01-28-2017, 06:33 PM
(01-28-2017, 01:07 PM)SomeGuy Wrote: Mike,
I don't necessarily agree with the sharp distinctions you are drawing between flavors of turnings, though the idea of categorizing them according to the dominant thread is an interesting one which I support.
I mean, many of the domestic reorderings, be they through civil war or overwhelming political victory of one side over another, involved a strong foreign component as well. And even the Elizabethan era involved internal tensions, plots, rebellions, and other "domestic issues". Old Bess and her ministers just happened to be unusually competent. And the Armada crisis was part of a rising on Britain's part, whereas I don't think we are in the same situation. A better example of a successfully managed crisis with a strongly foreign component would be the British one in the mid-to-late 19th century (1850s-1871 or so). I am not sure we have that sort of leadership in place, although it is possible.
And given the extent of our assets and industry overseas, any foreign crisis of any significance could bring about a strong domestic restructuring as well.
I can see the similarities to the Civil War build-up as well, but since we should be well into the Bloody Kansas period in that case the only equivalent I could see would be if BLM actually morphed into a general uprising (as the occasional provocateur has tried to spark already), which I don't think would have the tenor and outcome a lot of left-wing people here and elsewhere would be hoping for.
So, I generally view 4Ts as having components of all of the above, and it is only the relative proportion and importance of those segments that changes from crisis to crisis.
Black people know well that they cannot successfully rise against "Whitey" and survive. Black people are right to challenge police forces where such is possible (media, protests, and official inquiries) for being more trigger-happy with black suspects than with white suspects. Provoking the police is not good for survival, whatever one's ethnicity. If after the last good President, black lives are somehow less precious than other lives, then we have some huge soul-searching as a nation.
Quote:PBrower,
Over-extension and hubris have traditionally been the methods of hegemonic decline. So, in a gross breach of my standard operating procedures, I am going to agree with you here. Don't let it go to your head.
It won't. The further back I go in discussing history the more neutral I get, and the more I notice patterns. That's one good reason for studying other nations and other times. History around the time of Julius Caesar could be very relevant to contemporary America. A big difference: we abolished slavery.
Quote:Eric,
Could be, or could be a violent left-wing (well, really at this point more of an ethnic rather than ideological faction) uprising to a re-elected Trump (another Electoral College win/Popular vote loss?). It's a possibility, as is a foreign conflict coinciding with an internal revolt of some sort. A collapse in America's geopolitical position due to an internal conflict of some sort in the 2020s, setting the stage for the victor of the same to try and contest (or not) the new order in the 2030s or 2040s? Also a possibility.
More of a concern is that the Republican Party, closely attached to the most rapacious interests and to the most superstitious sentiments, might decide that it dare not lose. It is far too early to say whether there will be a free and fair general election in 2020. The model of the winners enriching themselves at the expense of the losers of a political struggle hardly causes domestic tranquility. People with nothing to lose in the event of defeat, people who know that they will be imprisoned or allowed to starve, people who believe that should they lose all dignity and freedom that death solves all their problems, are the most dedicated revolutionaries.
Quote:Dave Horn,
I agree that DJT's prime chance of consolidating his political victory rest in successfully managing a big infrastructure buildout, and that automation and GW could (and probably will) become salient issues a little further down the line, though I don't think they will play as much of a role in the next 10 years as they will in another 20-30 years or so.
President Trump's victory allows him to do what politicians of the worst kind have always done -- using the government as patronage for supporters and $crewing the rest. If the President has a plan, then it is heavily in show projects from which favored contractors will wax fat and for which the rest of us will pay dearly. His economic policies might create more jobs -- but through pay cuts that spread more work, but less pay around.
Tariffs are taxes. Never forget that.
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.