Generational Theory Forum: The Fourth Turning Forum: A message board discussing generations and the Strauss Howe generational theory

(08-09-2020, 05:30 PM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: [ -> ]

(08-09-2020, 05:13 PM)John J. Xenakis Wrote: [ -> ]I know the reason you believe that is because you're in the CNN bubble, where news is very carefully filtered.

Somebody is living in a bubble for sure.

Fer sure.

(08-09-2020, 05:54 PM)John J. Xenakis Wrote: [ -> ]

(08-09-2020, 05:30 PM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: [ -> ]

(08-09-2020, 05:13 PM)John J. Xenakis Wrote: [ -> ]I know the reason you believe that is because you're in the CNN bubble, where news is very carefully filtered.

Somebody is living in a bubble for sure.

Fer sure.

I'm not the one trying to pass as a pro.  People living in the same bubble aren't much of an audience.

(08-09-2020, 07:18 PM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: [ -> ]

(08-09-2020, 05:54 PM)John J. Xenakis Wrote: [ -> ]

(08-09-2020, 05:30 PM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: [ -> ]

(08-09-2020, 05:13 PM)John J. Xenakis Wrote: [ -> ]I know the reason you believe that is because you're in the CNN bubble, where news is very carefully filtered.

Somebody is living in a bubble for sure.

Fer sure.

I'm not the one trying to pass as a pro.  People living in the same bubble aren't much of an audience.

I never thought you were a pro. Actually, I think you're totally
clueless.

For a long time I have made an ‘arrow of progress’ part of my perspective, advocating for it in many threads on this and predecessor forums. Assuming the Agricultural Age was horrible, starting about the Enlightenment, the result of every crisis was to promote democracy, human rights, and equality. Given that two cultures get well defined and debated during the unraveling, and one of the two crushed in the crisis heart, the objective is to know in advance which one is to be crushed. Since the Enlightenment, it has been the one resisting the arrow of democracy, human rights and equality.

Oh, few are giving credit to the old philosophers anymore, or viewing it as an ongoing struggle that has been going on for centuries. Still, if you want to know which culture is going to be crushed, it is the one opposing democracy, human rights and equality.

I’ve known that all along. The red culture was going bye bye. I didn’t know how it was going to happen until recently. Cultures are incredibly stubborn. Still, transformation is what has always happened. Those clinging to autocratic rule, inequality and privilege were going to be trampled.

When I was first chasing this principle, there was frequently a position proposed that the arrow did not exist. It was claimed that the victors write the history books and make themselves the heroes. Yet, I have not seen that argument made recently. There has been enough repeats of the old way of doing things being crushed. I just haven’t seen the argument it in a while.

But is there another arrow? Can a true red believer articulate a red version, an equivalent set of values, a set of principles that has triumphed come the crisis?

I know one such principle is that it has always been that way, that it has always been profitable, and therefore it would always be that way. There has always been a king. All civilizations are built on the cornerstone of slavery. The government has never had the power to regulate the economy. The United States has always been isolationist, and lets these minor skirmishes over in Europe pass by without interference. That which always has been shall forever be?

But as a progressive I am dubious about that sort of logic. At least, it doesn’t seem to apply in a crisis heart.

But can you articulate another set of virtues, another set of principles? I mean, there should be more to being a conservative than fighting democracy, human rights and equality. What are reds fighting for?

The last Crisis Era could have gone very badly. had Satan Incarnate hd the patience to squeeze Britain in an ever-tighter blockade, then he might have won the war in the West before turning against the Soviet Union. British Jews who escaped the Holocaust in our timeline because the Briotish kept the Wehrmacht, Gestapo, and SS out of their country would have been another horrible addition to the Holocaust toll. Without an effective ally for Lend-Lease deliveries to the Soviet Union, the Soviet Union might have fallen -- or having been mauled badly it might have won, only to spread Stalinist horror all the way to Lisbon and Galway. Either way, the whole of Europe descends into a new Dark Age. A Japanese conquest of Australia and New Zealand would have led to massacres on the scale of Europeans against First Peoples in the Americas... the Japanese learned colonial btrutality quite well from the experts -- Europeans and white Americans.

The worst that I could imagine is a world in which not gangsters took over not only Germany and Japan -- but just imagine the 1915 Klan as a partner in a fascist crime wave.

