12-17-2020, 11:56 PM
(12-17-2020, 11:16 PM)TnT Wrote: I'm not seeing indications that this 4T is near its end. Nominally, we could easily have another 5-10 years of it and it would still fit within the 80 year cycles.
Unless the fever-brained Right somehow changes their minds, abandons their belief systems, I don't think we know yet who will prevail, what compromises will be necessary to calm things down. Ya have the gun-nut cowards, the Religious radicals, the white nationalists and the lower-grade "slightly racist" low information folks in a loose coalition.
Let's say that the divisiveness continues for a few years. Secession could be on the table. David French's book "Divided We Fall" is a good read. I think he leans a bit too hard to the Right, but he may well be directionally correct that there is WAY more pulling us apart right now than there is bringing us back together. That is not a good thing.
The crisis problems seem to be on the Democratic agenda. Solving the bug, the violent racist policing and systematic racism, some degree of environmentalism, all seem like they could be handled fairly quickly. The economic ruin caused by the weak Trump response to COVID might linger. On economics, I don't know about timing.
But I doubt Trump is going away. Maybe his legal and debt problems will haunt him. Maybe what is currently his base will fall in love with somebody else. Easy come, easy go. I suspect also the deep state has been taking notes, and things Trump has been keeping secret will be exposed after Biden's people get in. Maybe Trump will remain dominant among the Republican base and still make some trouble for the establishment and the real conservatives.
But I don't see succession as overly likely. Everyone has gone with democracy to this point. The weaknesses of Trump are obvious.
The key is how well the problems the Republicans worked so hard to ignore can be fixed by a Biden administration. If he addresses the crisis problems, if the Republicans are still divided by Trump holding the base and in position to blackmail the establishment, the Democrats should be in a good position in 2024. The mess Trump made of the 2020 elections and COVID response could bring on an early never again phase, with the elections streamlined and World Health Organization given more pandemic fighting power. I can certainly see the US government scientists being protected more from being silenced by political appointees.
Thus, maybe a crisis end by around 2024?
I don't see one of Pope Xenakis's wars of the week as delaying the crisis end. There are better ways for the leaders and elites to gain wealth and power than through violence. I could be wrong there. Xenophobia is abundant. Brinkmanship does make leaders popular. With so many dancing on the brink, someone might miscalculate. But, still, there have been no crisis wars by major powers in the Information Age.
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.