wavePod

Get Wave AI

The Fourth Turning Podcast - Free Thinking Through the Fourth Turning with Sasha Stone | Wave AI Podcast Notes

Back to Free Thinking Through the Fourth Turning with Sasha Stone

The Fourth Turning Podcast

Free Thinking Through the Fourth Turning with Sasha Stone

Mon Feb 02 2026

Summary

Podcast Summary: Free Thinking Through the Fourth Turning with Sasha Stone

Episode: The Fourth Turning Podcast
Date: February 2, 2026
Host: Sasha Stone
Guest: Andy Shalman (formerly Paul Zimmee Finn)
Description: Essays on politics and culture as Sasha Stone and guest Andy Shalman dissect the concept of the Fourth Turning, critique its mainstream interpretations, and analyze America's ongoing social, political, and generational upheaval.

Episode Overview

This episode centers on a deep dive into Strauss and Howe’s Fourth Turning theory, its relevance to America’s current crossroad, and a frank assessment of generational archetypes, societal division, and possible scenarios for the outcome of this historical "Fourth Turning." Sasha and Andy challenge consensus views—especially those of theory co-author Neil Howe—and discuss the interplay of generational power, apocalypse narratives, technology, and political polarization as the nation faces profound uncertainty.

Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. Introduction and Context: [00:00–05:51]

Andy’s Background: Formerly wrote and podcasted as "Paul Zimmee Finn" for privacy and career reasons, especially due to the controversial nature of Fourth Turning ideas being linked to Steve Bannon.
Fourth Turning Origin: Book by William Strauss and Neil Howe (1997), proposing that American history moves in generational cycles with every 80-90 years (approx. four generations) culminating in a crisis (“Fourth Turning”) that remakes society.

Notable Quote:

“America goes through an era...totally transforms the social, economic and political and institutional face of American society, totally beyond prior recognition, and creates a new order, as it were, out of a previous order that was dying going into the era.” — Andy [02:39]

2. The Current Fourth Turning and Its Discontents [05:51–13:39]

Changing of the Guard: Millennials supplanting Boomers—generational conflict inherently part of the Fourth Turning itself.
Bannon, Obama, and the Real Starting Point: Sasha discusses how the 2008 financial crisis, rise of social media, and Barack Obama's election signaled the current era’s start; also, how populist movements on left and right (Occupy, Tea Party, MAGA) exploded after 2008.
Imminent Dangers: The main struggle is now less economic and more about identity, reality, and worldviews (“1984” vs. small-town America).

Notable Quote:

“These two worldviews couldn't be more different. And that's what we're fighting for right now. That's the future. That's why this is such a scary moment.” — Sasha [08:51]

3. Critique of Neil Howe & Bannon’s Interpretations [13:39–17:55]

Elite Blind Spots: Andy and Sasha argue Neil Howe’s Ivy League, boomer-centric analysis is out of touch with today’s crisis, while Bannon is both more prescient and more conspiratorial.
Can the Fourth Turning Be Steered?: Bannon’s desire to “guide the ship” is naive—the cyclical waves are too powerful for individuals to control.
Technocrats vs. “The Great Feminization”: The role of tech bros and the dominance of new identity-driven elites.

4. Left vs. Right – Beyond Ideology [17:55–21:42]

Reality Split: The left and right now exist in parallel realities, not just different political ideologies.
Minneapolis as a Case Study: “The left means business and the left wants to completely recreate the country in their own image.” — Andy [18:38]
Comparison to Civil War: Deep divisions are now more personal than at any time in U.S. history, possibly even more so than in past crises.

5. Historical Parallels: Civil War, WWII, Revolutionary War [21:42–28:19]

Insight: Major turnings always feature deep division and reality splits, rarely resolved.
Civil War/WWII Conundrum: WWII ended division through unifying crisis (the war), while Civil War and Reconstruction left wounds unhealed—a warning for the present.

6. Danger Signs: The New Ruling Class and Moral Elitism [28:19–31:55]

Modern “Ruling Class”: A new class, mostly on the left but including some on the right, whose main currency is moral preening—often existing in media, academia, and the corporate world.
Duration Estimate: Strauss & Howe’s turnings last 16–25 years; we’re likely to face five to seven more years of turmoil.

7. Current Political Flashpoints and Migration Trends [31:55–36:52]

Left’s Sanctioned Violence: Sasha’s concern over left-wing actors taking up arms and mainstream establishment silence.
Red State Migration: Increasing flight from blue to red states, potentially shifting the electoral map.
Virginia’s Example: Democrat wins lead to policy shifts and drive further migration/polarization.

