07-20-2020, 04:02 PM
(07-19-2020, 01:34 PM)Mikebert Wrote: So for me 2022 is the fish or cut bait moment for the theory. S&H forecast a crisis turning that would create structural changed. George W Bush had a group of changes he wanted to make in foreign political and in the political outreach for the GOP. Obama had a number of policy changes around health care and climate change he wished to pursue. Trump ran on structural changes wrt to foreign policy, immigration and trade. Anyone of these agenda could have been the core about a 4T was built. What was stopping them was politics. The S&H 4T theory that says, given the proper constellation of "generations" a crisis catalyst triggers the structural change. Each of these three presidents had a catalyst, 911, the 2008 panic, the 2020 pandemic.
They all failed to use it to produce the structural change which would given them an electoral edge afterward. We kept on trading off between the parties with presidential or Congressional turnovers every 4 years in average over 2000-2020 (same rate as the two decades before). Compare these to every 6.7 and 10 years on average over the 4T-containing periods 1932-1952 and 1860-1800, respectively. This has been no 4T yet, at least politically.
I think making 2022 the benchmark is fine. If the Dems can't hold serve longer than one Congressional cycle, then they don't deserve to be the change agents they claim they want to be. So it comes down to this election setting the stage for the changes that will either be validated in 2022 or not. If they truly want to set the agenda, it had better be a blowout.
There is plenty of activity in both parties that indicates that the Dems are moving strongly left (using primaries to unseat long term moderates), and the whacknut wing of the GOP is doing the same on that flank. At the moment, the fire on the left is focused better than the fire on the right, so this can be a true turning point. It will be up to Biden (assuming he wins) to move more to the left or scuttle his Presidency early on. On the other hand, if it's Trump again, we're done as the world leading democracy. Maybe India can take that role.
Intelligence is not knowledge and knowledge is not wisdom, but they all play well together.