Report Card for Donald Trump

[Marypoza]

We can only hope..

http://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2...r-congress

[Marypoza]

http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/appeals-c...d=45386342

http://thehill.com/homenews/house/318554...ychiatrist

[Mikebert]

(02-08-2017, 05:50 PM)SomeGuy Wrote: Are you positing a 20 year 4T, or 10-12 year one?  If a 20 year one, are you positing a 100 year saeculum?

I wasn't positing anything. That was the point.  A turning, and the dates from it, are the output of a theoretical model.
They are not facts.  What are facts are events:

Battle of Bosworth Field (end of WotR) 1485
Pilgrimage of Grace (response to Henry VIII's break with the Church) 1536
Spanish Armada 1588
Start of English Civil War 1642
Glorious Revolution 1688
Connecticut Valley Awakening 1734
Declaration of Independence 1776
Founding of the Liberator 1831
Emancipation Proclamation 1863
TR becomes president, staring the Progressive Era 1901
Start of New Deal 1933
Start of Reagan Revolution 1981
Trump wins election 2016

The spacing between these events averages 44 years with standard deviation 8 years.  These events are associated with S&H social moment turnings, which are spaced two generations apart, implying 22 year generations. Of course I selected these events arbitrarily.  You could choose other events,  Pick your own set of 2T/4T events that fit YOUR conception of S&H.  Calculate the average spacing and standard deviation.  You will find them practically the same as mine. Why?  Because the worst case average would be if you chose an event in 1459 as the event for the WotR 4T and 2024 (conservative projection for the end of this 4T) as the event for this 4T, for which the average would be 47, regardless of the dates you chose otherwise.  This is quite close to 44, the result I got from what most people would agree are major events. 

What I am getting at is the dates S&H propose are not important.  What is important is their claim that important events are clustered in the 50% of history that comprise social moment turnings, which is what makes them special.  If important events are scattered randomly throughout history, then there would be no pattern. The hypothesis that a cycle called the saeculum exists is rejected.

To demonstrate that a cycle like the saeculum exists, you have to show that the pattern alluded above exists.  And to do that your have to come up with a plausible definition of an "important event" and then a comprehensive listing of plausible events, followed by a statistical analysis that shows that these events show the particular pattern which you are proposing.

[Marypoza]

http://www.rawstory.com/2017/02/he-doesn...n-a-month/

[SomeGuy]

Mike,

You missed what I asked you.  Are you, or your model, treating these social moments as being 10-12 or 20-22 years in length, with some individual variance?  If you are pegging the election of Trump as being a critical date, do you anticipate the events that stem from it as lasting for one decade or two?

[Mikebert]

(02-10-2017, 04:45 PM)SomeGuy Wrote: Mike,

You missed what I asked you.  Are you, or your model, treating these social moments as being 10-12 or 20-22 years in length, with some individual variance?  If you are pegging the election of Trump as being a critical date, do you anticipate the events that stem from it as lasting for one decade or two?

On the order of two decades for the turning, not one.

[SomeGuy]

(02-10-2017, 06:04 PM)Mikebert Wrote:

(02-10-2017, 04:45 PM)SomeGuy Wrote: Mike,

You missed what I asked you.  Are you, or your model, treating these social moments as being 10-12 or 20-22 years in length, with some individual variance?  If you are pegging the election of Trump as being a critical date, do you anticipate the events that stem from it as lasting for one decade or two?

On the order of two decades for the turning, not one.

Thank you.  Would this then imply, judging from your dates, that your model suggests a social moment in the 1980s and 1990s?

[Mikebert]

(02-10-2017, 06:59 PM)SomeGuy Wrote:

(02-10-2017, 06:04 PM)Mikebert Wrote:

(02-10-2017, 04:45 PM)SomeGuy Wrote: Mike,

You missed what I asked you.  Are you, or your model, treating these social moments as being 10-12 or 20-22 years in length, with some individual variance?  If you are pegging the election of Trump as being a critical date, do you anticipate the events that stem from it as lasting for one decade or two?

On the order of two decades for the turning, not one.

