08-18-2020, 10:00 PM
(08-15-2020, 07:29 AM)David Horn Wrote:(08-15-2020, 03:47 AM)Eric the Green Wrote:(08-15-2020, 02:49 AM)pbrower2a Wrote: By the way -- we are now late into the Crisis Era.
Well, about 9 years to go out of 21. I guess that's late, if you want to define it that way.
My only argument with a 20-21 year long 4T is why? 2Ts and 4Ts run hot; 1Ts and 3Ts run cool. One solid data point: we've just had a long 3T. Can we possibly maintain crisis level intensity for that long? I doubt it -- especially in this county.
Another 6 years of crisis is my best guess, with a messy transition to the next 1T.
With pathological leadership as in China or Russia from about 110 to 60 years ago, a protracted Crisis Era is possible. I see Crises as waves of either horror or monumental change. Trump may be awful, but he certainly isn't Josef Stalin or Chiang Kai-Shek.
Crises conclude when what used to seem inevitable and indelible becomes impossible. The Crisis of 1780 ended when what had been squabbling little states of shaky sovereignty that could have turned against each other with the aid of foreign powers formed a powerful new Union that ambitious powers overseas could no longer exploit. The Crisis of 1860 ended when the slavery that the Confederacy seceded to defend was dead once and for all. The Crisis of 1940 ended when the gangster regimes of Germany and Japan were dead and their criminal leadership faced nooses for their crimes.
Will the end of the Trump era be so dramatic as the last three Crises? Probably not. It is hard to top those three Crises. I expect huge changes in our political and economic order, changes that will make a return to some very bad habits enshrined over the last forty... and even sixty years later.
To preserve our Union we need to ensure that we can never have another leader like Donald Trump. That includes reducing the role of economic power in shaping politics. That includes a revival of faith in learning and reason. That includes restoring humanistic values as an expected characteristic of our economic leaders. People like Donald Trump who believe that nothing is more important than themselves believe in nothing except themselves. Such people cannot convince people outside of those like minded, the vicious, and the gullible.
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.