Almost forgot. Had Sunday dinner (as we do most Sundays) with Mom-in-law and two brothers-in-law and their wives. All spent most of the last 40 years in Chicago suburbs and are loyal, but fairly moderate, liberal Democrats. I doubt if any of them have ever voted for anyone but a Democrat. So dinner was interesting. The older b-i-l is kind of mouthy about policis in general, and doesn't know nearly as much about the mechanics of either government or politics, but generally is a nice guy. The s-i-l pair are nice. In fact I like all of them.
But it was very quiet from when we got there a 4:30 until 7:30 when we left. They really, really quite obviously didn't want to talk about the shooting. At all. So I stayed quiet. (My lovely wife says I show remarkable restraint, for me, when her brother says something dumb about politics.)
Towards the end of the meal, the younger s-i-l said, "Well, I guess the election is over" in kind of a dejected voice. The rest agreed. Not quite despair, but not really far from it. The older b-i-l and his wife live in IL. The younger and his wife and Mom live in IN like we do. No one's vote was likely to change the state outcome in any way, but it was interesting to see the dejection.
This sort of attitude seems fairly common among a certain class of "nice" midwestern people who lean liberal. The s-i-l thinks "the election is over," but that wouldn't change her vote. The only possible thing it might do is make her less likely to vote if she thinks the election has a foregone conclusion.
We are well past a period where events change peoples' minds, I think. That usually isn't resolved until they are removed from the voting pool entirely, usually by aging out. Unless, of course, events simply become too cataclysmic to ignore, which is when you start getting mass panic reactions caused by the inability to cope with the cognitive dissonance they are experiencing.
I'm kind of guessing from other 'hints' that she may decide to not vote on the Presidential line. I'm okay with that. It's a step. And I don't try to convert any of them.
Bill, a great entry. It caused me to think a few things. One is that the great run of humanity everywhere, not just in the US, really wants the stability of tomorrow being pretty much like today. Because if tomorrow is like today, if I make it through today I'll probably make it through tomorrow, too. That persists right up to the moment that enough people don't think they're likely to make it through today. Thanks to Bidenomics I suspect we're getting close to that point.
A second is the the generational theory may be unique to America because for over 350 years (even pre-Revolution) "Americans" have had a kind of real democracy that has never before existed anywhere else that I can recall. Every adult male (and later females, by law) has had the "right" to rise as far as his talents, resources, strengths, etc can take him. I think that leads to a 'fourth' generation every 80 years or so that arises in a time when such advancement has been made more difficult due to oler generations inhabiting so many of the "good spots" while the belief in such rising persists. So, the fourth generation grows restless and wants to "tweak" the game.
Third, when I was studying and writing on leadership for my dissertation, my wife pointed out that most, or all, of the historical figures agreed upon as leaders (Moses, Napoleon, Lincoln, Ghandi, Hitler, Mao, etc) appear to come NOT from the center of the current society/culture, but from the edges, knowledeable enough to see and know the problems of that society/culture, but enough of an outsider to be able to 'lead' a rebellion against the current elite. That fits Trump. Not really an 'insider' but close enough to the power structure to understand it, but not really an outsider, who still knows how to harness the power of the unhappiness he feels within them.
Finally, maybe, mostly we don't NEED leaders. We need/want managers, who effectively and efficienty get us to a known destination. Only when we no longer have a common destination in mind do real leaders arise. Otherwise they're just troublemakers. I think we're at the point now, that the "outsiders" really want someone to lead us to a new destination that he chooses. (I say he, knowing that with perhaps the exception of Elizabeth I, it's not obvious that any female leaders have existed in the larger sense.) And of course real leaders can be dangerous because they MAY lead to a destination that is bad when we get there. Napolean, maybe. Mao and Hitler for sure.
Until I "aged out" I used to explain the leader/manager dichotomy by referring to Star Trek. Capt Kirk was a leader. He pointed and said, "Thataway!!" and people followed. Capt Picard was a manager. He gathered his advisers together, they discussed and dissected the problem. They agreed on a solution, and he said, "Make it so."
Discussion for later: Most of the successful leaders decided direction but were closely accompanied by a manager who organized the trip. Moses had Aaron. Ghandi had Nehru. Mao had Chou, and so on. Perhaps Lincoln and Napolean didn't. I haven't looked deeply in those cases.
Anyway, Trump has displayed all the classical (to me) traits of the kind of transformational leader we truly think of when we use that term. I might argue that among Presidents only Lincoln also fits the term.
As with Lincoln, there will always be some few who can only resolve the threat of the transformational leader with violence even though no violence has been aimed at them. Psychologists know that most people regard threats to their deeply held beliefs, no matter how irrational, with the same sort of fear they would apply to physical threats to their persons.
