Has the regeneracy arrived?

[TeacherinExile]

(01-08-2017, 12:46 PM)David Horn Wrote:

(01-07-2017, 03:30 PM)SomeGuy Wrote:

(01-07-2017, 11:32 AM)David Horn Wrote:

(01-06-2017, 04:25 PM)SomeGuy Wrote: Again, reread the book!  A regeneracy does not imply that all problems are solved, only that a consensus has been reached about how society is going to try to solve them, and that the populace is willing to allow them to play it out for the remainder of the 4T.

Considering the intense anger on the Left, and the total determination to slash-and-burn on the Right, when and how do you see us arriving at a consensus?  If you are assuming the force of external events, what are they?  Because, frankly, the political standoff between urban and rural, religious and secular, open and closed is getting more intense every day.  These differences involve world views that are deep and baked in.  They don't just change on a whim.
The rule for changing entrenched beliefs is life-changing trauma.  Is that your assumption?   Geography and demographics make a parting of the ways out of the question, That doesn't leave many options.

There might not be a cultural consensus, but there's a prime opportunity for the Republicans to forge a political one.  Whether they take it, or piss it away like the Dems did 2009, remains to be seen.  Remember that past crises were not characterized by uniformity of opinion, they remained bitterly divided, only that one side managed to get completely in the driver's seat and stay there long enough to drive the country somewhere new.

Besides, I don't think this crisis is going to be solely about the fight between yuppies and rednecks.  There's still geopolitics to consider here.  I don't think the Empire is done with us just yet, or we with it.

The problem with a Trump mandate is the obvious one: he never received one, and a majority of the country mistrusts him.  The GOP has the reins of power almost everywhere, yet a true majority in very few of those places.  Blustering won't make up for that, though Trump seems ready to try.

I don't see this Presidency ending well.

I don't see it ending well for Trump either, but neither did I see it ending well for a second Clinton administration.  Financial Crisis 2.0, heading our way (2018-2020), this time originating overseas--foreign bank failures and sovereign debt crises--hitting our shores through the same transmission mechanism as before--credit derivatives.  Still, Trump's proposed economic stimulus can't help but boost the US economy and stock market (not the bond market, whose secular bull trend ended last year) in the short run.  Indeed, equities could reach the "euphoric" stage that typically marks the end of every bull market.  If that comes to pass, that bodes well for Republicans in the mid-terms, but it could all blow up in their face prior to 2020, just as it did for Bush the Younger at the tail end of his second term.   

I don't know how everyone else feels, but when I hear the word "mandate," I want to stick two fingers down my throat.  Every American president, however controversial the outcome or how narrow his margin of victory, has been given at least a grudging permission to lead by virtue of an electoral majority.  Granted, Hillary won the popular vote by a not insignificant margin, nor did Trump win by the kind of landslide evidenced in past presidential elections--FDR (1936); LBJ (1964); Nixon (1972); Reagan (1984).  And yet, Trump does have "the wind at his back."  Or, as Eric might say, the "stars are aligned" in his favor.  (At least for the time being.)  The GOP has a working Congressional majority and a Supreme Court that will soon be tipped in their favor.  And, I think just as important and often overlooked--Republicans now control both chambers in 32 states.  Think of the implications of that, the most far-reaching being the ability to pass Constitutional amendments with a "conservative" bent.  (Of course, the GOP would need at least 38 states in that case, if I am not mistaken.) That prospect, however remote, would be an ideological tsunami that swamps Democratic ambitions and policies for many years to come...