Thank you.  Would this then imply, judging from your dates, that your model suggests a social moment in the 1980s and 1990s?

No.  My model has the 2T around 1968-1983 and the subsequent 4T around 2007-2024.  The model is very simple. You start with an accepted "crisis" period that almost everyone would accept was an American crisis. For example 1774-1789. You then add the quantity AL-21 to the dates for that turning to generation the next social moment era.  Here AL is the average of the mean ages of Representative, Governors, Senators and Supreme Court Justices. Since the model is explicitly political I refer to these as "political moments" which are defined as S&H do social moments with the world "social" replaced by "political"

Then repeat the process with the new political moment you derived, all the way down to get 1968-1983 and 2007-2024. The only moving part is AL, which tends to rise over time and so the turnings and the spacing between them lengthens. This model generates "political eras" similar to S&H turnngs Schlesinger's liberal/conservative eras after 1828.  Before 1828 it closely maps the Schlesinger, in that it has a political moment in 1802-1817, close to Schlesinger's 1801-1816 dates, whereas S&H have no social moment at all.

The dates I gave were simply events that occurred inside of periods considered 2T to 4Ts by 2&H. They have no relation to the model. They occur at any time during the turning.  You could chose your own set of events in the same way, and obtain the same conclusions about how long the S&H cycles are.  There is enormous slop in their cycle, you can have a 4T beginning as early as 2000 and ending as late as 2040 and still fit existing precedent, without changing any of the existing turnings. 

A cycle or wave is an oscillation in something.  A political cycle is defined by changes on political structures, as identified by scholars like Schlesinger and Daniel Elazar and by the concept of critical elections first identified by Key, which can be demonstrated by a plot of the fraction of the preceding 30 years one party held the White House.  This plot shows as oscillating trend


The turning points in the trend occur around these elections identifed as critical 1828, 1860, 1896, 1932, 1968 (predicted)
Note the colored lines.  Blue was a Clinton victory and two terms in office, purple is a two-term Trump and red is a one term Trump (the Trump = Carter scenario).  I made this graph about six years ago for a post on how can we confirm 2008 as the start of the 4T.  You can see that had Clinton won (which seemed likely to me--I wasn't the only who thought she had a good chance) 2008 would be confirmed as a critical election by the oscillator.  We would then have a financial panic and critical election in 2008.  The last time this happened was in 1932, i.e. the start of the last secular crisis.  I would consider that confirmation of a 2008 4T start.  And I would be confident in publishing a model for a generational political cycle that can explain Turchin's fathers and sons cycle in America.  But with 538 forecasting a 30% chance of a Trump victory I no longer felt confident about this and I slowed my work on the paper.  

Then Clinton lost. Trump's victory in 2016 does not rule out 2008 entirely, but a victory in 2020 would. So I am not sure how to proceed
The best laid schemes o' Mice an' Men, Gang aft agley 

[SomeGuy]

It seems odd to select events that occurred at random point within each moment.  The end here, the beginning there, somewhere in between for the next.


I also think you should consider that it would be very difficult to explain Trump without the financial crisis and Obama.  You could have a 20 year turning start in 2008, with a tighter social moment starting at the end of 2016, and a climax in the 2020s.  Just raising the possibility.

As for your oscillator, consider that the recent Republican period could end up as long as the previous one.  I am not sure why you are attaching Democratic rule to a definition of a crisis period.  There was only the one period, so far, after all.

[Mikebert]

Quote:It seems odd to select events that occurred at random point within each moment.  The end here, the beginning there, somewhere in between for the next.

Nevermind. The example is obviously not serving its purpose.

Quote:I also think you should consider that it would be very difficult to explain Trump without the financial crisis and Obama.  You could have a 20 year turning start in 2008, with a tighter social moment starting at the end of 2016, and a climax in the 2020s.  Just raising the possibility.

Unless Trump does something that advances the 4T closer to a resolution, Trump’s election will become a non-event in hindsight, like the election of Harding.  There are several parallels between now and the period around 1920, more I think than between now and the late 1930’s.  

Quote:As for your oscillator, consider that the recent Republican period could end up as long as the previous one.  I am not sure why you are attaching Democratic rule to a definition of a crisis period.  There was only the one period, so far, after all.

