Fourth Turning is Here! And no one is here!

[jleagans]

Message boards are dead y'all, is there a more frequently used place for Strauss Howe discussions ?  

Strauss Howe on reddit seems the most active, for a conversation forum to exist long-term its gonna need to be on Reddit.

Only Millennials and Gen Z should try to argue with me, as Gen X and Boomers can't be trusted to know anything in regards to technology   .

[Ldr]

I just started a new thread on Reddit on trying to solve the real roots of the generational cycle, that's actually detectable in other animal populations other than humans too.

This forum is quite dead, since everybody is still stuck trying to explain the generational theory by using the "social dynamics" model, that can never achieve any real accuracy, but only guesses. I believe the reason why even Neil Howe still believes in the social dynamics model is the theory of mind, that makes humans believe in generalizations rather than hard evidence - especially if most of the people they know believe in the same generalizations. Such generalizations are that the masses react in some way to almost all societal events, even though this cannot be proved to be true in any meaningful way. But people think they can interpret why others do something - which is the essence of the theory of the mind - and then they apply this intuition to masses. But they fail when they do this, since trying to guess even one person's thoughts and reactions is impossible. If someone think they can read someone else's mind, there's a good chance they'd be billionaires by guessing how the stock market moves. But no, this is not possible.

Especially Boomers tend to do this, but that's the generation that seems to think they know everything anyways.

[beechnut79]

(03-20-2020, 02:04 PM)jleagans Wrote: Message boards are dead y'all, is there a more frequently used place for Strauss Howe discussions ?  

Strauss Howe on reddit seems the most active, for a conversation forum to exist long-term its gonna need to be on Reddit.

Only Millennials and Gen Z should try to argue with me, as Gen X and Boomers can't be trusted to know anything in regards to technology   .

Probably the reason is that everyone’s so concerned about COVID-19 that almost everything else is now on back burner.  But one might think there would be more activity since most of us are, albeit not by choice, staying at home more now. But you’ll find plenty of activity on virus related threads.

[David Horn]

(03-20-2020, 02:04 PM)jleagans Wrote: Message boards are dead y'all, is there a more frequently used place for Strauss Howe discussions ?  

Strauss Howe on reddit seems the most active, for a conversation forum to exist long-term its gonna need to be on Reddit.

Only Millennials and Gen Z should try to argue with me, as Gen X and Boomers can't be trusted to know anything in regards to technology   .

I don't think so.  There are already several options open for discussion, and all that's managed to do is to split the interested into isolated camps.  Reddit?  No, it's number two if that.  The most active discussion is on an invitation-only Facebook group.  I find Facebook irritating in the extreme and unsuited to discussion of long duration, so I don't use it.  Is Reddit better? No. So that leaves a forum like this one, that, for good or ill, creates an accessible archive as it's used -- clunky features and all. 

Forums (sic) were a logical outgrowth of Usenet, which was the wild west on steroids. They still support anonymity (a mixed blessing at best) and require moderation to keep them from being overrun with spam.  Facebook is structured, but lacks the ability to support discussions in more than superficial ways.  What does Reddit have going for it? 

And addressing your last comment: I hope you realize that many in the Boom/X contingent on this forum were or still are active Techies. I've been programming computers since 1966 (Fortran and assembly languages), and continues to work in the field until I retired in 2016. I'll let others speak for themselves, but we older folks actually know how the hardware and software work, because we built a lot of it. Don't be condescending.

[Ragnarök_62]

j

Quote:leagansMessage boards are dead y'all, is there a more frequently used place for Strauss Howe discussions ?  

Strauss Howe on reddit seems the most active, for a conversation forum to exist long-term its gonna need to be on Reddit.

Only Millennials and Gen Z should try to argue with me, as Gen X and Boomers can't be trusted to know anything in regards to technology   .

