06-25-2017, 06:24 PM
(06-25-2017, 11:31 AM)eb44345 Wrote: I'm new to this forum, but I wanted to throw some ideas out there. I remember posting in a similar forum way back in 2006 and people back then thought that we were in a 4th turning. I disagreed at the time and said it was still the 3rd turning. Back then the argument was over where we are. At least that debate is over now. We are clearly in the Crisis 4th turning.
That Forum of course is gone, along with its posts. But the realization that we are going from a decadent time of hedonism and inequality to one of shared danger is nearly individual-by individual or even small clique by small clique. This time there might be no abrupt break from 3T to 4T (and even if people do not recognize the theory of Howe and Strauss they will know that some paterns are changing.
Quote:If you're reading this forum, clearly you understand that the established conventional wisdom is based on post-WW2 institutions/conventions, and we should be throwing that out the window. By definition, fourth turnings re-make that. I'm kind of an outside the box thinker and love thinking about where things are going. For the 2016 presidential election, I was only wrong about 2 states (Wisconsin & New Hampshire) for the record, so I pay a lot of attention to politics but really try not to live in a bubble and stay realistic. I had it at Trump 300, Clinton 238 going into election day.
Think of all the assumptions immediately after the 4T ended. Germany and Japan, recently under gangster rule, were to be recognized as possible menaces and watched closely. Chiang Kai-Shek had solidified his position in China. Western control of their colonies was not coming to an end. Stalin had lost so many soldiers that he had to get cautious in foreign policy. Most countries that had won the war would have to fend off a return of the Great Depression that made possible the rise of Satan Incarnate in Germany. White supremacy was still beyond challenge.
All this was wrong. At this point I have more faith in democracy in either Germany, Italy, or Japan than in America. Chiang Kai-Shek was kicked out of the mainland to Taiwan. Stalin had his idea of how to get safety in setting up satellite states that remained such until 1989. There would be no new Great Depression for at least seventy years. White supremacy has been shown to be a fraud. (An aside: I have a retort to those who claim that white people are intellectually superior -- the arguments of white superiority are easily trashed when one recognizes that the arguments that place whites above blacks also put peoples of east Asia above white people). Indonesia and India would become independent, opening a great floodgate for colonies to achieve independence from 'mother countries'.
Quote:For the 2018 midterms, the map is extremely favorable to Republicans because the Senators up for re-election are those who won in 2012 and before that in 2006. Both 2006 and 2012 were very good Democratic years, so the map has a lot of them running for re-election. That sets the stage for things we know. We don't know what the political environment will be like. Unless it's extremely unfavorable for the Republicans, then the Republicans will hold both the Senate and House.
Every map is obsolete as soon as it is published. It might be useful, but however accurate a map from 1967 may have been, I would use it only as a period piece. "Get your kicks on Route 66"? The longest Route 66 in America is a 267-mile route connecting Charlevoix, Michigan to the Michigan-Indiana state line just south of Sturgis; it feeds into Indiana 9 near the Indiana Toll Road. But a long trip that my family took in 1987 took US 66 from Joliet, Illinois to Flagstaff, Arizona. This Route 66 was never part of US 66.
Quote:Additionally, 3 Supreme Court justices are advanced in age. Breyer is 78. Kennedy is 80. Ginsburg is 84. The average retirement age over the last 40 years has been 79. It's quite likely 2 of them will step down and Trump will name their replacements. Maybe only 1. Maybe all three.
Currently, there are 4 liberals on the court and 3 conservatives with Kennedy a swing vote and Gorsuch an unknown. If you look at his record, Kennedy is actually kind of libertarian, so liberals have the majority on social issues and conservatives usually do on economic issues (Roberts is a bit shaky sometimes - really only Alito and Thomas are solid conservatives, too early to tell where Gorsuch lies but most think he'll be a conservative).
They stayed on with the assumption that Hillary Clinton would win the Presidency and Democrats would win the Senate, in which case they would have moderate-to-liberal replacements. In view of how the Republican-dominated Senate handled the Scalia vacancy, such proved much wiser than it seemed at the time. This is the only significant check upon a political party that has nearly-complete power in America, and has an anti-human, anti-democratic ideology which holds that people not in the economic elite exist solely to obey, enrich, and indulge that economic elite no matter how much suffering that may entail. America is becoming much more like its main three enemies of the Second World War except for a freedom from Jew-baiting than like the political order that America was as the Arsenal of Democracy. Democracy is paradoxically safer in Germany, Italy, and Japan today than in America.
Gorsuch is undeniably a right-winger who believes the anti-human, profits-first, profits-only ideology of Donald Judas Trump.
Quote:But let's run through a scenario. Say Kennedy steps down this year and Ginsburg does in 2019 when she's 86 due to poor health. The Court is then a 6-3 majority for conservatives. Let's say that Trump or maybe Pence wins re-election in 2020 primarily because of all the rage on the Left that middle america is sick of. Or maybe the Democratic base nominates someone out of touch with the center of the country. Imagine the reaction on the Left if all this has occurred: Trump has stacked the Supreme Court with conservatives, Republicans win in the 2018 midterms, Trump wins re-election in 2020, etc.
Your wishful thinking is my nightmare. I can easily see America becoming as repressive a society as China -- and much more objectionably so because China has never had a democratic heritage. The current China guts the totalitarianism of Mao, which is an improvement. The current America is gutting the liberal heritage of Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln, and Roosevelt (either one, by the way), which is an unmitigated disgrace.