I am not.  Percent democratic is simply a measure of the occupation of the white house by a political faction.  I could plot the inverse function, i.e. the fraction of time the White House was held by the Republican-Whig-Nat’l Republican-Federalist faction. But that is cumbersome, so I use %Democrat. 
 
The purpose of the oscillator is to identify critical elections because there is no agreement for the recent ones.  Everyone pretty much agrees on 1800, 1828, 1860, 1896 and 1932.  But after that you have a variety of candidates—1960, 1968, 1980 for the next one after 1932.  The oscillator gives an answer-1968. I made it for this purpose, to decide amongst these three choices.
 
Now if Trump is the beginning of 12 years of Republican presidents, then by 2028, the situation will again be like 2008, when two-thirds of the previous 30 years will have seen Republican presidents.  The Overton window will be shifted back to the right*. It will be no more possible for Democrats to enact universal Healthcare than it was in 1992 or 2008. Democrats will be forced to govern like Clinton/Obama and fail their base yet again. Mostly likely they will simply moderate the harshness of the Republican policies they inherit and do nothing new on their own—like Clinton.  In that case, it will make sense to lump this DINO with the Republicans to give a 4T roughly spanning 2016-2036. Trump will be the GC and the 4T will be built around his “New Deal” (in Elazar’s sense).  A 2036 4T end would be 90 years after 1946—close to the “standard” length of 88 years (four 22-year phases of life).
 
*There is a theoretical justification for the 30-year oscillator.  People tend to interpret politics through a presidential lens.   Assume media figures reach their peaks in influence after about 30 years of observing the national scene.  In the early 1990’s influential media had spent their careers over a time when Republicans had been setting the agenda most of the time, and so their take on things was considered as more normal, the Overton window shifted right.  And example of this is how Clinton-Care went down in flames (I opposed it, for example). This situation was still the case in 2008 and Obama’s offering was horribly flawed because the environment was too conservative to pass anything remotely progressive.  By 2016, 52% of the last 30 years had seen a Democratic president and the media narrative had moved left so that there was now a rough balance, when the media are defined broadly (i.e. including outfits like Red State and Breitbart). 

[pbrower2a]

(02-11-2017, 04:29 PM)Mikebert Wrote:

Quote:It seems odd to select events that occurred at random point within each moment.  The end here, the beginning there, somewhere in between for the next.

Nevermind. The example is obviously not serving its purpose.

Quote:I also think you should consider that it would be very difficult to explain Trump without the financial crisis and Obama.  You could have a 20 year turning start in 2008, with a tighter social moment starting at the end of 2016, and a climax in the 2020s.  Just raising the possibility.

Unless Trump does something that advances the 4T closer to a resolution, Trump’s election will become a non-event in hindsight, like the election of Harding.  There are several parallels between now and the period around 1920, more I think than between now and the late 1930’s.  

Quote:As for your oscillator, consider that the recent Republican period could end up as long as the previous one.  I am not sure why you are attaching Democratic rule to a definition of a crisis period.  There was only the one period, so far, after all.

I am not.  Percent democratic is simply a measure of the occupation of the white house by a political faction.  I could plot the inverse function, i.e. the fraction of time the White House was held by the Republican-Whig-Nat’l Republican-Federalist faction. But that is cumbersome, so I use %Democrat. 
 
The purpose of the oscillator is to identify critical elections because there is no agreement for the recent ones.  Everyone pretty much agrees on 1800, 1828, 1860, 1896 and 1932.  But after that you have a variety of candidates—1960, 1968, 1980 for the next one after 1932.  The oscillator gives an answer-1968. I made it for this purpose, to decide amongst these three choices.
 
