12-22-2016, 05:27 PM
Quote:Why do you think 2008 is the start?
I was alive during the decade in question, and have clear memories of it. Howe thinks the crisis started then. The EU's rolling crisis and China's increasing assertiveness abroad all date to the same time period. I personally perceive and have perceived more of a break between the world before the Financial Crisis and after the Financial crisis then I do pre-9/11 and post-9/11. Stuff like that. Why, why shouldn't I think of it as the start?
Quote:Clinton did stuff that was all later reversed. It's like he never existed. The incoming Republicans are promising to undo everything Obama did. If they do that Obama will be just another Clinton, and will have accomplished nothing. A failed president. Do you see Bush II as anything other than a failed president? Even Republicans see Bush I as a failure. So that is four failures in a row. Four presidents who will become nonentities like Zachary Taylor, Millard Fillmore, William Taft, Warren Harding and Calvin Coolidge.
New indicators? Has Glass-Steagall been reinstated (repealed under Clinton)? The Patriot Act revoked, all troops out of Iraq and Afghanistan, Gitmo closed? How is this a rule, and how does it address what I actually wrote? 3T presidencies tend to be non-entities, and yet each one contributed something to the country, for good or ill. There's no way Barack Obama is a non-entity. He's the first non-white president. It's a big deal. Nor have we seen what actually happens with the Iran deal or Obamacare.
Quote:Never before has a 4T feature a string of forgettable presidents.
String? You started listing presidents from Bush I, are you claiming the 90s were a 4T? If you start from 2008, you have Obama, and now Trump. Barack Obama is by definition not a forgettable president, he's almost as good a future trivia question as Grover Cleveland. Besides, he's not even out of office yet, stop wringing your hands already. Jesus
Quote:Washington, Lincoln and FDR were not forgettable nonentities.
Don't you extend the Civil War 4T through Reconstruction? Johnson and the presidents of the 1870s were pretty forgettable. Name me the presidents of Congress during the Articles of Confederation without looking them up. Trump has the potential to be memorable, for better or worse. Remember, it's Donald Fucking Trump, at the head of what is pretty damn close to a one party state, right now.
Quote:They did stuff that was continued on after they were gone and as a result have come to be seen as great.
Have you been reading the hagiographies of him making the rounds in the press recently? Unless race suddenly becomes a non-factor in the near future, he'll be remember favorably for a long damn time.
Quote:So unless Trump becomes another one of the greats, making Obama a Buchanan/Hoover figure, Obama will become just another 3T nonentity and that makes 2008 questionable.
Remains to be seen.