COVID-19 is the perfect 4T event?

[Mickey123]

(06-02-2020, 03:22 PM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote:

(06-02-2020, 02:24 PM)Mickey123 Wrote:

(06-02-2020, 01:44 PM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote:

(06-02-2020, 12:10 PM)Isoko Wrote: The crisis though is not over...it is only just beginning...

The boomers are aging out.  People keep trying to extend the crisis beyond the time when boomers are in the prophet-nomad-civic configuration, but I am willing to bet that when the bug is beat, people will be ready to lock down the solution, shut down the old values, and get materialistic again.  In other words, they will switch to the high attitude.

In terms of the boomers being in the leadership position, we are towards the end.

This is impossible.  You can't magically go from an unraveling culture to a high culture with almost no transition.

If we're near the end, the only way we can get there soon is with a massive explosion of blinding violence and chaos.  The U.S. doesn't get out of this crisis without a civil or revolutionary war.  The coronavirus is nothing.

Why not?  It has always been so before.  After Yorktown, Appomattox Court House and the World War II surrenders there were wind downs to the crisis as the never again documents were written, then we went into the high configuration.  Poof.  Magic.

With nukes being prominent, there are fewer trigger events.  Nothing is apt to set us off again.  While the US didn’t go though a classic crisis war, they thoroughly stressed and exhausted both the regulars and reserves in Bush 43’s wars.  There is a reluctance to put boots on the ground again, a perception that violence does not solve problems but makes them worse.  This will do nicely as the equivalent of a crisis war in making a repeat unlikely.

I know some are obsessed by violence.  To them, the S&H theory is an excuse for their fantasies.  I am less blinded by an assumption that the Industrial Age and the Information Age are identical.  I care about turnings, ages and civilizations all, and find the S&H crowd’s obsession with turnings limiting.  The basic pattern of ages has shifted.  You cannot assume that what was true in one age will hold true in the next.  You need to observe and verify patterns continuing and watch for the shifts which ought to be expected.

War was cost effective for much of the Industrial Age.  A conflict would start as soon as the economy was in good shape again, and someone greedy thought they had an advantage.  Nukes made it much less so, and changed a lot of things.  Some are obsessed with violence, and decline to see the change.

It doesn't have to be a war.  It does have to be a crisis, on the level of world war II plus the Great Depression, or the Civil War, or the Revolutionary War.  The events of the past few years have not in any way remotely been sufficient as a crisis.  A crisis has to be so bad that the future of the nation is in question, in order to take an unraveled society and fuse it back together into an integrated whole again.

You are theorizing that the general Strauss and Howe theory no longer holds true, and that we won't have Crisis turnings any more, we'll just slide right on through from unravelings to highs.  There's no real reason to believe this, but maybe you're right.

But if the Strauss and Howe theory holds true and the pattern of the last centuries continues, things are going to get much, much, worse before they get any better.

[pbrower2a]

(06-02-2020, 01:44 PM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote:

(06-02-2020, 12:10 PM)Isoko Wrote: The crisis though is not over...it is only just beginning...

The boomers are aging out.  People keep trying to extend the crisis beyond the time when boomers are in the prophet-nomad-civic configuration, but I am willing to bet that when the bug is beat, people will be ready to lock down the solution, shut down the old values, and get materialistic again.  In other words, they will switch to the high attitude.

In terms of the boomers being in the leadership position, we are towards the end.

The Boomers are not so old that they have become irrelevant. Boomers are now old -- and 60 is still 60 even if one tries to act 40. OK, I am one of those people who has acted middle-aged since a teenager. 

