Neither of the current major party candidates is the "Grey Champion".

[Einzige]

Assuming that the GC has any validity as a concept as outlined in The Fourth Turning, it isn't applicable to either Clinton or Trump. 

The Book (doesn't one feel like a Friend of Bill, discussing it that way?) is pretty specific that what makes a Grey Champion a Grey Champion is overwhelming support from the ascending generation. It is the rising Hero generation, after all, that enshrines a Grey Champion's exploits in the annals of Valhalla and records their deeds in the Book of Life &etc. &etc. 

Abraham Lincoln certainly had huge majorities among the rising Gilded in the non-seceded States (he very likely was not a Grey Champion of the Confederacy); the 'Lincoln Shouters' were a paramilitary organization consisting of nothing but male youths in the Union states. And while I haven't been able to find any primary documentation on the demographics of the 1932 election, the overwhelming impression I get from secondary sources is that Franklin Roosevelt was the overwhelming favorite of the G.I. Generation at the time, not the least because of the Democratic promise to repeal the Eighteenth Amendment.

You notice my repeated use of the word "overwhelming"?

Meanwhile, Donald Trump runs a serious risk of coming in fourth place in the youth vote, while Hillary is struggling to match the youth enthusiasm Obama had in his two elections. If we judge potential Grey Champions on the support they muster from the newly-minted Heroes, neither of the two nominees this year qualify. Indeed, it's increasingly plausible that Obama will look very much like a traditional Grey Champion in hindsight. The difference may be something as simple as a reverse Civil War crisis - where many observers include most or all of the 1850s in the Fourth Turning of that Crisis (creating a lengthy head in front of the emergence of the Grey Champion), this Crisis may simply have seen a Grey Champion leave office with a tail of Crises behind him, with nothing really resolved.

[Eric the Green]

Don't count on that last sentence being true, although your other sentences may be! There may be gray champions galore once we reach the 2020s. Remember I have made many correct predictions, especially on the major events and important trends. I have said before that I am more certain about this prediction than any I have made: the 2020s will see action, regeneracy, resolution; whatever you want to call it-- on a massive scale. We ain't seen nothin' yet! Mid-decade will be the most tumultuous, and the 4T will last virtually through the decade. It will not end early as some here suggest. Count on it!

And even the following 1T will be more activist than the 1950s, resembling the late 1860s and 1870s in that respect.

I did predict long ago here, I think before she was even through being First Lady, that Hillary would be the gray champion. Well, I dunno. She'll get the support, but she'll have to earn the enthusiasm of the Millennials. She may only be in for one term, is my prediction, even though the Democrats will probably win again in 2020. I'm not predicting that the next Democratic nominee will be Kaine either. Hillary may live out another "reversal." Whereas Obama came in on a wave of millennials' enthusiasm, and lost a good deal of it, Hillary may well go out on one that she has created.

[Einzige]

I still bet that, even if as you say the next decade is our equivalent of the 1940s or 1860s, no singular Grey Champion emerge. It'll probably be more of a collective endeavor this go-around, emerging out of trends Obama started in this decade. I think you can have a momentous last half of a Fourth Turning without necessarily having a transcendent Gray Champion in charge at that time.

[Eric the Green]

Yes I agree.

[Mikebert]

(08-27-2016, 05:47 PM)Einzige Wrote: Assuming that the GC has any validity as a concept as outlined in The Fourth Turning, it isn't applicable to either Clinton or Trump. 

The Book (doesn't one feel like a Friend of Bill, discussing it that way?) is pretty specific that what makes a Grey Champion a Grey Champion is overwhelming support from the ascending generation. It is the rising Hero generation, after all, that enshrines a Grey Champion's exploits in the annals of Valhalla and records their deeds in the Book of Life &etc. &etc. 

Abraham Lincoln certainly had huge majorities among the rising Gilded in the non-seceded States (he very likely was not a Grey Champion of the Confederacy); the 'Lincoln Shouters' were a paramilitary organization consisting of nothing but male youths in the Union states. And while I haven't been able to find any primary documentation on the demographics of the 1932 election, the overwhelming impression I get from secondary sources is that Franklin Roosevelt was the overwhelming favorite of the G.I. Generation at the time, not the least because of the Democratic promise to repeal the Eighteenth Amendment.

You notice my repeated use of the word "overwhelming"?