I'm a former techie who landed on the rocks in 2008. I just decided to retire than to got back to school, load up on student loans and then look for a job after the bust happened because ageism. As for knowledge, I've worked with  FORTRAN, C, and C++. One of my former bosses put me on an extranet security project cause I got caught hacking one of local computers instead of just firing me. I was just experimenting in getting a Windoze box to a buffer overflow. I forbid FacePlant and Google on my Linux box cause I don't trust them. I also made a lot of ads go poof by sending them off to loopback in my hosts file.

[pbrower2a]

(03-20-2020, 02:04 PM)jleagans Wrote: Message boards are dead y'all, is there a more frequently used place for Strauss Howe discussions ?  

Strauss Howe on reddit seems the most active, for a conversation forum to exist long-term its gonna need to be on Reddit.

Only Millennials and Gen Z should try to argue with me, as Gen X and Boomers can't be trusted to know anything in regards to technology   .

Try to draw people from other forums through cross-pollination. Introduce the Strauss-Howe theory into other forums and invite people interesting there here. The Fourth Turning can manifest itself in pop culture, securities markets, international and domestic politics, and history in general. It is telling that we are still about 80 years away from the Golden Age of Cinema, a time in which cinema became unusually good in satisfying omnibus audiences irrespective of class, religion, region, age, and ethnicity. I see tendencies toward such a return. As an example I used to disparage movies with lavish special effects that then covered inadequately the bad writing of the script and the shallowness of the story line. Now that movies can have both lavish special effects and solid writing I have dropped that lament. 

Not that I expect tensions with Germany, Italy, and Japan to culminate in anything like American involvement in World War II, or for Southerners to attack Fort Sumter again... 

We need to distinguish between what is most permanent and what is at most a passing fad. The laws of mathematics, physics (down to sub-atomic particles), and logic are there for us to accept if we be wise and reject if we be fools. We still (if wise) study ancient Greece and Rome because many aspects of life then true are still true today. Were such not so, wise people would find Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle irrelevant. One religious heritage seems to be asking and answering many of the same questions from over 2500 years ago and seems as vibrant as any even if it is a tiny minority in the world. That religion is Judaism, and it gets away with that because the conflicts between good and evil, wisdom and stupidity, and truth and falsity remain the same. Standards of beauty in the West are much the same as they were in antiquity.  We can still derive much delight from structured music from at the least medieval polyphony to that of the Big Band era or the string quartets of Dmitri Shostakovich.   

The cycle remains in part because the dreams of one generation require compromises for their achievement. The New Deal, for example, brought unprecedented prosperity to the Mountain South -- but failed to address anti-black racism. Maybe FDR had pushed civil rights for Southern blacks he would have gotten opposition from the South that would have turned not to the Party of Lincoln but instead to people who admired the Party of Hitler. One turn of the generational cycle brings about fresh excesses and inadequacies that must be smoothed out in the next turning.

[Ldr]

(03-21-2020, 09:04 AM)David Horn Wrote: The most active discussion is on an invitation-only Facebook group.

 
I'd be very interested in joining this group. Here's my account if you're able to invite me: https://www.facebook.com/janne.miettinen

[David Horn]

(03-22-2020, 04:02 AM)Ldr Wrote:

(03-21-2020, 09:04 AM)David Horn Wrote: The most active discussion is on an invitation-only Facebook group.

 
I'd be very interested in joining this group. Here's my account if you're able to invite me: https://www.facebook.com/janne.miettinen

It's not up to me. I was invited, joined but went dormant almost immediately.  There are others who lurk and occasionally post on this forum who might carry your message forward.  The cross pollination is incomplete but still there.

[pbrower2a]

(03-21-2020, 09:04 AM)David Horn Wrote:

(03-20-2020, 02:04 PM)jleagans Wrote: Message boards are dead y'all, is there a more frequently used place for Strauss Howe discussions ?  

Strauss Howe on reddit seems the most active, for a conversation forum to exist long-term its gonna need to be on Reddit.

Only Millennials and Gen Z should try to argue with me, as Gen X and Boomers can't be trusted to know anything in regards to technology   .

