by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner
Ok. As I keep mentioning, I’m drunk. But I’m feeling somewhat inspired and so here we are, talking about the book The Fourth Turning, AGAIN. The reason why The Fourth Turning is so interesting is, even though it was written in the 1990s, it definitely seems to explicate what’s going to happen in the United States around 2025.
And, yet.
To me, it definitely also reads as astrology for dudes. It’s a pat, simplistic answer to a very complicated historical situation. It’s a way for the bros who listen to Steve Bannon’s War Room podcast to explain to themselves why Trump is going to “bring the Fourth Turning” and maybe bring down the “administrative state” along the way.
I think the key issue is — there is an obvious ebb and flow to human history. I’m just not prepared to put as fine a point on it as the authors of The Fourth Turning have.
So, I guess, what I’m saying is they got lucky.
They have no particular insight into the future or the past. They got lucky. And they themselves even admit that the magic formula they use to predict a Fourth Turning doesn’t work for the First American Civil War. Which, if you wanted to be very charitable, you might explain by the deaths of two Wig presidents that might have delayed a civil war had they lived longer.
Anyway….good luck?
