Political Cycle Model for Saeculum

[pbrower2a]

(08-25-2019, 10:06 PM)Marc Lamb Wrote: The previous posts by the him, her, or whatever gender pronoun pbrower2a prefers, perfectly illustrate why the S&H cyclical history theory is really meaningless beyond something as an interesting or even, perhaps, accurate means to explain the mystery of humankind's past, present and future.

As if it matters, I am male. So consider that a convenience. 

Quote:As Michael Alexander conceded, "politics, not economics was the key to the saeculum because all facets of the social world, economics, politics, religion, morals, in short, culture, are represented in one’s politics."

But political realities change almost predictably during the saeculum. Such creates opportunities in one part of the saeculum that may be impossible in another.  Marching to the beat of a different drummer is impossible when all the drummers offer the same beat in a procession of military maneuvers, and when getting out of line gets one worse than the normal awfulness of military life. You do not want to face courts-martial in the regimented world of a Crisis in its military stage, for the punishment is far worse than the normal awfulness of military life. The voyage to the interior is a freakish behavior in a 1T when rigidly-disciplined people seek to rebuild the world into something more comfortable and secure. Ice-water realism is unwelcome in a 2T when kids are challenging the authority of middle-aged adults seeking to do things on the grandest scale possible and mid-life adults are getting queasy of the limited range of expression recently allowed them. Group solidarity is ineffective in an every-man-for-himself 3T.

So our economic masters are staying in a 3T mode while the world in which they profiteer is falling apart and demographic change itself creates a Crisis mode of thought for the majority. Something will break. As the French revolution suggests, elites out for themselves alone when the order is in economic collapse and is losing its intellectual credibility might face amputation...

  

Quote:There lies the nasty rub: In short, politics always alternately illuminates and blinds our hearts and minds to the truth, because we all become a prisoner to our dated "social world, economics, politics, religion, morals, in short, culture." The world is always passing us by.  Just ask Joe Biden. I'm sure he'd agree. Ok, ask Mitch McConnell, too.

But they, like Nancy Pelosi, are Silent, and they are approaching the end of their time of political influence. Like the GIs the Silent remained active intellectually and physically into old age and such has extended their worldly lives. But as with GIs that goes only so far. People influential into their 80's? This is the first time that we have seen this with an Adaptive generation. But if Adaptive leaders do not die off, their relevance can die off easily. Their agendas could get very stale with much younger people wanting something different. They remain in influence, to the extent that they remain alive and active, to the extent that juniors tolerate. When their group is gone, then so is the Silent Generation from public life. They are among the last. The next Adaptive adults will not appear until after the current Crisis. 

Note that David Koch, one of the promoters of absolute plutocracy in America as the key to economic progress, recently died at age 79. Who will replace him?  
 

Quote:Thus the "saeculum" merely exists as means for the "one", not the "many", to set their internal clock of the future based upon the cycle of history. My clock is set to 6am, while pbrower2a's clock is, at the same time set to midnight. My "saeculum" clock says it's morning in America, while his has determined darkness has only begun to fall upon his America.

Edit: Perhaps the word "useless" rather than "meaningless" is a better adjective to use as I assess the S&H theory.

So whose clock is right? It will not be an end-of-Crisis 'springtime in America' until the cold snaps that economic elites insist upon through their  ethos of "every-man-for-himself, and we are exempt from the consequences" is gone. People who believe that no human suffering can be in excess so long as such enriches them, indulges them, and enforces their will are the ones most likely to be cast off somehow -- which could mean that their heads are amputated to fall into a basket. Figuratively or literally? History will decide that, and those elites have sown the whirlwind.    