It is not a comfortable role for me to be thrust into that of the sage. I have my own problems not of my own making, problems that I could not address effectively when such would have made my life very different and more productive and credible. Asperger's, dammit! I am far better at putting my statements into writing than vocally because my expressions contradict what I say. That makes me look like a liar. It is my facial expressions that lie -- not my words. I am smart enough to know enough to not tell whoppers, and to correct myself when I am proved wrong. I would have been better off going into a skilled trade than attending college even if I have a near-genius IQ. Rigid thought that goes with Asperger's syndrome makes me a not-very-original thinker.  Quirky, maybe, but I would have to be entertaining to pull it off. I can write a joke, but I am not the one to tell it. 

I expect people to be just as materialistic in a 1T as in a 3T; I expect people to have the same lusts in a 1T as in a 3T. That does not change from turning to turning; it is nearly universal across time and tribe. Materialism in a 1T will be very different in a 1T than in a 3T; a 1T will have little use for the predatory selfishness that brought economic ruin of the type that manifested itself in the Panic of 2008. (See also the Panics of 1929 and 1857). 

People will not get the sick privilege of gambling on others' money. America will again be a nation more of savers than of speculators. Securities will have rather low rewards. Government will probably have to depend upon high incomes that allow people to make deposits that go into low-yield investments such as housing was in the 1950's -- at least for the thrift institutions that largely offered the loans. Or banks who were lending to Big Business for job-creating plant and equipment. In a 1T we see a nexus between investors, bosses, workers, and consumers that erodes in a 2T and becomes a travesty in a 3T.

Boomers are not over -- but the extreme egoists are likely through. They have destroyed whatever credibility that they have, and the loss of credibility of Donald Trump illustrates such. To be sure, a Reactive generation such as the Gilded or the Lost -- or X -- can also get full of itself... but I somehow recognize Obama to be more likely an object of imitation in style if not ideology. Reactive generations cannot get away with flamboyant exercise of power in a 1T. In a 3T ? Sure -- if they are Hitler or Mussolini before everything collapses. People like Hitler and Mussolini who lack the virtues of kindness, caution, and conscience ultimately ruin their grand schemes.

I am tempted to believe that the response to the 2009-2009 when America rescued business entities "too big to fail" may decide that entities that fail this time will be instead "too Big to save". American political institutions were built for yeoman farmers and small business -- and not for giant, monopolized corporations. Economic competition keeps people honest and prevents the bureaucratic bloat common in giant firms. Maybe this time the auto makers, Big Oil, Big Pharma, the chemical industry, metal processing, power generation, and defense contractors will be bailed out because small-business alternatives are absurd... but America will be better off if small business again becomes the norm in banking, restaurants, retail trade, real estate, and manufacturing in general.  Small business is not prone to the bureaucratic bloat of giant industries with their executive nomenklatura more adept at kissing up to politicians than to creating anything. Big Government will survive, but because giant corporations and the tycoons will no longer be able to buy the political process as they have done recently, America will be more pure as a democracy and no longer so blatant a plutocracy. 

The upcoming 1T will seem a Golden Age in contrast to the dangerous 4T and the absurd 3T Degeneracy. If the political style of a conservative pol seems familiar... a 1T usually has the Mature Reactive in charge. Such may not be the ideal leaders for a Crisis even if they do mostly the right things. Obama was ahead of his time... but an Obama-like pol in respect for protocol, precedent, and tradition who doesn't shake too much up but eschews corruption and grandiose schemes of bringing some glory supposedly lost  may be just the thing -- even if politically conservative. That's Eisenhower. Obama may have dreamed of being an FDR, but his closest analogue is Eisenhower. Not bad, I'd say!

[Tim Randal Walker]

Interesting points, Bob Butler 54. I recall a thread (but not the title) in the paleo 4T site which listed 4Ts for various countries. There were a handful of 4Ts which had wars, but that apparently were not Crisis wars. Perhaps a similar mechanism that like you described applied to those 4Ts.

[Bob Butler 54]

(06-02-2020, 09:11 PM)Tim Randal Walker Wrote: Interesting points, Bob Butler 54.  I recall a thread (but not the title) in the paleo 4T site which listed 4Ts for various countries.  There were a handful of 4Ts which had wars, but that apparently were not Crisis wars.  Perhaps a similar mechanism that like you described applied to those 4Ts.