Meanwhile, Donald Trump runs a serious risk of coming in fourth place in the youth vote, while Hillary is struggling to match the youth enthusiasm Obama had in his two elections. If we judge potential Grey Champions on the support they muster from the newly-minted Heroes, neither of the two nominees this year qualify. Indeed, it's increasingly plausible that Obama will look very much like a traditional Grey Champion in hindsight. The difference may be something as simple as a reverse Civil War crisis - where many observers include most or all of the 1850s in the Fourth Turning of that Crisis (creating a lengthy head in front of the emergence of the Grey Champion), this Crisis may simply have seen a Grey Champion leave office with a tail of Crises behind him, with nothing really resolved.

I don't see how you can derive the generational makeup of the electoral coalitions in 1860 and 1932 in the absence of data.  It's unknowable.  I doubt very much that S&H had the election in mind.  Rather I think they focused on the views of Civil War heroes and GIs to Lincoln and FDR when they were president.  FDR for one ran on a right-wing platform. Obviously, he was lying, but then he had appointed a Judge who allegedly had bought his position for $30K (about $2 million in today's money). They just didn't care.

[Mikebert]

(08-27-2016, 06:26 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: I did predict long ago here, I think before she was even through being First Lady, that Hillary would be the gray champion. Well, I dunno. She'll get the support, but she'll have to earn the enthusiasm of the Millennials. She may only be in for one term, is my prediction, even though the Democrats will probably win again in 2020. I'm not predicting that the next Democratic nominee will be Kaine either. Hillary may live out another "reversal." Whereas Obama came in on a wave of millennials' enthusiasm, and lost a good deal of it, Hillary may well go out on one that she has created.

If so this would be at the old site?  Do you think you could find it?

[Einzige]

(08-28-2016, 03:11 PM)Mikebert Wrote:

(08-27-2016, 05:47 PM)Einzige Wrote: Assuming that the GC has any validity as a concept as outlined in The Fourth Turning, it isn't applicable to either Clinton or Trump. 

The Book (doesn't one feel like a Friend of Bill, discussing it that way?) is pretty specific that what makes a Grey Champion a Grey Champion is overwhelming support from the ascending generation. It is the rising Hero generation, after all, that enshrines a Grey Champion's exploits in the annals of Valhalla and records their deeds in the Book of Life &etc. &etc. 

Abraham Lincoln certainly had huge majorities among the rising Gilded in the non-seceded States (he very likely was not a Grey Champion of the Confederacy); the 'Lincoln Shouters' were a paramilitary organization consisting of nothing but male youths in the Union states. And while I haven't been able to find any primary documentation on the demographics of the 1932 election, the overwhelming impression I get from secondary sources is that Franklin Roosevelt was the overwhelming favorite of the G.I. Generation at the time, not the least because of the Democratic promise to repeal the Eighteenth Amendment.

You notice my repeated use of the word "overwhelming"?

Meanwhile, Donald Trump runs a serious risk of coming in fourth place in the youth vote, while Hillary is struggling to match the youth enthusiasm Obama had in his two elections. If we judge potential Grey Champions on the support they muster from the newly-minted Heroes, neither of the two nominees this year qualify. Indeed, it's increasingly plausible that Obama will look very much like a traditional Grey Champion in hindsight. The difference may be something as simple as a reverse Civil War crisis - where many observers include most or all of the 1850s in the Fourth Turning of that Crisis (creating a lengthy head in front of the emergence of the Grey Champion), this Crisis may simply have seen a Grey Champion leave office with a tail of Crises behind him, with nothing really resolved.

I don't see how you can derive the generational makeup of the electoral coalitions in 1860 and 1932 in the absence of data.  It's unknowable.  I doubt very much that S&H had the election in mind.  Rather I think they focused on the views of Civil War heroes and GIs to Lincoln and FDR when they were president.  FDR for one ran on a right-wing platform. Obviously, he was lying, but then he had appointed a Judge who allegedly had bought his position for $30K (about $2 million in today's money). They just didn't care.

This is a not-so-clever-by-half argument lifted from Amity Shales' libertarian tome The Forgotten Man, which isn't really true.

Yeah, John Nancy Garner accused Herbert Hoover of leading the country into "socialism". But Roosevelt himself was pretty clearly running on an inflationist economic policy, and Hoover responded to that. For example.

