The Climax of the Crisis Era - Joe Biden is no ObamaEarlier this year, when Biden won the nomination. I was pretty sure he had a good shot at taking the win. Let's face it, we're living in the climax of a Crisis Generation*, and bizarre things always happen during times like these. According to the Strauss-Howe Theory, the eponymous name elaborated by the two in the 1997 book, The Fourth Turning , there are historical cycles we are apart of that generally last 80 years. 4 generations make up these cycles, they call saeculums, that last 20-ish years. Right now, we are in a crisis generation that normally brings about the end to a previous culture/way of life for a new one, or evolves into a new one. So when you look at points I've brought up in my previous ideas, you can see how America, and the rest of the world (but for my sake, America), are in a turning point era where what was previously considered zany and unlikely becomes the new flavor of the week/month/year. This is the main crux to the argument for Trump losing to Biden, much how in the last crisis generation 1930s/1940s, Herbert Hoover lost to the somewhat controversial and not-so popular Franklin Roosevelt, because of Hoover's placement in time.
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Strauss-Howe Theory
Hoover's presidency was marred by the development of a depression that has now been considered to be caused, or at least prolonged, by him. Really, he just used the same get-out-of-jail-free card that every president has used since in economic turmoil - bailouts, keeping wages high, and running the money printing presses. The same failure economic policies he implemented were copied by Franklin Roosevelt, but on steroids, and helped keep the US in a depression until the end of WWII. We might think the war prolonged the depression, which obviously had an effect, but when you look at the big picture, many Americans had already been long-suffering before we jumped in for the last 3 1/2 years to clean up the mess the world had started (not to underestimate the Europeans who fought hard, Africans who were thrown into a war they shouldn't have been apart of, and Chinese who were raped and pillaged by wannabe-Samurai Warriors)
Many "journalists" have compared Trump to Hoover because of Hoover's whole conservative stance on immigration and his friendliness towards tariffs. That's all well and good, until you look at the fact Trump has developed such a strong base of supporters. The once-trusted media who brought us unrestrained, generally unbiased facts about these elections are now, and let's be real, very biased, and have all their financial interests pinned to a Biden presidency. If one can look at how manufactured, and divisive the media has been, then one can start to understand the importance of anecdotal evidence. Nowadays, with how our echo (masochistic self-torture) chambers, there's no way to get the real stiffy on where the public is at on issues, other than our genuine personal experience. For me, I have had the blessing to analyze one of the most important states in the Union, culturally and economically, a state that has both strong supporters for both sides, and it has helped me form a sturdy grasp on what the average joe six-pack thinks about the world we are in.
Aside from Biden's terrible rally turnouts, how far and few between they are, how his platform, if he has one at all, has become about distancing himself from the only strong Democratic Party supporters, socialists, and not to mention his endless old fart gaffs, I have seen an interesting change in how American culture has changed in my relatively short lifespan.
The same vim and love for Obama that was media-sponsored and publicly adorned - a seemingly strong, young man with a glimmer in his eyes and nothing but optimism for the future, that was made into a grey, blob of a 2-term presidency that has all-but been forgotten for how uneventful and corporatized it was, is not what we have for either Trump nor Biden. When I was a little kid and I had family friends and teachers who were once-Republican voters instead voting for Obama, it revealed at least some kind of unification among Americans for an idea. Albeit, a very general, unenlightened idea that at best was about free stuff for special interest groups. There was a media/public in-tandem love for Obama that couldn't be hindered by what was seen as a corporation-loving, out-of-touch evangelical sect of conservatives that ran the country, media, and public thought.