History is not written in stone until it is written in stone. How could the Crisis of 1940 gone better? Quite simply, Kerensky gets a chance to pull Russia out of the war, and his successor is able to assemble a grand coalition againt Hitler... ot, better yet, Hitler never gets a chance to seize power. Maybe the victors, scared of what Hitler might have done, decide to relax the Versailles settlement. (The democracies squeezed Weimar Germany but kissed up to Hitler. How foolish! bad 3T behavior makes a 4T nasty and dangerous..

** 10-Aug-2020 World View: Slavery vs Freedom

(08-10-2020, 03:27 AM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: [ -> ]> But is there another arrow? Can a true red believer articulate a
> red version, an equivalent set of values, a set of principles that
> has triumphed come the crisis?

> I know one such principle is that it has always been that way,
> that it has always been profitable, and therefore it would always
> be that way. There has always been a king. All civilizations are
> built on the cornerstone of slavery. The government has never had
> the power to regulate the economy. The United States has always
> been isolationist, and lets these minor skirmishes over in Europe
> pass by without interference. That which always has been shall
> forever be?

Slavery? What are you talking about? It's the Republicans who freed
the slaves, and the Democrats who fought a war to keep them enslaved.
It was the Democrats who forced the blacks into ghettos, and destroyed
their families, in order to keep them enslaved. It's the Democrats
who love Socialism, which is economic slavery. It's the Democrats who
have turned loose Antifa to kill freedom of speech.

(08-10-2020, 03:27 AM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: [ -> ]> But can you articulate another set of virtues, another set of
> principles? I mean, there should be more to being a conservative
> than fighting democracy, human rights and equality. What are reds
> fighting for?

Conservatives are fighting for freedom. You love slavery.
Conservatives hate slavery. You hate people who run small businesses,
and you've sent Antifa out to smash them and burn them down.
Conservatives hate seeing the streets of NYC, Washington, Chicago,
etc., filled with black teenage bodies, running with blood, while you
and other liberals are fine with that. What are reds fighting for?
For freedom and against slavery.

Your "arrow of progress" is based on the notion that people can't run
their own lives because you know more than they do how to run their
lives. You favor slavery -- forcing people to do as you want.
Conservatives favor freedom -- let people decide for themselves.

** 10-Aug-2020 World View: Crisis wars

(08-10-2020, 02:42 PM)pbrower2a Wrote: [ -> ]> The last Crisis Era could have gone very badly.

I won't attempt to explain it now, but after almost 20 years of
analyzing crisis wars, I've become convinced that they can't end any
other way, almost to the point of being preordained. Generational
crisis wars are forces of nature, huge existential struggles between
entire populations and generations. One individual battle may go
either way, but in the end, the war will end where it had to end.

(08-10-2020, 08:21 PM)John J. Xenakis Wrote: [ -> ]Slavery? What are you talking about?  It's the Republicans who freed the slaves, and the Democrats who fought a war to keep them enslaved.  It was the Democrats who forced the blacks into ghettos, and destroyed their families, in order to keep them enslaved.  It's the Democrats who love Socialism, which is economic slavery.  It's the Democrats who have turned loose Antifa to kill freedom of speech.

Have you studied history at all?  LBJ bought the black vote.  The Republicans picked up the racist vote.  As there were more people that though racial superiority was more important than you could pick up by supporting blacks and workers, we had the end of the FDR initiated progressive era and a time dominated by the Republicans.  America was rendered not great for a time.  

The Republicans simply switched sides on the racism issue, much as they had gone from isolationist leaning to strong on defense world policemen.  Parties do occasionally do this, swap the alliances and policies.  If you were familiar with history, you would come to know when the switches took place and why.

(08-10-2020, 08:21 PM)John J. Xenakis Wrote: [ -> ]Conservatives are fighting for freedom.  You love slavery.  Conservatives hate slavery.  You hate people who run small businesses, and you've sent Antifa out to smash them and burn them down.  Conservatives hate seeing the streets of NYC, Washington, Chicago, etc., filled with black teenage bodies, running with blood, while you and other liberals are fine with that.  What are reds fighting for?  For freedom and against slavery.

Incorrect.  That is not my motivation,  I trust you acknowledge my own knowledge of my own motivation and a tendency of political ideologues to create straw man parodies of their opponent’s motivations?  

