Steve Bannon & The Fourth Turning

waltky · Feb 5, 2017

Will this drive politics in the Trump administration?...

Revealed: Steve Bannon 'is obsessed with a book arguing institutions are destroyed and rebuilt every 80 years'
Feb. 2, 2017 - Trump's chief strategist was fascinated by a book called The Fourth Turning; William Strauss and Neil Howe released the book and their theory in 1997; View history as a repetition of 80-year cycle that begin and ended with crises; Say cycles went from the Revolution to the Civil War, then to Second World War; Bannon became convinced that the next crisis would involve a massive conflict, according to a historian who worked with him on a documentary

Steve Bannon became obsessed with a dark theory of history predicting the rebirth of America's institutions every 80 years - and became convinced the US was on the brink of a bigger conflict than the Second World War, a report said Thursday. Donald Trump's chief strategist became fascinated in the early 2000s by The Fourth Turning, a 1997 book in which William Strauss and Neil Howe explain their theory of American history, Time wrote in a profile of Bannon. The former Goldman Sachs investment banker and Breitbart executive chairman appears on the cover of this week's magazine, on which he is dubbed 'the great manipulator'.

At one point, the piece delves into Bannon's captivation for Strauss and Howe's book - which led to Bannon's 2010 movie Generation Zero, about the 2008 financial crisis. Steve Bannon became obsessed with a dark theory of history predicting the rebirth of America's institutions every 80 years, a report said Thursday. Strauss and Howe's theory sees American history as a series of 80-year cycles each divided into four phases. Each cycle begins after a moment of crisis. Over the next 80 years, institutions are embraced, challenged and rebelled against - until they are destroyed and rebuilt during the next crisis.

These cycles, according to the authors, have taken the US from the revolution (1765-1783) to the Civil War (1861-1865) to the Second World War (1939-1945). Some might place the Second World War at the end of a period of crisis beginning with the Great Depression of 1929, over eighty years ago. Bannon interviewed Howe while working on Generation Zero, and in the movie depicted the 2008 financial crisis as a point of turning. Authors William Strauss and Neil Howe explained their theory of American history in their 1997 book The Fourth Turning (left). Bannon interviewed Howe while working on his 2010 movie Generation Zero (right)

Historian David Kaiser previously recounted in Time being interviewed by Bannon for the documentary. 'Bannon had clearly thought a long time both about the domestic potential and the foreign policy implications of Strauss and Howe,' Kaiser wrote. 'More than once during our interview, he pointed out that each of the three preceding crises had involved a great war, and those conflicts had increased in scope from the American Revolution through the Civil War to the Second World War. 'He expected a new and even bigger war as part of the current crisis, and he did not seem at all fazed by the prospect.' Kaiser said he disagreed and told Bannon. Then, the historian wrote, Bannon pressed him to say a conflict at least as big as the Second World War was to be expected in the near future. Kaiser said he refused to make such a prediction.

'I remember him saying, "Well, look, you have the American revolution, and then you have the Civil War, which was bigger than the revolution. And you have the Second World War, which was bigger than the Civil War,'' ' Kaiser told Time. 'He even wanted me to say that on camera, and I was not willing.' Thursday's profile also reveals that some of Bannon's colleagues have nicknamed him 'the Encyclopedia' due to the amount of information he has been able to retain. The piece also recounted Bannon once telling a Daily Beast reporter, whom he met as a private person, that he shared the same goals as Russian Communist leader Lenin, in that he wanted to 'bring everything crashing down, and destroy all of today's establishment.'

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4186606/Steve-Bannon-obsessed-book-Fourth-Turning.html
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Steve Bannon & The Fourth Turning

waltky Well-Known Member

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Steve Bannon & The Fourth Turning

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