Which presidential cyclical theory do you like better?

[RR1997]

Cycle A:

Hoover-Carter: Both of these politically moderate presidents were/are considered failures. They presided over economic downturn, and because of them an era of liberalism/conservatism occurs.

FDR-Reagan: Both presidents considered heroes of the left/right, both ushered an era of liberalism/conservatism, and also "defeated" foreign enemies of the far-right (Nazi Germany), and the far-left (Soviet Union.)

Truman-Bush 41: Both vice-presidents of the previous administration, and were one-termers who had really bad approval ratings by the time reelection came along, and failed to live up to the previous president. Both presidents also ended tensions with past enemies (Truman: Nazi Germany/ Bush 41: Soviet Union), and created new tensions (Truman: the beginning of the Cold War, Bush 41: beginning of tensions with the Middle-East with the Gulf War.)

Eisenhower-Clinton: Both were moderate heroes, who ushered a decade of peace and prosperity.

JFK/LBJ-Bush/Cheney: Both Bush and JFK were members of a political dynasty, whose election to the presidency was against the vice-president of the former administration. The two vice-presidents were extremely uncharismatic, and lost the election by a razor-thin margin, despite the last president being very popular. Both JFK/LBJ and Bush/Cheney increased tensions severely with foreign enemies (Soviet Union/Middle-East), and ushered a decade of war (Vietnam/Iraq and Afghanistan.)

Nixon-Obama: See this thread: https://uselectionatlas.org/FORUM/index.php?topic=168317.0

So following this cyclical theory, a moderate Republican should win narrowly in 2016, and lose in 2020 to a far-left Democrat who ushers an era of liberal dominance. In the 2020's, tensions with the far-right Middle-East should end, and a new foreign enemy of the far-left should come around by the late 2020's.

Cycle B:

JFK-Reagan-Obama: The three of them are considered heroes by their respective parties, and ushered an era of liberalism/conservatism.

LBJ-Bush-(possibly Hillary Clinton?): One termers who failed to live up to the previous president.

Clinton-Nixon: Both presidencies saw a realignment in the electoral college, and both presidents were faced with major scandals (Watergate/Lewisnkygate)

Carter-Bush Jr.: Both presided through economic downturn and were/are considered failures.

So if this continues to be true, a Democrat should win in 2016, and lose in 2020 to someone whose presidency is similar to that of Clinton/Nixon.


I personally like Cycle A a lot better. Cycle A goes PERFECTLY from President Hoover to President Bush Jr. The only problem is that the cycle starts to die down starting President Obama. I see very little similarities between Nixon and Obama (although there are some). The comparisons between Hoover-Carter, FDR/Reagan, Truman/Bush, and ESPECIALLY Eisenhower/Clinton (this one works so well to the point where it's kind of scary). JFK/LBJ-Bush/Cheney also works pretty well.

Cycle B  is just meh IMO. It only work from JFK and on. I don't see the connection between Eisenhower, Carter, and Bush Jr. I also don't like the comparisons between Clinton and Nixon. It barely works. I do believe that Obama and Reagan do have quite a bit of similarities. LBJ-Bush Sr. also works pretty well.

What do you guys think?

[🦀🎂🦀🎂]

Cyclic theories are pseudoscientific rot.

[buritobr]

Cycle A.

The sequence Carter/Reagan/Bush/Clinton is a good mirror of the sequence Hoover/Roosevelt/Truman/Eisenhower. Going further, some historians claim that Hoover started some New Deal policies, and Carter started Reaganomics.

But I don't think these cycles are good for predictions.

[Thunderbird is the word]

Cycle A, maybe Scott Walker will be Jkmmy Carter followed by Al Franken as Ronald Reagan.

[ScottieF]

Cycle A, I remember thinking how eerie it was when I first heard of it.

[RR1997]

The only problem with Cycle A is that it works so well until Obama comes along. The Carter-Bush and the Obama-Reagan comparisons also work well. Hillary looks pretty unstoppable now and I don't see a Republican winning in 2016. I don't see another recession happening between 2017-2021 (since we just recovered from one), although the 2016 winner could lose in 2020 for other reasons. Obama could be a Nixon "done right" though.

