So are you implying the protests against the previous administration did not have a significant component of "it's a Republican running the nation" to it? Rationalizing BDS is about as effective as rationalizing ODS.

It's not like protest of the past years were bereft of petty reasoning, so what makes the current Tea Parties significantly less notable? Either everyone's got a real beef or everyone should shut the hell up.

And besides the "where were they?" argument only goes so far when you realize it is basically the corollary to the common situation of someone ignoring a problem because it doesn't directly "affect" them (whether in a tangible or non-tangible fashion, up to their choice of recognizing it or not), and then suddenly finding fault because it somehow does "affect" them. All it takes is the trigger of someone realizing it on their own or being told this was the case.

Originally Posted by Chas'88

@ Mr. Horner, is it possible for society to resist the swing of the arch of respectability and go in a contrary motion? Thank you for the additional graphics, they are most illuminating.

I would predict that you can't do that. Both this theory and turning theory are supposed to be driven by aggregate changes in behavior of millions of people. To achieve retrograde motion would require extreme levels of violence directed at very specific political groups. And that's political groups, not ethnic or religious. It seems fairly unlikely that you would have bloodshed substantial enough and targeted enough to cause retrograde motion. In fact, attempting to do so seems likely to produce a rising generation that pushes politics in the other direction all the more strongly.

Originally Posted by Matt1989

Kurt, thanks. The last few graphics cleared up some of the issues I would have taken with your thesis. I'll still need to digest it. BTW, I actually saw your Newsvine articles on this subject a while ago.

Yeah . . . Newsvine. I don't post much there anymore since the MSNBC boards merged with them. The quality of discussion there -- while still higher than most general news sites -- has declined a great deal.

Originally Posted by Andy '85

So are you implying the protests against the previous administration did not have a significant component of "it's a Republican running the nation" to it? Rationalizing BDS is about as effective as rationalizing ODS.

Again, if the issue is "fiscal recklessness," why is this coming up now? If they're talking about deficits, well -- deficits have tended to climb under Republicans because they like cutting taxes, giving out overpriced corporate contracts, and increasing spending on expensive items like the military and prisons.

It's not like protest of the past years were bereft of petty reasoning, so what makes the current Tea Parties significantly less notable? Either everyone's got a real beef or everyone should shut the hell up.

What is their beef, Andy? What do you see as the purpose of the "tea party" movement?

Originally Posted by Odin

Originally Posted by JustPassingThrough

I'm pretty sure the 4T started on 9/11. That would mean the swing away from authoritarianism would have started...right about now. Tea Party?

Keep deluding yourself and you'll be in for a rude awakening. The Teabaggers are mostly Theo-Con nuts. The Upper-Left = folks like Rag and Ska and Arkham, NOT YOU!!!

Technically, JPT is correct that the Tea Parties were started by Ron Paul types (true top and upper right) but due to hype from various mainstream right wing sources they were joined by a lot of true right and lower right types. Odin is right that upper left types tended to be skeptical of them and they were skeptical of the Ron Paul campaign as well.

The ideological center of the actual tea parties that occurred is well into the curmudgeon zone and by the end of the Crisis, the average tea party type will be in the fringe. However, some of them will be reactionary or curmudgeon, some will be fringe and the original organizers will be eccentrics.

As for 9/11 starting the Crisis -- I firmly believe that events don't start turnings. Reactions to events indicate turnings. The reaction to 9/11 was straight out of the Democratic playbook from the last Crisis. Most establishment criticisms of the War on Terror complained that our response to 9/11 was insufficiently like WWII (i.e. too few troops, not enough taxation and government control of daily life, "coddling" of terror suspects). We responded to Al Qaeda as if they were the axis powers because that's the way America acts toward its enemies. That's the paradigm we've been in this entire saeculum. It wasn't until roughly 2005 that criticism of that paradigm finally became a majority view. There are plenty of opinion polls that back this up.

It depends on how much you are willing to hold countenance of their arguments. From the looks of it, "fiscal recklessness" to them are investing heavily into things that may be considered "socialistic" such as the various government bailouts, universal health care, and stuff they wouldn't normally agree that money should be spent.