Almost forgot. Had Sunday dinner (as we do most Sundays) with Mom-in-law and two brothers-in-law and their wives. All spent most of the last 40 years in Chicago suburbs and are loyal, but fairly moderate, liberal Democrats. I doubt if any of them have ever voted for anyone but a Democrat. So dinner was interesting. The older b-i-l is kind of mouthy about policis in general, and doesn't know nearly as much about the mechanics of either government or politics, but generally is a nice guy. The s-i-l pair are nice. In fact I like all of them.
But it was very quiet from when we got there a 4:30 until 7:30 when we left. They really, really quite obviously didn't want to talk about the shooting. At all. So I stayed quiet. (My lovely wife says I show remarkable restraint, for me, when her brother says something dumb about politics.)
Towards the end of the meal, the younger s-i-l said, "Well, I guess the election is over" in kind of a dejected voice. The rest agreed. Not quite despair, but not really far from it. The older b-i-l and his wife live in IL. The younger and his wife and Mom live in IN like we do. No one's vote was likely to change the state outcome in any way, but it was interesting to see the dejection.
This sort of attitude seems fairly common among a certain class of "nice" midwestern people who lean liberal. The s-i-l thinks "the election is over," but that wouldn't change her vote. The only possible thing it might do is make her less likely to vote if she thinks the election has a foregone conclusion.
We are well past a period where events change peoples' minds, I think. That usually isn't resolved until they are removed from the voting pool entirely, usually by aging out. Unless, of course, events simply become too cataclysmic to ignore, which is when you start getting mass panic reactions caused by the inability to cope with the cognitive dissonance they are experiencing.
I'm kind of guessing from other 'hints' that she may decide to not vote on the Presidential line. I'm okay with that. It's a step. And I don't try to convert any of them.
Bill, a great entry. It caused me to think a few things. One is that the great run of humanity everywhere, not just in the US, really wants the stability of tomorrow being pretty much like today. Because if tomorrow is like today, if I make it through today I'll probably make it through tomorrow, too. That persists right up to the moment that enough people don't think they're likely to make it through today. Thanks to Bidenomics I suspect we're getting close to that point.
A second is the the generational theory may be unique to America because for over 350 years (even pre-Revolution) "Americans" have had a kind of real democracy that has never before existed anywhere else that I can recall. Every adult male (and later females, by law) has had the "right" to rise as far as his talents, resources, strengths, etc can take him. I think that leads to a 'fourth' generation every 80 years or so that arises in a time when such advancement has been made more difficult due to oler generations inhabiting so many of the "good spots" while the belief in such rising persists. So, the fourth generation grows restless and wants to "tweak" the game.
Third, when I was studying and writing on leadership for my dissertation, my wife pointed out that most, or all, of the historical figures agreed upon as leaders (Moses, Napoleon, Lincoln, Ghandi, Hitler, Mao, etc) appear to come NOT from the center of the current society/culture, but from the edges, knowledeable enough to see and know the problems of that society/culture, but enough of an outsider to be able to 'lead' a rebellion against the current elite. That fits Trump. Not really an 'insider' but close enough to the power structure to understand it, but not really an outsider, who still knows how to harness the power of the unhappiness he feels within them.
Finally, maybe, mostly we don't NEED leaders. We need/want managers, who effectively and efficienty get us to a known destination. Only when we no longer have a common destination in mind do real leaders arise. Otherwise they're just troublemakers. I think we're at the point now, that the "outsiders" really want someone to lead us to a new destination that he chooses. (I say he, knowing that with perhaps the exception of Elizabeth I, it's not obvious that any female leaders have existed in the larger sense.) And of course real leaders can be dangerous because they MAY lead to a destination that is bad when we get there. Napolean, maybe. Mao and Hitler for sure.
Until I "aged out" I used to explain the leader/manager dichotomy by referring to Star Trek. Capt Kirk was a leader. He pointed and said, "Thataway!!" and people followed. Capt Picard was a manager. He gathered his advisers together, they discussed and dissected the problem. They agreed on a solution, and he said, "Make it so."
Discussion for later: Most of the successful leaders decided direction but were closely accompanied by a manager who organized the trip. Moses had Aaron. Ghandi had Nehru. Mao had Chou, and so on. Perhaps Lincoln and Napolean didn't. I haven't looked deeply in those cases.
Anyway, Trump has displayed all the classical (to me) traits of the kind of transformational leader we truly think of when we use that term. I might argue that among Presidents only Lincoln also fits the term.
As with Lincoln, there will always be some few who can only resolve the threat of the transformational leader with violence even though no violence has been aimed at them. Psychologists know that most people regard threats to their deeply held beliefs, no matter how irrational, with the same sort of fear they would apply to physical threats to their persons.