#CHRNCL The media keeps it's focus on Donald Trump, but it is the millions of unhappy Americans who support him who give him his power. Those millions, registered as Republicans, are generally older and live primarily in rural areas – while their Democratic opponents live primarily in cities.

#CHRNCL The workers were mostly registered Democrats who voted as independents. When Donald Trump arrived and focused on the "swamp" in Washington, saying that he would fix it, the workers re-registered as Republicans an adopted "Make America Great Again" as their slogan.

#CHRNCL Except for Pittsburgh and Detroit and one or two other cities, The industrial Midwest was a collection of small town factories. After the collapse, many people moved away, and the entire region became depressed and even more rural. The new urban politics had little use for it.

#POLITX youtu.be/AgXTQ5Yfu34?...

#CHRNCL If you were a 50 year-old former steel worker, who lost his job, his pension, and his house before becoming addicted to fentanyl and losing the rest of his savings – and the government did nothing to help, then you might be a little angry. This was the genesis of the group that became MAGA.

#CHRNCL The "Industrial Midwest" had been the center of the US economy and the envy of the world since the end of the Civil War. And now, in less than two decades, it was gone. The economy had moved on, and the factory workers had been replaced by automation and foreign labor.

#CHRNCL The people involved were mostly blue-collar factory workers. They were not urban minorities, so the Democrats were not interested. They were not upper middle class business owners, so the Republicans were not interested. They were destitute and desperate, and they were ignored - until Trump.

#CHRNCL In an area including Western Pennsylvania, most of Ohio, and parts of Indiana, Illinois, and Michigan, hundreds of factories whose business had been the processing of steel closed down. The local economies collapsed, but no one seemed to notice, and the government offered no assistance.

#CHRNCL A BIT OF HISTORY In the late 1980s, buffeted by recession after failing to innovate, many steel mills in the Pittsburgh area ceased operations. 150,000 workers lost their jobs. Steel had been the primary driver of American industry, and the side effects of the closures were staggering.

#CHRNCL We have come to depend on a hierarchically organized central government to provide us with any number of services, but the efficiency of this approach is now in question. (The average age of a US senator is 64 years, so it is likely the change will be slow in coming. Stay tuned.)

#POLITX This Just Security article outlines the legal situation with regard to the US action in Venezuela. www.justsecurity.org/127981/inter...

#POLITX What is it called when you take over another nation and claim their natural resources for yourself? Colonialism? Are we an empire now?

#POLITX CHRNCL is devoted to analysis of the social systems that brought our culture to its present day. POLITX will be a thread devoted to the current political situation. It should be noted that I am not virulently anti-Trump, but I am strongly pro-democracy, and I worry about where we are headed.

#CHRNCL Because it was created during the industrial age, our government is designed as a hierarchy. The President issues commands which travel down the hierarchy to government workers. Congress and the Supreme Court both work at the top level in conjunction with the President's commands.

#CHRNCL Corporations are changing from hierarchies into networks. Telecommuting moves employees from the corporate center, but connects them via the net. Internally, employees may be members of work groups that are cross connected and not hierarchical at all. Such complexity increases flexibility.

#CHRNCL Families are already showing this change. In 1800 you could find three generations living on a single farm. Today, children move away, often far away, as soon as they become adult adults. But the family remains connected via the Internet.

#CHRNCL But the Internet links people directly to one another. Individuals can work on many projects at once, thus taking on many roles at the same time. This breaks down the hierarchy; replacing it with an interconnected network - the "networked" society brings change at every level.

#CHRNCL Every organization in a hierarchical society is also a hierarchy. Every business had people in low level roles who reported to people in higher level roles and an executive at the top. Families were organized as a male and female roles with the male as the higher level manager. And so on.

#CHRNCL A hierarchy defines a kind of communication. Each person can talk to the individual "above" him or her, and each can talk down to a number of individuals at the next level. This set up allows the people at the top to issue orders that flow to the people at the bottom.

#CHRNCL The structure of industrial society was based on a hierarchy of "roles". That is, each person had a role to play in society, the economy, and the community, and those roles were organized as a pyramid with the most powerful people at the top. We called this the "hierarchical" society.

#CHRNCL One side effect of phones is that anyone can instantly make contact with anyone else. In earlier times there were people you could not talk to without going through their subordinates. Today, if you have their number, you can reach them. This changes the flow of communication in management.

#CHRNCL In the Agricultural age individuals drew their identities from their class, as based on family history. The Industrial age altered the focus from class to jobs – "you are what you do". The Internet age is eliminating jobs and making it hard for people to define themselves as individuals.

#CHRNCL The important thing about smartphones is that we have attached them to our bodies. Their functions have become commonplace, even irreplaceable. When technology has this kind of impact, entire societies must adapt to the change. The result can be an entirely new social order.

#CHRNCL As an experiment, spend a day without pulling your phone out at all. See what it feels like. See if you can make it through a day without touching your phone. (Don't turn it off – not responding to its sound is part of the test.)

#CHRNCL For a moment, put aside the costs and benefits of smart phones, and consider the side effects. If you grew up before smart phones were invented, think about how they have changed your life. If you are younger, think about what your life would be like if they did not exist.

#CHRNCL Phones 50 years ago, all phones were land lines. You could not send text or photos. To call abroad you had to connect with an operator, and most of the world was inaccessible. Today your phone is in your pocket, and you can send sound, text, and video to anyone. This is a massive change.