However, they think spending on the military, and corporate tax benefits are perfectly legitimate, even if you don't agree, since it somehow gives that impression of being benefited (such as protection against "terrorists" and fostering Capitalism).

Again, the perspective of how it affects them still holds, and the reaction against the current budget manifests the notion that the money isn't going to benefit them in a way (health care will just be for the poor, the bailout will only help the bankers, etc. etc.). Even though the conclusions are patently false, this is how they believe it to be.

So in summary, basically they are protesting against the spending in the "wrong" places.

You kinda have to be one of them to understand the position, of which I am fully not even a part of (personally, as I have stated several times before, I am firmly against the idea of protest), but having read nothing but fawning defense of protests against the previous administration, I am more than happy to play DA for the rare instance of right-wing protests.

Originally Posted by Odin

Oh, of course. I'm just suspicious (for reasons I gave by PM) of desires by the majority to denigrate, assimilate, or mistreat the oddballs of society.

You and me both, Odin. Same reasons, I suspect.

Originally Posted by JustPassingThrough

"The first principle of republicanism is that the lex majoris partis is the fundamental law of every society of individuals of equal rights; to consider the will of the society enounced by the majority of a single vote as sacred as if unanimous is the first of all lessons in importance, yet the last which is thoroughly learnt. This law once disregarded, no other remains but that of force, which ends necessarily in military despotism." --Thomas Jefferson to Alexander von Humboldt, 1817. ME 15:127

"And where else will [Hume,] this degenerate son of science, this traitor to his fellow men, find the origin of just powers, if not in the majority of the society? Will it be in the minority? Or in an individual of that minority?" --Thomas Jefferson to John Cartwright, 1824. ME 16:44

"Where the law of the majority ceases to be acknowledged, there government ends, the law of the strongest takes its place, and life and property are his who can take them." --Thomas Jefferson to Annapolis Citizens, 1809. ME 16:337

"[Bear] always in mind that a nation ceases to be republican only when the will of the majority ceases to be the law." --Thomas Jefferson: Reply to the Citizens of Adams County, Pa., 1808. ME 12:18

"If the measures which have been pursued are approved by the majority, it is the duty of the minority to acquiesce and conform." --Thomas Jefferson to William Duane, 1811. ME 13:51

Here's one that's particularly interesting in light of a variety of recent events:

"Great innovations should not be forced on a slender majority." --Thomas Jefferson to John Armstrong, 1808. ME 12:42

And yet the Founders took great pains to put limits on what the government - elected by said majority - could do. And I am NOT just talking (gulp, horrors, oh, noes) taxes and bailouts. Their avowed motives were to protect the rights of the citizens and to prevent the passions of the moment from turning into the tyranny of the majority.

I also notice that our most shameful and even merely controversial moments were caused by people saying or thinking that the Constitution did not apply in this case. Yes, including the century long era of legal segregation. No, that document neither forbade nor permitted segregation by race, but it most assuredly demanded equal treatment and "a jury of one's peers", all of which was gleefully ignored by the people of the period because they couldn;t imagine it could apply to The Likes Of THEM.

Originally Posted by The Grey Badger

And yet the Founders took great pains to put limits on what the government - elected by said majority - could do. And I am NOT just talking (gulp, horrors, oh, noes) taxes and bailouts. Their avowed motives were to protect the rights of the citizens and to prevent the passions of the moment from turning into the tyranny of the majority.

I also notice that our most shameful and even merely controversial moments were caused by people saying or thinking that the Constitution did not apply in this case. Yes, including the century long era of legal segregation. No, that document neither forbade nor permitted segregation by race, but it most assuredly demanded equal treatment and "a jury of one's peers", all of which was gleefully ignored by the people of the period because they couldn;t imagine it could apply to The Likes Of THEM.

Who do we have to thank for the unbreakable century of segregation?

That's right...the great and glorious Supreme Court. Plessy v. Ferguson, "separate but equal". When they finally got around to reversing themselves 100 years later, somehow that became a poster child decision for the left in favor of judicial activism...