Quote: We have heard a great deal in this campaign about reactionaries, conservatives, progressives, liberals and radicals. I think I belong to every group. I have not yet heard an attempt by any one of the orators who mouth these phrases to define the principles upon which they base these classifications. There is one thing I can say without any question of doubt-that is, that the spirit of liberalism is to create free men; it is not the regimentation of men under government. It is not the extension of bureaucracy. I have said in this city before now that you cannot extend the mastery of government over the daily life of a people without somewhere making it master of people's souls and thoughts. Expansion of government in business means that the government in order to protect itself from the political consequences of its errors or even its successes is driven irresistibly without peace to greater and greater control of the nation's press and platform. Free speech does not live many hours after free industry and free commerce die.

Claiming that Roosevelt ran a "right-wing campaign" in 1932 is an overstatement to the point of a lie. The very common perception. encouraged by both candidates, was that Roosevelt was the more radical candidate.


And while it is true that we don't have demographic data for either 1860 or 1932 - exit polls weren't a thing in either election - we can look at secondary sources, like newspaper reports and memoirs, for a rough approximation. And the impression one gets from these sources is that the eventual victors had the backing of the Hero generation.

[Mikebert]

Quote:Claiming that Roosevelt ran a "right-wing campaign" in 1932 is an overstatement to the point of a lie. The very common perception. encouraged by both candidates, was that Roosevelt was the more radical candidate.

By "right wing" I mean ran to the right of Hoover in that he attacked Hoover's deficits. I would point out that the environment was different.  In 1932 the economy had collapsed.  Fully one third of the companies on the New York Stock Exchange were worth more dead than alive.
 
I did not lift it from anybody.  My statement was based on these beliefs: (1) During the campaign FDR attacked Hoover for deficit spending. (2) FDR did not outline a radical program by which he would address the crisis.  I provided no evidence, the information I derived this from were potted histories from election sites.  I have not made this claim in a paper and so have not mounted a vigorous assertion of my point. 
 
So I will add these points:  FDR was no enemy of bankers:

Quote:but the Du Ponts and Rockefellers are certainly on record in Congressional investigations as the largest contributors to the 1928 Hoover campaign. But Wall Street withdrew its support of Herbert Hoover in 1932 and switched to FDR. Lundberg omits to mention this critical and pivotal withdrawal. Why did Wall Street switch? Because, as we shall see later, Herbert Hoover would not adopt the Swope Plan created by Gerard Swope, long-time president of General Electric. By contrast, FDR accepted the plan, and it became FDR's National Industrial Recovery Act

 
And he was not the favorite of college students in Seattle:
 

Quote:Evidently, college students, both in Seattle and nationally, did not share in this consensus. The UW Daily conveys the impression that students favored Hoover overwhelmingly. Because the Daily was not published during the summer months when school was not in session, it is difficult to gain their views of the National Convention nominations. However, in the days before the November1932 election, a straw poll was taken on campuses across the country to determine how college students felt about the election. On November 8, 1932, The Daily came out with findings that paralleled the national poll, reporting that Herbert Hoover had won the majority of votes in the straw poll.[14] At UW the Hoover margin was larger than the national poll. Sixty percent of those participating in the unscientific poll at UW said they supported Hoover.[15] It is not clear that this was an accurate reading of student opinions since students had to make an effort to participate in the straw poll. But the results are still important, demonstrating that despite the huge victory for the Democrats, there was still a decent amount of support in the city.

[Eric the Green]

(08-28-2016, 03:19 PM)Mikebert Wrote:

(08-27-2016, 06:26 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: I did predict long ago here, I think before she was even through being First Lady, that Hillary would be the gray champion. Well, I dunno. She'll get the support, but she'll have to earn the enthusiasm of the Millennials. She may only be in for one term, is my prediction, even though the Democrats will probably win again in 2020. I'm not predicting that the next Democratic nominee will be Kaine either. Hillary may live out another "reversal." Whereas Obama came in on a wave of millennials' enthusiasm, and lost a good deal of it, Hillary may well go out on one that she has created.

If so this would be at the old site?  Do you think you could find it?

You mean my prediction that Hillary would be grey champion? I don't know if I could find it. I looked for a while under the thread about who is the next Lincoln or FDR, so I'll look more later. I had forgotten this link.

But meanwhile I found that I had posted about Donald Trump. eerie!

