I'm a sceptic that the 4th Turning started in 2008

[Bob Butler 54]

(08-18-2020, 10:00 PM)pbrower2a Wrote: To preserve our Union we need to ensure that we can never have another leader like Donald Trump. That includes reducing the role of economic power in shaping politics. That includes a revival of faith in learning and reason. That includes restoring humanistic values as an expected characteristic of our economic leaders. People like Donald Trump who believe that nothing is more important than themselves believe in nothing except themselves. Such people cannot convince people outside of those like minded, the vicious, and the gullible.

To some degree that is true and timeless, but some of what you are saying seems to be that we need the 4T mindset. Now, I don't disagree that both are needed now. I just expect that the Democrats will overdo it, and that come the next unraveling the people might get tired of it.

[David Horn]

(08-20-2020, 08:03 AM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote:

(08-18-2020, 10:00 PM)pbrower2a Wrote: To preserve our Union we need to ensure that we can never have another leader like Donald Trump. That includes reducing the role of economic power in shaping politics. That includes a revival of faith in learning and reason. That includes restoring humanistic values as an expected characteristic of our economic leaders. People like Donald Trump who believe that nothing is more important than themselves believe in nothing except themselves. Such people cannot convince people outside of those like minded, the vicious, and the gullible.

To some degree that is true and timeless, but some of what you are saying seems to be that we need the 4T mindset.  Now, I don't disagree that both are needed now.  I just expect that the Democrats will overdo it, and that come the next unraveling the people might get tired of it.

That's to be expected, but having excess to unravel is better than unravelling moderation.

[Mikebert]

(08-16-2020, 10:35 PM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote:

(08-16-2020, 03:03 PM)Mikebert Wrote: 4. External conquest or at least invasion. Robert Butler has dealt with this one, so this is out.

Should I go looking for a picture of a wrecked invasion ship with me and my trusty mortar in the foreground?  

ROTL. As you probably surmised I was referring to an argument for this outcome as being unlikely. But the image of you going all Rambo on invading Russians or whatever was quite amusing.

[Mikebert]

(08-17-2020, 10:30 AM)David Horn Wrote: But eventually, the youth will have had enough.  It may take a decade or two (what could be the 2T in the S&H cycle), but the longer it takes to get there, the less likely it's peaceful.

That may well we the case. And I am sure S&H fans will assume we have a 1T in there. I note that 1865-1886 1T saw the longest depression in American history and the worst episode of violent unrest in the US (outside of the Revolutionary and Civil wars), but it was a "High." Yeah right.

[Tim Randal Walker]

Was thinking about Erics comments.

First, if Biden wins, I think that he will be a one term president, because he is getting just too old. Second, I suspect that Eric is right, that if Harris runs for president next time around she will lose. Really, despite Obama, I very much doubt that a person "of color" can win the presidency during the rest of this 4T. I think Obama won because of a very particular set of circumstances, and once in office he was not only opposed but reviled. And outside of the party's base, I doubt that Harris will help Biden win.

As for winning the presidency during the rest of this 4T, I suspect that the only alternative to a white man that has even a slight chance would be a white woman.

If Biden/Harris should win, I expect that it would be by a thin margin. With a Biden administration being notable not so much by what it accomplishes as by what it blocks by simply being in the White House.

[Tim Randal Walker]

One combination that could work for either of the major parties would be a white man for president, and a white woman for vice-president. Both the Republicans (McCain/Palin) and the Democrats (Mondale/Ferraro) have been willing to try this.

If Biden/Harris win that one term administration, it could be argued that the Democrats did a good job with People "of color". Time to try a white woman again.

As for a post Biden administration, I think that the Democrats best bet would be an emphasis on economics.

[Eric the Green]

(08-21-2020, 01:42 PM)Tim Randal Walker Wrote: Was thinking about Erics comments.

