Report Card for Donald Trump

[Mikebert]

Quote:This is a very odd reading of history.  The French Revolution was not a significant factor in the Napoleonic Wars, the Glorious Revolution not a significant factor in the Grand Alliance against Louis XIV?  I disagree.

I anticipate a crisis climax setting in motion the macrodecision phase, with some overlap.  How exactly that plays out remains to be seen.

You are reversing the direction of causation.  A 4T outcome can play an important role in a subsequent Macrodecision phase (MDP) without the MDP playing a role in the 4T, particularly if the 4T occurs entirely before the MDP.

An example of an MDP playing a role in a 4T was the last 4T.  Without involvement in WW II, the New Dealers could not solve the problem of the Depression, which was what triggered the crisis initially.

In contrast, the structural changes in state finance that occurred following the Glorious Revolution played a big role in England's willingness and ability to play a major role in the subsequent MDP.  But the need to fight these conflicts was not the reason for the financial restructuring.  This was the long-standing conflict with the monarchy over taxation and spending. The English Civil War had been precipitated by fiscal crisis over Parliaments unwillingness to vote funds to the King.  Such issues had been a long standing problem dating back to the constitutional crisis of 1297.  The Glorious Revolution finally solved them by establishing national accounting, a formal budget and a central bank for rationalizing government finance.  That such things were very useful for prosecuting war was apparent to William of Orange, but this was not the reason they had been pursued.

My understanding of your views is you believe that foreign policy actions in the future will constitute a key element of the 4T (the climax I believe) after which it will come to an end.

4Ts are not simply periods containing big events that occur at the right time.  They are periods of significant restructuring of the political and economic order.  If the first concept was valid then we would date the start of the 4T from 911. George Bush came into the White House with a plan to expand the GOP base by appealing to Latinos through a combination of pre-growth policies and a new set of programs branded "compassionate conservativism".  At that time this era was mapping into a liberal era with the passage of things like No Child Left Behind and Medicare Part D, and his push for immigration reform. The Iraq war derailed his program and the financial crisis put the final nail into Bushism.

There would be no 4T restructuring along the Bush lines, so the 4T date gets moved up to the next big event, the financial crisis in 2008.  Like Bush, Obama had his own plan to inaugurate a liberal era.  It now looks like this will go down, just like Bush's.  The 2016 election was also big thing--a magnified version of the 2000 election. If a second 911 or 2008-scale event occurs, why shouldn't we move the date up yet again?  Suppose its another financial crisis.  If we have another crisis, why should the one in 2008 be more special than the new one?  Shouldn't we judge which one is the trigger based one what happens after?  Suppose a crisis happens, Trump deals with it successfully, gets relected and is succeed by another two-term president.  This would make Trump greater than Reagan.  Wouldn't it make sense for the crisis era to begin in 2016 and last (at least) until the second Republican leaves office?