Posted by: E. Alan Meece
Date posted: Mon Oct 11 12:00:43 EDT 1999
Subject: devil's choice for the Reform Party
Message:
Trump Trump!

Trump (or) Buchanan? What a choice for a "reform" candidate! I'll take Buchanan, were I to have to make that devil's choice. He's a serious man with serious ideas. The worst thing about him is that he's a racist and anti-semite. The second worse thing is that he's a supply-sider and social-program cutter. What's the worse that could happen with Buchanan as President? Probably not much. He would lower taxes and try to cut some social programs, which the congress wouldn't go along with; thus the budget deficit would be back. Generally speaking, his supply-side/anti-social program policies are pretty much what we have already. Business as usual. He might stop some immigrants from coming across the border; something I don't agree with, but pretty harmless. He would raise trade barriers, which we need to do. He would keep us out of wars, which might lead to some future wars. But at least we wouldn't get embroiled anywhere.
Trump on the other hand has no ideas that I have heard. If people want an alternative "moral example" to Clinton, I can't think of a worse alternative. Clinton is amoral and pretends not to be. Trump is amoral and seeks as much publicity for his lifestyle as possible. Trump as president is redundant. Him and his rich buddies already run things. Besides, he already went bankrupt once; just a taste of what his much vaunted "business abilities" would bring to the nation. Trump is just a big egotist and a gambler.

If the Reform Party wants to run a reformer, they should look at Lowell Weicker. Now there's a serious candidate worthy of the "reform party" label.
Eric Meece

[Cynic Hero '86]

(08-29-2016, 10:31 AM)X_4AD_84 Wrote: Once WW3 begins the up and coming generation will support HRC. She will be a good woman in a storm.

Millennials will never support Hillary. They Certainly won't support her as leader in any serious war, the very idea of hillary at the helm in a hot war facing against Putin repulses millies because we would certainly lose if she is at the helm. Millies love trump because his attitudes and values reflect those they believe in much more than Clinton's does. We millies prefer Trump at the helm if there is going to be an inevitable face-off against putin's forces, Trump has much more of the air of a strong leader, he just oozes toughness.

[Eric the Green]

(08-31-2016, 06:10 PM)Eric the Green Wrote:

(08-28-2016, 03:19 PM)Mikebert Wrote:

(08-27-2016, 06:26 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: I did predict long ago here, I think before she was even through being First Lady, that Hillary would be the gray champion. Well, I dunno. She'll get the support, but she'll have to earn the enthusiasm of the Millennials. She may only be in for one term, is my prediction, even though the Democrats will probably win again in 2020. I'm not predicting that the next Democratic nominee will be Kaine either. Hillary may live out another "reversal." Whereas Obama came in on a wave of millennials' enthusiasm, and lost a good deal of it, Hillary may well go out on one that she has created.

If so this would be at the old site?  Do you think you could find it?

You mean my prediction that Hillary would be grey champion? I don't know if I could find it. I looked for a while under the thread about who is the next Lincoln or FDR, so I'll look more later. I had forgotten this link.

OK, here's a post at the end of "#s 166-180" on the "Who is the next FDR/Lincoln thread", politics and economics forum:

Posted by: E. Alan Meece 
Date posted: Thu Jul 1 20:11:17 EDT 1999 
Subject: Hilary? 
Message:
Who is the next Grey Champion? 
What about Hilary Rodham Clinton?
Now that she's entering politics for real, this is no longer idle speculation. Though her record is spotty up till now, after she's had some time in the Senate and run a few campaigns, her experience will have further smoothed over her rough edges. And she has the moral conviction, strength, charisma and knowledge to be a leader.
And this is a time when people are looking for a new kind of leader. A woman may fill the bill for many. Don't forget that whoever the champion(s) is/are, they probably won't appear in 2005. The Crisis will have developed for a while before the champion(s) appear(s).
"I'm not sure the 1960s legacies we live with today are positive, except those brought about by the Silent." said Michael.
Well, I think the Boomers helped with all of those; including the fact that a woman candidate is now a real possibility. Boomers participated in all the liberation movements and made them what they were, although they were not the original leaders of those movements. The 1960s legacies are not all positive, but part of the legacy is. I wouldn't want to go back to the days when we could not express who we are and be informal with each other, and when no-one in this country had any inkling of spirituality. When the only architecture around was small or large boxes made of glass and ticky-tacky. And when no-one had an inkling of the environmental costs of our industrial lifestyle, and when consumers had no rights. 
Eric Meece