First, if Biden wins, I think that he will be a one term president, because he is getting just too old.  Second, I suspect that Eric is right, that if Harris runs for president next time around she will lose.  Really, despite Obama, I very much doubt that a person "of color" can win the presidency during the rest of this 4T.  I think Obama won because of a very particular set of circumstances, and once in office he was not only opposed but reviled.  And outside of the party's base, I doubt that Harris will help Biden win.

As for winning the presidency during the rest of this 4T, I suspect that the only alternative to a white man that has even a slight chance would be a white woman.

If Biden/Harris should win, I expect that it would be by a thin margin.  With a Biden administration being notable not so much by what it accomplishes as by what it blocks by simply  being in the White House.

I agree that Harris is no help and won't win the presidency, but I am not going by race, but by the talent of the candidate.

The large Republican base hates candidates of color. But they hate any Democrat regardless of color.

I thought Harris' convention speech was typical dullsville for her and too much about herself.

It depends on which candidates are available, and how talented they are. Horoscope scores are a good index. I don't claim they are infallible, but they are reliable.

I don't see a white woman on the horizon of available talented candidates off hand. Do you? 

I think the Democrats will have to be willing to nominate more white males, if they decide they want to win. Not because of their race, but because that's where the talent and status still is.

But if they want to continue to go for women of color, there are a few good options, as long as the Republicans nominate a weak candidate; and they are even shorter on talent and status right now than the Democrats are.

The list of candidates and scores I have posted so far is found at
http://philosopherswheel.com/presidentialelections.html

[Eric the Green]

(08-20-2020, 08:03 AM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote:

(08-18-2020, 10:00 PM)pbrower2a Wrote: To preserve our Union we need to ensure that we can never have another leader like Donald Trump. That includes reducing the role of economic power in shaping politics. That includes a revival of faith in learning and reason. That includes restoring humanistic values as an expected characteristic of our economic leaders. People like Donald Trump who believe that nothing is more important than themselves believe in nothing except themselves. Such people cannot convince people outside of those like minded, the vicious, and the gullible.

To some degree that is true and timeless, but some of what you are saying seems to be that we need the 4T mindset.  Now, I don't disagree that both are needed now.  I just expect that the Democrats will overdo it, and that come the next unraveling the people might get tired of it.

I doubt people get tired of true values, or that they can be overdone. They get swept away by ideologies and deceptions and by charming candidates. They get bamboozled by entertainment. That's how TV stars like Reagan and Trump were able to get elected and steer the USA on the wrong path. There is always competition between true and false values. And a great communicator like Reagan can easily sell gullible Americans on those false values with attractive slogans like "government is the problem." It never was, but Reagan was a good salesman for that falsehood. His horoscope score was unbeatable. And he could easily outsell Carter who was offering "malaise." So I would put it not that people get tired of true values, but they get tempted and deceived away from the straight and narrow, often by talented demagogues like Reagan and Trump.

It can also be stated, as Kenneth Clark said about Rome, not so much that they got tired of good values, but that they simply got-- tired. It takes a bit of faith, enthusiasm, energy and exertion to keep a good civilization going.

This American obsession with personality and fantasy means to a large extent that true values have been on the wane in American society almost from the beginning, but certainly in the last 150 years. I don't think Americans have ever had enough true values to even know whether they are tired of them. 

They used to have churches, which compensated to some extent, but even there what was taught did not dissuade but often encouraged greed, racism, and competition and the destruction of Nature. Spengler looked at American Society a century ago in his Decline of The West and said Americans were just a bunch of dollar trappers with no past and no future.

Especially recently, a key problem has been the decline in education. Democrats in power on all levels can start by reinstating the requirements for civics classes in high schools.

True values are never tiring. They grow and develop civilizations. But cycles of civilizations and generations come and go. People and their leaders and teachers do lose touch with true values and get deceived and tempted by what is easier and more indulgent or fear-based.

[Tim Randal Walker]

Off the top of my head I can't think of a white woman who is a prospect for the presidency. Perhaps there might be a few white women who could be on the ticket for vice-president?

