I think this one (1998-2000) is over. The next one could be here in a few months or a few years, depending on how long it takes the institutional paranoia to play itself out, and how quickly the perceived (& actual) scarcity of housing relaxes.
In an era of "irrational exuberance", anything could have triggered it. I think the straw that broke the came's back was the general realization that G. W. Bush was actually plannning to make good on his promise to implement a large, regressive tax cut. The economic benefit of giving each American a few dollars in the short term wasn't considered as important as the long term ability of the government to control fiscal policy, and the prospect of deficit spending to cover lost tax revenue undermined investor confidence in the continued growth of the stock market.
It was widely expected (even in the heat of the moment) that no more than 20% of the startups created would survive to profitability. With those odds, it was only a matter of time before a losing streak of sufficient length would burn the confidence of any investor. Some amount of mass hysteria (as measured by the number of individuals who took up day trading as a full time job) contributed to the expansion of the bubble, and made people feel rich when in fact what they had wasn't money but an idea that they would someday have money. The phantom cash represented by overvalued stocks & options created a sort of Ponzi scheme that tempted people & companies alike to continue investing even when they *knew* the market was overvalued, because they figured their folly would be redeemed by the next cycle of speculation.
The news media edit what they hear people say, and an editor can make anyone look foolish by choosing the most unflattering quotes & photos to publish.
Having said that, I think it's probably fair to say that Ronald Reagan and Gorge W. Bush are not terribly intelligent people. It is almost painful to hear them speak the words that I must assume their professional staff writers have assembled for them, and I can hardly bear to imagine what their writing must be like. I don't think it makes much difference if these people are actually stupid or are just behaving stupidly for the sake of some imagined populist ideal (as Forrest Gump would say "stupid is as stupid does"). And I don't think it's elitist to judge American politicians by their command of the English language, physical sciences, and world history. In fact, I think it's elitist to suppose that some candidates should be judged by their ability to express their thoughts while others should be afforded immunity from such scrutiny.
"George" Senior wasn't stupid, just (very) physically awkward. Though I hated almost everything he did as president, he seemed to be able to process information (having been head of the CIA, no less), which meant that I could at least hold him responsible for his decisions (though it's interesting to note that he never did face jail time for the Iran Contra business).
I don't know what the story is with Quayle. His apparent bafflement when confronted with people who wanted to know why he couldn't speak and spell prompted one of my friends to wonder aloud if he had any notion of the practical differences between smart people and stupid people. I think that may have been a bit harsh - dyslexia can make people who are smart sound terminally confused. But this is something that dyslexic people generally realize and compensate for at an early age. The fact that Quayle had no such realization until well into his career as a politician suggests a young life carefully sheltered from the harsh judgements of the underprivileged meritocracy.
I can only suppose that people find it easier to trust someone who they believe isn't smart enough to lie well. The appeal of an individual with strong (Christian) religious convictions may also lie in the presumed predictability of such a person's behavior. And perhaps the idea of electing someone who is smarter than you are feels somehow like a capitulation to the nerds who were so annoying in high school.
The problem, of course, is that stupid people can be just as deceitful, self-serving, and unpredictable as smart people. Religious folks by and large are no more trustworthy than atheists, particularly if they make religion part of their political persona, in which case they either have something to hide, or are out to make trouble (with rare exceptions like Jimmy Carter). And if you go so far as to elect an *actor* to public office, well, I think that must mean you *want* to be lied to. As for the idea of wanting an everyman to run the country, I don't see how this is compatible with the typical American mindset when it comes to chosing a doctor to fix your heart or a lawyer to keep you out of jail - you want the best, smartest, and best trained individual you can find (and if you can get an insurance company to foot the bill, so much the better).
It may be that somehow Americans are deeply suspicious of people who are articulate, energetic, and precise in their thinking & speech because such folks are wont to develop strange & radical ideas about how the world should work, and if we give them power over us we will all suffer for their hubris.
Or it may be that deep down all Americans *know* that the world is a complicated place and that we'll need to make big changes to the way we live in order to avoid killing each other & destroying the environment, but the illusion of being insulated from these big, intractable problems is much easier to maintain when you've got someone in charge who is completely oblivious to them.
Of course. It's completely irresponsible.
There are situations in which you need someone (or something, like a coin) to make a deadlock-breaking decision. There are even situations in which a bad decision is better than no decision at all.
But being smart means thinking about the consequences of your actions and the actions of others, and learning from your mistakes. A stupid leader is only acceptable in situations where no consequences may be anticipated and nothing may be learned, or in which a scapegoat is needed. And in my opinion it is excessively cynical to assert that either situation really exists anywhere in American politics.
I think the Peter principle applies in all organizations (an individual rises to the level of his/her incompetence). But the idea of putting a simpleton at the top seems hard to swallow in any context. Maybe someone with more experience in business can address this?
I guess in any given group of people working on a project, there is one model of group behavior which places the dominant "alpha" individual in the leadership role, and there's another model which places the least talented individual in the role of administration (so as to avoid hindering the work of the others). Dumb males can fulfill both roles simultaneously.
The Italians have Beruscone, and the Greeks had Pappandreo. But these aren't so much examples of chosing stupidity in a leader (Berluscone may be delusional and unabashedly immoral, but that hardly makes him stupid) as of chosing a leader whose personal wealth & pre-existing power is taken as a proxy for virtue. The American Protestant version of this idea is basically that anyone who is blessed by God will prosper. So electing a rich person is a good idea, because rich people are virtuous.
Obviously, someone with wealth and power who wants to be elected to office may be doing a civic duty. But even the most credulous voter must wonder if there's something else in it for the candidate (particularly if he/she has been recently indicted for anything). And that something, to the extent that it *personally* benefits the wealthy politician, will probably *not* benefit the voter. Duh.
The idea that we should trust rich people to run things reminds me of Homer Simpson's argument that it would be safe to sell the family elephant to an ivory dealer because "a man with *more* ivory is *less* likely to kill an elephant for its tusks than a man with *less* ivory".
Oddly enough, given the American idea of the self-made man, Americans seem to give the rich-by-trade and the rich-by-birth politicians equal credit (or virtue).
I don't believe we're seeing anything new, here.
First of all, the distinction between *spy plane* and *reconnaissance plane* is a matter of political expediency. If you really believe there's a difference then (In My Humble Opinion) you need to go read Manufacturing Consent.
The basic shape of Bush's strategy is simple. He picked a fight with China to begin a new Cold War. The last Cold War was a very convenient way to justify spending lots of money on expensive toys built by government contractors (many of whom are loyal Republicans, and many of who are now in serious financial trouble after failing to compete effectively in the civilian aerospace and telecommunications industries), and keeping American foreign policy simple. George Orwell wrote a dystopian book describing a deliberately maintained cycle of hostilities & alliances between China, the US, and the Soviet Union which anticpiates this perfectly.
The details of this confrontation with the PRC are actually quite interesting. Keep in mind that George Senior was director of the CIA, the CIA takes the long view on foreign policy, and the CIA directed the bombing mission that struck the Chinese embassy. At the time I dismissed this as one of the many SNAFUs that inevitably accompany any complex project, but in retrospect this really does seem to fit well into a general (and mostly Republican) strategy of antagonizing the PRC, which has recently included waggling a sanctimonious finger at North Korea while selling arms to Taiwan. The whole spy plane mission seems like a no-lose proposition in this context - we collect some useful new information about the PRC military systems, or we detect some threatening movements of missiles & troops near the border to complain about, or they shoot us down, in which case we've got an international incident that we can use to sell the idea that the PRC is being aggressive and uncooperative.