Now if Trump is the beginning of 12 years of Republican presidents, then by 2028, the situation will again be like 2008, when two-thirds of the previous 30 years will have seen Republican presidents.  The Overton window will be shifted back to the right*. It will be no more possible for Democrats to enact universal Healthcare than it was in 1992 or 2008. Democrats will be forced to govern like Clinton/Obama and fail their base yet again. Mostly likely they will simply moderate the harshness of the Republican policies they inherit and do nothing new on their own—like Clinton.  In that case, it will make sense to lump this DINO with the Republicans to give a 4T roughly spanning 2016-2036. Trump will be the GC and the 4T will be built around his “New Deal” (in Elazar’s sense).  A 2036 4T end would be 90 years after 1946—close to the “standard” length of 88 years (four 22-year phases of life).


 
*There is a theoretical justification for the 30-year oscillator.  People tend to interpret politics through a presidential lens.   Assume media figures reach their peaks in influence after about 30 years of observing the national scene.  In the early 1990’s influential media had spent their careers over a time when Republicans had been setting the agenda most of the time, and so their take on things was considered as more normal, the Overton window shifted right.  And example of this is how Clinton-Care went down in flames (I opposed it, for example). This situation was still the case in 2008 and Obama’s offering was horribly flawed because the environment was too conservative to pass anything remotely progressive.  By 2016, 52% of the last 30 years had seen a Democratic president and the media narrative had moved left so that there was now a rough balance, when the media are defined broadly (i.e. including outfits like Red State and Breitbart). 

On the other side -- what if President Trump is a catastrophic failure as President? Two things can happen: first, as is usual, his Party goes through some crashing defeats. Republicans start losing where they simply do not lose. This could reflect younger Millennial politicians starting to offer solutions that older Silent and Boom politicians can't show because such solutions (for Democrats and Republicans alike) are outside of their 'boxes'. This is not the pure solution; it is only the start of some changes that disconcert many people.  The other alternative is more ominous: that Republicans find ways to entrench themselves by changing electoral laws to disenfranchise voters, use of intimidation (vote Republican because your boss knows, and you don't want to face a retaliatory lay-off or even an angry tirade), or rigged elections. The Republican Party is closely tied to the economic interests of extant elites, and rich-and-powerful elites oppose any challenges to their class privilege to the extent that they can turn to violent repression. In the intimidation-repression-fraud scenario, Republicans entrench themselves much as Commies did in central and Balkan Europe if for the class interests of the rich instead of in the name of the proletariat. The Republicans win elections due to a lack of meaningful choice.

We have yet to see. We have had three two-term Presidents, and little has changed except demographics and the generational constellation since 1992 -- except with the Trump Administration, which is working out badly. Sometimes someone is reckless enough to smash the oscillator. The oscillator may have been the cause of some flexibility that allows survival of the political paradigm.

[Mikebert]

(02-11-2017, 12:55 PM)SomeGuy Wrote: I also think you should consider that it would be very difficult to explain Trump without the financial crisis and Obama.

I don’t see this.  Opposition to immigration arose during the Bush administration, particularly in response to the 2005 immigration reform protests.  When Trump announced his candidacy, he started with immigration because he knew it was a winner.  I believe Trump actually feels most strongly about the trade issue, but he only brought that up later, and it was never the winning issue immigration was. At his events the biggest applause line was build the wall. Trump connected immigration with scary terrorism--the same formula used to justify immigration restriction in 1924.  The 2008 panic added an extra dimension to the election, but I don’t see it as central.  I believe Trump could have beaten Clinton even if 2008 had never happened.

[TeacherinExile]

Given Trump's flurry of executive actions in a fortnight and the not inconsiderable resistance to them--both on the streets and from court rulings--his administration has dug itself into a hole.  Nothing irrecoverable.  After all we're only two weeks into his term.  But it sure likes Amateur Hour to me.  And to recover credibility and momentum, he may have to deliver his trademark Apprentice line to some among his advisors: "You're fired!"


Here are two different assessments of how Trump has done so far:

One from the Right...

"Can This Presidency Be Saved?"
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/11/opini...l?emc=eta1

And one from the far Left...

"Trump: 0. Democrats: 0. The People: 1"
https://www.jacobinmag.com/2017/02/trump...urce=email

[Eric the Green]

(02-11-2017, 08:57 AM)Mikebert Wrote: Then Clinton lost. Trump's victory in 2016 does not rule out 2008 entirely, but a victory in 2020 would. So I am not sure how to proceed

I hate to tell ya again, but even a 2020 Republican victory, which may well happen now, will not rule out 2008 as a starting date for the 4T. It just means the Republicans will be able to stir things up even more until they fail and the people rise up. The 2022 election would be so lopsided that the Republican president would be reduced to a figurehead. Then the Democrats would take over in 2024.