[Cynic Hero '86]

(09-01-2016, 12:12 AM)Eric the Green Wrote: OK, here's a post at the end of "#s 166-180" on the "Who is the next FDR/Lincoln thread", politics and economics forum:

Posted by: E. Alan Meece 
Date posted: Thu Jul 1 20:11:17 EDT 1999 
Subject: Hilary? 
Message:
Who is the next Grey Champion? 
What about Hilary Rodham Clinton?
Now that she's entering politics for real, this is no longer idle speculation. Though her record is spotty up till now, after she's had some time in the Senate and run a few campaigns, her experience will have further smoothed over her rough edges. And she has the moral conviction, strength, charisma and knowledge to be a leader.
And this is a time when people are looking for a new kind of leader. A woman may fill the bill for many. Don't forget that whoever the champion(s) is/are, they probably won't appear in 2005. The Crisis will have developed for a while before the champion(s) appear(s).
"I'm not sure the 1960s legacies we live with today are positive, except those brought about by the Silent." said Michael.
Well, I think the Boomers helped with all of those; including the fact that a woman candidate is now a real possibility. Boomers participated in all the liberation movements and made them what they were, although they were not the original leaders of those movements. The 1960s legacies are not all positive, but part of the legacy is. I wouldn't want to go back to the days when we could not express who we are and be informal with each other, and when no-one in this country had any inkling of spirituality. When the only architecture around was small or large boxes made of glass and ticky-tacky. And when no-one had an inkling of the environmental costs of our industrial lifestyle, and when consumers had no rights. 
Eric Meece

Hillary will not be the grey champion. Her getting elected would be the institutionalization of globalist patheticness. We would have transgender bathrooms, it would be illegal to own firearms. Children would be playing barney the purple dinosaur games because anything cool would be banned. We would fight foreign wars to "bring freedom" rather than learning to coexist with other systems of government who may not value democracy. We would fight foreign wars like we did in kosovo which all it did was convince Bin Laden that americans were weaklings who could be defeated easily, hence 9/11.

[Eric the Green]

(09-01-2016, 11:16 AM)Cynic Hero 86 Wrote:

(09-01-2016, 12:12 AM)Eric the Green Wrote: OK, here's a post at the end of "#s 166-180" on the "Who is the next FDR/Lincoln thread", politics and economics forum:

Posted by: E. Alan Meece 
Date posted: Thu Jul 1 20:11:17 EDT 1999 
Subject: Hilary? 
Message:
Who is the next Grey Champion? 
What about Hilary Rodham Clinton?
Now that she's entering politics for real, this is no longer idle speculation. Though her record is spotty up till now, after she's had some time in the Senate and run a few campaigns, her experience will have further smoothed over her rough edges. And she has the moral conviction, strength, charisma and knowledge to be a leader.
And this is a time when people are looking for a new kind of leader. A woman may fill the bill for many. Don't forget that whoever the champion(s) is/are, they probably won't appear in 2005. The Crisis will have developed for a while before the champion(s) appear(s).
"I'm not sure the 1960s legacies we live with today are positive, except those brought about by the Silent." said Michael.
Well, I think the Boomers helped with all of those; including the fact that a woman candidate is now a real possibility. Boomers participated in all the liberation movements and made them what they were, although they were not the original leaders of those movements. The 1960s legacies are not all positive, but part of the legacy is. I wouldn't want to go back to the days when we could not express who we are and be informal with each other, and when no-one in this country had any inkling of spirituality. When the only architecture around was small or large boxes made of glass and ticky-tacky. And when no-one had an inkling of the environmental costs of our industrial lifestyle, and when consumers had no rights. 
Eric Meece

Hillary will not be the grey champion. Her getting elected would be the institutionalization of globalist patheticness. We would have transgender bathrooms, it would be illegal to own firearms.

We already have transgender bathrooms, and Trump doesn't care either. Nor should anyone give a tickle's damn about them.

Being illegal to own firearms is a wonderful dream someday, and Hillary will be a great champion if she brings us closer to that ideal. But it will happen once most of us awaken to the fact that we don't need them.

Quote: Children would be playing barney the purple dinosaur games because anything cool would be banned.

It would be cool with me if Barney were banned. But I vote for Democrats because I know that, under them, more cool things happen. Under Republicans, life gets pretty stale pretty fast, and cool things are censored.

