Neil Howe In The News

[pbrower2a]

(11-22-2020, 06:03 AM)Arkarch Wrote:

(11-12-2020, 10:04 PM)Mickey123 Wrote:

(11-11-2020, 08:59 PM)pbrower2a Wrote:

(11-11-2020, 10:57 AM)TeacherinExile Wrote: Some recent insights into Neil Howe’s thinking about the Fourth Turning:

U.S. faces a potential ‘secession crisis’ at home and ‘open conflict’ with China in the coming decade, says author who predicted 2020 unrest


https://www.marketwatch.com/story/enormo...2020-11-03

And this interview on Hedgeye TV with Keith McCullough:

Howe & McCullough: "The Fourth Turning: Navigating The Crisis In America" - YouTube

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qj5w7BimQJo

Howe drops a hint as to the focus of his next book: the globalizing alignment of his generational theory which, with the near-universal impact of COVID-19, will be interesting to see how he makes that case.  He best hurry up, though, on the publication of his presumably updated book because events may be unfolding faster than he can research and write it. I’m guessing that he’s aiming for a 25th anniversary edition of The Fourth Turning, which would put the publication date sometime in 2022.

I would love to participate in his book. I have some insights outside the box, and I can do some research.  Note also that the 35th anniversary of Generations is in 2024 (has it been that long?)

What must happen?

1. The interstate polarization in political results must weaken. It got more, and not less severe in 2020 than ever (ruling out the Southern states that did not have a meaningful Republican Party before at least the 1950's) since the run-up to the Civil War. 

2. If we need the effect of a Crisis War, then COVID-19 is it. It kills like a Crisis War; it is killing Americans at least on the scale of World War II, and it is likely to kill for a few more months. COVID-19 has forced people to change their behavior or has put them at risk of severe consequences. The body count is at a level that Americans will not long tolerate. COVID-19 will change even American culture to reflect its devastation. 

9 months from now, covid-19 will essentially be over in 1st world countries, the vast majority of their populations having immunity through vaccinations or through having had the disease themselves already.

In the mean time, perhaps more people will die of COVID-19 in America than have already died because we are in a particularly-deadly third wave. I'm doing what I can to avoid crowds; I wear a mask in public settings; I wash my hands frequently for at least twenty seconds. I am not going to throw away fifteen to twenty good years of life out of some reckless refusal to defer gratification. I have always played the long game in life.      

Quote:But the Crisis will be far from over.  We're nowhere close to the end.  It's impossible to know what form the rest of the crisis will take.  Neil Howe mentions possible war with China, or some sort of civil war between parts of the U.S.  One way or another, though, the situation demands a huge crisis, some sort of enormous conflict big enough to bring the U.S. together and allow us to transition into the next high.

We have had the economic calamity and we are now having the mass death as if from a meat-grinder war. Many ways of life, many commonplace myths, and many fads are being discredited. We are at the end of the line for greater levels of productivity creating more human happiness. We have adjustments to make, and we have just cast out a catastrophic failure as President.

Quote:I can easily see a civil war starting.  Some time in the next few years, we end up with both houses of congress being controlled by democrats, as well as the white house with Biden.  Democrats begin passing far reaching legislation.  Red states refuse to follow whatever laws are being passed, and openly defy federal law.  An actual war could break out, and in the chaos, you could end up with some attempted socialist revolution, fascist takeover of government, or who know what else.

A Czechoslovak-style divorce looks more likely now. It is possible that as America becomes more homogenized in politics, the interstate polarization will weaken. When only fourteen states are decided by 10% or less, we obviously have some huge regional divides. 



Margin 

Blue for Trump, Red for Biden 

10-15% saturation 8
8-10% saturation 6 
5-8% saturation 5
1-3% saturation 4
under 1% saturation 2

Gray... completely out of contest, and you know how those states and districts are oriented. 

I am guessing, putting the wayward Second Congressional Districts of Maine and Nebraska in the middle category. As I make this map, Biden leads in New York state by 14.75%... but a significant number of votes are outstanding and they are largely in ultra-solid D New York City.  Ohio slipped a category and New York City will push the state past a 15% category when the votes are fully counted.  

Fully thirty-one states were decided by 15% or more in 2020!  It is possible to say that the Trump Administration flooded some farm states with farm subsidies to distract voters in those states from the damage that his trade war with China caused.  How the states have voted beginning in 2000:



 



all six for the Republican
5 R, 1 D
4 R, 2D  
(white - 3R, 1D)
4 D, 2 R
5 D, 1 R
all six for the Democrat

That is six elections and the biggest changes since then have been 

(1) that several states that once favored Democrats in Democratic wins and that even voted twice for Bill Clinton in the 1990's have swung completely to the GOP and haven't gotten close
(2) the West Coast went from the fringe of competitiveness for Republicans to out of reach for them 
(3) Virginia went from the sort of state that never voted for a Democrat except in a landslide (from 1952 to 2004 it had gone D only for LBJ in 1964) to strongly D; New Mexico went from shaky D to strong D; Colorado went from iffy in D landslides to solid D. 
(4) the fast-growing Mexican-American vote in the southwestern United States is making Arizona and even Texas shaky for Republican nominees for President.
(5) The Republican Party has lost its appeal to the educated part of the urban middle class.

Not shown on this map: the urban-suburban difference in politics is becoming a triviality as suburban areas lose their old rural character (white populations, low density and relatively recent infrastructure that has low costs of maintenance) and become more urban (less white, higher density as apartment complexes replace the 70-year-old 'starter homes' of WWII veterans, and obsolete infrastructure in need of costly repairs or rebuilding).

Quote:I think we'll be doing well if we emerge from the crisis with the U.S. still in one piece, not a dictatorship, and with no nuclear weapons having been used.

Here is one pattern worth remembering: betting against the United States of America is has been a sucker bet. We lost the war in Vietnam only because we got tired of the war after enduring about one fifth the military casualties of the Vietnam War as so far from COVID-19 and seeing no good in the war but an easy escape.  We have no obvious, easy escape from COVID-19 or we would have taken it. Here's one group who would come to regret betting against the United States:



Twelve of the defendants (Martin Bormann, not yet known to be dead, was tried in absentia and sentenced to death) would be sentenced to death by hanging for some horrific crimes that they thought at some point they would get away with because Nazi Germany would win the war, or at the least trivialized the wrongness of their crimes. 

This fellow believed that he did nothing wrong even if his duties included giving false assurances of the good will of Hitler to political leaders whose countries Hitler would attack and invade, arranging agreements with other countries to dismember other countries in shared aggression, having responsibilities for brutal administration of countries under Nazi rule, encouraging leaders of satellite states of the Third Reich to deliver their Jews to Nazi extermination camps, and even advocating the lynching of downed Allied fliers. Joachim von Ribbentrop was wrong:



DEAD WRONG! 

It is my hope that in about ten years Americans will be less tolerant of 'deplorable' identity. Pride in ignorance will bring shame, as it will become socially unacceptable -- perhaps even in rural, white America. I expect some cultural changes, including a norm of 14 years of education after kindergarten instead of 12, with '13' and '14' teaching people a trade and how to live most fully. Standardized college courses in economics, philosophy, comparative political systems, world literature, comparative religion, psychology, and maybe a little music appreciation and art appreciation?  Life is more than economic gain and indulgence, collecting more shoddy stuff that ends up in the landfill or experiences (like 'the nudie bar' that the Al
Bundy character on Married With Children teases his son with) that one can't really talk about in polite company?

Don't be a hoarder, don't be a bore, and above all, don't do evil.