Robert Hendrickson, Rector, Saint Philip’s Episcopal Church, Washington DC Wrote:This is an awful man, waving a book he hasn’t read, in front of a church he doesn’t attend, invoking laws he doesn’t understand, against fellow Americans he sees as enemies, wielding a military he dodged serving, to protect power he gained via accepting foreign interference, exploiting fear and anger he loves to stoke, after failing to address a pandemic he was warned about, and building it all on a bed of constant lies and childish inanity.

Over on the current event threads, I tried to work out a new Information Age pattern of what would happen if we went though a crisis generational line up without a trigger.  A while ago I dropped that, and assumed the virus was the trigger.  Perhaps it is a trigger light, that produces a crisis light or no crisis.  Time will tell.  

I do suspect that Trump will fit the pattern of the bad president that demonstrates that the old values don’t work anymore, akin to Buchanan and Hoover.  This could well shift us firmly to the new values.  If so, that will be crisis enough to traumatize the new silent generation, to have us reluctant to war again, to keep the cycles more or less as S&H saw them.  

But I also see the Consciousness Revolution as transformational, as changing society as only crises used to.  It was done then though protest and legislative change, not through a crisis war.  It was not a religious revival as earlier awakenings were.  It was far more about secular protest and politics.  It was different from the prior awakenings.

If we had no crisis, if the generation after the civics was not traumatized, if the problems that were argued about by the red and the blue were left hanging there, I’m not sure what would happen.  I was working towards the next group of prophets becoming the Green Generation, adapt ecological values, and the problems left unsolved by the nonexistent crisis could again be solved through protest and legislation, we could wind up with a new Information Age pattern.  The transformation would take place in the awakening primarily through legislation.

But then along came COVUS.  If not a crisis as spectacular as the US Civil War or World War II, it could be a sort of half crisis sufficient to make us sigh with relief after we solve it and generate a high.

When the COVID started to dominate, I saw the crisis issue being whether the virus was strong enough to force a scientific response.  The election was to be a referendum on whether the politicians were expected to honor the science.  Once the blues got in, they could do their whole agenda.

We then had the culture of racial police murders bringing in the possibility of culture change.  Is enough enough?  The referendum was on how to shift the culture of state approved killings into the police serving and protecting all.

On Maddow’s show tonight, the had the Episcopal bishop on, the head of the church that was used as a prop by Trump recently.  He naturally has a moral and religious slant on things, being a bishop and all.  The teachings of the Bible are to love one’s neighbor and to shun violence.  He made a case that this was a moral crisis, a battle for the soul of the nation.  It hardly mattered if you were Catholic, Protestant, Jew, Muslim or other, it was clear what was good and right.

Rachel didn’t have time to have an economist on, to talk about the recession going on depression which is also threating the nation.  You might add that to your list.

I don’t know if that is crisis enough for you.  At least all the issues line up fairly well.  It hardly matters if you are looking for renewed respect for science, renewed respect for racial relations, a recovered economy or renewed morals, the new values are clearly for all of the above.  And if the combination is not a full scale crisis by the standard of the Industrial Age, close enough.  It will keep the next generation traumatized, the next turning sort of a high, and the cycles limping along still close to the classic S&H Industrial Age pattern.

If not, if COVID is not a real trigger, if there is no other trigger, if the next generation is not traumatized, it all becomes rather a muddle.  I’m seeing our combined virus, police, moral and economic problems as quite enough crisis for me, though.

To paraphrase Dickens…  “More?  Oliver wants more?”  

[Tim Randal Walker]

"Half Crisis". So far as I can tell (based on lists others posted) most 4Ts include full blown Crisis wars. In America:

1. Glorious Revolution-King Phillips war in the American Colonies.

2. American Revolution.

3. Civil War.

4. Great Depression/World War II.

On the other hand, people did list a handful of 4Ts which lacked these wars. It seems possible for a country to enter a 4T mood without such.

