Election 2020

[Bob Butler 54]

(01-05-2020, 04:05 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote: I'd say you're a bit ahead ( a decade or so) of the game or schedule as far as where you seem to believe we are at right now. You say/ seem to believe that we are a decade into the 4T right now. Me, I happen to believe that we are nearing the end of the preparation phase and more or less a decade way from the beginning of a rough 4T era for the liberal believers.

We are close on timing.  We have gone through the unravelling plus a lot of pre regeneracy crisis.  If this is the preparation phase, I could agree.  We are all too familiar with each others positions, but no regeneracy that puts the progressive ideals dominant has occurred.  The closest to that was Obama’s passing of health care, which resulted in the loss of congress and the rest of the progressive agenda stalling.

I am inclined to believe that a new progressive period is coming.  1). You cannot leave problems unsolved forever.  The problems only get worse.  2)  I still believe in cyclical rhythms.  There should be some sort of alternation between conservative and liberal thought.  3) I see the demographics argument, with the progressive viewpoint held by an ever increasing majority.

This does not imply the new progressive period is apt to go on forever.  Politicians are apt to take any agenda too far.  The shoe will eventually be on the other foot.

On the other hand, I see the boomers as split.  They are a force for stalemate not a force for change.  This is much of why the preparation phase, what I call the see saw, continued.  Whenever the middle saw either side moving towards implementing their agenda, the other side was given power.  Neither party could sustain their agenda.

You are also seeing violence as much more likely than I.  The spiral of violence seems pointing towards no violence.  Nukes and a belief in legislators are rendering crisis wars obsolete.  There is a willingness to implement the progressive agenda through legislation rather that hold a crisis war well after the awakening.  Thus, the conscious revolution with its major legislation passed stands as our only mode of what to expect in an Information Age awakening.

Thus, I am seeing a transformational turning coming up, one which ties to do the progressive agenda.

I am not sure it will be more awakening than high.  In the last high, McCarthy ran an anti communist movement which tried to step on communism as one form of progressive thinking.  The movement ended by exposing it’s underside on TV.  But, the idea that the old values can be squashed is typical of the high.  The lessons learned in the past crisis are hammered home with emphasis.  

The OK Boomer expression is one such influence, the idea that certain red boomers have had more than their share of time to spread a greedy way of thinking.  It has already taken hold.  Bush 43 and Trump both lied regularly to the people.  The notion of not getting caught by lying politicians might well reenforce the OK boomer meme.  I can see Truth making a comeback in the near future.

This would combine aspects of an high and an awakening as up for the next turning.  It would be as transformational as highs used to be, but no crisis war needed.

I do see the Tea Party as being ahead of the Democrats in rejecting the Establishment Republicans.  The Tea Party is apt to reject an establishment figure, which is why they are clinging so tightly to Trump.  The Tea Party is still hoping to find someone to make the Reagan unravelling memes work, and failing.  Trump talked a good game in rejecting the establishment, but has run an establishment administration.  Meanwhile, the country looks to be in a place where the see saw has been tipped, where the Republicans cannot win a primary election without Trump’s base, but they cannot win a general election as most people have rejected Trump.

But the Democratic establishment is still intact.  They are still at least as much for the elites as for the people.  What I am not sure of is Democrats working more for the people than for the elites and their campaign dollars.   The “We must defeat Trump” movement is too much a “We must stick with serving the elites” movement.  It is not clear that this bunch is going towards a true regeneracy.

We will see.  The boomers are not quite aged out of power.  A radical Democrat winning 2020 could produce something like a true S&H crisis.  It would still be more legislature based than crisis war based.  The transformation would be more like the last awakening than the American Revolution, Civil War or WW II.  That does not yet seem guaranteed, though there are the three arguments for it happening eventually.