Originally Posted by Andy '85

It depends on how much you are willing to hold countenance of their arguments. From the looks of it, "fiscal recklessness" to them are investing heavily into things that may be considered "socialistic" such as the various government bailouts, universal health care, and stuff they wouldn't normally agree that money should be spent.

Yes. Hence all the "Obama is a Socialist" and "MaObama" sportswear that was seen at these rallies.

However, they think spending on the military, and corporate tax benefits are perfectly legitimate, even if you don't agree, since it somehow gives that impression of being benefited (such as protection against "terrorists" and fostering Capitalism).

Agreed again.

Again, the perspective of how it affects them still holds, and the reaction against the current budget manifests the notion that the money isn't going to benefit them in a way (health care will just be for the poor, the bailout will only help the bankers, etc. etc.). Even though the conclusions are patently false, this is how they believe it to be.

Yes, and this is why I don't take most of it seriously. There's very little intellectual coherence or consistency behind this movement.

So in summary, basically they are protesting against the spending in the "wrong" places.

You kinda have to be one of them to understand the position, of which I am fully not even a part of (personally, as I have stated several times before, I am firmly against the idea of protest), but having read nothing but fawning defense of protests against the previous administration, I am more than happy to play DA for the rare instance of right-wing protests.

I don't get what your beef is with protests of any sort. They're fully protected under the First Amendment.

Originally Posted by Kurt Horner

Technically, JPT is correct that the Tea Parties were started by Ron Paul types (true top and upper right) but due to hype from various mainstream right wing sources they were joined by a lot of true right and lower right types. Odin is right that upper left types tended to be skeptical of them and they were skeptical of the Ron Paul campaign as well.

The ideological center of the actual tea parties that occurred is well into the curmudgeon zone and by the end of the Crisis, the average tea party type will be in the fringe. However, some of them will be reactionary or curmudgeon, some will be fringe and the original organizers will be eccentrics.

The problem with your whole concept is that even if everything else is correct, it's only as reliable as the political map you've devised. When I look at the real world, I see Silents who are generally conservative, but very non-committal and aging. I see Boomers that are universally authoritarian, and split 50-50 left/right. I see Xers that are conservative-leaning libertarians, and I see Millenials that are left-leaning libertarians (although the Millenial generation is not yet fully formed enough to set in stone - most are not yet old enough to vote).

At some point, there will be a correction for the excesses of the Obama Adminstration (and Bush before it), which I think would have to take a libertarian form. That means the Tea Party people are on the leading edge of what's to come (while, for example, neo-cons are on the trailing edge of respectability). But again, this all depends entirely upon how you choose to classify people.

Having taken a variety of online politics "quizzes" that attempt to classify people and place them on a spectrum, the more variables the classification has, the more accurate it tends to be. In other words, I think to get anywhere near an accurate picture, you would have to have a multi-dimensional graph. Even then, who's to say which issue positions belong in proximity to one another?

I just don't think it's possible to nail things down in the simplistic form you've attempted. And that's leaving aside the idea of movement in a predictable pattern around a 360 degree chart, which I can't see any real world justification for.

The S&H theory is plausible precisely because it ties in to the human life cycle. Even so, some of their specifics are questionable. Your chart attempts to be even more specific, and I think it's problematic.

As for 9/11 starting the Crisis -- I firmly believe that events don't start turnings. Reactions to events indicate turnings. The reaction to 9/11 was straight out of the Democratic playbook from the last Crisis. Most establishment criticisms of the War on Terror complained that our response to 9/11 was insufficiently like WWII (i.e. too few troops, not enough taxation and government control of daily life, "coddling" of terror suspects). We responded to Al Qaeda as if they were the axis powers because that's the way America acts toward its enemies. That's the paradigm we've been in this entire saeculum. It wasn't until roughly 2005 that criticism of that paradigm finally became a majority view. There are plenty of opinion polls that back this up.

I've discussed this at length here in the past, and my mind is not going to change. Having read T4T, there is no question in my mind that if the book is correct, 9/11 was the start of the 4T. The "catalyst", whatever you want to call it. It is simply not possible to interpret it any other way.

