(01-15-2018, 01:12 PM)David Horn Wrote: [quote pid='34169' dateline='1515959701']
I'm still surprised by how little economics seems to play. The righteous anger is still reserved for the cultural issues, that can't be resolved through politics, and won't be resolved until the true believers pass from the scene. A 2T-like period might be all we can expect, though the underlying economic issues scream 4T at the top of their lungs. I suspect this won't get resolved while I'm still around.
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I got ahead of myself and charged off point. I'' try to stay on track here. Starting off as before...
Were economic issues screaming in the years leading up to 2008? Social issues were, remember how (opposition to) gay marriage was supposedly key to the Republican victory in 2004? Was the 2008 campaign about the economy, like 1992 was? I seem to recall the big issues were the Iraq war and health care. I don't believe economic inequality even moved into public consciousness until the Occupy movement in 2011. Contrast this with the muckrakers who had raised consciousness of the plight of the underclass by 1906, and certainly by the time of the Triangle Shirtwaist fire in 1911 (and yet would be 20+ years before anyone took effective action).
Where I was going before I wandered off into that intriguing analogy was that according the PSI model, economic inequality issues were not supposed to be the big issue in 2008, that's what low PSI means. PSI is high now, and sure enough, economics is a big issue now. But what sets the table for the political moment (according to the model) is the situation at the beginning of the moment, when the dominant generation first arrives at the scene. As I pointed out above economic inequality wasn't the big issue on the Left in 2008.
The progressive political moment (1896-1919) also had low PSI when it started in 1896 (lower than 2008). PSI rose over the next two decades but by the time it began to approach 4T-like dimensions, the dominant generation had left the scene. The progressive political moment, like other 2Ts, and like today, had rising radicalization. Radicalization in a non-4T environment generates a 2T. This means that the current political moment that began in 2008 has a lot of 2T character. I am sure you have noticed the 2T-like character of the current moment with social/cultural movements like LBGTQ-rights, #Me Too, and BLM. Of these BLM has the most economic character, but economics is not front and center. One of the two economic movements, Occupy, has faded from the scene, and the other, the Tea Party, has been converted from a fiscally-focused movement to a cultural movement by the alt-right.
The model suggests this political moment will turn out to be a second 2T, unless we get another crisis trigger (of an economic type) before the dominant generation leaves the scene in around 2023. The capitalist crisis hypothesis suggests that the next recession should see a very large stock market decline that ought to induce a financial crisis, which if unopposed, or addressed with tax cuts, should produce a recession more serious than any other postwar recession. If it is large enough to be considered an economic collapse (i.e. like the one in 1929) it could serve as a economic crisis trigger to induce and economic response, which if effective will create a lasting political dividend for the party doing it.
Presumably the market decline will be before 2020, Democrats will win big in 2020, and facing a deep recession, will finally enact policy to turn things around and so NOT get hammered in 2022. If they can manage to do that, it will pay off in spades for them as they will win the next two political elections. In other words a Democratic Reagan will come to power in 2020, and Trump will be a Skowronek "disjunctive" president like Carter.