The Fourth Turning...

[eyer]

...is a 1997 tome by William Strauss and Neil Howe.

Here's how Strauss and Howe saw it in 1997:

The next Fourth Turning is due to begin shortly after the new millennium, midway through the Oh-Oh decade. Around the year 2005, a sudden spark will catalyze a Crisis mood. Remnants of the old social order will disintegrate. Political and economic trust will implode. Real hardship will beset the land, with severe distress that could involve questions of class, race, nation and empire. The very survival of the nation will feel at stake. Sometime before the year 2025, America will pass through a great gate in history, commensurate with the American Revolution, Civil War, and twin emergencies of the Great Depression and World War II.

A Turning is an American national Crisis ("a dramatic mood change in the country") every 80-100 years; Strauss and Howe contend that America's First Crisis started in Boston in 1773, its Second Crisis catalyzed at the election of Lincoln in 1860, and its Third Crisis launched with the stock market crash of 1929...

...each Crisis lasts approximately 20 years in which "agony, suffering, war and ultimately the annihilation of the existing social order" occur. Then there begins a calender of seasons before the next Crisis begins.

After the almost 20-year duration of its Third Turning (the stock market crash), The American High (Spring) lasted from 1946-1964, the Consciousness Revolution Awakening (Summer) from 1964 until 1984, and The Long Boom/Culture Wars Unraveling (Fall) lasted from Reagan’s Morning in America in 1984 until the 2008 Wall Street/Federal Reserve spawned crash...

...which has placed America in The Global Financial Crisis (Winter), The Fourth Turning now underway.

The generations are now aligned as they always are during a Crisis:

- Boomers entering elderhood
- Gen-Xers entering midlife
- Millennials entering young adulthood
- Homelanders entering childhood

Don’t think you can escape the Fourth Turning the way you might today distance yourself from news, national politics, or even taxes you don’t feel like paying. History warns that a Crisis will reshape the basic social and economic environment that you now take for granted. The Fourth Turning necessitates the death and rebirth of the social order. It is the ultimate rite of passage for an entire people, requiring a luminal state of sheer chaos whose nature and duration no one can predict in advance.

And...

...consider this timely relevation:

Soon after the catalyst, a national election will produce a sweeping political realignment, as one faction or coalition capitalizes on a new public demand for decisive action. Republicans, Democrats, or perhaps a new party will decisively win the long partisan tug of war. This new regime will enthrone itself for the duration of the Crisis. Regardless of its ideology, that new leadership will assert public authority and demand private sacrifice. Regardless of its ideology, that new leadership will assert public authority and demand private sacrifice. Where leaders had once been inclined to alleviate societal pressures, they will now aggravate them to command the nation’s attention. The regeneracy will be solidly under way.

After hearing the last two days about how demographics are totally against the Republicans for the foreseeable future...

...the above vision doesn't sound so outlandish at all.

So...

...how will America's Fourth Crisis turn out?

How close did the Revolutionary War come to not being won? How close did the Union come to losing the War Between the States? How dire did the future for America look on Black Tuesday?

At best, then...

...it's 50-50 - even money for either resurrection or total collapse:

Thus might the next Fourth Turning end in apocalypse – or glory. The nation could be ruined, its democracy destroyed, and millions of people scattered or killed. Or America could enter a new golden age, triumphantly applying shared values to improve the human condition. The rhythms of history do not reveal the outcome of the coming Crisis; all they suggest is the timing and dimension.

You can check out The Fourth Turning book here:

http://www.amazon.com/dp/0767900464...iveASIN=0767900464&adid=0VTFPQQFCAV7FYWEMDZT&

And you can read the interesting article I lifted all the quoted words from, here:

http://www.theburningplatform.com/?p=43039


BTW: A very interesting tidbit to discover for me is the reference of "Homelanders" as the nick for the American generation now entering childhood - I'd never heard it before, and it seems to fit perfectly.

 

[ChinaBandit]

Cruz, Martinez or Rubio.

The Latino demographic can change favorably for the GOP and victory assured with the combination of utter Obama failure over the next four years.