Obama seemed to get even more hatred than white Democrats.

[Eric the Green]

(08-21-2020, 05:35 PM)Tim Randal Walker Wrote: Off the top of my head I can't think of a white woman who is a prospect for the presidency.  Perhaps there might be a few white women who could be on the ticket for vice-president?

Obama seemed to get even more hatred than white Democrats.

The level of hatred for the Clintons was such that it would be hard to distinguish from the level of hatred toward Obama. And Obama did better at the polls.

[Marc Lamb]

The Biden/Harris ticket is a sure winner, according to the cyclical theory of history. Why? Because they want to bring America together. Enough said.

And that's all either Biden or Harris needs to campaign on. Bringing America together is the winning ticket. The more, or less, said about it in this fourth turn the better.

[Bob Butler 54]

(09-13-2020, 09:26 PM)Marc Lamb Wrote: The Biden/Harris ticket is a sure winner, according to the cyclical theory of history. Why? Because they want to bring America together. Enough said.

And that's all either Biden or Harris needs to campaign on. Bringing America together is the winning ticket. The more, or less, said about it in this fourth turn the better.

I suspect you are right. The problem is an awful lot of people want to stick with the unraveling mindset, and Trump has sort of encouraged it. For the individual, hooray! Forget the common good, huzzah! As a result, it seems a little early for the counting chickens phase.

[David Horn]

(09-14-2020, 04:28 AM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote:

(09-13-2020, 09:26 PM)Marc Lamb Wrote: The Biden/Harris ticket is a sure winner, according to the cyclical theory of history. Why? Because they want to bring America together. Enough said.

And that's all either Biden or Harris needs to campaign on. Bringing America together is the winning ticket. The more, or less, said about it in this fourth turn the better.

I suspect you are right.  The problem is an awful lot of people want to stick with the unraveling mindset, and Trump has sort of encouraged it.  For the individual, hooray!  Forget the common good, huzzah!  As a result, it seems a little early for the counting chickens phase.

As unsettled as things are, handing out the political equivalent of Ritalin has to be popular.  I'm not sure popular is enough, though.  We still live in tribal times, and the tribes are restless.

[Bob Butler 54]

(09-14-2020, 10:53 AM)David Horn Wrote:

(09-14-2020, 04:28 AM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote:

(09-13-2020, 09:26 PM)Marc Lamb Wrote: The Biden/Harris ticket is a sure winner, according to the cyclical theory of history. Why? Because they want to bring America together. Enough said.

And that's all either Biden or Harris needs to campaign on. Bringing America together is the winning ticket. The more, or less, said about it in this fourth turn the better.

I suspect you are right.  The problem is an awful lot of people want to stick with the unraveling mindset, and Trump has sort of encouraged it.  For the individual, hooray!  Forget the common good, huzzah!  As a result, it seems a little early for the counting chickens phase.

As unsettled as things are, handing out the political equivalent of Ritalin has to be popular.  I'm not sure popular is enough, though.  We still live in tribal times, and the tribes are restless.

I caught a bit of an MSNBC segment, where the reporter was in the midwest and concentrating on the pro Tump crowd. As she was presenting it, many were still getting their news entirely from the Fox bubble. She listed several of the latest new items, including the Woodward book Rage, and in general people had never heard of them. News came from folks who said what they wanted to hear. It was allegedly possible to remain ignorant of what they other guys presented. That was all hoax and fake news anyway. All that was important was who was president of Earth Two.

[jleagans]

4th turning started with 9/11, and ends next week.

Turnings aren’t that hard to sniff out since they overlay the generations ...

[ragnarkar]

I've only started learning about the Strauss-Howe generational theory but after reading what I've seen in this thread, here's what I might alternatively consider as the years corresponding to the turnings:

1st Turning: 1945 - 1968.  Begins with the end of WW2, ends with the death of MLK and the peak of the Civil Rights movement.