8. Immigration, Demography, and the “New Slavery” Analogy [36:52–41:09]

Demographic Strategy: Democrats are accused of importing loyal new voters via open borders—a direct line to Civil War-era Democratic pro-slavery policies, per Sasha.
Race, Immigration, and Political Power: Perverse incentives to racially code politics and use identity as a sorting mechanism.
The Great Feminization: The rise of women in leadership as a fundamental societal shift—“not for the better.”

9. Boomers vs. Millennial Dynamics [41:09–54:35]

Boomers’ Self-Justifying Narrative: Neil Howe shifts from blaming Boomers for structural problems to blaming young men for family formation decline.
The Value of the Original Fourth Turning (1997): The first book offers a more objective, pattern-recognizing analysis; newer interpretations (esp. post-Jan 6) are “hindsight bias.”
Why Trump is the ‘Grey Champion’: Only he fits the archetype as described in original work—an aging boomer who channels (and resists) generational tides at great personal cost.

Notable Quote:

“Trump is considered the great champion by Andy and I both because of how Neil Howe and William Strauss describe the great champion in the original book.” — Sasha [52:35]
“What would we do without Trump? He's the only guy who can rescue this country from the young people so they can have a decent future.” — Sasha [52:59]

10. Generational Archetypes Explained [54:35–71:20]

Four Archetypes (By Season):
1. Prophet: (Boomers & analogues, e.g. Abraham Lincoln) – Value-driven, self-indulgent, become great champions in crisis.
2. Nomad: (Gen X) – Independent, wary, hardened; survivors of breakdown periods.
3. Hero: (Millennials) – Group-oriented, protected, “trophy kids,” rise to collective action in crisis.
4. Artist: (Current young children and (historically) silent generation)—Sensitive, adaptive, prioritize fairness/expertise, often less decisive as leaders.
Cycle Mechanics: Generations respond to the context of their upbringing. Each turning fosters the next archetype in response/counter-response patterns.
Boomer–Gen X–Millennial–Artist Progression: Detailed personal/social examples for each.

Notable Quote:

“History is not only cyclical, it's seasonal...As an extension of that seasonality, history...has four seasons. It has a spring, it has a summer, it has an autumn, has a winter, or an equivalent of each...” — Andy [94:52]

11. Gen Z, Technology, and Algorithmic Socialization [71:20–84:52]

Millennials vs Gen Z: Generational boundaries are arbitrary; Andy asserts most “Gen Z” are really late-wave millennials.
Unique Traits of Today’s Young: Raised in algorithm-driven reality, pressured toward conformity, struggle with dual public/private personas (akin to Communist China).
Evergreen College as Harbinger: 2018 campus activism now mainstreamed throughout the left.
AI as Looming Factor: Brief mention of how AI adoption will drive yet more societal change, likely amplifying Fourth Turning turbulence.

12. Artist Archetype and What Comes Next [145:21 – 158:33]

Artist Generations: Born into the chaos (“winter”), come of age in relative peace; less likely to lead, more likely to adapt and soften prior conflict.
Role of Artists in Past (e.g. Silent Generation): Produced creativity, reconciliation, and professionalization.
Hope for Future Artist Generation: Signs of a return to tradition, “trad wives,” etc. may signal a conservative, stabilizing trend.
Lingering Demographic and Cultural Shifts: Immigration, birth rates among conservatives/progressives, and educational system’s role will determine the country’s future culture.

13. Final Reflections and Warnings [158:33–End]

Perils of Wishful Thinking: Andy and Sasha warn against assuming a happy ending; outcomes can be catastrophic as well as redemptive.
“Preserve American Culture” Angle: Sasha expresses concern over the American identity and cultural cohesion in the face of mass immigration and leftward drift.
The Importance of Understanding History’s Patterns: Both hosts implore listeners to engage with the original Fourth Turning and generational theory to better grasp where America is headed.

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

| Timestamp | Speaker | Quote/Highlight | |-----------|---------|-----------------| | [02:39] | Andy | “America goes through an era...totally transforms...and creates a new order, as it were, out of a previous order that was dying entering the era.” | | [08:51] | Sasha | "These two worldviews couldn't be more different. And that's what we're fighting for right now...That's why this is such a scary moment." | | [18:38] | Andy | “The left means business and the left wants to completely recreate the country in their own image.” | | [36:13] | Sasha | “Democrats...want the border free. Liberate the border. That’s what's happening here. And to make it about race...is so disgusting to me.” | | [52:35] | Sasha | “Trump is considered the great champion by Andy and I both because of how Neil Howe and William Strauss describe the great champion in the original book.” | | [84:52] | Andy | “It’s my contention, this is just me now, that the people the media has been calling Gen Z...are actually the younger section of millennials.” | | [94:52] | Andy | “History is not only cyclical, it's seasonal...As an extension...history...has four seasons.” | | [124:21] | Sasha | “In the fourth turn, he's here. He hedges on the great champion. I was so disappointed by that. You can't do that. You can't just backtrack.” | | [129:43] | Andy | “They want to make it as though the profit archetype is, by definition, either good or bad. But the issue is not...The central point is that the profit archetype is a natural extension of this cycle.” | | [166:45] | Sasha | “The fourth turning says that it can end in apocalypse, or it could end well...What scares me the most...is that the left isn’t living in reality. They don't see who real Trump is.” |

