12-18-2016, 08:06 PM
(12-18-2016, 07:33 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: Astrology at least gives me a good sense of the timing; i.e. "what year." Although I see 2019 as a year of recession, possibly enabling a Republican defeat of some kind, it looks like 2025 is the year when the crisis reaches its climax. Dissolution of the USA and Revolution seem the most likely of those 4 you mentioned. From an optimistic point of view, which says the Democrats come back, as the political winds shift periodically as they have before, the rebellion would be made by the right wing, and would be crushed by the liberal power pushing reforms the right-wing doesn't like. Then in 2028-29 we move into a 1T with the liberal consensus, but the drastic reforms enter a period of consolidation (much like the previous 1T that consolidated the New Deal and victory over fascism).
I haven't reached a prediction about exactly which reforms will be done. Logically, given the conservatism of Americans, the least drastic reforms are the most likely. Those already done in California would seem possible: ending gerrymandering for example. Some campaign financing reform returning. If the liberals do return to power sufficiently, tossing out the electoral college would seem a logical step for them, given how it screwed us and the nation over-- which will be quite clear, if Trump has ruined the GOP by then.
A more pessimistic view says the Trumpistas set the agenda for the future, and the people swallow it, which results in a failed Revolution and a crackdown leading to gilded age/banana republic.
Obviously, once a 4T goes full speed ahead, drastic changes are possible. The voting power of millennials will be key to how much change is made. I think a parliamentary system is overdue. It is the way democracies work in the world. Even the one the USA itself set up in its colony in Iraq in 2003 was parliamentary. And prop. rep. makes a lot of sense, and ranked choice voting. The current duopoly of political parties is unpopular, and might well change. "Political realignment" seems to happen like clockwork in both Awakenings and Crises.
But Trump is not a good indicator of realignment. He is just a big mistake, and should be looked upon as nothing more than that. Mistakes like that happen in 4Ts, when the nation is falling into chaos.
What will happen if the 4T ends early via something like another world war that Trump wins? What will happen then?