01-22-2022, 08:05 PM
(01-22-2022, 05:13 PM)David Horn Wrote: I don't see the young moving toward the Trumpists. I don't see them fleeing in horror either. They seem more disgusted than angry, and resigned to their fate.
I agree that the 4T may fizzle. I don't see it as a left-right thing though. The youth, both Millennial and Z, are less idiomatic in that sense. Stress has led them to view the world in the starkest of terms, and that degree of realism doesn't promote the kind of cohesion needed to create movements. What might break through and trigger another wave of political engagement is something only a Millennial (or Z) might be capable of producing. The one missing and necessary element: a real leader they can rally around and follow. Biden's not it.
I disagree about the end of the saeculum, though. The so-called ACW anomaly may have merely be the FOAK for transformational 4Ts. How it plays this time is TBD, but assuredly not like the last 4T.
Agree that Biden hasn't been the cheerleader for the young. Thing is, he has identified the right positions on the right issues. I'm still hopeful that the steady obstruction of the Republicans will cost them in the mid terms. If you are going to solve the problems we are facing, it is clear you have to give the Democrats a few more seats in the Senate. If he gets that, Biden looks very different.
Yes, in prior crisis nobody had trouble about getting behind change. Democracy, not being on the wrong side of colonial imperialism, slavery, enabling the industrial revolution over a government controlled by agriculturalists, letting the government regulate the economy and containing expansionists powers all attracted the youth of the time. This time, the need seems less pressing to a rural population who doesn't see the difficulties as clearly. At the time Covid was politicized, it was more an urban problem. Prejudice is desired in the rural areas. Attempts to overthrow democracy weren't as obvious. The environment still seems wild and exploitable enough. Trump's criminality was not as obvious. It is still not clear that the rural folk will see the problems, but two votes in the Senate might be possible?
That this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from the earth.