2nd Turning: 1968 - 1989.  Begins with the death of MLK and ends with the fall of the Berlin Wall.

3rd Turning: 1989 - 2016.  Begins with the fall of the Berlin Wall, ends with the election of Donald Trump.

4th Turning: 2016 - ?

Keep in mind that lifespans have increased substantially in the 20th and 21st centuries so this cycle will likely be longer.

Obviously, the end of a turning can only be determined in hindsight.  If we get 4 more years of Trump or if Biden ends up being a dud, I'd be more inclined to accept the alternative timeline I've proposed.  Otherwise if the whole nation unites under Biden (can't see Trump doing that) to combat covid, reverse the declining middle class, reassert itself against China and Russia in effective ways, etc., then I'd be more apt to go with Howe's timeline with the 4T starting in 2008 and ending some time in the middle of this decade.

[nguyenivy]

I feel similar looking back on it all now in 2021.

In the moment 2008 felt like 'the big one' but now we got COVID-19 which is still ongoing after over a whole year. When is the last time we had this level of disruption in the US? WW2? GD? 1918? Let's think about it: on COVID alone, we had over a billion kids out of school worldwide for at weeks to months on end along with all that brought, companies & stores closing up either for months or for good, with millions of people working from home & some possibly wanting to stay that way even after COVID, the whole economic side of things with US weekly new unemployment claims still well over pre-pandemic levels for over a year straight, no-one seeing each other (of course due to COVID), red/blue split on some people in total denial even now of how bad the virus is and others still super-scared of variants even after being vaccinated, and on & on. Next we had the killing of George Floyd & everything that came after that. Then wildfire & hurricane season with more hurricanes formed than any prior recorded season. Election aftermath including of course events of 2021-01-06. Things now finally are starting to seem like we're going to make it through with a lot of vaccines rolling out with high uptake, but all bets are off on whether they will continue to work as well on newer variants going forwards. Good thing booster shots are in the works as we speak. I think for us city-dwellers the damage may have already been done as some places already experienced an exodus out of big cities to cheaper quieter locales. My generation the Millennials are in that spot of wanting more land for kids or just a calmer daily life anyway. Throw WFH into the mix and a suburb with train access to the city may be better than living directly in a city in some tiny apartment anyway. There may be a couple more economic bubbles bursting soon, too. The college tuition bubble has been growing to dizzying heights for years now, to the point where I hear about people in the generation younger than me questioning going to college if they can't get in on just grants or scholarships. One may indeed make more money over a lifetime from university education but before that comes landing a few good jobs after college 1st, which may require some luck - an element the US doesn't like to talk about. What happens when the college tuition bubble pops?


But maybe I am totally wrong. Maybe COVID is the end of this saeculum's Crisis and nothing else super-crazy is coming in the 2020s before the High of beyond. Was the 1930s similar to the 2010s after the 1st couple years where in our time 2008/2009 was the crash then a decade of just regular life just with less money before the big society-changing event, only theirs was WW2 & ours is COVID?

[pbrower2a]

(10-29-2020, 05:09 PM)ragnarkar Wrote: I've only started learning about the Strauss-Howe generational theory but after reading what I've seen in this thread, here's what I might alternatively consider as the years corresponding to the turnings:

1st Turning: 1945 - 1968.  Begins with the end of WW2, ends with the death of MLK and the peak of the Civil Rights movement.

2nd Turning: 1968 - 1989.  Begins with the death of MLK and ends with the fall of the Berlin Wall.

3rd Turning: 1989 - 2016.  Begins with the fall of the Berlin Wall, ends with the election of Donald Trump.

4th Turning: 2016 - ?

Keep in mind that lifespans have increased substantially in the 20th and 21st centuries so this cycle will likely be longer.