[pbrower2a]

(06-02-2020, 11:29 PM)Tim Randal Walker Wrote: "Half Crisis".  So far as I can tell (based on lists others posted) most 4Ts include full blown Crisis wars.  In America:

1.  Glorious Revolution-King Phillips war in the American Colonies.

2.  American Revolution.

3.  Civil War.

4.  Great Depression/World War II.

On the other hand, people did list a handful of 4Ts which lacked these wars.  It seems possible for a country to enter a 4T mood without such.

Ireland, Portugal, Sweden, and Switzerland avoided the Crisis war of 1940. Sometimes "armed neutrality" works. It might have worked for America in 1941, but some Japanese fire-breathers chose to attack Pearl Harbor.  

This said, 2020 is bringing Americans mass death on the scale of a Crisis War. We have had about three months in which death rates are higher than those for Americans in WWII. Does the length of the mass death matter that much? The enemy this time isn't Hitler and Tojo -- it is an insidious little virus. We are changing our ways, and many of us are showing our tolerance for economic, if not political, regimentation. We may be at the end of the neo-con era in American politics. Donald Trump has taken it to a sordid conclusion, and we may get a full repudiation of the Reagan-Bush-Trump era of barely-constrained corporate power in an election. 

The differences between this Crisis and the last one are huge. For one, Obama may have wanted to be the "new FDR"... but if the "economic royalists" of FDR's time lacked the means for buying the political process and had to buy into the New Deal, the "economic royalists" of this time were able to buy the political system, install people who believe firmly that no human suffering can ever be in excess so long as it turns, indulges, or enforces a profit, and ultimately wait out Obama. 

Trump is a catastrophic failure as President. It took five years for Americans to find that out about Dubya, but two years fewer to discover that about Trump. If I am to use a black hole as an analogy for political defeat, then the possibilities for a Trump re-election have have gone from this 


(162) range of electoral-vote results for Trump (353)
/ * \
0        40        80        120       160       200     240   250  260  -^+ 280   320    360     400     440   480     520   537 
(the negative sign is for 268 and the barest possible loss, the caret for 269 at which the Presidency is decided in the House, and 270 at which point he wins the Electoral College... 

...a reasonable range of possible results after Trump got elected, figuring that Democrats would successfully run up vote totals in New York and California but struggle in swing states


(124) range with little chance (274)
/ * \
0        40        80        120       160       200     240   250  260  -^+ 280   320    360     400     440   480     520   537 

...(Trump loses Michigan and Pennsylvania, keeps his other wins, but picks up New Hampshire)  That is where Trump was until a couple of months ago.

(110) black hole of sure defeat (260)
/ * \
0        40        80        120       160       200     240   250  260  -^+ 280   320    360     400     440   480     520   537 

...(Trump loses Michigan, Pennsylvania, and either Arizona or Wisconsin)



Anything fully outside the event horizon of a black hole has some chance of escape if it moves fast enough, but it will be a wild ride. Anything crossing over the event horizon is doomed.

[Eric the Green]

It seems we may have a problem now. Another crisis has joined the club. The racist police problem. Protests nationwide. Provacateurs stoking riots and vandalism. Maybe they are right wing and maybe left wing. Frustrated poor folks looting. Angry youth who like chaos. Noone knows for sure. Meanwhile our fake president uses the occasion to take control of DC, which has no other governor but him. He calls the military in from bases around the country, and takes control of local police, and attacks peaceful protesters and gases them so he can go pose in front of a church with a Bible.

This has got me thinking. 2020 could be more serious than I thought. It won't be over after this year, I am sure, but the "stars" certainly indicate a lot of trouble ahead in november through january. Very troubling indications we have long known about. Trump will likely lose the election now. The Keys are turning against him. He usually does not act rationally or give in gracefully. He is likely to declare a rigged election. It won't be, but that is irrelevant. He will still be commander in chief with a loyal defense department. He has threatened to use the military domestically today already, and used it to suppress democracy and the right of protest. So he would likely take over DC sometime after he loses the election. He can shut down the government thus suppressing all activities by the court and congress. It amounts to a coup.