I don't think so.  There are already several options open for discussion, and all that's managed to do is to split the interested into isolated camps.  Reddit?  No, it's number two if that.  The most active discussion is on an invitation-only Facebook group.  I find Facebook irritating in the extreme and unsuited to discussion of long duration, so I don't use it.  Is Reddit better? No. So that leaves a forum like this one, that, for good or ill, creates an accessible archive as it's used -- clunky features and all. 

Forums (sic) were a logical outgrowth of Usenet, which was the wild west on steroids. They still support anonymity (a mixed blessing at best) and require moderation to keep them from being overrun with spam.  Facebook is structured, but lacks the ability to support discussions in more than superficial ways.  What does Reddit have going for it? 

And addressing your last comment:  I hope you realize that many in the Boom/X contingent on this forum were or still are active Techies.  I've been programming computers since 1966 (Fortran and assembly languages), and continues to work in the field until I retired in 2016.  I'll let others speak for themselves, but we older folks actually know how the hardware and software work, because we built a lot of it. Don't be condescending.

Not only spam -- but also hate speech. I have been attacked for being gay, black, or Jewish even if I am None of the Above... I remember being on one Forum in the 1990's and seeing a post right under mine that said that the Jewish hypocrisy  had gotten thick right under one of mine. I could not figure how it applied to me. But I was naive enough to slough it off as absurdity.

(OK, hypocrisy is the norm and not the exception in Humanity. Most of us have ideals which we cannot quite achieve, and the only non-hypocrites are (1) the extremely-rare saints, (2) people who believe in nothing other than themselves, and (3) people proud of their own evil. I doubt that any of us know any of the first; there just aren't many Francis of Assisi types out and about. People who believe in nothing but their own interests at the worst remind me of the Victor Ippolitovich Komarovsky of Doctor Zhivago (novel, film, or at some point opera) who plays both sides and goes with the winner with the expectation of being rewarded well for doing the dirty work of repression for the eventual winners. People proud of their own evil? If the second type is best to be avoided unless one needs someone to brutalize the losers of some nasty conflict, then the third is a type to be avoided at every imaginable cost. One cannot deal with that type without oneself being debased and degraded in the process).  

So I did not understand the distinction between "Jewish hypocrisy" and other sorts, let alone why it was supposedly so much worse. But if I didn't get the hint the first time, then that poster (whom I shall hereon call "Thomas the Liar") made clear that "my" never forget/never forgive religion was at fault for showing no mercy to people identifying with Nazi Germany. He attacked me for hating Nazis (wait a minute -- is it possible for any good person to not hate Nazis? I well know about "turning the other cheek", but then Jesus never met a Nazi.)  He claimed that (practically out of the infamous Protocols of the Elders of Zion, long known as a forgery) that Jews manipulated everything and exploit all gentiles. He claimed that the Holocaust was a hoax intended to make Gentiles all feel guilty.

I've known enough Jews to recognize that there is no Jewish monolith, that Jewish cultural life is excellent preparation for success at practically any honest endeavor. If Jews do well at commerce, law, politics, medicine, academia, culture, science, and even labor organizations,  it is because an inordinate number of competent people among them. They need no conspiracy; a successful society rewards the competent  well or loses the bounty that competence offers. Most seem to have a stake in fostering moral conduct among themselves; it is telling that one of the most renowned rabbis once answered the question:

"Is it not better to cheat a gentile than a fellow Jew?" with 

"No -- it is indeed far worse because such does great harm to our image and to our safety as a people".

https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article...-stealing/

I neither denied not admitted being Jewish because I would eventually hurt him worse than he had hurt me. After all, I see nothing wrong with Jews and Judaism; moreover I like to be linked to winners.   I could blow off his accusations of my evil behavior as an alleged Jew because it was absurd. Eventually I got him to admit to his motivation as protecting... Germans and German-Americans, against whom Jews are supposedly relentless and merciless enemies. To that I had the perfect retort. In his smears he had attacked a German-American in the mistaken belief that I was Jewish. OK, we may be the gentiles most similar by culture to the descendants of the Yiddish-speaking Ashkenazim. I consider Jews my cultural and moral brethren. Most Germans and German-Americans consider Nazis a pure disgrace (as I have observed, the people who most loathe the Mafia are Italian-Americans, which is hardly surprising) as the worst syndicate of organized crime that ever existed. By attacking me for being Jewish he in no way protected me. To avoid trouble with Jews as a German or German-American one need only be anti-Nazi. That is easy. All that is necessary for hating Nazis is to have a moral compass.