The New Deal is not the model for this saeculum; the Civil War is, and we are in the 1850s.

Trump's election as the so-called president demonstrates beyond any doubt that the nation is in total crisis. A mistake like this can only be made during a 4T. And I say that even though I agree probably Trump could have beaten Hillary Clinton anytime. But he could only have run and won during a 4T, because he is a walking, talking disaster, and it shows the depths to which Americans have fallen. It means quite literally that the level of hate in the USA is quite high, which reminds us of the era before the civil war.

So I guess we'll see if, as Hillary said, "love trumps hate."

Rule by one party over a length of time happened AFTER the Revolution, when the Democratic-Republicans froze out the Federalists and other parties during the era of good feelings, and when the Republicans dominated the Democrats after the Civil War. The Democrats' rule in the 1930s and 40s was more like the anomaly. More likely, one party dominance is likely toward the end of a 4T and/or during the consensus of the following 1T.

[Marypoza]

(02-13-2017, 11:29 PM)Eric the Green Wrote:

(02-11-2017, 08:57 AM)Mikebert Wrote: Then Clinton lost. Trump's victory in 2016 does not rule out 2008 entirely, but a victory in 2020 would. So I am not sure how to proceed

I hate to tell ya again, but even a 2020 Republican victory, which may well happen now, will not rule out 2008 as a starting date for the 4T. It just means the Republicans will be able to stir things up even more until they fail and the people rise up. The 2022 election would be so lopsided that the Republican president would be reduced to a figurehead. Then the Democrats would take over in 2024.

The New Deal is not the model for this saeculum; the Civil War is, and we are in the 1850s.

Trump's election as the so-called president demonstrates beyond any doubt that the nation is in total crisis. A mistake like this can only be made during a 4T. And I say that even though I agree probably Trump could have beaten Hillary Clinton anytime. But he could only have run and won during a 4T, because he is a walking, talking disaster, and it shows the depths to which Americans have fallen. It means quite literally that the level of hate in the USA is quite high, which reminds us of the era before the civil war.

So I guess we'll see if, as Hillary said, "love trumps hate."

Rule by one party over a length of time happened AFTER the Revolution, when the Democratic-Republicans froze out the Federalists and other parties during the era of good feelings, and when the Republicans dominated the Democrats after the Civil War. The Democrats' rule in the 1930s and 40s was more like the anomaly. More likely, one party dominance is likely toward the end of a 4T and/or during the consensus of the following 1T.

-- this all presupposes that the Dems don't make themselves irrelevant in the meantime

[Mikebert]

(02-14-2017, 01:44 PM)X_4AD_84 Wrote: Since longevity has increased substantially since the 1930s, and, because people over 70 are taking a much greater role in everyday life than they were back then, perhaps the 20 year "mean" turning no longer works. Maybe it's now 25 years. Back in the Great Power, it was 20 years because the oldest socially meaningful people were in their 80s. Now, the oldest socially meaningful people are in their upper 90s and even a few in their early 100s.
If so, this probably did not happen in a step function. Maybe what we really have is:

1T - 1945 or 46 - 1964
2T- 1964 - 1986 or 87
3T - 1986 or 1987 - 201_
4T - 201_ - ?

In other words, creeping up toward a 25 year mean during the current saeculum.

Of course longevity was much shorter back when generations were 27-28 years long.

[TeacherinExile]

(02-14-2017, 01:44 PM)X_4AD_84 Wrote:

(02-13-2017, 11:29 PM)Eric the Green Wrote:

(02-11-2017, 08:57 AM)Mikebert Wrote: Then Clinton lost. Trump's victory in 2016 does not rule out 2008 entirely, but a victory in 2020 would. So I am not sure how to proceed

I hate to tell ya again, but even a 2020 Republican victory, which may well happen now, will not rule out 2008 as a starting date for the 4T. It just means the Republicans will be able to stir things up even more until they fail and the people rise up. The 2022 election would be so lopsided that the Republican president would be reduced to a figurehead. Then the Democrats would take over in 2024.