Any time you profess to believe in your made up straw men you only discredit further your ability to understand motivations.  Those outside your own bubble will recognize your bubble quickly enough.  If you ever want your stuff to be valued above a comic strip joke, you will have to deal with your opponent’s real motivations.  In this case, the motivations are precisely as presented: democracy, equality and human rights.  If you are OK with sabotaging the vote or violent racist policing, you have a problem.  If you don’t wise up, happy disaster.  Come the crisis heart, you tend to go kaput.

(08-10-2020, 08:21 PM)John J. Xenakis Wrote: [ -> ]Your "arrow of progress" is based on the notion that people can't run their own lives because you know more than they do how to run their lives.  You favor slavery -- forcing people to do as you want.

Conservatives favor freedom -- let people decide for themselves.

For freedom but against equality?  That doesn’t seem to make sense.  Many Republicans in the Trump circle seem to want to keep their privileged position as elites and whites.  As long as they are tainted by those inclinations, they are not on the side of democracy, human rights and equality.  As is the folks in the Republican Party who are loyal to the elites, racism and Trump are going to have to struggle against those who have drifted blue for a time.

Mind you the Lincoln Project, Republican Voters Against Trump and VoteVets are leaving a large space for conservatives to become respectable again in time.  Going with Biden in the short term is quite understandable.  The tendency to take small government well beyond the point of diminishing return, diminished levels of racism, and the Tea Party’s rejection of elite influence in the Republican establishment leaves quite a bit of room for the Democrats to operate successfully for a while.  Still, there is lots of room for the conservatives to find themselves given time to regroup.  But I see a tug of war among conservatives while this happens.  The racists and elitists will not go away easily.

Now ‘freedom’ is one of those things that at one level it is hard to be against.  If it is a freedom to be an elitist or a racist, it is a problem.  Your freedom means someone else is less free.  If you could grant freedom you might get freedom, but that is a struggle the Trump faction and the vote Biden faction are dealing with these days.

(08-10-2020, 08:27 PM)John J. Xenakis Wrote: [ -> ]** 10-Aug-2020 World View: Crisis wars

(08-10-2020, 02:42 PM)pbrower2a Wrote: [ -> ]>   The last Crisis Era could have gone very badly.

I won't attempt to explain it now, but after almost 20 years of analyzing crisis wars, I've become convinced that they can't end any other way, almost to the point of being preordained.  Generational crisis wars are forces of nature, huge existential struggles between entire populations and generations.  One individual battle may go either way, but in the end, the war will end where it had to end.

That sounds a lot more like religion than historical analysis.

** 11-Aug-2020 World View: Religion

(08-11-2020, 08:46 AM)David Horn Wrote: [ -> ]> That sounds a lot more like religion than historical
> analysis.

If that's a religion, then so is generational theory, and so is S&H.
As I often point out, I'm the only remaining member of the FT forum
who believes that generational theory is valid.

(08-11-2020, 08:46 AM)David Horn Wrote: [ -> ]

(08-10-2020, 08:27 PM)John J. Xenakis Wrote: [ -> ]** 10-Aug-2020 World View: Crisis wars

(08-10-2020, 02:42 PM)pbrower2a Wrote: [ -> ]>   The last Crisis Era could have gone very badly.

I won't attempt to explain it now, but after almost 20 years of analyzing crisis wars, I've become convinced that they can't end any other way, almost to the point of being preordained.  Generational crisis wars are forces of nature, huge existential struggles between entire populations and generations.  One individual battle may go either way, but in the end, the war will end where it had to end.

That sounds a lot more like religion than historical analysis.

I don’t know. It might be sort of true of the small power ‘crisis wars’ which Xenakis has been looking at.

World War II? If Hitler had died in World War I and a more sane leader had ended up on top of the Nazi, things could have gone differently. If the Axis had been content in picking their opponents and a bit less racist in their making of enemies, they might have expanded their colonial influence without making the western powers mad at them. As is though, they made enough enemies to be defeated. They were so confident of their military culture that they took on everybody. Was that inevitable? Hard to know.

(08-11-2020, 09:44 AM)John J. Xenakis Wrote: [ -> ]

(08-11-2020, 08:46 AM)David Horn Wrote: [ -> ]That sounds a lot more like religion than historical analysis.