That said:

The reaction to 9/11 was straight out of the Democratic playbook from the last Crisis.

It can be argued whether it was or not. Certainly there was no draft, no "total war". What cannot be argued is that the Democrat response to the current economic situation is straight out of the Democrat playbook from the last crisis. What does that mean to you, from your perspective?

I tried analyzing the illustrations without too much real success. The thought I came away with is where the mood of society is at this time. Using the clock as a guide, I figured that we have gone a little big beyond when the right wing was most influential, which would be at three o'clock, meaning that the circle is moving toward the other direction albeit slowly. We must be at four o'clock right now. Which would mean that by this era's equivalent of Pearl Harbor we would probably be at five o'clock, at the equivalent of VJ Day at six o'clock. Then when Elvis took the world by storm we were at seven o'clock, during the British Invasion we were at eight o'clock. When the disco craze hit is when we were at nine o'clock. But then during Reagan's "morning in America" speech we were at, say, ten o'clock. By Iran-Contra we would have been at eleven o'clock. We reached High Noon when the Anita Hill-Clarence Thomas debacle was the big story, and it was after that that the society was launched into its most right-wing phase. We would have been at one o'clock by the time the OJ Simpson trial had so many captivated. We were at two o'clock when the 9/11 attacks occurred, and at three o'clock during the middle of Dubya's administration. Does this make sense?

Originally Posted by JustPassingThrough

"The first principle of republicanism is that the lex majoris partis is the fundamental law of every society of individuals of equal rights; to consider the will of the society enounced by the majority of a single vote as sacred as if unanimous is the first of all lessons in importance, yet the last which is thoroughly learnt. This law once disregarded, no other remains but that of force, which ends necessarily in military despotism." --Thomas Jefferson to Alexander von Humboldt, 1817. ME 15:127

"And where else will [Hume,] this degenerate son of science, this traitor to his fellow men, find the origin of just powers, if not in the majority of the society? Will it be in the minority? Or in an individual of that minority?" --Thomas Jefferson to John Cartwright, 1824. ME 16:44

"Where the law of the majority ceases to be acknowledged, there government ends, the law of the strongest takes its place, and life and property are his who can take them." --Thomas Jefferson to Annapolis Citizens, 1809. ME 16:337

"[Bear] always in mind that a nation ceases to be republican only when the will of the majority ceases to be the law." --Thomas Jefferson: Reply to the Citizens of Adams County, Pa., 1808. ME 12:18

"If the measures which have been pursued are approved by the majority, it is the duty of the minority to acquiesce and conform." --Thomas Jefferson to William Duane, 1811. ME 13:51

Here's one that's particularly interesting in light of a variety of recent events:

"Great innovations should not be forced on a slender majority." --Thomas Jefferson to John Armstrong, 1808. ME 12:42

Jefferson was wrong. That is the Rousseau-derived thinking that lead to the Totalitarianism of the Great Power Saeculum. The authority of the mob is still authority. A republican form of government requires that the majority cannot trample on people they disagree with, that is why a liberal-democratic society creates a system of rights and liberties.

I find that bolded quote particularly frightening.

Originally Posted by Odin

Jefferson was wrong. That is the Rousseau-derived thinking that lead to the Totalitarianism of the Great Power Saeculum. The authority of the mob is still authority. A republican form of government requires that the majority cannot trample on people they disagree with, that is why a liberal-democratic society creates a system of rights and liberties.

I find that bolded quote particularly frightening.

If you have any interest in history, you can study some more of what Jefferson believed. You will see that he recognized the need for a balance between majority rule and minority rights. However, in the big picture, the aforementioned quote must hold. If the losers of a particular issue either revolt or attempt to secede every time they don't like something, you will not have a functioning nation.

In other words, people must accept the outcome of elections and legislation (by abiding by the law, if nothing else), keeping in mind that new elections will come around, and they'll have another chance to swing things their way.

That said, I think you've announced that sentiment yourself quite clearly when it comes to the triumph of positions you support. It's clear your "principles" are highly selective in their application.

Originally Posted by JustPassingThrough

I'm pretty sure the 4T started on 9/11. That would mean the swing away from authoritarianism would have started...right about now. Tea Party?