[FEMA Camp Administrator]

The only problem with Cycle A is that it works so well until Obama comes along. The Carter-Bush and the Obama-Reagan comparisons also work well. Hillary looks pretty unstoppable now and I don't see a Republican winning in 2016. I don't see another recession happening between 2017-2021 (since we just recovered from one), although the 2016 winner could lose in 2020 for other reasons. Obama could be a Nixon "done right" though.

If Obama were Nixon "done right", wouldn't he have swept to landslide re-election against, like, Rick Santorum or Ron Paul or something?

These cycles are pointless and ultimately untestable. Apparently, the cycle's only occurred twice, so what are we to make of the pre-Hoover or post-Obama eras? If it's not continuous, proving the cycle happened twice and not again makes it not a cycle. Pointlessness all around.

[TJ in Oregon]

I think both are silly, but the silliest of all is the notion that parallels with the Cold War mean we can predict tensions with the "far-right" Middle East (are we sure they aren't "socially conservative but fiscally liberal"??) will end in the 2020s and be replaced by a far left enemy.

Indeed all such theories work great until the time they're postulated and not at all beyond the immediate future afterward (there will be some future things that are right from random luck and the fact that cause and effect are linked so some part of the future isn't completely unpredictable).

[Clark Kent]

I don't understand the "Clinton=Eisenhower" comparison in the first theory.

[100% pro-life no matter what]

Here's my favorite one:

Disaster: Buchanan/late-Cleveland 24 to McKinley/Hoover/Carter
All-time (not for partisan reasons) Great: Lincoln/Teddy/FDR/Reagan
Third-term understudy: Grant-Hayes/Taft/Truman/Bush 41/
Moderate (successful) opposition: Garfield-Arthur-Cleveland 22/Wilson/Eisenhower/Clinton/
Back to the agenda: Harrison/Harding-Coolidge-Hoover/JFK-LBJ/Bush 43/

Time is not everything- Nixon should have been the all-time great, before Reagan would have had a chance.  Obama was also given that opportunity in 2008, but both failed to create a new order for one reason or another, leading to a back-and-forth until a situation emerges for a new all-time great.  2016 could only be such an opportunity for the GOP if Obama's last year goes terribly (and "disasters" are usually identified by what happens right at the end).

[DS0816]

Richard Nixon didn't preside over a realigned map. 1972 wasn't a regular map for the Republicans. (That party carried Minnesota in that 49-state landslide, the only time it was in the Republican column after the 1950s!) Hubert Humphrey held Texas, which voted for all presidential winners from 1928 to 1988 except for this election, in 1968.

The map realignments/counter-realignments were most obvious in 1988 (Republican) and 1992 (Democratic). In 1988, George Bush carried every one of the eleven states of the Old Confederacy with percentage margins above his popular-vote margin. (Ronald Regan, even with his 49-state re-election in 1984, did not achieve that. The next Republican president, Bush's son George W., did this as well in the 2000s.) In 1992, Bill Clinton unseated Bush wit, in part, having flipped the likes of California, Illinois, Pennsylvania, Michigan, New Jersey, and Maryland—to name a few states with double-digit electoral votes—and these states haven't carried for any one Republican since.

[bballrox4717]

Neither. Presidents aren't cyclical.

[RR1997]

Hillary could be Gerald Ford and Bernie Sanders could be Ronald Reagan. Hillary narrowly wins the primaries against Bernie in 1976 and loses to the GOP candidate, and Bernie wins in 2020 and ushers a liberal era. Just like how Ford narrowly defeated Reagan in the 1976 election and lost to the Dem candidate, and Ronald won in 1980 and ushered an era of conservative dominance.

[Thunderbird is the word]

Hillary could be Gerald Ford and Bernie Sanders could be Ronald Reagan. Hillary narrowly wins the primaries against Bernie in 1976 and loses to the GOP candidate, and Bernie wins in 2020 and ushers a liberal era. Just like how Ford narrowly defeated Reagan in the 1976 election and lost to the Dem candidate, and Ronald won in 1980 and ushered an era of conservative dominance.

That's interesting, I just had a similar thought today. Both the Democrats of 76 and the Republicans of 2016 had a larger then usual field. While he doesn't have the similar outsider label I wonder if Jeb Bush would be a good analogy for Jimmy Carter in that both tended to be distrusted by their parties base.