[Eric the Green]

(03-20-2020, 03:38 PM)Ldr Wrote: I just started a new thread on Reddit on trying to solve the real roots of the generational cycle, that's actually detectable in other animal populations other than humans too.

This forum is quite dead, since everybody is still stuck trying to explain the generational theory by using the "social dynamics" model, that can never achieve any real accuracy, but only guesses. I believe the reason why even Neil Howe still believes in the social dynamics model is the theory of mind, that makes humans believe in generalizations rather than hard evidence - especially if most of the people they know believe in the same generalizations. Such generalizations are that the masses react in some way to almost all societal events, even though this cannot be proved to be true in any meaningful way. But people think they can interpret why others do something - which is the essence of the theory of the mind - and then they apply this intuition to masses. But they fail when they do this, since trying to guess even one person's thoughts and reactions is impossible. If someone think they can read someone else's mind, there's a good chance they'd be billionaires by guessing how the stock market moves. But no, this is not possible.

Especially Boomers tend to do this, but that's the generation that seems to think they know everything anyways.

Whut? You mean, we don't?

[beechnut79]

(03-23-2020, 03:05 AM)Eric the Green Wrote:

(03-20-2020, 03:38 PM)Ldr Wrote: I just started a new thread on Reddit on trying to solve the real roots of the generational cycle, that's actually detectable in other animal populations other than humans too.

This forum is quite dead, since everybody is still stuck trying to explain the generational theory by using the "social dynamics" model, that can never achieve any real accuracy, but only guesses. I believe the reason why even Neil Howe still believes in the social dynamics model is the theory of mind, that makes humans believe in generalizations rather than hard evidence - especially if most of the people they know believe in the same generalizations. Such generalizations are that the masses react in some way to almost all societal events, even though this cannot be proved to be true in any meaningful way. But people think they can interpret why others do something - which is the essence of the theory of the mind - and then they apply this intuition to masses. But they fail when they do this, since trying to guess even one person's thoughts and reactions is impossible. If someone think they can read someone else's mind, there's a good chance they'd be billionaires by guessing how the stock market moves. But no, this is not possible.

Especially Boomers tend to do this, but that's the generation that seems to think they know everything anyways.

Whut? You mean, we don't?

This forum is the son/daughter of the original 4T forum which was shut down in May 2016. I too have noticed that this one is far less active than was the original. But have often wondered if that one was in sharp decline by 2016 and if that is why Mr. Howe chose to shut it down. Yet I do feel that it should be time for a rejuvenation as the world scene has really heated up even post-Trump. I am as guilty of this as anyone as my own participation has been sub-par recently. Yet there within lies stimulation conversation which could tap into and expand your consciousness.

I am hoping that the sane among us will win this time around and be able to control how everything plays out. It's like I recently said on another post: Reaganomics and its associated pathologies have remained on the shelf long past what should have been its sell-by date, and by now the stench should be intolerable. 

Should the now-elderly Boomers reach back to the days of their youth and once again be idealistic and maybe a bit of a dreamer?

[pbrower2a]

The 4T is here, but we are still in the  "whirlwind" phase. It is still possible that things could so go that the the dominant politics of 2030 could make heroes out of the January 6 rioters because Donald Trump is the portent of some new America in which he who owns the gold makes the rules, and that is that anyone else defers or faces harsh sanctions. Of course there will be pie in the sky when you die 00 but only if you comply.
 
 For those not born into the right family. life could easily be unrelieved suffering as sacrifices on behalf of rapacious elites who act with unbridled lust for sybaritic indulgence but complete irresponsibility.  Imagine Trump as a portent of the forthcoming 1T, and it is clear that how the "whirlwind" phase of this 4T ends. 

