(01-07-2017, 04:56 PM)SomeGuy Wrote: But seriously, even if he doesn't do any of things he campaigned on, and gets tossed out on his ear 4 years from now, at least he cleared the space on both parties for something new.
Exactly. But if he does this, he will be serving in the role of a post-trigger president like Hoover, and not a post regeneracy president like FDR, Trump still presents a change from the past, and the simplest interpretation would be a 2016 trigger with a regeneracy in the future.
On the other hand, if 2016 is a regeneracy, then 2008 as trigger still makes sense. For this to happen Trump has to be successful. But to be successful he needs the right tools, and the right personnel. He has neither, he ran all by himself. There was no movement that he led. He has no ideology, no loyal followers. Only self-interested individuals like himself, who are backing his play for now, because he's on top.
He has to select amongst the same Republican ideas and people that Bush had to choose from. Trump's plan, of which I approve, is to make nice to Russia. The GOP is filled with people who mistrust Russia and who see Munich everywhere. He is going to have a lot of unhappy campers.
He is not tapping libertarian anti-war types, but rather hawkish Republicans. They may be less antagonistic about Russia, but they make it up in spades with Iran. So if Trump manages to replace a Cold War with Russia with a hot war with Iran, how is this any better than what Bush did?
We are going to get another recession. This will not endear him to his base, who are expecting jobs not pink slips. A $2 trillion deficit is going to be noticed, even if Tea Partiers suddenly decide they don't care about deficits anymore. Obama inherited a recession that was half over before he took office, and enjoyed an expansion for almost all of both of his terms and yet he and his works were dragged through the mud. Trump is inheriting a boom, which is going to go bust on his watch. Do you really think it is possible for him to make the big electoral gains that FDR did? Or is slow bleeding like what happened to Obama more likely?
Note we could still have a 4T contemporaneous with a conflict with China during a global war period over 2025-2050. (M&T posited a delegitimization period over 1973-2000, which would suggest a deconcentration era over 2000-2025). An eventful period running from 2020-2040 could easily serve as a secular crisis social moment. A 4T ending in 2040 would give a 94-year saeculum, which is perfectly in line with the century-long spans of past ones. In other words, the S&H cycle would not be invalidated. But the theory that this 4T is caused by the collective history made by Boomers, Xer's and Millies moving into elder, mature adult and rising adult phases of life would be.