Quote: We would fight foreign wars to "bring freedom" rather than learning to coexist with other systems of government who may not value democracy.

Hillary is lumped with Bush and his neo-cons, but they are not the same. Hillary is not going to start such a war of choice. She is a grandmother who cares about life.

Quote: We would fight foreign wars like we did in kosovo which all it did was convince Bin Laden that americans were weaklings who could be defeated easily, hence 9/11.

Kosovo was well done and turned out right and did not convince anyone of any such thing.

[pbrower2a]

Donald Trump would be the sort of figure who defines the Grey Champion -- as his staunchest and most effective opponent. See also "George III".

[Mikebert]

Einzige, here is a problem I have with your response. You mention the "Lincoln shouters" as evidence of the idea that Lincoln overwhelmingly won the youth vote.  I had never heard of the Lincoln shouters.  So I did a search on it, and found a reference to a book that mentioned how the "Lincoln shouters" overpower the Seward supporters at the 1860 Republican convention. 

So I then tried a search on "Lincoln shouters" and youth group.  Only three results came up.  The top one was your post here.  Number three was some religious site.  Number three was a text about intimate remembrances about Lincoln.  It too mentioned Lincoln shouters at the convention.  To just what are you referring?

[Einzige]

That's the result of a confusion of terms on my part. I was thinking of the Wide Awakes:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wide_Awakes

Four hundred thousand young men joined up as Lincoln partisan Wide Awakes throughout the North in 1860.

Incidentally, your point about college-educated youths supporting Hoover over FDR doesn't demonstrate anything more than the fact that the college educated have always historically supported the GOP, even against Obama in 2008:

http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/trum...graduates/



Historically this was, probably, a function of income. All it shows is that collegiate youth in 1932 were of a kind with the self-selecting rich Republicans who convinced Reader's Digest that Landon would win in a walk four years later. There's no question that Roosevelt had the overwhelming backing of poor and working-class youths - that is to say, the vast majority of them. And it was this group that turned him into the Grey Champion.

[Mikebert]

(08-27-2016, 05:47 PM)Einzige Wrote: Assuming that the GC has any validity as a concept as outlined in The Fourth Turning, it isn't applicable to either Clinton or Trump. 
The Book (doesn't one feel like a Friend of Bill, discussing it that way?) is pretty specific that what makes a Grey Champion a Grey Champion is overwhelming support from the ascending generation.

Thanks for the clarification.  The Wide Awakes conform to your description.  And I'll buy that FDR had strong support amongst youth because of his stance as a wet.  I don't see how this concept maps into Ben Franklin or Sam Adams, GC's of the Revolution.  Washington had it, but he is explicitly NOT a GC. And it certainly does not apply to the definitional GC archetype, Hawthorne's Gray Champion, upon which the concept is based. I would suggest overwhelming Hero support just one of the properties GCs tend to have. 

In any case, Obama would qualify on this account, and Clinton is essentially running as Obama's third term (she has not presented a vision of her own).  She will win the  Millennial vote regardless of their lack of enthusiasm (and just how enthusiastic were GIs about FDR in 1940 after eight years of shitty job prospects).  If she is successful she could still gain enthusiasm from the Obama coalition in 2020.  If she is not then Republicans will have one last chance to win the next half-saeculum.

If Clinton fails to address the economic problem, making her a one term president, and her successor fails as well, which certainly seems possible, then this will require a re-examination of this 4T.  In this case we will have two large problems (terrorism and economic collapse) emerge in rapid success, neither of which were addressed effectively by either party.  In this case there is no reason to differentiate between the two issues, and go with the fact that in 2001 there began "an era...when people perceive that historic events are radically changing their social environment" (Generations p 71). That puts the 4T start in 2001 and means it would come to an end early in the 2020's as a "failed" 4T.

On the other hand, that resolution is achieved by Clinton or a successor, then the two problems will be different in that one (terrorism) was NOT successfully addressed, while the other (economic) was.  In this case it would make sense for the first unsuccessfully-resolved problem to be part of a 3T and the second one being part of a 4T, so we would see the 4T start in 2008 in which case it could run until close to 2030.