[RFayette]

Hillary could be Gerald Ford and Bernie Sanders could be Ronald Reagan. Hillary narrowly wins the primaries against Bernie in 1976 and loses to the GOP candidate, and Bernie wins in 2020 and ushers a liberal era. Just like how Ford narrowly defeated Reagan in the 1976 election and lost to the Dem candidate, and Ronald won in 1980 and ushered an era of conservative dominance.

Without a 2017 to 2021 recession, this will not happen.

[Thunderbird is the word]

I think that culturally we could be headed towards a period of time more like the 70s, particularly sexually. Maybe the widespread avaliability of Truvada could lead to a renewal of the sexual revolution, similar to how the pill sparked the first one. Also I could see some new versions of punk and hiphop emerging from a place like Detroit.

[RR1997]

I want to bump this.

Think of how many political outsiders are running in 2016 (Carson, Fiornia, Trump). I could see one of them being the Jimmy Carter in 2016, campaigning as a political outsider who's not corrupt unlike Nixon/Hillary. Then this person could be defeated by a Democratic Ronald Reagan in 2020. Ronald Reagan also ran in 1976, but then narrowly lost to Gerald Ford in the GOP primaries. Similarly, Bernie Sanders could narrowly lose to Hillary Clinton this election cycle, and then win in 2020.

[OSR stands with Israel]

Its looking more and more like this cycle will come true

Clinton= Nixon
Carter = Bush JR
Obama- Reagan
Clinton/Biden= HW Bush
Kasich or some other moderate republican = Bill Clinton

[ObamaThirdTerm]

Hillary could be Gerald Ford and Bernie Sanders could be Ronald Reagan. Hillary narrowly wins the primaries against Bernie in 1976 and loses to the GOP candidate, and Bernie wins in 2020 and ushers a liberal era. Just like how Ford narrowly defeated Reagan in the 1976 election and lost to the Dem candidate, and Ronald won in 1980 and ushered an era of conservative dominance.

Bernie Sanders will be 79 years old buddy.

[○∙◄☻¥tπ[╪AV┼cVê└]

Hillary could be Gerald Ford and Bernie Sanders could be Ronald Reagan. Hillary narrowly wins the primaries against Bernie in 1976 and loses to the GOP candidate, and Bernie wins in 2020 and ushers a liberal era. Just like how Ford narrowly defeated Reagan in the 1976 election and lost to the Dem candidate, and Ronald won in 1980 and ushered an era of conservative dominance.

Bernie Sanders will be 79 years old buddy.

That's like an average age for the President of India.

[Thunderbird is the word]

Going by this cyclical theory will some new disease similar to HIV emerge in the early 2020s?

[pbrower2a]

The only predictable cycle that makes any sense to me is the roughly eighty-year cycle that corresponds closely to the extinction of childhood memories of those born roughly eighty years earlier. A prime example of such is the speculative bubbles of the 1920s and the Double-Zero Decade with the economic meltdowns that ensued.  Both corresponded to a conservative Administration or series of administrations that concurred with the idea that the noblest way of life was to be a greedy b@stard who takes advantage of any potential for economic gain and exploits such an opportunity to its fullest. Between the 1920s and the Double-Zero decade such met resistance by older people in power who remembered the Roaring Twenties as 'dancing on a volcano soon to erupt' and the Great Depression as the aftermath of the volcanic eruption after the fact, that is. 

Also -- during analogous times one sees a tendency toward weak, conservative leadership typically derided for years afterward - Pierce/Fillmore/Buchanan... Harding/Coolidge/Hoover... George W. Bush. Dubya essentially telescopes the twelve years of three bad residencies into eight years of his awful Presidency.

The economic collapse leads to a Crisis era (and, in case anyone wishes to consult the history of the late 1850s, the Panic of 1857 also soured public life badly). 

I can't see Obama quite in the league with Lincoln or FDR, though.   

[RR1997]

Going by this theory, Carson is the perfect Jimmy Carter. They're both political outsiders who are very innocent, good-hearted, and well-intentioned. I wonder who the Dem Ronald Reagan will be.

[m4567]

I think Obama is Reagan-lite or maybe "Nixon done right". If Hillary wins, she' could be Ford or Bush 41.

[Sumner 1868]

Neither of these theories take historical accident into account.