until one side manages to solidify power. Such systems are very robust and sometimes recover, which leads people to think they can be pushed on even harder. Until one time, unpredictably, things go incredibly bad. We are easily at the point where chaos lurks as you poke and prod at the system.
So I’m hoping that the Republicans find a new ‘normal’ that is acceptable to the majority of Americans, and the Democrats do the same, and they can get back to debating real policy and having an actually effective government again, rather than the poo-flinging hordes we see in politics in Congress and around the world.
Because if we keep pushing on this system, it will break. And unlike the imbeciles who think a ‘Great Reset’ would be a good thing, it would in fact be the greatest destruction of civilizational equity in history, and impoverish the world. And probably kill billions.
There’s a lot of ruin in a country, but you can eventually ruin it. Let’s not push at the boundaries too hard, especially when so much other shit is hitting the fan around the world. And by far the worst actor in this whole mess is Donald J. Fucking Trump. He may have even triggered it all. But now that the hate is flowing, even with him gone I’m worried that both parties will continue their march to the extremes.
And that will not end well for anyone.