by Jim Quinn, The Burning Platform:

“There are decades where nothing happens; and there are weeks where decades happen.” ― Vladimir Ilyich Lenin

“A Crisis mood does not guarantee that the new governing policies will be well designed or will work as intended.

To the contrary: Crisis eras are studded with faulty leadership and inept management—from President Lincoln’s poor record of choosing generals to President Roosevelt’s colossal blunders with such alphabet soup agencies as the AAA, NRA, and WPA.

What makes a Crisis special is the public’s willingness to let leaders lead even when they falter and to let authorities be authoritative even when they make mistakes.

Wars become more likely and are fought with efficacy and finality. The risk of revolution is high—as is the risk of civil war, since the community that commands the greatest loyalty does not necessarily coincide with political (or geographic) boundaries. Leaders become more inclined to define enemies in moral terms, to enforce virtue militarily, to refuse all compromise, to commit large forces in that effort, to impose heavy sacrifices on the battlefield and home front, to build the most destructive weapons contemporary minds can imagine, and to deploy those weapons if needed to obtain an enduring victory.” – Strauss & Howe – The Fourth Turning

The quote by Lenin has been reverberating in my conscience for the last few weeks. I believe the quote from Strauss & Howe provides context to what has happened and will happen as this Fourth Turning advances towards its climax. I began a new role in my organization two weeks ago, after only seven months in my previous role. I’ve been in non-stop crisis meetings, as this coronavirus pandemic has flipped everyone’s world upside down. As of Thursday, we were ordered to work from home.

Governor Wolf essentially shut down every business in the state, except for food stores, gas stations, and healthcare facilities. I await the imminent shelter in place order and the National Guard patrolling the streets. My wife and youngest son have been laid off from their restaurant jobs. My other two sons are in IT and can work remotely. As a virtual recluse, even when there isn’t a pandemic, my life hasn’t changed much. I’m saving 90 minutes of commuting per day and getting more exercise as we have been taking long walks every day.

I’ve been writing about our ongoing crisis for over ten years, so it’s not really a shock to me the shit has finally hit the fan. I certainly didn’t expect a global pandemic to be the catalyst for part two of this Fourth Turning. But, I’m sure most people didn’t see Hitler’s invasion of Poland leading to a world war resulting in 65 million deaths when they were just living their lives in early 1939.

It was ten years into the last Fourth Turning and the Great Depression was ongoing for average Americans, but the stock market had soared and GDP had been propped up by massive government stimulus and Federal Reserve easy money. Intense nationalism had begun spreading across the globe. Sound familiar? The specific events which catapult the world during Fourth Turnings are different, but the reaction of generations and leaders are eerily similar.

I’ve felt like nothing happened in the last decade as the Fed and politicians in DC were able to issue tens of trillions in debt to postpone the inevitable consequences of living beyond our means for the last forty years. As my warnings about the future failed to materialize on the timeline I expected, I began to doubt my own reasoning and thought process.

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