Are you sure? America wasn't ready. We were still decidedly 3T, as shown in the recent election of George "Weak Governance" Bush, a leader out of the Fillmore/Harding mold: a leader who asks little of people while enabling their greed and unfounded optimism in their own talents and the effectiveness of a speculative boom.

The generational composition was clearly 3T: the adult Adaptive generation was still at or near the peak of its power, some members still in their late fifties. That's analogous to the late 1750s, the early 1850s, and the late 1910s. Were those times 4T? Then neither was 2001.

In any event, look at the American response soon afterward. To the positive we didn't round up people because they were Muslims (which would have been a crass blunder). Americans panicked some, but I can't imagine the phrase "Go shopping!" uttered by Abraham Lincoln in April 1861 or by FDR in 1941, and not solely due to linguistic anachronistic.

A 4T leader would have told people:

1. To prepare for major cutbacks in consumption -- especially of imports.

2. To quit using so d@mn much petroleum and energy on the whole (drive less, carpool, turn up temperatures on air conditioners and turn down temperatures on heating in the winter -- and wear sweaters inside to tolerate inside temperatures in the 60s in winter).

3. To give up bad habits like alcoholism and drug use.

4. To get in shape so that one can be fit for military duty if young or for work in a defense plant if not so young.

5. To save more and buy war bonds -- and absolutely DO NOT HOARD!

6. To plant Victory Gardens.

7. To prepare for blackouts.

8. To be alert but do not accept rumors at face value.

9. To expect tax increases as well as new taxes.

10. Make it do or do without. Patch and repair, make things last another season...

....

We weren't 4T in 2001. We are now.

Originally Posted by Odin

Ron-Paulites go in the "Curmudgeon" category and will be in the gray "Fringe" zome come the 1T. Most of the teabaggers are racist True-Right Glenn Beck lovers. They weren't protesting Bush, they are coming out of the woodwork now because a [insert racist epithet] is in the White House.

I thought that the "teabaggers" were a broad collection of right-wingers -- racists as well as tax-protesters. Racists and religious bigots are clearly fringe these days -- as the 2008 election shows. (That itself portends well for this 4T, as racists and religious bigots were forces behind the evil Axis cause as well as attitudes that fostered the Holocaust, T-731, and the Bataan Death March). The Ron Paul followers? I can see the libertarians going into the "curmudgeon" category, becoming less relevant as the 4T proceeds. This 4T will require big-government solutions, including economic regimentation that requires people to work and imposes high taxes or mandates personal spending (as on health insurance).

Has anyone ever known of a 4T that did NOT involve bigger spending and greater regimentation of an economy?

It's amazing that those right-wingers DIDN'T stage mass protests when Dubya began rescuing failed enterprises. They DIDN'T protest reckless lending and excessive compensation to business executives. They DIDN'T protest mass layoffs.

I look at their journalistic cheerleaders, the Propaganda Channel (a/k/a FoX "News"), and I see an effort to show that it is the first assault on the popularity of an incompetent and ineffective President. Those fellows exaggerated the size of the anti-tax rallies...

We the People are catching on.

Originally Posted by The Fourth Turning, p.257

The catalyst can be one spark or, more commonly, a series of sparks that self-ignite...Each of these sparks is linked to a specific threat about which society had been fully informed but against which it had left itself poorly protected. Afterward, the fact that these sparks were forseeable but poorly forseen gives rise to a new sense of urgency about institutional dysfunction and civic vulnerability. This marks the beginning of the vertiginous spiral of Crisis.

...

With the civic ethos now capable of producing civic deeds, a new dynamic of threat and response takes hold. Instead of downplaying problems, leaders start exaggerating them. Instead of deferring solutions, they accelerate them. Instead of tolerating diversity, they demand consensus. Instead of coaxing people with promises of minimal sacrifice, they summon them with warnings of maximal sacrifice. Leaders energize every available institution and direct them toward community survival. Thus invigorated, society starts propelling itself on a trajectory that nobody had foreseen before the catalyzing event. Societal problems that, in the Unraveling, posed insuperable dilemmas now appear to have simple if demanding solutions. A new resolve about urgent public goals crowds out qualms over questionable public means.