Biden would have to recruit willing troops who recognize him as president of a government exiled from DC, and invade the capital and fight Trump's troops. Right wing militias would join trump's army. The civil war would be limited to DC if we are lucky and Biden wins. Otherwise trump could expand his control and the war could drag on. Remember, we have Mars conj.Uranus this January in square to Saturn, the same combo as in April 1861.

This is not the future that must be. But it is the future that could be. The people should prepare for this possiblity. Trump is not rational but he is powerful.

[pbrower2a]

Here is the danger. I have heard one of the President's screeds, and he has finally gone full-bore Pinochet. People have no right, he asserts, to contest his moral authority. He has unilaterally stated that the President has dictatorial powers and can expect to use them. We could soon be at "comply or die" time -- or resist and save the Republic.

Trump has supporters who will stage outrages -- right-wingers willing to do violence and destruction that those creeps can blame on "the Left".

[Isoko]

I doubt there is going to be a full blown civil war and Eric is being overly dramatic about it. Personally though I think Trump will win. If he brings out the army, starts mass arresting the violent thugs who are looting and terrorising cities, the silent majority is going to see him as the law and order candidate and vote him back in. This he is promising to do. If he fails to achieve this and America continues to burn, then Biden will win. But Biden is such a weak candidate that barring a major failure to sort things out, Trump will win rather easily.

[Tim Randal Walker]

Checked the archived threads. The thread I referred to is "Objections to Generational Dynamics". Page 106. Matt 1989 made a list of five, but John Xenakis questioned if those were really 4Ts. I have no opinion as I know almost nothing about what was listed.

Matt commented that 98% of 4Ts included some sort of war. And that 85% of 4Ts included a full blown Crisis war.

Matt made a list of what he thought were conflicts that didn't fit as full blown Crisis war:

1. Egyptian Revolution (1944-1953).

2. UPC Revolt in Cameroon (1955-1960).

3. Brazilian Dictatorship (1964-1974).

4. Military Dominance in Ecuador (1960-1972).

5. Peru Instability and Military Dominance (1965-1985).


I recall a few mentions of violence free 4Ts. (Or at least no more violence than is usual for the other three turnings). A late 19th Reform Crisis in Britain. A Confederation Crisis in Canada. I think there was supposed to be one in Sweden. I am not sure if these included a true Crisis mood.

[Tim Randal Walker]

There seem to be a few non-violent triggers that lead to Crisis moods:

1. Very severe economic melt down. Think stock market crash in 1929.

2. Pandemic. I recall a comment that because of the Black Death, a Crisis pre-empted an Awakening.

3. Environmental debacle. I recall that Iceland had a volcanic eruption that created a very nasty situation.

Of course these can over lap. The Dust Bowl over lapped with the Great Depression.



It may be that Covid 19 has been just strong enough a trigger to push us into a Crisis mood. This when the generational constellation is ripe for a 4T.

[Mickey123]

(06-03-2020, 03:53 AM)Eric the Green Wrote: It seems we may have a problem now. Another crisis has joined the club. The racist police problem. Protests nationwide. Provacateurs stoking riots and vandalism. Maybe they are right wing and maybe left wing. Frustrated poor folks looting. Angry youth who like chaos. Noone knows for sure. Meanwhile our fake president uses the occasion to take control of DC, which has no other governor but him. He calls the military in from bases around the country, and takes control of local police, and attacks peaceful protesters and gases them so he can go pose in front of a church with a Bible.

