The purpose of this thread was to look at the generational divide illustrated by the chart in the first post. The Republican candidates are largely Xers, and the Democrats are generally very old Boomers.
What I had actually forgotten to some degree was how badly this forum has devolved over time into a run-of-the-mill, left wing ideologue political forum, with little or no interest in the subjects raised by S&H. There are a few obsessive Boomers of the most dogmatic, partisan-blinder variety who drive every thread into this territory. In other words, nothing has changed. And it makes this forum not worth paying much attention to, because this kind of stuff exists everywhere on the internet where politics is discussed. The generational subject is what should be unique here, but there is little attention paid to it, except as a secondary rationale for left wing dogma. Oh well.
So as a means of a sort of final response before I'm overcome by boredom here once again, a lot of the posts by the usual suspects above display a kind of megalomaniacal, quasi-religious belief that is common among the most hardcore Democrats and leftists, that the US is destined for one-party rule, with the Republicans being run out of existence and the Democrats maintaining absolute control, forever. That's at the core of the belief system that expresses itself in the increasingly totalitarian, collectivist ideology of the left.
Nate Silver, who had been worshiped by the left in recent times, just posted an article (referenced above) that has earned him a hailstorm of repudiation by these True Believers:
Clinton Begins The 2016 Campaign, And It’s A Toss-up
It's a pretty run-of-the-mill, cautious early assessment that puts Hillary Clinton's odds of winning at 50-50. He also includes plenty of left-leaning bias against Republicans. But he did something that strikes at the heart of the left wingnut belief system, and has been met with a large blowback of denial. He rejected both the "Blue Wall" and "demographic inevitability" articles of faith.
John Judis, who co-wrote the book "The Emerging Democratic Majority" in the early 2000s, has also recently stated that the concept, which originated with that book, has become exaggerated and over-interpreted by Democrats compared to the original intent.
Without going into all the details, the summary of what Judis has noted and Silver has repeated is that the big electoral advancement predicted for Democrats is not some open-ended, permanent majority (the same thing was predicted for Republicans as recently as 2004). Rather, that trend for Democrats
already happened, and peaked in 2008 (the same year, don't forget, that Boomer representation in political office peaked). Since then, the pendulum has swung back sharply in the other direction. Republicans now hold their largest majorities in Congress since before the Great Depression. They also hold the majority of governorships and state legislatures, and in many states they control both. All of that has happened in the last 6 years.
The response of Democrats has been to double down with even greater intensity and single-minded focus on "identity politics". They are taking the horse Obama rode in on, and riding it into the ground along with his approval ratings. Obamacare is and has been extremely unpopular since before it was passed, and their foreign policy and economic policy have been complete failures. So all they have left is to try even harder to divide people by race, sex and so forth, and they think they can do it all one more time with Hillary, whose only qualification is that she's female. That's where we now stand. The Democrats are on the downswing of a pendulum we've seen many times in politics, where one side gets the wind at its back, racks up some victories, then goes too far and suffers a backlash. It's impossible to know yet for a fact who will win in 2016, but the larger trends are clear, and the historical odds are not in Hillary's favor. Ronald Reagan had approval ratings in the 60s and a booming economy that led to George Bush being elected in 1988. That is the only time either party has won three terms since the passage of the 22nd Amendment. Obama's approval ratings and the economy are not good. And yet some people (including posts here) actually believe Hillary is an absolute lock in 2016 who cannot lose. It is arguably an expression of legitimate mental illness.
Which brings me back to generations, and the chart in the first post. "Nomads" (who are archetypically a conservative/Republican-leaning generation) moving towards leadership, meaning society is heading towards the 1T. When you look at both S&H and reality, this conclusion is pretty clear. And there are plenty of precedents in the last 4T. Republicans made a comeback, and among other things passed the 22nd Amendment, making sure there would never be another 4 term president, with the slide towards dictatorship that began to threaten.
The issues this time around are completely different from the last 4T, but should not be a surprise given the nature of the "Prophet" generation. When you look back at the 60s and 70s, the things the left has done are not surprising at all. It makes for a very weird 4T compared to what S&H predicted, but it's pretty obvious when you balance their theories with a look at what is actually happening in reality. If they were right, we are headed for an Xer leadership that puts a halt to the far left and restores peace and prosperity to a society on the verge of collapse. If something else happens, they were either wrong, or we're in their worst-case scenario where the society collapses and disintegrates.
Originally Posted by JustPassingThrough
The purpose of this thread was to look at the generational divide illustrated by the chart in the first post. The Republican candidates are largely Xers, and the Democrats are generally very old Boomers.
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Our mileage may vary (to say the least)