Donald Trump makes me wish that I were a citizen of one of at least twenty other countries even if such comes with a big reduction in living standards. I distrust this man and his followers with my economic interests, my hopes, and my civil liberties. I cannot now imagine Donald Trump winning re-election, or Mike Pence winning election, in 2020. Donald Trump is a demagogue, and the record of demagogues meeting the desires of their supporters after an election is very poor. Donald Trump has sold out his white working-class voters in favor of an economic elite that sees workers as livestock at best and vermin at worst.
Quote:Then, the right will be emboldened to bring cases to the Supreme Court. Things like right to work are imposed nationwide. What's the response in California going to be? You can definitely see a succession movement gaining a lot of steam around 2021. What if they hold a referendum to secede? What if Roe v Wade is overturned and riots ensue? Should California actually secede the nation would take a hard turn to the right. Absent California, there would be 483 electoral votes with 242 needed to win. Should Republicans only need 242 then they would win a lot more often, and Democrats would be hopelessly in the minority in the House. We might be looking at a situation where the Republicans become the dominant political party, which is the norm in American History (for one party to be dominant and the other to win occasionally). But who knows, it all might backfire and Democrats could surge ahead to be the dominant party going forward. Too early to say.
We have yet to see how the 2018 midterm election will go, let alone that of 2020. Midterm elections usually go poorly for the Party of the incumbent President. So it was in 2006. 2010, and 2014. The President is highly unpopular with approval ratings hovering around 40%, so Republicans could be in deep trouble if people want to get the authority of a president that they dislike. Approval ratings for Barack Obama were much higher in 2010, and that did not save the House majority for President Obama.
Yes, the States elect the President and the People don't. But here is a map of how the states support or reject the President based largely on approval ratings:
Quote:The letter F shall signify a favorability poll, as the only polls that I have for Arizona, Massachusetts and Oklahoma
Even -- white
Blue, positive and 40-43% 20% saturation
............................ 44-47% 40%
............................ 48-50% 50%
............................ 51-55% 70%
............................ 56%+ 90%
Red, negative and 48-50% 20% (raw approval or favorability)
.......................... 44-47% 30%
.......................... 40-43% 50%
.......................... 35-39% 70%
.......................under 35% 90%
White - tie.
Colors chosen for partisan affiliation
Because the source uses red for Republicans and blue for Democrats in accordance to a long-standing practice from over a century ago you might find the map slightly confusing. But get accustomed to it; you will see it often. Approval in the three states that Trump most barely lost in 2016 (Minnesota, Nevada, New Hampshire) show him far below where he needs to win either of those those states in 2020. He already is deeply behind in the three states that he most barely won (Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin). I could say more about states in red -- but he has an approval rating of 43% in Texas, a state that no Democratic nominee for President has won since Jimmy Carter so did in 1976. One can typically add 6% to get a likely share of the binary vote in a state for an elected incumbent Governor or Senator... if he has a hard time convincing Texas to vote for him in 2020. then he will be losing in a landslide at least as severe as the wins of Bill Clinton and the 2008 election of Barack Obama.
Can he win in 2020? Sure, at least if his Party can rig the election, which I almost expect it to try to do in view of its extremism and amoral ruthlessness. But when an incumbent President has an approval rating around 40% even with the economy humming along and with no international disasters, he is deep in water with an extreme stench. Based on what I see now I project him losing as badly as Hoover in 1932 or Carter in 1980.
Quote:On other fronts, the way that university education runs is definitely going to change in this 4th turning/1st turning. The model of everyone going to college established in the last 1st turning is not working. The cost of a college education is so high while the value of it is lower and lower since it's becoming more widespread and dumbed down. The internet is also a big factor. You can learn more on the Internet for free than at school. So this model of education might drastically change to something more workable with a lot fewer people going to college and the cost much lower than it is today.
You seem to be going in a different direction, and I might suggest that you bring this topic to an education forum. The degradation of education reflects the 3T tendency to subordinate service to profit. In most times, institutions private and public alike try to keep quality high and cost modest to the benefit of consumers. Most of us can concur that a truly good liberal arts education is not for everyone, and that people unsuited for post-secondary education that might lead to a bachelor's degree might as well be disabused of their ability to compete at really good schools. Note well that getting a degree from a second-rate or worse college has no value to a career. We have too many four-year colleges and universities as it is, and the bad ones might as well be shuttered. If one is not suited for a modest teacher-training school (probably the minimum level for four-year college) then one might as well be encouraged to learn a vocation that requires less than a college education.
Obama at the least got the worst-of-the-worst, the dubious vocational schools that took money (Uncle Sucker guaranteed a loan, but the person getting the loan for attending a for-profit, bad vocational school still had to pay if the degree proved worthless. But I have a thread on those horrible 'schools'. It's telling that President Trump seeks to resuscitate them.
Quote:Another wild card is Islamic terrorism. Islam was a powerful empire for 1300 years until after world war 1 when it was defeated along with Germany. Historically, Islam has always been a combined religious and political system. The idea of separation of church and state is foreign to their culture. Islam is trying to re-assert itself on the world stage, and the cultural depravity of the West is creating an opportunity for them. Most Westerners apologize for their heritage, culture, and history, which projects weakness, particularly in Europe. It's highly likely that terrorism will increase in frequency and intensity overs the remainder of this 4th turning, and then the public will demand action.
This might be the external threat that galvanizes the public to unite (65-70% of them anyways - don't expect the Left to go along) to confront this threat. This crisis period is rapidly waking people up to the reality of the situation. 10 years ago everyone was saying that Islam is a religion of peace. Today, most people sense that there is a problem. Probably in another 10 years that idea might be laughable, especially in Europe. America is more protected due to the oceans surrounding America.
Most acts of terrorism in America come from the racist, soi-disant Christian Right. Your last two paragraphs are pure bosh.
Quote:Interesting times that we live in...
Boring times are safer.
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.