Timestamps for Major Segments

Introduction, guest reveal, and Fourth Turning concept: [00:00–05:48]
Current era and critiques of Bannon/Howe: [05:51–13:39]
Left vs right, reality splits: [17:55–21:42]
Historical context and personal divisions: [21:42–28:19]
Ruling class and future roadmap: [28:19–31:55]
Migration and demographic transformation: [31:55–36:52]
Immigration and identity politics: [36:52–41:09]
Boomer, Millennial, and silent generation analysis: [41:09–54:35]
The place of Trump as ‘gray champion’: [54:35–71:20]
Gen Z/Technology/societal change: [71:20–84:52]
Archetype deep dives: [94:52–145:21]
Artist generation and the unknown future: [145:21–158:33]
Final warnings, demographic concerns, parting thoughts: [158:33–End]

Tone

Frank, candid, and often polemical; irreverently skeptical of establishment narratives; energetic with frequent pop culture and political references. Both speakers wear their biases openly and use autobiographical examples to ground the generational theory in lived experience.

Conclusion

Sasha Stone and Andy Shalman’s episode is both a crash course in Strauss-Howe generational theory and a spirited, critical application of its core ideas to contemporary America. Their disagreement with mainstream interpretations, willingness to tackle taboo subjects, and commitment to looking into generational patterns make this podcast episode a must-hear for anyone seeking a less sanitized, more confrontational take on the so-called Fourth Turning and the future of American society.

Links Mentioned:

Sasha’s Substack
Generation Report (YouTube)
[Andy’s Substack & Recommended Episodes](provided in show notes)
Book referenced: The Fourth Turning by Strauss & Howe (1997)

Loading summary...

Transcript

A (0:00)

Hi, everybody. I'm here with our special guest, our good friend Andy Shalman. That's what you're going by now, right?

B (0:07)

Yes. Paul is dead. Paul is dead again. We put him to rest officially. Yeah. Paul Zimmee Finn, just for those who don't know, was a pseudonym I operated under for about five years as I was producing the Generation Report. It was done for lots of reasons, mostly because I was in a sort of a complicated work life situation at the time, and because this set of ideas is so associated with Steve Bannon's name, I was worried that I would be unfairly politicized. And pretty much all the nightmares and premonitions of doom I had about what producing this series would mean for me did come true. And so finally I got to a point last year where I said, the heck with it. I'm just going with my own name now. So Paul is dead.

A (0:53)

Paul is dead. But if you listen to the Generation Reporter, you go on YouTube, it's. It's mostly just your voice. So anybody who knows that video channel will recognize your voice immediately. Anyway, so we are here to talk about a very long overdue update on the Fourth Turning, because we're in the middle of one, and Andy and I have been trading thoughts back and forth for a while, but we've never gotten together to really talk about it. And there's a lot to talk about. Right. We're in the thick of it. It's really scary. I don't think people know day to day what is going to happen next in this country or even in the world. Right. Which is typical of a Fourth Turning. And so, first, for the people who aren't familiar with it, I think we're going to be getting a lot of people who don't know about the Fourth Turning. So we're going to have to give some exposition, background, what the Fourth Turning is, why we're in one. Now, who eventually came up with this idea? Who wrote the book? Who rewrote the book?

B (1:57)

