We can do a short review of these trancendent changes and years. In 1968, Nixon. Little needs to be said that hasn't been covered extensively by other writers. Looking back, we had a great economy, we were about to put a man on the moon, people were secure (once they got beyond draft age at least) and there was enough security that many could afford to experiment with new lifestyles and new business ideas. The protests and activism can be seen as healthy birthing pains of new freedom, equality, and awareness of a new generation that rebelled against injustice and war; or they can be seen as a spoiled group of kids that never had it so good and were flexing their selfishness muscles. The ideology of Nixon was mixed, whatever his personal feeling about things, the Vietnam war did end, detante with the communists was reached, landmark environmental laws were passed and enforced. Some, including myself, consider Richard Nixon's legacy a liberal one. He was a really complicated guy though, paranoia and resentment led to acts of great evil and malice that cannot be overlooked. Trying to pin the conservative hell of contemporary American politics is problematic and to some degree is a deterministic Sonderweg. Nixon did not inevitably lead to bush II, the teabaggers or business totalitarianism.
Further back in 1932, FDR was handed a massive catastrophe and reassured us, "the only thing we have to fear, is fear itself" still has a great ring to it today. An entire generation of bright young people were convinced by Roosevelt that public service was the highest calling, the material rewards were meagre but there was security and satisfaction in running a modern country well. The ad hoc institutions built during the New Deal were good enough to save the country from collapse, and provided the framework for winning WWII. This was no small achievement, especially considering how little corruption there was in the federal government, and trust that somebody was looking out for the little guy. There is so much more to say about this era, but I am trying to make this brief review and most people are aware of the changes for good during this cycle. It is not a stretch to say that FDR and the people inspired by him made possible America's superpower status.
Unfortunately, not all the cycles are paradigm changing, 1896 was one of those. A failed rebellion against business rule that lead to progress in gradual steps and reaction to crush idealism characterized this era. The cycles are kind of messy and Teddy Roosevelt epitomized the schiztophrenia of an emerging great power experiencing growing pains. Imperialism and eugenics mixed with internationalist idealism and cosmopolitanism, but America would have been a very different nation with William Jennings Bryan at the helm and the people he would have inspired.
Personally, I felt the "reelection" of shrub was a fluke. Special circumstances that screwed up the nice 36 year cycle. Seriously, so many people rejected the republican program of eternal war and there were so many stories of how rigged the election was, on top of the sub 50% approval rating he had that it had to be a mistake right? Then, Democrats finally took back Congress and so many engaged in the campaign around Barack Obama that things were a'changing. I had a feeling in the back of my mind that movement conservatives would not back down in the face of public revulsion, and one of "those people" in the White House would drive so many rednecks berserk. The crap sandwich that has gone down since Obama took office really has surpassed my most gloomy nightmares though.
In retrospect, a coat rack could have won in 2008 if there was a D by its ballot line. I think a coat rack would have more backbone and fight than the D that actually took office. In the 1930s the majority of business was shamed, and those that weren't were fought. The legitimate sovereign government imposed the regulation, progressive taxation, and empowerment of labor on business that gave us the great postwar boom, most of businessmen acquiesed. The few who continued to oppose the New Deal did so behind the scenes, as reported by Kim Phillips-Fein in Invisible Hands: The Making of the Conservative Movement from the New Deal to Reagan. Their success in changing the terms of debate and making businessmen the victim explains a great deal of why working class people who should know better joined the tea party. This is why business doubled down after this latest collapse instead of showing appropriate shame for causing it.
We'll probably never know the real answers, all historians can really do is look at the facts and speculate on why things are the way they are. Is Obama really a Manchurian candidate, giving the birther nuts and their birth certificate mania a kind of inverse reality? In any event, he is not the leader we need right now, however choosing between a loser and a maniac like the republicans are likely to put up means we most likely will have to hold our noses for him. What if the boogieman shows back up? By this I mean diebold, people seem to have forgotten about that bs, even in WI where we watched a supreme court election get snatched away. That would explain the midterms, I know the only damn signs we saw were for lunatic teabaggers and corporate shills but did all the people who so enthusiastically supported BO really stay home? Or did diebold just make it look that way so we could have this great theater of the absurd? I mean I grumbled about how disappointing BO was, but I still went out and voted.
So, exceptions do exist in the cycle and can go either way. Twenty nine years is a long time.
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