Political Cycle Model for Saeculum

[Warren Dew]

(10-04-2016, 01:50 PM)Mikebert Wrote:

(10-04-2016, 12:04 PM)Warren Dew Wrote: Are you arguing that there's very little dispersion in when the political paradigm "flips"?  What do you see as the defining moments of change since WWII?

Pretty much.  The 2T is roughly around 1963-80. In 1960 the election was seemingly about almost nothing, sort of like 2000. Kennedy essentially ran to the right of "Kitchen debate" Nixon on foreign policy.  How on Earth do you do that? By going for the nutty by embracing tax cuts and a war of choice like the guy who won in 2000.

Tax cuts that worked, and W didn't campaign on starting a war - that came later - but I agree that the 1960 and 2000 elections weren't about major differences or major issues.

(10-04-2016, 01:50 PM)Mikebert Wrote: Short after that history was filled with momentous events, civil rights, the women's movement, the Vietnam war, the sexual revolution, domestic turmoil on a scale far larger than anything seen since, pollution, gay rights, guns n butter, end of Bretton Woods, first oil crisis, stagflation, second oil crisis, Hostage crisis, and then the Reagan revolution. After that things calmed down, the social moment was over. Early wave Boomers (like Eric and Dave) were imprinted in the sixties.  The events of this time: blacks gaining their long-denied 15th Amendment rights plus the right to live wherever they could afford, the Vietnam war ending, more sex, pollution getting cleaned up were seen as good things.  It was an empowering time. Late-wavers were imprinted by stagflation, oil crises, the US seeming to lose on every front were imprinted during a disempowering time. Both were imprinted with an anti-establishment bias.  Those who tend progressive would see the establishment as the corporate Right, while those who are conservative would see the establishment as the Cultural elite and so vote for different parties.

But why the start of those issues, and not a few years earlier, with Sputnik and the Cuban missile crisis, which were viewed as equally major events by Silents and older generations but seem to have had minimal to no impact on Boomers?  Or why not a few years later, since the Vietnam War was the real big issue of the 1960s, with the Silent generation birth cohort extending until the late 1940s, when those were born who would come of age after the Vietnam war became a big deal in 1966-1968?

Also, a tangent, but do you really remember the Vietnam war ending in the 1960s?  My memory is that it didn't end until the peace treaty of 1973, or maybe the boat lift of 1975.  Of course it ended with a loss, so that was also disempowering, but I wouldn't have thought its course in the 1960s would seem empowering  either.  I'm interested in how it could be seen that way.

For my theory - that the shift from Adaptive to Idealist is defined at an early age by the fact that Adaptives actually remember the crisis war and Idealists do not - this particular era transition doesn't need to be sharp, and can be caused by, rather than be the cause of, the transition from Adaptives to Idealists.  But as I understand it, you reject that theory.  I suppose at least in the case of the 1960s you could argue it's caused by a leadership shift from Reactives to Civics, especially if one thinks Civics know how to follow but not - or or at least not yet - how to lead.

(10-04-2016, 01:50 PM)Mikebert Wrote: After 1980 it seemed like the establishment had gotten their act together.  Inflation came down and there was no more talk of stagflation.  Gas that had been $1.30 in 1980-1 was down to 70 cents in 86.  The US then fought a war which we won in four days.  Booyah!  And after that we had a decade of prosperity, fiscal balance, AND America once again bestrode the world as a colossus, like back in the Fifties when my dad was in the CIA.   It's not really a party thing. During the 1963-80 period, both Republicans (Nixon) and Democrats (Johnson, Carter) looked by hapless losers who couldn't find their ass with both hands.  After 1980, both Republicans (Reagan, Bush I) and Democrats (Clinton) looked like they knew what they were doing.  So the folks imprinted over 1980-2000, the GenXers, were less anti-establishment, more willing to let things in Washington be while they pursued their private lives.

The establishment getting its act together could definitely cause a sharp delineation, since leadership changes tend to be relatively sudden; this would also apply to nondemocratic states, which I consider important to the theory.  This generates a testable hypothesis:  the length of the Awakening period should be highly variable since it's somewhat random when a competent leader comes to power.

It would also mean that Idealists and Reactives aren't differentiated until the beginning of adulthood.  I'm not sure whether I'm ready to believe that, since much has been made of alleged differences between Boomer and X childhoods.  I'll have to think about that.

By the "constellation" hypothesis, the change would probably come at a more regular time, since it would occur when a leader, probably a Civic, decided to coopt the new Idealist generation rather than ignore or patronize them.  Or maybe that's a hybrid hypothesis since it would also require a leadership change.

I could believe that once a competent leadership team came to power, subsequent leaders would try to emulate their successful policies for a while, as Clinton - or Clinton/Gingrich - did.  Bush I actually started reversing Reagan's economic policies, but he lost power because of it, quickly enough not to cause much disruption.

Incidentally, the gasoline price reduction was very much a supply side policy, driving an alliance with the Saudis.

That still leaves the transition to the crisis era to be examined. Do you think we're in a crisis era yet, and if so, when do you think the transition was, and how was it sharp?