Or tried to. Yeah, who rewrote the book. So if you like, I can take the baton on this one. So the extreme CliffsNotes version of this is that the Fourth Turning was a book written in the 1990s and published in 1997 by two historians, slash demographers named William Strauss and Neil Howe. William Strauss passed away in 2007. Neil Howe is still alive and has continued to give his insights on using the ideas in this book to explain or contextualize current events. Basically, ever since William Strauss passed away on his own and the basic thesis of the book is that American history is cyclical. Generational change has had a lot to do with why it is cyclical, and that once every 80 to 90 years, which is to say once every long lifetime, America goes through an era which these authors call a Fourth Turning, which totally transforms the social, economic and political and institutional face of American society, totally beyond prior recognition, and creates a new order, as it were, out of a previous order that was dying going into the era. The previous Fourth Turnings in American history were the period of the Glorious Revolution near the end of the 17th century when we were a colony, the American Revolution, and the period of the constitutional ratification near the end of the 18th century, the civil War and the period just around it in the 1860s, the Great Depression in World War II, between 1929 and 1945, and the era that we have been living through since the global financial crisis in 2008. Many people have tried to offer their own opinions that we entered this current Fourth Turning era at a different moment or thanks to a different event. For me, this is very intimate and personal because I graduated from college in 2008, and I can tell you, anybody listening, that the. We all, we all felt it to some degree. But as somebody who came out of college and into the real world that year, that change from the spring of my senior year to the time when I got caught up in the job losses that hit that fall and the immediate fallout of that, it was like getting hit by a tidal wave. And when I personally came across this book and its set of ideas some years later, it struck me immediately that what these authors had described back in the 1990s for what America was headed toward some point in the future. They predicted around the year 2005 to 2007, that that's what the global financial crisis and the rise of Barack Obama in 2008 represented, that America crossed over this threshold from the era that basically spanned from Morning America, Morning in America, excuse me, in the 1980s up to the first tremors of the housing market collapse in 2007, 2008, and that in 2008 when it became a full fledged political and economic crisis, or we entered a different political and economic context, we entered a different era. And it was because I got caught in the crossfires of this personally, that years later, when I stumbled upon this book and the set of ideas, I. I want to know more, because I feel like this set of ideas, if it's basically right, has a lot to say about how things got to be the way they are and where things are going.

A (7:09)

And I know which is itself a fourth turning. Because if you imagine a mirror with a mirror and a mirror and a mirror, Andy here is a millennial, classic millennial, and Neil Howe is a classic boomer. And so to want to take the conversation to a new place is itself a fourth turning. Because that's exactly what the fourth turning is. It's handing power from one generation to another. However, there are. So for me, I got into it because of Steve Bannon, because I was studying Steve Bannon as a liberal, as a Democrat, and I was like, what's this fourth turning? It's this apocalyptic view of the future. And I started looking into it, and I focused for a long time on the 2008 financial crisis and how I birthed two populist movements. It was MAGA, Tea Party, and it was Occupy Wall street and Bernie. But as time went on and we got into the fourth turning, I started to realize, wait a second, 2008 wasn't really it was that, but it was also this other thing. It was the rise of Barack Obama in 2008, the iPhone, social media, and then you just see this intense change happening at that point. So, yes, 2008 financial crisis, populist movements, but also this other thing, this other thing that we're now dealing with. And this other thing, not so much the financial crisis will decide our future. Although you could put the Barack Obama governing with the financial crisis, what it was with the bank bailouts and how it landed, if you want to do that, if you want to turn it into big corporate oligarchy. But the way I see it is two paths forward. One is set online and it's virtual. It's 1984, where our countries have no borders, and that doesn't matter anymore. What matters is race, gender, ideology. That's what puts people together. And you can see them now, no borders. You know, they're out there chanting for that. And then the other is the practical real life of borders and towns and cities and America and man, woman, marriage, family. Like, these two worldviews couldn't be more different. And that's what we're fighting for right now. That's the future. That's why this is such a scary moment. And neither of us think Neil Howe really understands that, because he can't. He's in, like, the Ken Burns world, right?

B (13:39)

Know, doesn't he his, his reference Point, speaking of Neil Howe is the longer I've studied this stuff, the more I found that he. His mindset and what he has said about the present situation in the country, even if you strip away a lot of the Fourth Turning language and all the concepts that he himself kind of patented, his breakdown of the country's problems and the way different events are covered and the way just he sees why different events are playing out. And what he sees going forward is very much a product of his background and his elite credentials and the people in the world that he inhabits. There's a writer. I live in the great state of New Hampshire now. There's a writer who I've become acquainted with, not personally, but with his writing, who was, I believe, a college classmate at Harvard of Bill Strauss and who knows Neil Howe at least somewhat, who has published at least one recent piece in the Boston Globe about Strauss and Howe's ideas. And there's very little difference between his interpretation and Neil's basic interpretation of events when you really step back and see what they're saying. Because this other gentleman, his name is David Kaiser, he is a retired Harvard historian and his reference point for what should be happening in America right now in his mind, is the New Deal all the way. And when you really listen to Neil Howe closely, you hear the same assumption of, well, if things were going correctly, I'm saying this is Neil's point of view. If things were going correctly, someone like Barack Obama would bring the country together and there'd be this very optimistic, government centered, community centered vision of the future that all Americans would agree to. And for all the present turmoil and disagreement in the country, we would have a happy ending to this era we're calling the Fourth Turning. Except Donald Trump completely derailed that expectation. And Neil hasn't really been able to square how and why that happened. Yeah, because just because Donald Trump is on the scene and has, in addition to everything else, galvanized so much support among the young. That alone is something that Neal Howe didn't.

