2019 Collapse Survey: The 500 – Politics And Economics

by Reverse Engineer, Doomstead Diner

Here is the latest overview of results from the 2019 Collapse Survey, with focus on the results covering political parties, political personages, and political/economic issues.

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Survey now @ 636 Submissions

Results:

As you can readily see, if the whole country was composed of Kollapsniks, Trumpovetsky never would have been elected, and we wouldn’t be in the pickle we are in now. Some other kind of pickle likely, but not such a BIG PICKLEso fast! Since they are better educated than average, most Kollapsniks easily saw through the lies that El Trumpo was pitching out on the campaign trail, so blatant and obvious it’s hard to imagine how almost 50% of the population of the FSoA voted for him (he didn’t win the popular vote). However, if you ever sat in a cab and listened to Rush Limbaugh rant over the airwaves, you might have some clue as to how this occured.

Also obvious, the people who didn’t vote for him in 2016 aren’t going to vote for him in 2020, assuming the Repugnants are stupid enough to nominate him again, which they probably are. The question here on this go-round is how many of those 14% “It Depends who runas against him” folks will find someone else to vote for this time around? That of course depends on who the Demodopes finally nominate, which remains a big question mark. Also who a 3rd Party Libertarian candidate might be. If the Libertarians got Ron Paul to run on their ticket, this would totally suck the wind out of Donalditry’s sails. That however is an unlikely scenario at the moment.

Amongst Kollapsniks, Joe Biden seems the most likely to get the nomination as of now. He has the Veep & Senate credentials and long years of political hacking under his belt. However, he’s also pretty old and likely doesn’t hold much appeal for the new wave of younger voters becoming politically energized by their ever downward spiralling economic opportunities and upward spiralling college costs and student loans. Coming in at #2 on the Hit Parade here is Beto O’Rourke, fresh of a narrow loss to Ted Cruz in the heavily Repugnant state of Texas. Beto demonstrated amazing fundraising ability for that campaign, shattering all records. He’s got charisma and youthful vitality, and has been favorably compared to the heros of the Demodope Party even after 50 years, John & Robert Kennedy. However, he is thin on Goobermint experience with only a couple of terms as a CONgress Critter from El Paso under his belt. Liz Warren shows in 3rd Place in this survey, and will definitely capture the Wimmen’s Vote in this horse race if she gets the nomination. However, many people view her as “too liberal” to draw any support away from Trumpovetsky. In 4th and out of the money so far is Bernie Sanders, who really should have had the nomination in 2016 if it hadn’t been stolen by Killary Klinton. He’s got a big following still and also is a proven fundraiser. Like Joe Biden though, he is getting long in the tooth, although he still seems to have a lot of energy for political fighting.

Joe Biden comes in again 1st for the one who would make the best POTUS if elected, with Liz Warren in 2nd this time and Bernie Sanders 3rd. All 3 have Senatorial experience, which probably is why they get the nod in this question. Beto-O’Rourke comes in tied for 3rd with Bernie in a very tight race there. One does have to remember in all of this though that so far Liz Warren is the only one who is a definite candidate, and also that a Dark Horse might emerge in the long run to the White House.

I put up this chart in the prior article on Demographics, but I thought it a good idea to repeat it here for reference purposes against the other political questions. The same things remain true, Kollapsniks are migrating away from the traditional Repugnant & Demodope Parties and now identify themselves with other political self-definitions, generall more polarized and further to the Left or Right. There are also an ever growing number of Fascists, Communists and Anarchist in the mix as the population becomes increasingly radicalized.

On this topic, the Economic issues come out in top place, and I agree with that. Economic Collapse is the proximal problem faced everywhere these days and is what is driving all the political instability and increasing bellicosity pushing toward War to solve the problems, which it won’t of course. The Migration “crises” in the FSoA is a manufactured crisis by Trumpty-Dumpty to satisfy his legion of Deplorables who he promised a REALLY BIG WALL to, which he ain’t gonna get. They’ll be lucky to appropriate enough money to maintain their current fencing around the major foot traffic migration border towns in Texas, New Mexico, Arizona and California. El Trumpo needs this distraction though, so he keeps pumping it.

Out of the money in 4th Place is the ongoing Climate Crisis, which you wouldn’t know if all you read is r/collapse where for those Doomers it’s the #1 Problem because we’re all gonna DIE when the Oceans drown all the coastal cities and all the farmland dries up to. Both are problems of course, but neither one likely to happen next year, so it doesn’t present a political crisis at the moment.

This statistic changed a lot over the first 300 or so submissons, edending on which website was dropping on the most submissions. It got as high as 70% feeling the Repugnants would retain control over the Senate while The Burning Platform was making most of its submissions, but whittled down to around 50%, where it has been hovering since around the 450 mark in responses. In fact at this point none of the percentages change very much no matter how many more people respond, which is why it’s a significant statistical sample.

This battle is almost more interesting than the POTUS battle and very difficult to make a prediction on. Lots of gerrymanderingdone by the Repugnants over the years making it very difficult for Demodopes to win in many states. Also interesting is the scenario where Trumpofsky got reelected but both House of CONgress were in Demodope hands. I would expect an impeachment to follow that shortly.

