09-05-2018, 02:17 PM
(09-05-2018, 07:25 AM)Teejay Wrote: For myself there is nothing that tells me that the Saeculum is not currently in operation. Strauss and Howe predicted what has happened in the last ten years much more accurately than anybody else, even if the predictions were particularly specific.
When they wrote Generations, Howe and Strauss suggested Al Gore as a possible Grey Champion. That looks highly unlikely now.
Quote:I am personally need to wait another couple of decades to get a fuller picture of things like when did the regeneracy occurred in this Fourth Turning. Mind you the regeneracy might have not been that dramatic, Rise of the Tea Party movement, Sarah Palin's popularity and the election of a large number of extreme conservatives in state and federal legislatures could been the regeneracy.
Sarah Palin has faded into irrelevancy, hardly suggesting that she has remade America. She seems to have done more to hurt the McCain candidacy for President in 2008 than to have helped. The Tea Party Movement and the right-wing pols that it helped get elected especially in 2010 and 2014 are becoming vulnerable. A successful movement gets entrenched in the most decisive part of the Crisis; it is never in danger of being cast off. The Left-leaning parts of the political spectrum are much more active in 2018 than the Tea Party was in 2010.
The success of Donald Trump in getting elected is superficial, transitory, and reversible. His approval polls have sunk to the vicinity of 40%, which is abysmal for any sitting President. He and his associates are under scrutiny for legal misconduct including corruption and abuse of power. This is not what one expects of Lincoln or FDR. America can still have the equivalent of a Lincoln or FDR (OK -- Disraeli, Garibaldi, Juarez, Gandhi, Churchill, Mannerheim, or Adenauer would be good equivalents, too) who solves lots of problems fast, decisively, and permanently -- this bringing the Crisis to a satisfying ending for most Americans.
The only function that I see in Donald Trump is how not to lead America in dangerous times. It is ironic that he chose to repudiate everything about Obama -- and unfortunately, among Obama attributes that he rejected were integrity, decency, caution, and kindness. Those might not be enough (Carter had those), but they would seem necessary for effectiveness as a leader.
Quote:In Australia it could have been the election of the most conservative government (The Liberals under Tony Abbott) we have had for a very long time, on the back of populist anger in 2013 over the implementation of the carbon tax (which the incoming government abolished). Despite being deposed as Liberal Party leader in 2015, Tony Abbott still maintains a fanatical following among our version of the Tea Party crowd.
Right-wing populism can degenerate into free-flowing anger against people who have done nothing wrong. Such intensifies the nastiness of a Crisis. I can't say that left-wing populism is any better, as is shown in Venezuela.
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.