And, yes, the reign of early-wave Boomers is about spent, too. Three Presidents born in 1946 (Bill Clinton, Dubya, and Donald Judas Trump) have we had -- and they have on the whole been a big disappointment. We can see a problem with Trump, and whether it is the result of bad upbringing, syphilis, cocaine, or Lewy bodies matters little. We have so far gotten the worst of the Idealist character (arrogance, ruthlessness, and selfishness) in Dubya and Trump and precious little of education, principle, and culture. Maybe we might even get Joe Biden as President before we get a late-wave Boomer or a mature X. We know what a Mature Reactive is in the likes of George Washington, John Adams, Harry Truman, Dwight Eisenhower, and Barack Obama. Obama may have been in his 40s and 50s when President, which is about the same age as an immature Reactive (Antichrist Hitler) was Fuhrer of the Devil's Reich... in case you want to know the difference between a mature and an immature reactive is. The closest analogue that I can see to Obama is Eisenhower. Just look at the map:

As David Hackett Fischer suggests in Albion's Seed , the states generally do not change in their political cultures, but political parties can change and thus gain and lose constituencies in significant parts of states. This map does not come from Albion's Seed , but in a way it is inspired from it. Fischer maps all the Presidential elections from 1789 to somewhat recently, and then he stops. In this case I suggest that  even if the partisan identities of the states are almost opposite in the elections involving Eisenhower and Obama, the blocks of states involved suggest that Ike and Obama got (and lost) many of the key constituencies in their elections. This, if you are aware of my posting history, is one of my favorite contrasts. 

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When all is said and done, I think that the Obama and Eisenhower Presidencies are going to look like good analogues. Both Presidents are chilly rationalists. Both are practically scandal-free administrations. Both started with a troublesome war that both found their way out of. Neither did much to 'grow' the strength of their Parties in either House of Congress. To compare ISIS to Fidel Castro is completely unfair to Fidel Castro, a gentleman by contrast to ISIS. 

The definitive moderate Republican may have been Dwight Eisenhower, and I have heard plenty of Democrats praise the Eisenhower Presidency. He went along with Supreme Court rulings that outlawed segregationist practices, stayed clear of the McCarthy bandwagon, and let McCarthy implode.


 
gray -- did not vote in 1952 or 1956
white -- Eisenhower twice, Obama twice
deep blue -- Republican all four elections
light blue -- Republican all but 2012 (I assume that greater Omaha went for Ike twice)
light green -- Eisenhower once, Stevenson once, Obama never
dark green -- Stevenson twice, Obama never
pink -- Stevenson twice, Obama once 

No state voted Democratic all four times, so no state is in deep red. Electoral votes are for 2012.

Eisenhower and Obama both did extremely well among the educated vote, and Ike won some states that Republicans almost never win -- most notably, the two states "left out" in the 49-state Republican blowouts by Nixon in 1972 (Massachusetts) and Reagan in 1984 (Minnesota), and one Northern state that Herbert Hoover did not win in his 1928 blowout (Rhode Island) -- and Ike won them twice. Ike has six of ten Republican wins of those states in 64 years, and that is almost certain to hold in 2020.  Both won Virginia for the first time for their Party after 24 years (Eisenhower) and 44  (Obama) and tended to put that state into their Party's hold for some time. 

Obama may have won Indiana only once, but that is a really-tough state for a Democrat to win... ever. Democratic nominees for President have won it only four times in more than a century.

Sure, Obama did not win the states of the High Plains and the Basin-and-range area (except for Colorado. Nevada, and New Mexico), but it is clear that an Obama win of the Presidency is much more similar to an Eisenhower win
than to any other. 

If anyone has any doubt that the Presidential Election of 1976 is ancient history for all practical purposes:

Carter 1976, Obama 2008 and 2012    



Carter 1976, Obama twice  red
Carter 1976, Obama once pink
Carter 1976, Obama never yellow
Ford 1976, Obama twice white
Ford 1976, Obama once light blue
Ford 1976, Obama never blue

Pink and light blue split for Obama, but full blue and full red, signifying wins for both Carter and Obama or for Ford and both McCain and Romney are rather scarce on this map. States in white or yellow switched parties between Carter and Obama. Basically, the red has population and the blue has territory.