Obviously, the end of a turning can only be determined in hindsight.  If we get 4 more years of Trump or if Biden ends up being a dud, I'd be more inclined to accept the alternative timeline I've proposed.  Otherwise if the whole nation unites under Biden (can't see Trump doing that) to combat covid, reverse the declining middle class, reassert itself against China and Russia in effective ways, etc., then I'd be more apt to go with Howe's timeline with the 4T starting in 2008 and ending some time in the middle of this decade.

Well, that is a bit heretical. 

The Crisis Era ends in America with V-J Day. It may have lasted until 1949 in Germany with the founding of the separate German states and in China with the takeover by Mao. 

1945-1963, First Turning. The American High. The Korean War is a loose end, and the US A did not go for the kill (which would have been to invade China).The 1T ends with the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. 

1963-1981. Second Turning. Boom Awakening. The pop culture completely abandons the insipidness of 1T tastes. The Civil Rights struggle happens. But things get darker with the drug scene, urban riots, The War in Vietnam is a political disaster. Watergate and the Agnew and Nixon resignations. The Boom Awakening takes a reactionary turn as the Religious Right starts to appear. Reagan triumphs in the 1980 election     

1981-2005. Truly a reactionary time in politics and culture. Crass materialism and mindless hedonism become the rule except among the self-righteous Religious Right. The GI bumper-sticker "We're Spending Our Grandchildren's Inheritance" is not so ironic as it seems. This is the heyday of the shopping mall, as young adults find themselves competing for jobs in shopping malls and fast-food places even if they have college degrees. This decadent era culminates in a corrupt speculative boom that starts to go sour in 2005 (Hurricane Katrina). The financial panic cannot be stopped in 2008. 

2006-present. The Crisis. It's telling that the stock market peaked in 1929  and 2007... then came the real crashes in 1930 and 2008. 78 years apart, with much the same cause. Obama does most things right (except for letting the plutocrats recover first so that they have the funds with which to buy the political process and return to 3T practices, and the Crisis culminates in the Trump Presidency. If we don't get a crisis shooting war we end up with mass death from COVID-19. It's the deaths of modern warfare with nobody getting any Medals of Honor or Gold Stars.

[Eric the Green]

I mostly agree with Brower's descriptions of the turnings, but not the dates or all the names.

1946-1963 1st turning. It ended with JFK's assassination, not MLK's.

1964-1984 2nd turning. Ends only with Reagan's re-election and "morning in America." Before then the awakening mood persisted into Reagan's 1st term, even though it was getting sullen and less inspiring. Again, it should not be called the Boom Awakening. It was the Consciousness Revolution, in which all generations participated. That does not mean that all generations were listening to the music of the new pop counter-culture, of course. But the Awakening belongs to the mid-1960s and the LSD-driven counter-culture, the human potential/new age movements, and all the myriad social and political awakenings, with 1966 being the year when it exploded at greatest Richter-scale levels. Remember the explosive emerging of "black power" culture proclaimed by Stokely Carmichael and Floyd McKissick at the march against fear in June 1966, and the simultaneous founding of the National Organization for Women. Remember what secular millennials forget about the Strauss and Howe theory; that the concept of Awakenings are the periodic spiritual events that contrast with the secular crisis periods. The second turning was a Consciousness Revolution, of tremendous scale and significance, and primarily to do with cultural and spiritual awakenings. It is the only period in the cycle where substantial numbers of people, mostly young and middle aged, can change their worldviews. That is what happened in the 2nd turning of 1964-1984. Today's millennials often try to suppress this awakening through such media as wikipedia, pretending that the discoveries of this awakening were just a passing phase. They are not; they remain true and relevant.

1984-2008 3rd turning. The Fall of Communism fits in well with the "decadent," neo-liberal and "free-market" Reaganomics program of this turning. Only the resulting great crash and recession in 2008 was the existential threat that could have sent the USA and the world off a financial cliff that could have been fatal; not Katrina. Before about Nov. 2008, economists were still not ready even to call it a recession. But the crash precipitated by the fall of Lehman Brothers in Sept.2008 was the decisive event. Before that, cracks were appearing (mostly only since 2007, not 2005), but they were only cracks; the mood of the nation had not shifted at all. People at WAMU were still tipping wine classes and celebrating their big profits.