#CHRNCL But in the Internet age, smartphones are tying people together no matter where they live. This network of communications gives us a chance to begin changing the way we organize ourselves to deal with our lives and our governance. It may take awhile, but we need to rediscover who we are.

#CHRNCL So, in a very fundamental way, rural and urban Americans simply cannot understand one another. They use the same terms: liberty, freedom, democracy, government - but these have different meanings in the different regions. Naturally, these differences are exploited by politicians.

#CHRNCL The size difference impacts almost every aspect of daily life. Transportation, schools, shopping, crime, and many other experiences are entirely different. One big effect of this for States is that a solution that solves a problem in a city may make it worse in the country, and vice versa.

#CHRNCL Every US congressional district contains approximately 750,000 voters. New York's NYC 13th congressional district is the smallest, measuring just 10 mi². Alaska's single statewide congressional district is the largest, measuring over 665,000 mi². The size difference is 60,000 to 1.

#CHRNCL Maricopa County, Arizona is home to 4.5 million people. Blaine County, Nebraska is home to 400 people. This size gap is not unusual. Many rural residents have met or know someone who has met everyone who resides nearby. An urban apartment dweller may not even know everyone in the building.

#CHRNCL I grew up in a rural village. I spent most of my adult life in the Baltimore/Washington Metroplex. When I retired, I moved back to my rural home town. I've seen both up close. Both have their strengths and weaknesses, but moving from one to the other is like traveling to a foreign country.

#CHRNCL People tend to assume that everywhere else in the world is much like the place where they reside. But the difference between living in a small house on a side street in a rural village and a three bedroom apartment in a high-rise building in an urban metropolis is stunningly different.

#CHRNCL The rural areas are older, more traditional, more conservative. Urban populations are extremely diverse, requiring open-mindedness and promoting a more flexible point of view. The pace of life is much faster in cities, and the changes have come much more quickly there.

#CHRNCL In 1800 most Americans lived on farms. By 1900 most lived in small towns with factories. In the Internet Age upwards of 80% of Americans live in cities/suburbs. The difference in daily life between the crowded cities and the empty rural regions is a gulf that redefines today's civilization.

#CHRNCL Or consider that we used to be able to trust the President to follow the law. That is no longer true. And worse, we are no longer sure that we can trust the police to follow the law. This loss of trust is very damaging. New trust will form…in time ... if we can last that long.

#CHRNCL Consider personal finances. Since World War II investing has always been done using stocks, bonds, and property. But suddenly there is cryptocurrency, exchange traded funds, investing apps and other ways of dealing with money. We could sort the new stuff out if we had time – but we don't.

#CHRNCL Although ignorant politicians are certainly part of the problem, there is much more to it than just politics. The activities of our daily lives have changed at a basic level. In a sense, we are in the process of relearning who we are.

#CHRNCL We tend to focus on politics, as these are in the news every day and we are familiar with the issues and the people. But the Internet era generates so much chaos that a common response in social media is often "what the #@$& is going on?"

#CHRNCL This idea is not an "ism". It sounds strange because it is so different from our current behavior. But current behaviors are already changing, and we can expect the changes to accelerate. No one knows where all this is going – but it is probably a good idea to begin thinking about it soon.

#CHRNCL An approach like this would mean training ourselves and our children to focus less on competition and more on support. It would mean making machine produced material goods freely available to everyone. And it would mean finding a purpose in life other than profit. It's a lot to ask.

#CHRNCL This is already beginning. The guy who mows my lawn is not a "worker", he is a "landscaper". He can drive a lawnmower, but he also knows when and how high to cut the grass, when to fertilize it, and when to trim the shrubs in the fall. His expertise is more important than his muscle.

#CHRNCL But how would that go, exactly? Well, instead of "working" for a living you would "learn" for a living, gaining expertise and experience. You would apply your knowledge to situations where it was needed. So, instead of being a nation of "workers", we become a nation of "consultants".

#CHRNCL Some past societies have broken apart under these kinds of pressures. If we are to survive, we must stop thinking about factories and manufacturing and unemployment and wealth. And we must start using our new Internet tools to redefine our expectations, and train ourselves to meet them.

#CHRNCL You have read posts on Bluesky where the author talks of "working people", or "labor", or "unions". These terms are now obsolete. And the people still using them are behind the curve. Every member of our society is now engaged in information processing, but only some are being paid for it.

#CHRNCL How do retail stores deal with online shopping? They become entertainment centers. Food courts, interactive displays, fashion shows - these give potential customers a place to go and something to do. The Internet does not kill everything physical … but it does induce change.

#CHRNCL "The high A.I. stock prices are not a reflection of high future growth," he said. Rather, it is a sign that A.I. is expected to boost productivity and shrink employment. "The firms think they're going to shed a lot of labor, and that's why the profits will be high," he said. (NYT, 11/25/25)

#CHRNCL The new Internet economy is not based on material goods, but on information. This means that the class divide is no longer between wealth and poverty, but between knowledge and ignorance. The old way of getting ahead was called "work" – the new way is called "learn".

#CHRNCL The AI pet door distinguishes cats and keeps out other animals (including dead mice) with more than 90% accuracy. [https://hackaday.com/2024/01/09/ai-pet-door-rejects-dead-mice/]

#CHRNCL QUOTE "We are creating a new society. Not a changed society. Not an extended, larger-than-life version of our present society. But a new society. [U]nless we understand this, we shall destroy ourselves in trying to cope with tomorrow." Toffler said that in 1970 – so … how are we doing?