This has got me thinking. 2020 could be more serious than I thought. It won't be over after this year, I am sure, but the "stars" certainly indicate a lot of trouble ahead in november through january. Very troubling indications we have long known about. Trump will likely lose the election now. The Keys are turning against him. He usually does not act rationally or give in gracefully. He is likely to declare a rigged election. It won't be, but that is irrelevant. He will still be commander in chief with a loyal defense department. He has threatened to use the military domestically today already, and used it to suppress democracy and the right of protest. So he would likely take over DC sometime after he loses the election. He can shut down the government thus suppressing all activities by the court and congress. It amounts to a coup.

Biden would have to recruit willing troops who recognize him as president of a government exiled from DC, and invade the capital and fight Trump's troops. Right wing militias would join trump's army. The civil war would be limited to DC if we are lucky and Biden wins. Otherwise trump could expand his control and the war could drag on. Remember, we have Mars conj.Uranus this January in square to Saturn, the same combo as in April 1861.

This is not the future that must be. But it is the future that could be. The people should prepare for this possiblity. Trump is not rational but he is powerful.

The George Floyd protests will be forgotten in a few weeks.

As to the election, that is assured to be a complete mess.  If Trump loses, there is indeed a decent chance that he refuses to leave office.  If Trump wins, the left will go completely insane.

The media in the U.S. are almost completely openly opposed to Trump, and have mostly given up on even pretending to be objective.  If Trump wins, I think there's a good chance the media opposes him so utterly that at some point he attempts to shut them down.

Whichever side wins, all hell is going to break loose.

[Bob Butler 54]

(06-04-2020, 09:45 AM)Mickey123 Wrote: The media in the U.S. are almost completely openly opposed to Trump, and have mostly given up on even pretending to be objective.

The coastal media are vehemently against Trump, attack his every motive and action, cast everything in the most wretched light. What do you mean they aren't objective?

[Isoko]

Mickey, 

I was thinking the same. If Trump wins, expect the left to go bat crazy insane. They will make the George Floyd riots look like picnic with Barney the Dinosaur. And the media will help continue to inflame it even more.

You know, it wouldn't surprise me if the left started civil war like conditions.

[pbrower2a]

The first term of the Trump Presidency resembles the second term of most Presidents in that people are getting sick of Trump and his agenda after three years instead of seven.

[Bob Butler 54]

(06-04-2020, 01:49 PM)Isoko Wrote: Mickey, 

I was thinking the same. If Trump wins, expect the left to go bat crazy insane. They will make the George Floyd riots look like picnic with Barney the Dinosaur. And the media will help continue to inflame it even more.

You know, it wouldn't surprise me if the left started civil war like conditions.

Unlikely. With the economy in tatters, the ineffectual virus response and the questionably legal use of force against the protestors, Trump has likely flipped the flip flop. We have gone back and forth between parties several times during the unraveling. There is more than enough to justify it flipping again.

The question is if the mood shift that occurs with a crisis repeats. During the unravelling the new values and old are debated, compromised and argued over. In the regeneracy the new values triumph. In the high the old values get sat on. I know of no reason this shouldn't happen again.

[pbrower2a]

(06-05-2020, 05:45 AM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote:

(06-04-2020, 01:49 PM)Isoko Wrote: Mickey, 

I was thinking the same. If Trump wins, expect the left to go bat crazy insane. They will make the George Floyd riots look like picnic with Barney the Dinosaur. And the media will help continue to inflame it even more.

You know, it wouldn't surprise me if the left started civil war like conditions.

Unlikely.  With the economy in tatters, the ineffectual virus response and the questionably legal use of force against the protestors, Trump has likely flipped the flip flop.  We have gone back and forth between parties several times during the unraveling.  There is more than enough to justify it flipping again.

The question is if the mood shift that occurs with a crisis repeats.  During the unravelling the new values and old are debated, compromised and argued over.  In the regeneracy the new values triumph.  In the high the old values get sat on.  I know of no reason this shouldn't happen again.

