06-26-2018, 01:05 PM
(06-26-2018, 11:49 AM)pbrower2a Wrote: But the Watergate offenses happened more than 45 years ago, and one has to be at least 50 years old for them to have affected one;s political values. Donald Trump is doing far worse than Nixon ever did, which may be the difference between an Awakening Era (when rewards and harm are both slighter) and a Crisis, when rewards and harm are more severe). The next eighty months might be at stake in an Awakening, but the next eighty years might be at stake in a Crisis.
It's freedom or fascism today. I can easily imagine America as aright-wing mirror-image of the Soviet Union, with Ayn Rand as the prophet instead of Karl Marx, with all people responsible to some Master Class enriching itself as its alleged right, with a similar absence of a Welfare State, and similar repression, brutality, and militarism. Is that enticing? Step right up for your MAGA hat!
Yes, Watergate and the Pentagon Papers are only directly relevant to an ever decreasing percentage of the population, but when you lower the bar, it tends to stay down barring a major effort to raise it back to its former place. We've had two generations raised entirely in the wake of those events, with nothing having been done to offset the negative effects. Cynicism should be expected, don't you think? Worse, most of the more powerful events that have occurred since then have only reinforced the negativity. Stagflation, the Iran Crisis, Reagan declaring the government as the problem, recessions, wars … the list is endless, and none of the entries is fully positive.
This is the reason I believe the 4T will fail to resolve anything -- even with the worst possible example of mediocrity sitting in the Oval Office. Its just what we expect, so no big deal. Sad.
Intelligence is not knowledge and knowledge is not wisdom, but they all play well together.