The New Deal is not the model for this saeculum; the Civil War is, and we are in the 1850s.

Trump's election as the so-called president demonstrates beyond any doubt that the nation is in total crisis. A mistake like this can only be made during a 4T. And I say that even though I agree probably Trump could have beaten Hillary Clinton anytime. But he could only have run and won during a 4T, because he is a walking, talking disaster, and it shows the depths to which Americans have fallen. It means quite literally that the level of hate in the USA is quite high, which reminds us of the era before the civil war.

So I guess we'll see if, as Hillary said, "love trumps hate."

Rule by one party over a length of time happened AFTER the Revolution, when the Democratic-Republicans froze out the Federalists and other parties during the era of good feelings, and when the Republicans dominated the Democrats after the Civil War. The Democrats' rule in the 1930s and 40s was more like the anomaly. More likely, one party dominance is likely toward the end of a 4T and/or during the consensus of the following 1T.

Since longevity has increased substantially since the 1930s, and, because people over 70 are taking a much greater role in everyday life than they were back then, perhaps the 20 year "mean" turning no longer works. Maybe it's now 25 years. Back in the Great Power, it was 20 years because the oldest socially meaningful people were in their 80s. Now, the oldest socially meaningful people are in the 100s.

You're definitely on to something here, something I've long considered as a complicating factor for this fourth turning.  I haven't made up my mind yet as to whether or not this invalidates the theory, or merely frustrates those of us who yearn to see a climax and resolution of this crisis, now entering its ninth year since inception.  Boomers, as well as some Silents (Sen. John McCain, for instance, in my state of Arizona), are still exercising disproportionate generational power.  Rather than acting strictly as mentors (Obi-Wan Kenobi) to Millennial heroes (Luke Skywalker and Princess Leia) engaged in total war, Boomers and Silents are still leading the charge.

Is something out of whack, here?

[tg63]

Well I think it's safe to say that any calming effect that the silents had (per S&H), has completely evaporated ... the only ones with any kind of influence are the ones with boomer proclivities, such as McCain.

It seems reasonable that a move from 20 to 25 year turnings would happen eventually.  My personal opinion: I think that the thread about it being a model, not a prophecy, was bang on.  The theory reflects the rhyming nature of history, but in the same way that an individual shouldn't use macroeconomic theory to manage their own personal finances on a day to day basis, there are bound to be variances between saeculum, possibly significant variances.  It's virtually impossible to know or identify what events will be historically relevant without the benefit of perspective.  For me, it shouldn't invalidate the theory unless you're expecting to be able to track & classify events in real time.

[Eric the Green]

(02-14-2017, 02:02 PM)TeacherinExile Wrote:

(02-14-2017, 01:44 PM)X_4AD_84 Wrote:

(02-13-2017, 11:29 PM)Eric the Green Wrote:

(02-11-2017, 08:57 AM)Mikebert Wrote: Then Clinton lost. Trump's victory in 2016 does not rule out 2008 entirely, but a victory in 2020 would. So I am not sure how to proceed

I hate to tell ya again, but even a 2020 Republican victory, which may well happen now, will not rule out 2008 as a starting date for the 4T. It just means the Republicans will be able to stir things up even more until they fail and the people rise up. The 2022 election would be so lopsided that the Republican president would be reduced to a figurehead. Then the Democrats would take over in 2024.

The New Deal is not the model for this saeculum; the Civil War is, and we are in the 1850s.

Trump's election as the so-called president demonstrates beyond any doubt that the nation is in total crisis. A mistake like this can only be made during a 4T. And I say that even though I agree probably Trump could have beaten Hillary Clinton anytime. But he could only have run and won during a 4T, because he is a walking, talking disaster, and it shows the depths to which Americans have fallen. It means quite literally that the level of hate in the USA is quite high, which reminds us of the era before the civil war.

So I guess we'll see if, as Hillary said, "love trumps hate."

