Election 2018

[Eric the Green]

(11-05-2018, 08:42 PM)Mikebert Wrote:

(10-29-2018, 05:11 AM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote:

(10-28-2018, 11:45 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: FDR did not offer unity to the Nazis.
Lincoln did not offer unity to the confederates.
Washington did not offer unity to the King.
William did not offer unity to the Stewarts and Louis XIV
Elizabeth I did not offer unity to the Spanish or the Catholics.
Henry VII did not offer unity to Richard III.

One side won, the other lost. After that, a greater degree of unity was able to be created.

Most of the above people are clearly Industrial Age.  Thus, using violence as a solution would be expected. 

Eric is mostly right about how crises resolve, except the last one.  It's not FDR versus the Nazis. The conflict is *internal* not external, unless it involves invasion, in which case the external actor is now internal to the country being invaded. 

There is no seeking unity until one side prevails, but that does not have to be through violence.  For example, last time the crisis conflict was resolved electorally without violence over 1930-1934. By the 1934 election Democrats had won three elections in a row and Republicans were devastated, not to recover until the end of the 4T.  Unity had been achieved in 1934 because FDR could now withstand the hits the party in power takes in the non-presidential election, as Obama could not.

It is hard to see this as a major conflict because it was so fast. But the situation  today shows that it does not have to be fast.  This 4T the two sides have been fighting for 10 to 17 years, depending on when you choose to start the 4T. There is, at present, no clear-cut winner. The Republicans are in a position similar to where they were in 2006 and Democrats were in 2010. The election tomorrow will be another "battle" in this political war. Unless the polling is way off, Republicans look likely to lose the House next year, like Democrats in 2010. That is 2018 looks likely not to give the sort of final resolution of the internal political conflict that 1934 did. And given the prospect of a major bear market, possibly associated with financial crisis, we could well see another shift in the winds of fortune in this seemingly never-ending political war.

I see these things a bit differently

WWII was the crisis climax, as S&H stated. The battle with the Nazis was all of a piece with the domestic fights between Republican oligarchy and Democratic New Deal. The crash of 1929 in the USA, as well as allied sanctions against Germany before then, led directly to the Nazi takeover and the simultaneous FDR Democratic takeover. From 1892 onward, we live in a world civilization where what happens in one place affects all the others. The last 4T was a good illustration of that. And in our own 4T, the American crash in 2008 had similar global impact.

The video of FDR I posted further shows that his battle with the Republicans was not over. FDR certainly fared better than Obama did, but Obama was not a true depression leader, and he had a less severe problem demanding less drastic solutions than what FDR faced. And FDR still endured quite a reversal of fortune in the 1938 midterms, as all 6th year terms do, and never got the majority that he got in 1936 again. And it was only WWII that decisively ended the Depression and propelled us into a successful first turning like no other before it. Only the battle with the Axis powers lifted us into our 1T. So in that sense there was no unity during the 4T, and there was more unity in the following 1T after the crisis was resolved.

It is somewhat tenuous, but the I think the double alternating rhythm of predominantly domestic and predominantly foreign-centered crisis has continued. Chas of course takes it further into his alternating "Dionysian and Apollonian" saecula; the former corresponding to internal crises and the latter to external. We are internal/dionysian centered, meaning that ours is predominantly an internal crisis, and it's more than economic, but a so-far cold civil war. That war will continue through the 4T until 2028-29 and perhaps beyond, whether or not another severe economic crisis occurs, and has yet to reach its climax in around 2025, again regardless of the economy.