2008-2029 4th turning. We just passed the half way point. The recession lingered for most people because the Republicans blocked everything after the initial stimulus. Then Trump came along, and although recovery continued at a slower rate than during Obama's second term, Trump himself became the Crisis personified, including his mishandling of covid. The regeneracy has begun, timed with the Jupiter-Saturn conjunction of Dec. 21, 2020, but the Republicans have put up huge walls, and are putting up more. The resistance to progress has not been broken. So the Crisis goes on.

Covid was the inevitable result, as was the 2008 crash, of the rule of neo-liberalism, installed with Reagan's election in Nov. 1980 and tax cuts in July 1981 (on the exact date of Jupiter-Saturn conjunction). Although the 20-year/40-year Jupiter-Saturn/Skowronek cycle played out with these events, and ending with Trump's fall, the Awakening mood continued after 1981 because Reagan was still unpopular and because the 1980 recession continued, and so did the 2nd turning in the 84-year saeculum/Uranus cycle. But once neo-liberalism became enthroned, with its "trickle-down economics" program of lower taxes and regulations on the "job creaters" (rich/big business), subsidies for big, deadly corporations, cuts in social spending, ending environmental progress and consumer protection, accelerating climate change, and scapegoating and demeaning of welfare and social programs as "dependency", it ruined everything that it touched. Another crash like 1929 was inevitable, given the lax regulations of business and unleashed speculation of neo-liberal policy, followed under all presidents in varying degrees from Reagan to Trump, and under Republican power at all levels. Under the neo-liberal on steroids, Donald Trump, the federal government left the response to covid to states and individuals on the grounds that a federal big-government program was "tyranny." This did not work. So the covid crisis, the great recession, the racial unrest, the climate crisis, gun massacres, and gross inequality and health care debacles, are all the outcome of neo-liberal rule, mostly during the 3rd turning and extending into the 4th. Also, the neo-libs were often allied with the neo-cons, who were big on military spending and on starting unnecessary, expensive, deadly wars. Then there's the alt-right, another ally of neo-libs and neo-cons, and chief booster of Trump; bent on blaming immigrants, building national protective walls and spreading conspiracy theories. And the call for "law and order" is always available to right-wing demagogues.

[Dustinw5220]

(05-03-2021, 01:48 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: I mostly agree with Brower's descriptions of the turnings, but not the dates or all the names.

1946-1963 1st turning. It ended with JFK's assassination, not MLK's.

1964-1984 2nd turning. Ends only with Reagan's re-election and "morning in America." Before then the awakening mood persisted into Reagan's 1st term, even though it was getting sullen and less inspiring. Again, it should not be called the Boom Awakening. It was the Consciousness Revolution, in which all generations participated. That does not mean that all generations were listening to the music of the new pop counter-culture, of course. But the Awakening belongs to the mid-1960s and the LSD-driven counter-culture, the human potential/new age movements, and all the myriad social and political awakenings, with 1966 being the year when it exploded at greatest Richter-scale levels. Remember the explosive emerging of "black power" culture proclaimed by Stokely Carmichael and Floyd McKissick at the march against fear in June 1966, and the simultaneous founding of the National Organization for Women. Remember what secular millennials forget about the Strauss and Howe theory; that the concept of Awakenings are the periodic spiritual events that contrast with the secular crisis periods. The second turning was a Consciousness Revolution, of tremendous scale and significance, and primarily to do with cultural and spiritual awakenings. It is the only period in the cycle where substantial numbers of people, mostly young and middle aged, can change their worldviews. That is what happened in the 2nd turning of 1964-1984. Today's millennials often try to suppress this awakening through such media as wikipedia, pretending that the discoveries of this awakening were just a passing phase. They are not; they remain true and relevant.