Here's how I see the economic problem.  It is similar to last 4T.  The solution last time was stimulus combined with a number of other policies we don't have in place now.  In rpg terms, Bill Clinton left us a Rod of Stimulus with three charges. (The Rod was Al Gore's "Lockbox").  Bush expended the first charge to no effect.  Obama expended the second charge to save himself from certain defeat in 2012, but at the cost of a Republican takeover everywhere else besides the Presidency.  There is only one charge left.  Either Clinton or Trump is going to get that item.  Trump is promising to expend it futilely as Bush promised to do (and then did).  Clinton is keeping mum. Hopefully she is biding her time, but who the hell knows?

[Einzige]

(09-03-2016, 08:56 AM)Mikebert Wrote:

(08-27-2016, 05:47 PM)Einzige Wrote: Assuming that the GC has any validity as a concept as outlined in The Fourth Turning, it isn't applicable to either Clinton or Trump. 
The Book (doesn't one feel like a Friend of Bill, discussing it that way?) is pretty specific that what makes a Grey Champion a Grey Champion is overwhelming support from the ascending generation.

Thanks for the clarification.  The Wide Awakes conform to your description.  And I'll buy that FDR had strong support amongst youth because of his stance as a wet.  I don't see how this concept maps into Ben Franklin or Sam Adams, GC's of the Revolution.  Washington had it, but he is explicitly NOT a GC. And it certainly does not apply to the definitional GC archetype, Hawthorne's Gray Champion, upon which the concept is based. I would suggest overwhelming Hero support just one of the properties GCs tend to have. 

In any case, Obama would qualify on this account, and Clinton is essentially running as Obama's third term (she has not presented a vision of her own).  She will win the  Millennial vote regardless of their lack of enthusiasm (and just how enthusiastic were GIs about FDR in 1940 after eight years of shitty job prospects).  If she is successful she could still gain enthusiasm from the Obama coalition in 2020.  If she is not then Republicans will have one last chance to win the next half-saeculum.

If Clinton fails to address the economic problem, making her a one term president, and her successor fails as well, which certainly seems possible, then this will require a re-examination of this 4T.  In this case we will have two large problems (terrorism and economic collapse) emerge in rapid success, neither of which were addressed effectively by either party.  In this case there is no reason to differentiate between the two issues, and go with the fact that in 2001 there began "an era...when people perceive that historic events are radically changing their social environment" (Generations p 71). That puts the 4T start in 2001 and means it would come to an end early in the 2020's as a "failed" 4T.

On the other hand, that resolution is achieved by Clinton or a successor, then the two problems will be different in that one (terrorism) was NOT successfully addressed, while the other (economic) was.  In this case it would make sense for the first unsuccessfully-resolved problem to be part of a 3T and the second one being part of a 4T, so we would see the 4T start in 2008 in which case it could run until close to 2030.

Here's how I see the economic problem.  It is similar to last 4T.  The solution last time was stimulus combined with a number of other policies we don't have in place now.  In rpg terms, Bill Clinton left us a Rod of Stimulus with three charges. (The Rod was Al Gore's "Lockbox").  Bush expended the first charge to no effect.  Obama expended the second charge to save himself from certain defeat in 2012, but at the cost of a Republican takeover everywhere else besides the Presidency.  There is only one charge left.  Either Clinton or Trump is going to get that item.  Trump is promising to expend it futilely as Bush promised to do (and then did).  Clinton is keeping mum. Hopefully she is biding her time, but who the hell knows?

As far as the Revolutionary Crisis goes, part of the problem, I think, is that it has no obvious, singular Grey Champion incarnate to compare with Lincoln and Roosevelt. The generation of Adams and Franklin never produced one transformative leader in that style, so it's more difficult to gauge Hero support for that Prophet cohort.

At any rate, I can hazard a guess that Trump isn't going to be the Grey Champion if he comes anywhere close to polling in fourth place among Millennial voters, as the link I posted above suggests.

Here's one possibility: a lot of us have been positing parallels between this Crisis and the Glorious Revolution. James II ruled for four years. Might not Trump be a worthy analogue for the Pretender, to be deposed of four years from now in a glorious restoration of prior principles?

[Mikebert]

Einzige, now you really are reaching. Seriously

The issue is, its a tendency. It's not that easy. Such is life.

[Einzige]

All I'm proposing is that Trump might pull out a surprise nailbiter, flail around in office for four years and get punted by a True Progressive like a Republican Jimmy Carter. The 2020 election would then be the climax, with everything else a descending action. Vóila, James II/Glorious Revolution analogue.