So far the current 4T has been one of comparatively few reforms, all of which are easy to reverse. Several states have challenged Roe v. Wade without any ruling by the US Supreme Court. Trump's stooges could in theory scrap the venerable principle of stare decisis on behalf of a special-interest agenda that seems to want a population explosion which will give them cheap labor, high rents, accelerating consumption of resources including fossil fuels, and of course plenty of cannon fodder for wars of aggression. If you think Vladimir Putin evil, then just imagine US Armed Forces better equipped and organized, but no less brutal, seeking to impose some perverse version of the American Way of (miserable) Life into places in which such is unwelcome. 

We are definitely not there yet. 

I'd love to believe that the American people will come to its senses and fend off the fascistic perversions of America that we now see as offerings from the Hard Right.  If we be fortunate, then we will political leaders looking out to see what they can do for constituents even if such means working across partisan lines instead of doing unto the Other Side. We could seek to end poverty instead of intensifying it as a threat. We could find that extremist views of any kind are socially unacceptable. We could decide that rational thought is the proper approach to practically all things. We can endorse science and ridicule superstition.

On the Other Side, I can imagine a pure plutocracy in which the well-connected ruin any potential competition and make veritable serfs of most of us with the tools of surveillance, judicial malpractice, and torture. I can imagine something similar to FoX news as the dominant source of information, with Americans having to turn to the shortwave (Radio Free America from Berlin, Rome, or Tokyo -- rather ironic, huh?) and the only newspaper worth reading is the one that brings the commercial circulars (enticements to visit the successors of A&P, K-Mart, Radio Shack, and Perkins'). I can imagine women driven out of the professions so that they can bear children, cook, and attend (mindless) fundamentalist churches. 

Maybe we will be fortunate and look back upon the likes of the current GOP and see such as a trend that collapsed. Many will look at the Trump Presidency and wonder how such could happen. Well, start with Reagan's neoliberalism that turned into a Frankenstein monster.

[pbrower2a]

The criminal case against the alleged plotters to kidnap the Governor of Michigan imploded. The Biden Presidency could be the eye of the hurricane. I expect to see more plots against elected officials who win elections yet violate the sensibilities of about 40% of Americans who think themselves the Real America or the owners of 80% of the assets.

[beechnut79]

(04-07-2022, 01:11 AM)pbrower2a Wrote: The 4T is here, but we are still in the  "whirlwind" phase. It is still possible that things could so go that the the dominant politics of 2030 could make heroes out of the January 6 rioters because Donald Trump is the portent of some new America in which he who owns the gold makes the rules, and that is that anyone else defers or faces harsh sanctions. Of course there will be pie in the sky when you die 00 but only if you comply.
 
 For those not born into the right family. life could easily be unrelieved suffering as sacrifices on behalf of rapacious elites who act with unbridled lust for sybaritic indulgence but complete irresponsibility.  Imagine Trump as a portent of the forthcoming 1T, and it is clear that how the "whirlwind" phase of this 4T ends. 

So far the current 4T has been one of comparatively few reforms, all of which are easy to reverse. Several states have challenged Roe v. Wade without any ruling by the US Supreme Court. Trump's stooges could in theory scrap the venerable principle of stare decisis on behalf of a special-interest agenda that seems to want a population explosion which will give them cheap labor, high rents, accelerating consumption of resources including fossil fuels, and of course plenty of cannon fodder for wars of aggression. If you think Vladimir Putin evil, then just imagine US Armed Forces better equipped and organized, but no less brutal, seeking to impose some perverse version of the American Way of (miserable) Life into places in which such is unwelcome. 

We are definitely not there yet. 

I'd love to believe that the American people will come to its senses and fend off the fascistic perversions of America that we now see as offerings from the Hard Right.  If we be fortunate, then we will political leaders looking out to see what they can do for constituents even if such means working across partisan lines instead of doing unto the Other Side. We could seek to end poverty instead of intensifying it as a threat. We could find that extremist views of any kind are socially unacceptable. We could decide that rational thought is the proper approach to practically all things. We can endorse science and ridicule superstition.