If that's a religion, then so is generational theory, and so is S&H.  As I often point out, I'm the only remaining member of the FT forum who believes that generational theory is valid.

I think parts generational theory are valid, but they developed their theory based on the Industrial Age observations without accounting for how the Information Age and its nukes, insurgent wars and computer networks could make things different.  More non violent change has made awakenings able to transform cultures.  There are fewer crisis war triggers among nuclear powers.  In merging turning theory, age theory and civilizations, you have to combine the wisdom of one perspective with the wisdom of others.

I think there is much validity still.  I have defended S&H orthodoxy against many who take it astray.  But it was a theory.  It was and remains not the only source of wisdom.  They missed some stuff.  Seeing your Industrial Age interpretation of crisis triggers applied to the Information Age situation I cringe.  Seeing you not count nukes as making major powers want to avoid crisis wars as much as have one in living memory is doubtful. 

It is a theory, susceptible to 'I see farther because I stand on the shoulders of giants.'  It is not something like a fundamentalist view of the Bible, fixed, absolute and unchanging.

Question: how do the rules change when we leave the industrial age?

** 11-Aug-2020 World View: S&H Theory

(08-11-2020, 10:08 AM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: [ -> ]> I think there is much validity still. I have defended S&H
> orthodoxy against many who take it astray. But it was a theory.
> It was and remains not the only source of wisdom. They missed
> some stuff. Seeing your Industrial Age interpretation of crisis
> triggers applied to the Information Age situation I cringe.
> Seeing you not count nukes as making major powers want to avoid
> crisis wars as much as have one in living memory is
> doubtful.

Lol. You claim to be defending S&H theory, but instead you're
rejecting S&H theory and instead you're defending some made-up theory
about arrows of progress that exists only in your mind, and bears no
resemblance to generational theory. That's your business, but you
aren't defending S&H theory at all.

Once again, I'm the only remaining member of the FT forum who believes
that generational theory is valid.

(08-11-2020, 04:41 PM)pbrower2a Wrote: [ -> ]Question: how do the rules change when we leave the industrial age?

Hmm.  I covered some of the major points just a few posts up.  Again.

War become not cost effective.  This became more true starting with the common use of the machine gun and especially with the invention of the nuke.  It was actually Keynes that pointed out after World War I, that trying to profit out of war was a bad idea.  The retaliatory terms of that ‘peace’ turned out to make the war be fought again.  Thus, next time around they tried the Marshall Plan.  That worked better.

But the core was that nuclear war became not cost effective for the elites.  They were in a position to lose much opportunity for profit should a crisis war start.  Thus, they did not support government leaders apt to try to start a crisis war.  The common man had a similar idea.  They did not care to be incinerated either.  Thus, the prospect of maybe becoming involved in a war of annihilation became as traumatizing as living memory of a preceding crisis war.  You thus have a lack of trigger events by major powers that lead to crisis wars.  This was obviously not true in the Industrial Age.  Someone would always think they had a military advantage and start a conflict.  If the culture had to change, it was taken for granted that you would have to fight a crisis war to do it.

S&H and Generational Dynamics fails to take this change in the cost effectivity of war into account.

A second difference is that Gandhi and Martin Luther King proved non violence could transform the culture without a crisis war, and that awakenings though protest, non-violence and legislation could transform a culture.  S&H could have seen that.  They lived through the 1960s.  They could have noted the difference between the religious revivals of the Industrial Age and the political protests and response by a progressive government could lead to a transforming awakening turning.  They might have anticipated that the next awakening could be similar, but they didn’t.

Another change is the insurgency and proxy war.  In the Industrial Age it was common to win wars with people wearing uniforms, crewing artillery and having front lines.  You get your army into the enemy capitol and you have won.  In places like Vietnam and Iraq, another power would get weapons to angry locals who would make sure foreigners do not profit.  Again, war became less profitable.  Bush 43’s attempt at Neo colonialism failed, as I anticipate future attempts to use military force to make a profit will also fail.  Thus, while man was bred to conflict, where a contest for resources and territory was bred into us during the hunter - gatherer time, man is slowly learning that it is not as easy to profit through conflict as it used to be.  In other words, even the sole superpower has learned not to put a lot of boots on the ground.  Again, a lack of triggers for major powers.