Though, nowadays, the tables have turned for everyone. Young liberals are disenchanted with the Democratic Party and yearn for some socialist revolution. Nobody except democrat boomers and detached, high-falutin' progressives are blind enough to worship the TV and fake news that was once so potent in the American lifestyle. With Trump's sobering 2016 victory came a new experience to the American meta - The Shy Tory Factor, or what I'll call the Silent Majority Effect.
en.wikipedia.org
With important, working class states like Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and Ohio all going for Trump in 2016, it brought a stark reminder of a huge amount of people in this country who have felt long-forgotten as their once-enriched states that saw the American Experience at its height in much of the 20th century, fall to job outsourcing, socialist embankment in their local governments, crime spikes, and loss of buying power. These people looked to Trump as their only way out. He brought that vim and vigor that Obama brought in 2008, but with a real message - a message that America still had strength, could still rise above its crumbling infrastructure, and could be the last bastion at odds with neoliberal Europeans, dangerous terrorist-supporting OPEC countries, and a communist Chinese empire. He wanted to Make America Great Again. And when you watch his speeches and his debates from that campaign trail, which is something I have done ritually every year since, you see how he spoke truth to power. He went after how the Fed manipulated currency, how China had to "pay up", and how the US had been cheated for decades. While you might disagree, and I definitely do disagree with how he blamed foreign nations for stealing our buying power, when really we've been doing it to ourselves by selling off our entire infrastructure for lives of relative luxury, the idea was still strong. He harkened back to a time the US had real strength and optimism for the future.
The Silent Majority went for him. They were pissed off, and wanted a change, but unfortunately, I will say, Trump has been just as much of a spender and clamorer for MMT (Modern Monetary Theory) as much as any other president would have, but that is unimportant to what is still so effervescent about his message, and how he has continued to do everything right in his 2020 campaign. His first term hasn't left anyone who voted for him unconvinced of his power. They are even stronger in supporting him. When I travel across my state, all I see are vivacious supporters building beautiful messages of prayer and support for Trump, hundreds of miles of Trump flags, signs, and posters, big F250s with Trump and American flags on the back.
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It has become very clear that Trump is a strong speaker and even at his ripe old age, can still battle with the same passion. Alternatively, the Biden campaign has had a lack of rallies, terrible turnout, a platform that is unclear what it really wants aside from being anti-Trump and rhetorically anti-Socialist. This clear disparity between the abilities of both candidates, and the strength of both groups of supporters, is a testament to why Trump will win this election. Biden could've won if he took a firm position, and had the same vim Trump did, and spoke to the socialist aura of his supporters, but instead, Biden will get the same treatment Hillary did - a shallow, "grr we hate racist, but I wanna stay home and watch True Blood so wtvr" support from most liberals, and a last-time at seeming like relevant heroes who totally didn't ruin the country for the past 60 years Boomers.
But in Crisis eras, we just have to wait and see. But as I said, the anecdotes matter, not so much whatever the media is throwing out. Biden is no Hillary, and Hillary was certainly no Obama. The support has waned, and we haven't seen a strong Democratic candidate since Bill Clinton, who let's be real, was able to win the South a lot easier because of his southern drawl. Al Gore, John Kerry, John McCain, Mitt Romney, Hillary Clinton, and Joe Biden all have one thing in common - they are uninspiring, forgettable, platform-lacking candidates who have all-but become jokes. John McCain was probably the best out of all of the, but again, could not fight against the strong meme of the handsome, optimistic Obama. Biden will be remembered, along with the other losers, as a weirdo pedo who could barely talk for 20 minutes, couldn't garner any support, and only had the opportunity to fight Trump because Pocahontas and gang dropped out to let loser Biden take their delegates (I wonder what that meeting was like). Imagine if in 2016, the Republicans had forced everyone out to let Jeb Bush win - we woulda been living under a fascist Hillary dystopia right now.
Trump will win, and while I'm no fan of either side, I have seen where the American consciousness is at. The Democrats have an inability to get a likeable, truth-speaking candidate out there, even if his/her truth is marred with inconsistencies and nonsense hopes and dreams.
"As we must account for every idle word, so we must account for every idle silence ." - Benjamin Franklin
