Report Card for Donald Trump

[TeacherinExile]

(02-14-2017, 01:44 PM)X_4AD_84 Wrote:

(02-13-2017, 11:29 PM)Eric the Green Wrote:

(02-11-2017, 08:57 AM)Mikebert Wrote: Then Clinton lost. Trump's victory in 2016 does not rule out 2008 entirely, but a victory in 2020 would. So I am not sure how to proceed

I hate to tell ya again, but even a 2020 Republican victory, which may well happen now, will not rule out 2008 as a starting date for the 4T. It just means the Republicans will be able to stir things up even more until they fail and the people rise up. The 2022 election would be so lopsided that the Republican president would be reduced to a figurehead. Then the Democrats would take over in 2024.

The New Deal is not the model for this saeculum; the Civil War is, and we are in the 1850s.

Trump's election as the so-called president demonstrates beyond any doubt that the nation is in total crisis. A mistake like this can only be made during a 4T. And I say that even though I agree probably Trump could have beaten Hillary Clinton anytime. But he could only have run and won during a 4T, because he is a walking, talking disaster, and it shows the depths to which Americans have fallen. It means quite literally that the level of hate in the USA is quite high, which reminds us of the era before the civil war.

So I guess we'll see if, as Hillary said, "love trumps hate."

Rule by one party over a length of time happened AFTER the Revolution, when the Democratic-Republicans froze out the Federalists and other parties during the era of good feelings, and when the Republicans dominated the Democrats after the Civil War. The Democrats' rule in the 1930s and 40s was more like the anomaly. More likely, one party dominance is likely toward the end of a 4T and/or during the consensus of the following 1T.

Since longevity has increased substantially since the 1930s, and, because people over 70 are taking a much greater role in everyday life than they were back then, perhaps the 20 year "mean" turning no longer works. Maybe it's now 25 years. Back in the Great Power, it was 20 years because the oldest socially meaningful people were in their 80s. Now, the oldest socially meaningful people are in the 100s.

You're definitely on to something here, something I've long considered as a complicating factor for this fourth turning.  I haven't made up my mind yet as to whether or not this invalidates the theory, or merely frustrates those of us who yearn to see a climax and resolution of this crisis, now entering its ninth year since inception.  Boomers, as well as some Silents (Sen. John McCain, for instance, in my state of Arizona), are still exercising disproportionate generational power.  Rather than acting strictly as mentors (Obi-Wan Kenobi) to Millennial heroes (Luke Skywalker and Princess Leia) engaged in total war, Boomers and Silents are still leading the charge.

Is something out of whack, here?