Those three are the basic difference.  In general, when you are mixing turnings, ages and civilizations, as a broad rule you should become suspect of inductive proofs of anything when you cross any of the three types of borders.  By suspect, I don’t say anything you thought you learned from the Industrial Age will turn out to be false in the Information Age.  Primarily, it means that a pattern which was observed back then has to be confirmed through observation in the later age, especially if nukes, proxy insurgent wars or computer networks are involved.  What was true in the older time has to be confirmed in the new age.

That hits you in the face as soon as you try to combine age and turning theory.  Still, some are trying hard not to see age theory, and run S&H as if it is perfect, like there is no reason to update it.  Many might see the contradictions and abandon S&H entirely.  I would not go that far.  Some of what S&H observed about the old days remains true now.

I sort of have to balance between the two.

(08-11-2020, 06:47 PM)John J. Xenakis Wrote: [ -> ]Lol.  You claim to be defending S&H theory, but instead you're rejecting S&H theory and instead you're defending some made-up theory about arrows of progress that exists only in your mind, and bears no resemblance to generational theory.  That's your business, but you aren't defending S&H theory at all.

Once again, I'm the only remaining member of the FT forum who believes that generational theory is valid.

If by valid you mean that the original principles can stand without being changed and by making further checks against reality, you may be correct.  I prefer to check against reality and edit the theory to eliminate the parts which are obviously no longer applicable.

If one tries to learn from books on ages of civilization, books showing the differences between civilizations, books covering how hunter - gatherer cultures and species act, books covering recent history….  There is a lot of stuff out there.  If you lock into one perspective above all others and wipe anything from other perspectives from your mind, you come up with absurdities.

By the way, I also make it a point to check spirals of violence.  Before you get to a crisis war, there is generally escalating rhetoric then violence that eventually builds up to a full scale conflict.  It is part of the idea that one should check one’s theory against reality.  You are hardly the only person obsessed with violence that has clung to the violence that occurred in prior ages as if it will continue in the current age.  Some people are sick and cling to the old ways of looking at things.

** 11-Aug-2020 World View: Non-violence

(08-11-2020, 09:20 PM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: [ -> ]> A second difference is that Gandhi and Martin Luther King proved
> non violence could transform the culture without a crisis war, and
> that awakenings though protest, non-violence and legislation could
> transform a culture.

That's news to me. Mahatma Gandhi led India into the 1947 Partition
war between Muslims and Hindus, possibly the largest and bloodiest
battle of the 20th century.

Cow veneration can beat out non-violence any day.

** 7-Aug-16 World View -- India's Narendra Modi finally hits out at Cow Protectors ('Gau Rakshaks')
** http://www.generationaldynamics.com/pg/x...tm#e160807

(08-11-2020, 10:27 PM)John J. Xenakis Wrote: [ -> ]

(08-11-2020, 09:20 PM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: [ -> ]A second difference is that Gandhi and Martin Luther King proved non violence could transform the culture without a crisis war, and that awakenings though protest, non-violence and legislation could transform a culture.

That's news to me.  Mahatma Gandhi led India into the 1947 Partition war between Muslims and Hindus, possibly the largest and bloodiest battle of the 20th century.

Not surprised that it is news to you.  You really ought to familiarize yourself with history.

Not all conflicts between civilizations are best solved by non violence.  Some are.  The lack or presence of violence in one conflict does not imply other conflicts will be the same.  Thus, you have Martin Luther King's civil right's movement occurring at the same time as the Vietnam War.  Thus you have navy ships demonstrating against China at the same time as the Black Lives Matter demonstrations occur.

To understand recent history, you have to be aware of both.

(08-10-2020, 08:27 PM)John J. Xenakis Wrote: [ -> ]** 10-Aug-2020 World View: Crisis wars

(08-10-2020, 02:42 PM)pbrower2a Wrote: [ -> ]>   The last Crisis Era could have gone very badly.

I won't attempt to explain it now, but after almost 20 years of
analyzing crisis wars, I've become convinced that they can't end any
other way, almost to the point of being preordained.  Generational
crisis wars are forces of nature, huge existential struggles between
entire populations and generations.  One individual battle may go
either way, but in the end, the war will end where it had to end.