A Crisis mood does not guarantee that the new governing policies will be well designed or will work as intended. To the contrary: Crisis eras are studded with faulty leadership and inept management--from President Lincoln's poor record of choosing generals to President Roosevelt's colossal blunders with such alphabet soup agencies as the AAA, NRA, and WPA. What makes a Crisis special is the public's willingness to let leaders lead even when they falter and to let authorities be authoritative even when they make mistakes. Amid this civic solidarity, mediocre leaders can gain immense popular following; bad policies can be made to work (or, at least, be perceived as working); and as at Pearl Harbor, even a spectacular failure does not undermine public support.

You may say, "Aha! Bush lost public support!". That would be missing the fact that he was re-elected, with majorities of his party in both Houses of Congress for 6 of his 8 years. He was not voted out, and he was not impeached. As the quote above says, "bad policies can be made to work" - witness Iraq.

So far, the Bush presidency has shown far more signs of the above outline than the Obama Administration has. Support for Obama's economic policies is very thin, even as his personal popularity (based almost entirely on his ancestry and the historic fact of his election) remains high.

Originally Posted by Kurt Horner

I would predict that you can't do that. Both this theory and turning theory are supposed to be driven by aggregate changes in behavior of millions of people. To achieve retrograde motion would require extreme levels of violence directed at very specific political groups. And that's political groups, not ethnic or religious. It seems fairly unlikely that you would have bloodshed substantial enough and targeted enough to cause retrograde motion. In fact, attempting to do so seems likely to produce a rising generation that pushes politics in the other direction all the more strongly.

I agree with this, so let me extend it a bit. When you show CW movement along the arc, you postulate that the arc is also moving. OK, I can agree that this is possible, allowing the active or moral center to shift through odd turnings. I'm less comfortable with the pace being relatively constant.

This late and unlamented 3T didn't terminate with a gradual shift in attitudes. There seemed to be a hardening of positions with no apparent movement for a decade or more, until first the catalyst then the social moment arrived. Pick the catalyst of your choice, nothing seemed to change until late 2005, yet we were a new nation by election day 2008.

That seems to argue for a punctuated rhythm. I could argue that the passage through the Real Center was the point where slowing began and ended. The early and late changes seem less constrained. Reagan moved the nation easily. Obama is doing the same now. As I see it, the time in between was a muddle.

I've said it before, but I have to say it again. The ideology and partisanship on this site is so thick and impassible that it is really nearly worthless.

Many people posting here have thrown out S&H almost completely in favor of Byzantine re-imaginings that confirm their own biases. It's sad.

Originally Posted by JustPassingThrough

If you have any interest in history, you can study some more of what Jefferson believed. You will see that he recognized the need for a balance between majority rule and minority rights. However, in the big picture, the aforementioned quote must hold. If the losers of a particular issue either revolt or attempt to secede every time they don't like something, you will not have a functioning nation.

In other words, people must accept the outcome of elections and legislation (by abiding by the law, if nothing else), keeping in mind that new elections will come around, and they'll have another chance to swing things their way.

That said, I think you've announced that sentiment yourself quite clearly when it comes to the triumph of positions you support. It's clear your "principles" are highly selective in their application.

I agree there must be a balance, I'm talking about the principle of the thing, though, blind faith in the authority "will of the people" is just as dangerous as blind faith in any other form of authority.

This is not ideological, as the old saying goes, "I may despise what you say but I will defend your right to say it". I may hate what you beleive but I will defend your right to believe what you believe. As long as you do not harm the rights of others what you think or believe or do is none of my business, nor is it the business of "the people" as a whole. Prohibition and Eugenics is exactly the kind of intrusion I hate.

Originally Posted by Kurt Horner

Technically, JPT is correct that the Tea Parties were started by Ron Paul types (true top and upper right) but due to hype from various mainstream right wing sources they were joined by a lot of true right and lower right types.