I also went over this one in the Demographic overview, but since it’s a Political question I felt it belongs here also for reference. Unsurprisingly, Kollapsniks who frequent the web get most of their information from there, either the Alternative Newz sites & Blogs or the MSM which is now mainly online rather than in Newzpaper format. Does anyone have a subscription to a Daily Newzpaper anymore? There’s another job lost to the internet, Paperboys!

This also explains the vast gulf in attitudes between Kollapsniks and the hoi polloi. If you surveyed there, I am sure TV and Talk Radio would be in the top spots. Like computers, people follow the rule of “Garbage in, Garbage out” also. Not that all internet newz sources are all that great either, and readers to tend to gravitate toward sites that provide them with Confirmation Bias, extending on both sides of the Political Spectrum to quite extreme views. Although it seems to me anecdotally that there are more Extreme Right Wing websites than Left Wing ones. I don’t have any numbers to back up that impression though.

9 – Write-In Candidates for POTUS

As you can see, there’s quite a selection of write in candidates here. Eliminated from the list are Dead People, Cartoon Characters, Selfies, Nobodies & I Don’t Knows. Also nominations for people who are already on the list of choices, and Trumpovtsky who is likely to be on the Reugnant ticket. This question was for the Demodopes ticket. Also some non-US citizens like Russel Brand were written in, but they couldn’t be elected even if there were enough write-ins for them. I left them in the list anyhow though.

A Dead Heat (pun intended) here in this race, and it kind of depends on how you look at the question. In the long run it doesn’t matter since Industrial Civilization will Collapse regardless who is in office. It does matter though in the more near term,because one Party is going to make sure the Rich get Richer and the Poor get Poorer as Collapse progresses, and the other party might distribute out the rapidly shrinking pie of planetary wealth a little more evenly. I’m sure you can figure out which party is which here on that score.

In any event, the political setup here has a limited lifespan, once the monetary system collapses it is destined for the scrap heap, and what will come after it is a Known Unkown.

Similar to the question of whether it makes a difference if you vote in a Demodope or a Repugnant to office, this depends on how you interpret the question. Voting isn’t going to stop Collapse, but then neither will Revolution. However, in either of those cases if you can make some change to the status quo, the downhill slope could take different routes. One might go on the Downhill, straight down the hill full blass with no Gates, the other might take a Slalom back and forth and slow down the descent some. Another Known Unknown is what is the best choice to take here.

Most Kollapsniks don’t see too much difference between Demodopes and Repugnants, but 2/3rds of them would participate in Street Demonstrations for Political Change of some kind. Street Demonstrations amount to “Revolution Lite”, people will come out in favor of this without necessarily advocating for Revolution. However, since the effectiveness of Street Demonstrations these days is questionable, it’s really just a precursor to Revolution as the demonstrators don’t get the changes they are looking for from this type of political action. In the words of JFK:

Unsurprisingly, the vast majority of Kollapsniks would prefer Revolution to a continuance of BAU. However, I’m not sure how many of them think through what the consequences will be and the amount of Death that will come with it, quite rapidly. I also suspect this distribution varies a LOT by the Socioeconomic position of the respondent, whether they are low income and struggling to survive or high income and still living the fairly cushy lifestyle that goes with that. It probably also is dependent on the position and level of education of the respondent, I suspect the Drs have a different distribution than the HS Grads. However, I haven’t yet parsed the data to verify that.

This is a gratifying result, considering the Hopelessness pitch that Dr. McStinksion dishes out from Nature Bats Last. If it’s all hopeless, why bother with any Political Action? Just Party like it’s 1999 until you are one of the Dead People! Don’t bother to Prep Up, that’s a Waste of Time too! In fact, don’t bother to get out of bed, that’s another waste of time.

Extinction isn’t a guarantee, nobody has a Crystal Ball on this. A population Knockdown is likely, but even that isn’t guaranteed, and you can’t peg an absolute timeline to that either. Meanwhile, you ned to figure out what to do with yourself and how to stay alive just as long as you can. That is of course as long as you prefer the alternative of living to dying.

This again is a result I agree with, Economic Collapse is going to preceed a complete Climate Collapse by quite some time, and wreak much more havoc in the near term when it hits in full force. Think of it like a Global Tsunami, it will wash over every aspect of life and the resultant Death Toll will be in the Millions if not Billions. We’re going to need to get these problems resolved before it even becomes possible to address the Climate Collapse issues. Whether that can be done on any kind of large scale is an open question, though IMHO one with a likely negative answer.

You can however make changes to your own life that can help you survive as the climate collapse progresses. You location is a primary one, if you live right on the coast in Hurricane Alley, this is not a good choice of places to live. Building in resilience is also a good choice here, living rurally off-grid and growing at least some of your own food better than sticking to BAU in the Big Shities to make a big paycheck. Most important of all is to develop COMMUNITY, going it alone is a sure ticket to the Great Beyond when TSHTF.

Next week, I’ll present the many write-in answers from survey respondents on the problems they see as important. Untiil then, have another good wee as we observe the Collapse of Industrial Civilization here on the Doomstead Diner.

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