On the Other Side, I can imagine a pure plutocracy in which the well-connected ruin any potential competition and make veritable serfs of most of us with the tools of surveillance, judicial malpractice, and torture. I can imagine something similar to FoX news as the dominant source of information, with Americans having to turn to the shortwave (Radio Free America from Berlin, Rome, or Tokyo -- rather ironic, huh?) and the only newspaper worth reading is the one that brings the commercial circulars (enticements to visit the successors of A&P, K-Mart, Radio Shack, and Perkins'). I can imagine women driven out of the professions so that they can bear children, cook, and attend (mindless) fundamentalist churches. 

Maybe we will be fortunate and look back upon the likes of the current GOP and see such as a trend that collapsed. Many will look at the Trump Presidency and wonder how such could happen. Well, start with Reagan's neoliberalism that turned into a Frankenstein monster.

Where progressive reforms are concerned, two Democratic Presidents, Clinton and Obama, really talked the talk during their campaigns but neither could walk the walk once they assumed office. Now do we need to be careful of Biden completing the trifecta?

[David Horn]

(04-09-2022, 03:01 PM)beechnut79 Wrote: Where progressive reforms are concerned, two Democratic Presidents, Clinton and Obama, really talked the talk during their campaigns but neither could walk the walk once they assumed office. Now do we need to be careful of Biden completing the trifecta?

Biden has the excuse of needing support in the Senate that's just not there. Neither Obama nor Clinton had that issue, so no. Biden is failing due to the failure of the electorate ... and I say that as one of Biden's less-than-ecstatic supporters. We needed a young firebrand and got a blast from the past.

[beechnut79]

(04-10-2022, 09:06 AM)David Horn Wrote:

(04-09-2022, 03:01 PM)beechnut79 Wrote: Where progressive reforms are concerned, two Democratic Presidents, Clinton and Obama, really talked the talk during their campaigns but neither could walk the walk once they assumed office. Now do we need to be careful of Biden completing the trifecta?

Biden has the excuse of needing support in the Senate that's just not there.  Neither Obama nor Clinton had that issue, so no. Biden is failing due to the failure of the electorate ... and I say that as one of Biden's less-than-ecstatic supporters.   We needed a young firebrand and got a blast from the past.

But Obama was a young firebrand as he was only 46 when he was campaigning and added a year three months before the election. So, why do you think he was less successful as a progressive than what so many of us had hoped for?

[David Horn]

(04-10-2022, 09:15 AM)beechnut79 Wrote:

(04-10-2022, 09:06 AM)David Horn Wrote:

(04-09-2022, 03:01 PM)beechnut79 Wrote: Where progressive reforms are concerned, two Democratic Presidents, Clinton and Obama, really talked the talk during their campaigns but neither could walk the walk once they assumed office. Now do we need to be careful of Biden completing the trifecta?

Biden has the excuse of needing support in the Senate that's just not there.  Neither Obama nor Clinton had that issue, so no. Biden is failing due to the failure of the electorate ... and I say that as one of Biden's less-than-ecstatic supporters.   We needed a young firebrand and got a blast from the past.

But Obama was a young firebrand as he was only 46 when he was campaigning and added a year three months before the election. So, why do you think he was less successful as a progressive than what so many of us had hoped for?

Obama spent his POTUS years looking over his shoulder.  Don't do too much and be seen as uppity!  Don't give the race-haters an excuse to hate!  It limited him in the worst way: self-restraint being stronger than any outside force.

[Anthony '58]

(04-09-2022, 01:40 AM)pbrower2a Wrote: The criminal case against the alleged plotters to kidnap the Governor of Michigan imploded.  The Biden Presidency could be the eye of the hurricane. I expect to see more plots against elected officials who win elections yet violate the sensibilities of about 40% of Americans who think themselves the Real America or the owners of 80% of the assets.

