The Long View: Who Creates The Next Thesis

If you have been following my series on American political history you know that that America works in generational cycles.

Each generation is dominated by a Thesis, consisting of a myth and values that deliver power. This story in time is challenged by an Anti-Thesis, a counter-story that leans against it -- in time unsuccessfully.

For instance,

• Clinton was the Anti-Thesis to the Thesis of Nixon.
• Eisenhower was the Anti-Thesis to the Thesis of FDR.
• Wilson was the Anti-Thesis to the Thesis of Theodore Roosevelt.
• Cleveland was the Anti-Thesis to the Thesis of Abraham Lincoln.
• Henry Clay was the Anti-Thesis to the Thesis of Andrew Jackson.

So, class, who creates the new thesis?

It is a leader of the Anti-Thesis.

But the new Thesis is not a reaction to the old. It is a creation of the new leader, of their own trips and dramas, and of those created by their followers. (The crisis leader is always followed by a Thesis leader who embodies what the myth is about -- in the case of Nixon that being Ronald Reagan.)  It is a combination of Myths and Values that give the new Thesis (and its leader) Power over the next generation.

To put this mathematically:

                                                                                   M x V = P

Nixon, for instance, was a leader of the Anti-Thesis to Roosevelt, which was led by Dwight Eisenhower. Nixon was Eisenhower's Vice President. He was knocked out of politics by a return to the Thesis, in the person of John F. Kennedy, but returned to power by the Excesses of Lyndon Johnson.

The Thesis Nixon helped create was eventually embodied by Reagan. Bill Clinton became the Anti-Thesis President of his era. George W. Bush represents Excess, leading to a new crisis, and a need for a new Thesis.

Point is the leader of the new Thesis will come from the old Anti-Thesis. The leader of the new Thesis will be a product of the Clinton era. But their views will be their own, their trips and dramas their own, the history they build a product of their lives (not those they honor), and those of their followers.

Lincoln was a follower of Henry Clay, but did not replicate him. Teddy Roosevelt followed the Mugwumps, but he was not one himself. FDR ran for Vice President as a follower of Woodrow Wilson, but his Thesis was quite different. Nixon was Eisenhower's Vice President, but his trips were not Ike's.

Why does it work this way? Because we all base our beliefs on stories, on crises, on great world-shaking events that destroy the old order and demand something new.

• Vietnam called forth Nixon, and his Myth of Conflict.
• The Great Depression called forth FDR, and his Myth of Experimentation.
• The American Industrial Revolution called forth Theodore Roosevelt, and his Myth of Boldness.
• The Civil War called forth Lincoln, and his Myth of Union.

The next Myth, I have written before, will likely be based on Consensus. That Myth will bring with it Values, called forth by the leader of the new Thesis, on which your children will base their own political assumptions until they are as old as you (and I) are now.

We will call forth this leader, and this Myth, and these Values, in rejecting today's leaders and seeking new answers.

That drama is about to play out. The overture has been played -- Katrina as the Watts Riots, Iraq as Vietnam.

You have your ticket, called life.

Fasten your seat belts. It's going to be a bumpy night.