Rule by one party over a length of time happened AFTER the Revolution, when the Democratic-Republicans froze out the Federalists and other parties during the era of good feelings, and when the Republicans dominated the Democrats after the Civil War. The Democrats' rule in the 1930s and 40s was more like the anomaly. More likely, one party dominance is likely toward the end of a 4T and/or during the consensus of the following 1T.

Since longevity has increased substantially since the 1930s, and, because people over 70 are taking a much greater role in everyday life than they were back then, perhaps the 20 year "mean" turning no longer works. Maybe it's now 25 years. Back in the Great Power, it was 20 years because the oldest socially meaningful people were in their 80s. Now, the oldest socially meaningful people are in the 100s.

You're definitely on to something here, something I've long considered as a complicating factor for this fourth turning.  I haven't made up my mind yet as to whether or not this invalidates the theory, or merely frustrates those of us who yearn to see a climax and resolution of this crisis, now entering its ninth year since inception.  Boomers, as well as some Silents (Sen. John McCain, for instance, in my state of Arizona), are still exercising disproportionate generational power.  Rather than acting strictly as mentors (Obi-Wan Kenobi) to Millennial heroes (Luke Skywalker and Princess Leia) engaged in total war, Boomers and Silents are still leading the charge.

Is something out of whack, here?

Maybe so. The astrological cycle perspective provides another view though. Right now there's no reason to revise the theory; it's right on schedule even according to Mr. Howe. The 83-year cycle of Uranus corresponds to the saeculum in modern times (not in ancient/medieval/renaissance times when it was over 100 years). Using the horoscope of the USA for July 4, 1776 and the founding of Jamestown as benchmarks, the cycle times the crisis climax as stated by the authors of T4T; sometimes almost to the day (minutes of orbital arc). The cycle indicates this by Uranus' Return to 9 degrees Gemini. That is not due until 2027.

The first two turnings, and the 4T before it, were shorter turnings than average, which is 21 years. So we had a longer 3T, because the overall cycle is holding as it has been in recent cycles, and the 4T will last the usual length of a turning. From this perspective, the cycle is right on schedule now. There's no reason to expect any kind of resolution so early in the 4T.

Considering prophet generation leaders merely as mentors, does not fit with what has happened in recent saecula. They are still leaders in the 4T, the nomads are managers, and the heroes are the soldiers. If we don't have a major war, then consider these descriptions as metaphorical. Star Wars is not a generational theory.

Trump and his Party constitute a major crisis and challenge to the continued existence of the United States of America as we have known it. They do not respect the constitution. They endanger every genuine American value. Dealing with the damage Trump and his Party cause, is likely to take the rest of the Crisis and into the First Turning era of restoration and recovery.

Again, expecting this 4T to be another New Deal, when it is more likely to resemble the Civil War and the Revolution, is a fool's errand.

[freivolk]

(02-14-2017, 02:02 PM)TeacherinExile Wrote: You're definitely on to something here, something I've long considered as a complicating factor for this fourth turning.  I haven't made up my mind yet as to whether or not this invalidates the theory, or merely frustrates those of us who yearn to see a climax and resolution of this crisis, now entering its ninth year since inception.  Boomers, as well as some Silents (Sen. John McCain, for instance, in my state of Arizona), are still exercising disproportionate generational power.  Rather than acting strictly as mentors (Obi-Wan Kenobi) to Millennial heroes (Luke Skywalker and Princess Leia) engaged in total war, Boomers and Silents are still leading the charge.

Is something out of whack, here?

I always hoped, someone would start discussing Star Wars and Generation. And here is my opening:
Luke and Leia are no heroes, Luke and Leia are PROPHETS. Star Wars original triology is basicly a boomer fantasy. "Hey, listen, man, there will be a revolution and the people will overthrow Nixon and his facist pigs!" And in Star Wars this fantasy comes true. In Space!
The Clone Wars were the crisis of the Old Republic, Obi-Wan and Darth Vader are heroes, the Empire was the 1T.
Episode VII shows the beginning of the new crisis and Luke and Leia will be mentors for the new hero generation represented through Rey.