04-21-2018, 03:44 AM
The whole question of Idealist leadership to me is quite overblown by the generational theory. Can you think of anyone younger than a Boomer, who thinks in generational terms, who thinks of the Boomer's as providing leadership. No, any Xer or Millenial pretty much has the same view that leadership is completely lacking from the Boomers. Their ethos is one of grotesque selfishness that needs to be repulsed, not followed.
That's not to say the Millenial's won't find a vessel who is the leader. But the power and guidance will flow from the youth up. Take Bernie Sanders - he's been there forever. I passed through Vermont in the 1990s and voted for him once. He was irrelevant. Inconsequential. And certainly nobody that anybody called charismatic. He was nothing until the Millenials picked him up and made him something. It's the same with FDR. The Greatest Generation made him, and not the other way around. They voted for him en masse in 1932. They shocked the nation by sealing the deal for the New Deal with strong voter turnout in the midterm election of 1934. The power flowed from the youth. Lincoln doesn't count because it was a broken cycle, but it holds true for the Republican Generation. The youth shaped the way and found a leader that fit their view. The leader did not mold the youth.
You can talk to me about Stalin and Hitler all you want but it doesn't matter because they aren't the products of free societies. In America a motivated, self-directed youth (a Civic) can cast off the failures of the old generations. It's why America rebounds while totalitarians shatter.
That's not to say the Millenial's won't find a vessel who is the leader. But the power and guidance will flow from the youth up. Take Bernie Sanders - he's been there forever. I passed through Vermont in the 1990s and voted for him once. He was irrelevant. Inconsequential. And certainly nobody that anybody called charismatic. He was nothing until the Millenials picked him up and made him something. It's the same with FDR. The Greatest Generation made him, and not the other way around. They voted for him en masse in 1932. They shocked the nation by sealing the deal for the New Deal with strong voter turnout in the midterm election of 1934. The power flowed from the youth. Lincoln doesn't count because it was a broken cycle, but it holds true for the Republican Generation. The youth shaped the way and found a leader that fit their view. The leader did not mold the youth.
You can talk to me about Stalin and Hitler all you want but it doesn't matter because they aren't the products of free societies. In America a motivated, self-directed youth (a Civic) can cast off the failures of the old generations. It's why America rebounds while totalitarians shatter.