10-08-2018, 11:08 AM
(10-08-2018, 09:19 AM)sbarrera Wrote: One thing that could cause the 4T to drag is the stubborn persistence of the Silent generation in leadership roles, both in government and business. I still voted for 2025-29, though, with the thought that it would be late in that time frame. That still gives three exciting Presidential elections. Maybe 2028 will be the 1T election. I think there is a chance it could be 2032 that is the 1T election, but the odds are not in favor of that.
As the oldest Silent are now 75, their role in business is largely in ownership, and not operation. They have retired from the executive suites, with Boomers (who may be the worst business executives ever from the standpoint of treatment of workers and customers ever). Middle age typically ends at 65, which means that Boomers born in 1953 are often reaching mandatory retirement age.
Politics? The Silent are already vanishing. As with the GIs about fifteen years ago, the prominent ones are replaced by people decidedly younger. Should Mitch McConnell be defeated in 2020 or should he lose control of the Senate earlier, then he will not return to a role of prominence. His successor will be Boom or X.
2020 will have an exciting Presidential election. 2024? It depends upon the competence of the President elected in 2020 -- and whether we have a free and fair election (which will be much in doubt if Trump or Pence wins in 2020).
Crisis eras end with rapid denouements, as illustrated by the short time between the establishment of the Constitution , between General Sherman splitting the Confederacy through Georgia, and D-Day and the suicide of Satan Incarnate in a bunker. The Japanese leadership thought that it could hold on until the atom bomb blasts and the Soviet invasion of Manchukuo... and suddenly collapsed.
History moves fast in the latter stages of a Crisis Era. Generals recognize a hopeless situation and surrender like a chess player who sees "mate in 4" against him that he cannot stave off... and if the conqueror has any decency, the defeated find that resistance is pointless because defeat is the last tragedy for them. It is worth remembering that the American and British victories in Italy and Germany had as their deciding factor that the Italians and Germans had no cause for resistance.
This Crisis could end with something as unprecedented as a military coup against a President attempting to rule as a despot... with the military leadership establishing through its behavior that people have nothing to fear. Farewell, first Republic, welcome Second, one with a tighter Constitutional system.
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.