After all that as gone on, it is practically impossible for the President to be re-elected except through the libertarian bugaboo of "force and fraud", in which case the President has no credibility except his ability to do things to people. Of course, in a full-blown dictatorship that implies compulsory exile, job loss, financial ruin, torture, forced labor, and outright murder.  

Trump would revive a 3T degeneracy in a High, which would be an unmitigated disaster.

[User3451]

It's becoming clear that it's a matter of time before Trump is considered a liability for the Republicans.

The Regeneracy might just be reinvestment in regular Americans instead of elites.

Basically, the Bernie Sanders agenda without the socialist label. Many of his ideas are broadly popular.

The advantage of a center right pol like Biden sweeping in a Bernie domestic agenda can't be overstated. They could be broadly popular

[LPDec63]

(06-04-2020, 09:45 AM)Mickey123 Wrote:

(06-03-2020, 03:53 AM)Eric the Green Wrote: It seems we may have a problem now. Another crisis has joined the club. The racist police problem. Protests nationwide. Provacateurs stoking riots and vandalism. Maybe they are right wing and maybe left wing. Frustrated poor folks looting. Angry youth who like chaos. Noone knows for sure. Meanwhile our fake president uses the occasion to take control of DC, which has no other governor but him. He calls the military in from bases around the country, and takes control of local police, and attacks peaceful protesters and gases them so he can go pose in front of a church with a Bible.

This has got me thinking. 2020 could be more serious than I thought. It won't be over after this year, I am sure, but the "stars" certainly indicate a lot of trouble ahead in november through january. Very troubling indications we have long known about. Trump will likely lose the election now. The Keys are turning against him. He usually does not act rationally or give in gracefully. He is likely to declare a rigged election. It won't be, but that is irrelevant. He will still be commander in chief with a loyal defense department. He has threatened to use the military domestically today already, and used it to suppress democracy and the right of protest. So he would likely take over DC sometime after he loses the election. He can shut down the government thus suppressing all activities by the court and congress. It amounts to a coup.

Biden would have to recruit willing troops who recognize him as president of a government exiled from DC, and invade the capital and fight Trump's troops. Right wing militias would join trump's army. The civil war would be limited to DC if we are lucky and Biden wins. Otherwise trump could expand his control and the war could drag on. Remember, we have Mars conj.Uranus this January in square to Saturn, the same combo as in April 1861.

This is not the future that must be. But it is the future that could be. The people should prepare for this possiblity. Trump is not rational but he is powerful.

The George Floyd protests will be forgotten in a few weeks.

As to the election, that is assured to be a complete mess.  If Trump loses, there is indeed a decent chance that he refuses to leave office.  If Trump wins, the left will go completely insane.

The media in the U.S. are almost completely openly opposed to Trump, and have mostly given up on even pretending to be objective.  If Trump wins, I think there's a good chance the media opposes him so utterly that at some point he attempts to shut them down.

Whichever side wins, all hell is going to break loose.

The media will stop 24/7 talking about the George Floyd protests some small number of days after they end.  That is the nature of the Media Beast.  That doesn't mean they will be they will be forgotten by the people.  This is not a 3rd Turning event and I don't think it will have a 3rd turning response.  These protests are going to have 4th Turning consequences, whatever they may be.  History has accelerated, and those are Millennials out there showing themselves.  


I think Trump is electoral toast, and agree that his only hope is election chaos.  And I think there will very likely be chaos.  the arrow of history and the future of the Republic is pointing straight at November 3.

[Isoko]

Bob,

To be honest, you cannot blame Trump for the covid response as all of the Western governments offered initially the same response. Originally they wanted to go for herd immunity but decided on a quarantine (which I think will prove in the long run to be ineffective) at the last minute. So I think blaming Trump is not quite fair in this regards.

As for Biden, honestly I'd prefer Trump over him because Biden is just a boring old man who is losing his mind. At least with Trump he is entertaining with his tweets.You never know, the American electorate night also think the same ala the silent majority.