Don't the 40% of Americans who think of themselves as the Real America actually own 80% of the assets - or more?

[David Horn]

(04-10-2022, 10:54 AM)Anthony Wrote:

(04-09-2022, 01:40 AM)pbrower2a Wrote: The criminal case against the alleged plotters to kidnap the Governor of Michigan imploded.  The Biden Presidency could be the eye of the hurricane. I expect to see more plots against elected officials who win elections yet violate the sensibilities of about 40% of Americans who think themselves the Real America or the owners of 80% of the assets.

Don't the 40% of Americans who think of themselves as the Real America actually own 80% of the assets - or more?

I don't think it's that cut-and-dry.  There are rich and poor in both parties and holding the entire range of opinions.  The poorest of the poor tend to be Democrats, but the richest of the rich fall more or less equally in both orbits.

[Eric the Green]

(04-10-2022, 09:19 AM)David Horn Wrote:

(04-10-2022, 09:15 AM)beechnut79 Wrote:

(04-10-2022, 09:06 AM)David Horn Wrote:

(04-09-2022, 03:01 PM)beechnut79 Wrote: Where progressive reforms are concerned, two Democratic Presidents, Clinton and Obama, really talked the talk during their campaigns but neither could walk the walk once they assumed office. Now do we need to be careful of Biden completing the trifecta?

Biden has the excuse of needing support in the Senate that's just not there.  Neither Obama nor Clinton had that issue, so no. Biden is failing due to the failure of the electorate ... and I say that as one of Biden's less-than-ecstatic supporters.   We needed a young firebrand and got a blast from the past.

But Obama was a young firebrand as he was only 46 when he was campaigning and added a year three months before the election. So, why do you think he was less successful as a progressive than what so many of us had hoped for?

Obama spent his POTUS years looking over his shoulder.  Don't do too much and be seen as uppity!  Don't give the race-haters an excuse to hate!  It limited him in the worst way: self-restraint being stronger than any outside force.

Obama was somewhat successful during the 7 months that he had a congress. No president can do that much without a congress.

"Biden has the excuse of needing support in the Senate that's just not there. Neither Obama nor Clinton had that issue, so no. Biden is failing due to the failure of the electorate ... and I say that as one of Biden's less-than-ecstatic supporters. We needed a young firebrand and got a blast from the past."

Yes, they DID have that excuse, David. The Republicans are fanatics, so all they needed in their day to block everything was 40 votes. So in effect, neither Clinton nor Obama had a congress for very long. Clinton had 2 years, but many more Democrats were fake ones in his day, and he never had a 60-vote majority to overcome a filibuster. Obama only had 7 months. Between the time Al Franken was allowed to be seated after recounts in Minnesota, and Brown took Ted Kennedy's seat in a Massachusetts special election, Obama had 60 votes to bypass the filibuster, but only with bills acceptable to some fake Democrats. That was enough to get Obamacare barely passed, and a stimulus and some Wall Street Reform. After that, nuthin. Even the most charismatic young firebrand cannot get anything done in this backward, prejudiced, bought-and-paid-for country without a fully-Democratic congress.

So Obama and Clinton also largely failed due to the failure of the electorate, which needed to provide a Democratic president with a 60-vote senate majority in order to accomplish anything. If liberals, and young people who strongly tend liberal, do not vote in midterm elections, they take support away from their president. They did this in the 1994 and 2010 elections, so the Clinton and Obama administrations were over as far as progress was concerned after 2 years or less.

Biden has the advantage now (that Obama and Clinton did not) that he can get 2 bills a year passed with majority vote through reconciliation, if they involve the budget process. Even then, he only got 49 votes from Democrats for BBBBB, but fake Democrat Joe Manchin would not support the BBBBB, so we are still stuck in Reaganomics. And it looks like "the base is less enthusiastic", and without Trump to motivate them to vote, it looks like they won't, so Biden will be deprived of support also. People blame the president for the fact that our government cannot accomplish anything, but they need to look in the mirror.

https://youtu.be/AFWEJssr29k?t=3437