COVID-19 kills like a bungled war (because of Donald Trump) and costs huge amounts of expenditure. If it hits middle-class and rich people it devours their assets. If it hits poor people it devours a budget if the government eats the cost. As in a Crisis War we have a demonized enemy, but instead of Hitler, Mussolini, or Tojo in the last Crisis  it is a nearly-spherical body with some insidious-looking appendages. It has impaired much of what makes life normal. 

Yes, it is an existential battle between the human population and a population of viruses. As in other Crisis Eras people speak of extermination. But this time the SARS-2 virus is certifiably non-human. As in other Crisis Eras it has things happening that supposedly don't happen. Hale people do not ordinarily die of respiratory infections in the USA or other advanced countries unless their bodies are already at risk from degenerative diseases or from horrible habits (drugs, HIV, life-long alcoholism). Even so the typical death involving respiratory infections in America has typically been pneumonia that finishes off someone with cancer or congestive heart failure (among other things) when the doomed person faces an overload of medical stresses.  

Many people treat COVID-19 like a war. Sanity still has its survival value, and it is safe to say that despite the impediments that sanity puts upon mindless hedonism, sane people are far happier. Mental wards are nasty places for residents and staff alike. People have died because they defied common sense, as in attending mass gatherings in which respiratory infections can spread... and even holding COVID-19 parties in which people expose themselves to the disease. From what I hear I would rather get a bite from a rattlesnake than get COVID-19... and I have typically thought of a rattlesnake bite one of the worst things that could happen to me.  COVID-19 will be met effectively with rational leadership in government, in the commercial sector, in the non-profit sector, and by the choices of many seemingly-ordinary people. This time nobody needs to charge machine-gun nests or make radio broadcasts or listen to the BBC in fear of the Gestapo or Kempeitai. Instead of working like fiends many of us will need to stay home. 

COVID-19 will have a scarring effect as did the last Crisis era. Obviously a 4T puts an end to the quick-fix habit of a 3T with its excessive indulgence in intense, but expensive and ephemeral delights. We are finding new ways to do old things... 

One of the most important skills that anyone can learn is the knack for making the best out of a bad situation. Those unable to do that will make inevitable calamities even more destructive, and such people are often the highest risks for suicide. 

Crises need not be wars. Plagues will suffice.

(08-11-2020, 09:44 AM)John J. Xenakis Wrote: [ -> ]** 11-Aug-2020 World View: Religion

(08-11-2020, 08:46 AM)David Horn Wrote: [ -> ]>   That sounds a lot more like religion than historical
>   analysis.

If that's a religion, then so is generational theory, and so is S&H.
As I often point out, I'm the only remaining member of the FT forum
who believes that generational theory is valid.

It is at best a tool, much like certain curves for predicting the direction of the price for a stock or the overall stock market. Think of the double dip and the head-and-shoulders patterns. 

No two Crisis Eras are the same. The last Crisis seems to have wiped the militarism once endemic in German, Italian, and Japanese culture out for a very long time and weakened the unthinking belief that colonial empires were good ideas even among the victors. In contrast it made America and the USSR more willing to set up client states as captive suppliers and markets worthy of fights in proxy wars. The leader of a country during a Crisis might pick and choose from earlier Crises. With Britain as the #1 ally, FDR would have to downplay the American Revolution... but Abraham Lincoln was fine.  

If I am to look at Presidents of the United States in this Crisis, then Dubya is the sort of leadership that people want when they seek to be left alone to wallow in greed and hedonism and proves a disaster when such greed and hedonism prove destructive. Obama is the sort of leader one typically gets after a Crisis is over or at the earliest as the Crisis is winding down. He might not be a perfect fit for a Lincoln, Juarez, FDR, Churchill, or Mannerheim, but if people do what he expects then things go well enough. Donald Trump has only one mitigating factor as President: he shows what can go wrong and the consequences, and leaders after him can use him as an example of how not to govern. See also Nero, Caligula, and Commodus as Roman Emperors. Imperator and Praesidens  are not quite the same in authority, and they have very different resources of power at their disposal. I can imagine the difference in movies (or whatever the art form is in use in the 2200's) between a story on Obama (boring!) and Trump. Should there be a production code as there was in the 1950's, then we get something like Quo Vadis?  (probably PG) for Trump. If none is in place, then we get Caligula (NC-17)  or Gladiator (R for violence). Nero, Caligula, and Commodus were well remembered for entertaining the masses but horrid for all else. Ideally politics are boring, and an opera is available.