Well put

The opposition to federal bailout policies & the rapid expansion of debt cropped up in early 2008 as the Ron Paul types split off in right-left directions (after Iowa). To the left, the money bombs were now aimed at raising cash for Obama. To the right, opposition to Bush/Paulson/Bernanke "rescue" policies began picking up steam. March 2008 began the banker's looting spree, and there was an increase in true-top/top-right activity warning about inflation (right before gas hit $4)

But the idea for an organized protest didn't start until after the Sept-Oct 2008 bailout bonanza. April 15 was decided as a memorable and symbolic date before it was certain who would hold the position of president at the time.

So what if McCain had won? The Tea Party had already been planned - the only likely difference is that it would have had someone other than Fox & the usual conservative suspects funding it. If McCain had been POTUS at the time, the protest might have turned out to have a central focus on the top-left..

Originally Posted by Odin

I agree there must be a balance, I'm talking about the principle of the thing, though, blind faith in the authority "will of the people" is just as dangerous as blind faith in any other form of authority.

Except when it comes to gay marriage, in which case you expect everyone to "Kneel Before Zod!". Pardon the implication.

Originally Posted by independent

Well put

The opposition to federal bailout policies & the rapid expansion of debt cropped up in early 2008 as the Ron Paul types split off in right-left directions (after Iowa). To the left, the money bombs were now aimed at raising cash for Obama. To the right, opposition to Bush/Paulson/Bernanke "rescue" policies began picking up steam. March 2008 began the banker's looting spree, and there was an increase in true-top/top-right activity warning about inflation (right before gas hit $4)

But the idea for an organized protest didn't start until after the Sept-Oct 2008 bailout bonanza. April 15 was decided as a memorable and symbolic date before it was certain who would hold the position of president at the time.

So what if McCain had won? The Tea Party had already been planned - the only likely difference is that it would have had someone other than Fox & the usual conservative suspects funding it. If McCain had been POTUS at the time, the protest might have turned out to have a central focus on the top-left..

The base of the Republican Party (the voters, grassroots, etc.) was almost universally opposed to the bailouts from the beginning. A significant number of conservatives in the House held up the TARP under pressure from their constituents, but not enough to stop Bush+Republican moderates+Democrats. That situation is/was yet another symptom of the disconnect between the Republican Party and public opinion. Not only voters at large, but its own core supporters. That's why they're in such a pathetic state.

Originally Posted by JustPassingThrough

Except when it comes to gay marriage, in which case you expect everyone to "Kneel Before Zod!". Pardon the implication.

People's consensual sexual relationships are no business of the state. Ideally I think the state should get out of the marriage thing entirely, though that is probably not practical.

Originally Posted by Kurt Horner

As for 9/11 starting the Crisis -- I firmly believe that events don't start turnings. Reactions to events indicate turnings. The reaction to 9/11 was straight out of the Democratic playbook from the last Crisis. Most establishment criticisms of the War on Terror complained that our response to 9/11 was insufficiently like WWII (i.e. too few troops, not enough taxation and government control of daily life, "coddling" of terror suspects). We responded to Al Qaeda as if they were the axis powers because that's the way America acts toward its enemies. That's the paradigm we've been in this entire saeculum. It wasn't until roughly 2005 that criticism of that paradigm finally became a majority view. There are plenty of opinion polls that back this up.

One thing that stands out in the original 9/11 thread was the possibility that the attacks could cause a shift toward the nastier edge of a Third Turning mood--followed, in short while, by a shift into the first isolationist phase of a Fourth Turning, perhaps keyed more by domestic than global arguments. That is precisely what actually occurred. The Red Blue Culture Wars peaked in 2004, and plummeted after the Katrina Disaster in 2005. It seemed like, for a while, that we were entering a new malaise, by late 2005, and an energy crisis occurred during that year. The assumptions of "drowning government in a bath tub" had already been totally discredited and shredded before September 2005 had ended. In 2006, the netroots emerged as a political force and swept the midterms. At the same time, the housing crisis began. The Crisis social moment began in early 2008. The Democrats and Obama swept the 2008 elections, a historic economic crisis began, the nation went through another energy crisis. Traversing through 2008 was like going through a perfect storm.