Prophet of Doom

[bucolic_frolic]

In Bannon’s view, we are in the midst of an existential war, and everything is a part of that conflict. Treaties must be torn up, enemies named, culture changed. Global conflagration, should it occur, would only prove the theory correct. For Bannon, the Fourth Turning has arrived. The Grey Champion, a messianic strongman figure, may have already emerged. The apocalypse is now.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/steve-bannon-apocalypse_us_5898f02ee4b040613138a951

“This is the fourth great crisis in American history,” Bannon told an audience at the Liberty Restoration Foundation, a conservative nonprofit, in 2011. “We had the Revolution. We had the Civil War. We had the Great Depression and World War II. This is the great Fourth Turning in American history, and we’re going to be one thing on the other side.”

Major crises “happen in about 80- or 100-year cycles,” Bannon told a conference put on by the Republican women’s group Project GoPink that same year. “And somewhere over the next 10 or 20 years, we’re going to come through this crisis, and we’re either going to be the country that was bequeathed to us or it’s going to be something that’s completely or totally different.”

The “Judeo-Christian West is collapsing,” he went on. “It’s imploding. And it’s imploding on our watch. And the blowback of that is going to be tremendous.”

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I don't understand his certainty and determinism. Why isn't the crisis climate and ecology? Capitalism has won the economic wars, nations are basically trying to improve its reach and humanize it, religions clash but use political means to coexist to the extent there are no zealots in power ... Why does this crisis have to be the way Steve Bannon sees it? He is nuts.

[guillaumeb]

1. Because framing it as an existential crisis allows the GOP to take advantage of the crisis

and further reward their 1% owners.

[onethatcares]

2. eggzachery

and the rubes fervently see it as their going to meet their savior moment.

I say, put bannon in a mrap and send him on patrol in Syria by his lonesome.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

3. Oh, crap. Someone who actually read the books

by William Strauss and Neil Howe (or at least he read The Fourth Turning) and completely misunderstood the essential message.

I cannot recommend the above book too highly. Although their earlier work, Generations is, in my opinion, a must read for everyone. Really. Read them both.

[ElkeH]

4. Because Trump supporters see it the same way

According to Trumplings, globalism, secularism, feminism, "the homosexual agenda," and non-white immigration all threaten the (traditional) American existence. They don't see there being a problem with the climate; to them climate change is just a conspiracy created by liberals to impose more government regulations on everyone.