1984-2008 3rd turning. The Fall of Communism fits in well with the "decadent," neo-liberal and "free-market" Reaganomics program of this turning. Only the resulting great crash and recession in 2008 was the existential threat that could have sent the USA and the world off a financial cliff that could have been fatal; not Katrina. Before about Nov. 2008, economists were still not ready even to call it a recession. But the crash precipitated by the fall of Lehman Brothers in Sept.2008 was the decisive event. Before that, cracks were appearing (mostly only since 2007, not 2005), but they were only cracks; the mood of the nation had not shifted at all. People at WAMU were still tipping wine classes and celebrating their big profits.

2008-2029 4th turning. We just passed the half way point. The recession lingered for most people because the Republicans blocked everything after the initial stimulus. Then Trump came along, and although recovery continued at a slower rate than during Obama's second term, Trump himself became the Crisis personified, including his mishandling of covid. The regeneracy has begun, timed with the Jupiter-Saturn conjunction of Dec. 21, 2020, but the Republicans have put up huge walls, and are putting up more. The resistance to progress has not been broken. So the Crisis goes on.

Covid was the inevitable result, as was the 2008 crash, of the rule of neo-liberalism, installed with Reagan's election in Nov. 1980 and tax cuts in July 1981 (on the exact date of Jupiter-Saturn conjunction). Although the 20-year/40-year Jupiter-Saturn/Skowronek cycle played out with these events, and ending with Trump's fall, the Awakening mood continued after 1981 because Reagan was still unpopular and because the 1980 recession continued, and so did the 2nd turning in the 84-year saeculum/Uranus cycle. But once neo-liberalism became enthroned, with its "trickle-down economics" program of lower taxes and regulations on the "job creaters" (rich/big business), subsidies for big, deadly corporations, cuts in social spending, ending environmental progress and consumer protection, accelerating climate change, and scapegoating and demeaning of welfare and social programs as "dependency", it ruined everything that it touched. Another crash like 1929 was inevitable, given the lax regulations of business and unleashed speculation of neo-liberal policy, followed under all presidents in varying degrees from Reagan to Trump, and under Republican power at all levels. Under the neo-liberal on steroids, Donald Trump, the federal government left the response to covid to states and individuals on the grounds that a federal big-government program was "tyranny." This did not work. So the covid crisis, the great recession, the racial unrest, the climate crisis, gun massacres, and gross inequality and health care debacles, are all the outcome of neo-liberal rule, mostly during the 3rd turning and extending into the 4th. Also, the neo-libs were often allied with the neo-cons, who were big on military spending and on starting unnecessary, expensive, deadly wars. Then there's the alt-right, another ally of neo-libs and neo-cons, and chief booster of Trump; bent on blaming immigrants, building national protective walls and spreading conspiracy theories. And the call for "law and order" is always available to right-wing demagogues.

I agree with all of this, well said. The 1T ended at the end of 1963/beginning of 1964 with the US (and the rest of the world) getting over JFK's assassination, if I could venture a guess, I would say that the Beatles visit to New York on February 7, 1964 was probably the official start of the Awakening (at least here in the US, it may have started just slightly earlier in the UK). I'm also pretty sure that according to Strauss and Howe, the 3T began with Reagan's infamous 'Morning in America' speech in his January 15, 1984 State of the Union address (his reelection seemed to be more a formality than anything else after that), and the 4T of course officially kicked off with the September 17, 2008 financial crash (with the pandemic hitting at the end of 2019/beginning of 2020 probably being the halfway point).


I'm not sure this is the best conversation/question for this particular thread (and I know we already discussed it privately, but it seems as good a topic as any to bring up on this forum), but when in 2029 would you say the 1T will most likely begin (based on astrology forecasts), and can you pinpoint exact dates (or at least rough estimates) on when the mood shifts into the next Awakening (I know you said it would be sometime in 2046), 3T, and 4T will occur in the upcoming saeculum?