The Maelstrom of Violence

[pbrower2a]

(08-20-2017, 01:35 PM)Kinser79 Wrote:

(08-19-2017, 02:41 PM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: Just a thought falling out of Kineser's catalyst proposals and my response.  I lean towards catalysts being short sharp events that show government polices are on the wrong track, or that people feel strongly, or that a problem cannot be ignored.  Pearl Harbor, Harper's Ferry, Ruby Ridge and Katrina might all fit that pattern of the real world imposing sudden change.  Many of Kinser's proposals show a long term failure of an administration, with partisan spin placing the blame on the other guys.  

I'm not sure the slow failure of an administration resulting in the flipping of the see saw is a catalyst, exactly.  Worthy of noting?  Sure.  A catalyst?  I'm not sure.  Do we need a different word supplementing 'catalyst'?  Perhaps.

Or perhaps instead of focusing on electoral politics we could focus on the very thing that provides the basis of S&H theory, social mood.  As I said previously the see-saw of who is in the White House has been happening since 1948.  Let me provide the proof:

1948:  Truman (Democrat)
1952:  Eisenhower (GOP)
1956:  Eisenhower (GOP)
1960:  Kennedy (Democrat)
1964:  Johnson (Democrat)
1968:  Nixon (GOP)
1972:  Nixon (GOP)
1976:  Carter (Democrat)
1980:  Reagan (GOP)
1984:  Reagan (GOP)
1988:  Bush I (GOP)
1992:  Clinton (Democrat)
1996:  Clinton (Democrat)
2000:  Bush II (GOP)
2004:  Bush II (GOP)
2008:  Obama (Democrat)
2012:  Obama (Democrat)
2016:  Trump (GOP)

Assuming that pattern holds Trump will likely be re-elected baring some major snafu.  If Trump is assassinated I foresee Pence being re-elected in a landslide.  But what does this pattern tell us about social mood?  Nothing.

If we look at social mood, the "everything is fine, lets go shopping" mood shifted irrevocably, at least in the South in 2005 with Katrina.  9-11 couldn't have the same effect for New York because the city and the state responded effectively even if the federal government did not, or could not.

You can see any pattern that you wish after the fact. The normal pattern is two terms for a President's Party as a norm. The only gap of this pattern Is that Ronald Reagan won what should have reasonably been the second term of Jimmy Carter followed by the expected normal two by Republicans. (Go figure if you wish; that seems unlikely to make any sense in any theory).

So why does the pattern work? I'm guessing that any President who is at all successful or even simply gets away with his inadequacies and blunders gets a second term, and that after eight years the President's party has usually tun out of ideas. Thus the usual turn after eight years.

But is it so simple? The Republican Party dominated the Presidency from 1860 to 1912, with only the two terms (themselves split) of Grover Cleveland as President. Maybe the Democrats had some structural weakness. After Wilson, it was back to the triad of three sub-par presidents (Harding, Coolidge, Hoover in twelve years) who reverted America to a Gilded Age philosophy and got away with a reactionary, pro-business ideology until the Great Depression.

FDR was basically two Presidencies: the Depression Presidency and the War President. So that messes the theory up. Reality tends to mess up theories based solely on the timing of cycles. That it seems like 'time for something to happen' doesn't ensure that the event will happen.

As a Trump cultist you have been unable to see what many of us see: that Donald Trump is already one of the most incompetent and offensive figures to have ever been President. yes, Carter was awful, but he was largely rational, decent, and honest. Trump is awful, and he has none of Carter's virtues. At this point I see Trump losing every state that he lost and at a minimum the three states that he most barely won.