Trump, Bannon and the Coming Crisis

[Mikebert]

Quote:Tough to say at the moment.  I mean on the one hand you have an increasingly radicalized left (students, BLM, various interest groups pushing issues related to LGBLT-etc. type stuff, etc.) that are very noisy and have well-placed supporters in the professional classes, the media, the universities, etc.  However, politically they have not been terribly effective, and have largely been in retreat or at least been held at bay since 2010 or so. 

I agree
 

Quote:On the other you have an increasingly radical movement on the right from the Tea Party up to the election of Donald Trump that has basically lost most of the culture war issues but has captured an overwhelming majority of elected offices

I might quibble with the culture issue, as my understanding that was not the focus of the Tea Party. But this is unimportant.
 

Quote:So you have a political conflict that has been bitterly contested, but a long way from 4T style violence, and neither side has been able to effect a lasting realignment.

OK
 

Quote:So either of those two parties is a maybe pending escalation or resolution of the conflict.

I don’t understand this.
 

Quote:You also have my personal hobby horse, the US' maintenance of the liberal order, that has been under severe strain in the last 15 years or so, with the financial crisis, troubles in the EU, the GWOT, rising competitors, etc.  There has been a near continuous state of low-intensity warfare since the end of the Cold War, and a continuous one from 2001 on.  There has also been a fair amount of tension between the US and once-and-future? rivals Russia and China (we can throw Iran in there for a effect), so there's an issue that could be resolved one way or another, including via major war.

This is true.

Quote:Since we have Bannon and Trump in the White House, and a nearly universally hawkish Congress (Republicans and Democrats alike), that's the one I'd place my money on.  And war could be the way it's resolved.

 Would it be fair to say that you see the secular institutional reordering that is a hallmark of a 4T will be centered on the liberal international order.  That you do not (so far) see an internal reordering as being in the cards?