A (19:35)

Yes, exactly. And we can talk about that, too. The thing about the fourth turning is the more you know about history, the better you understand it. And I've been listening to this 32 hour audiobook on the Civil War just to get an idea of what it was like. I didn't really understand it that much. The Revolutionary War and the Civil War were both about different perceptions of reality, and you were on one side or you were on the other. And in the Civil War, if you were in the south, you existed in this utopian bubble where everything was fine, the slaves were happy, we're doing great. We love. Gone with the Wind is basically that it's a perfect depiction of the utopian south and how it all came apart. But by contrast, on the north, it wasn't. You know, yes, the abolitionists wanted slavery to end, and they understood that it was a moral wrong, but it was dangerous, no matter which side you were on, to agree with, you know, to have any sort of critical thinking about the other side. Same with the Revolutionary War and the Tories and the. But World War II wasn't like that. It might have been right. The Great Depression pitted two sides, two ideological sides against each other. With Herbert Hoover, conservatives, the tent cities and extreme poverty, NFDR and the New Deal and all that. Right. The war brought everybody together. And that's something I did learn from Neil Howe, listening to one of his podcasts where he was talking about how divided we were before the war. There was like the socialists versus the Americans, you know, kind of similar to now. But the only reason FDR won that was because of the war. The war brought people together. The A bomb scared everybody. And then we all came together under Eisenhower as this united country, you know, and then everything would explode in the 1960s and the whole thing would start over. So it wasn't. But that division between the two sides was never really settled. And so I think we're still fighting it now, honestly.

A (25:23)

I absolutely do. And I thank you for reminding me of that. Like Robert E. Lee, for instance, he didn't agree with slavery, but he fought because it was his duty. And if you listen, if you read that story of the Civil War, you'll see that to them, it's just war was just kind of part of life. It wasn't an existential crisis. They wanted to secede from the Union because they wanted to keep slavery. Abraham Lincoln and the Union army wanted to keep the Union together. It was really as simple as that. And they didn't think much of picking up guns and fighting each other. Like it wasn't as unusual as it would be today to actually. And we're in a civil war. The thing that we should all be really worried about is the thing I've been writing about that I can't seem to get enough people to understand is that we have a ruling class. We have a Democratic Party, or whatever you want to call them. I mean, I don't even know if we can talk political parties anymore. I don't know what you want to call all this force on the left. But they didn't accept the results of the 2016 election because they didn't think Donald Trump was fit to lead the country. And everything they've done in 10 years backs that up. They still. And so that means they don't respect democracy. So how can we have a country if they don't accept the results of the election now? They'll say, oh, well, Donald Trump didn't. Donald Trump eventually did. Even if he said he won, he went through the motions. Yes. He protested. Yes. You could say that was the worst thing. That's what they would say is the worst thing that ever happened. And that's not the worst thing. The worst thing is 10 years of not accepting the results of an election and still not. And treating the other half of the country. You wouldn't have gone back to the times of the Civil War and seen someone from the south be treated differently by people in the north after the war. I don't think. Now, you do sort of get into that. When you look at slaves and how, when they were freed, how they were treated in the Jim Crow south, that shows you the Jim Crow south, to me and Nazi Germany, those are closer to what we're sort of living through. I wrote about this on Twitter. It's called, like, mass formation. The way that people in the south dealt with the trauma of losing the war was to segregate themselves in like this bizarre way that went on for decades until there was the civil rights movement movement that tried to end it. But that's more like what we're with right now. This bizarre. That is where you get your alternative realities. They don't belong here. We don't want them here. The Nazi Germany, where all the Jews and everybody had to be taken out so that they could have this utopia. That's what's scary about the left. They're not just fighting politics anymore. This is for them. They don't want the half the country to participate in our democracy, in our society and our culture. They don't want them. They want them gone. And we should be very worried about that. I have to hope that we can pull it together and we can stop them. I have to hope.

A (31:55)

I know, but here, first I'll say something bad, and then I'll say something semi positive, which is that I could never have imagined a time in my lifetime when somebody of the left would take up arms against the government. And that's what's happening right now. And nobody on the left will say anything. Not Barack Obama, not Hillary Clinton, none of them, none of the small town leaders, none of the media, not Jake Tapper, none of these guys are going to say, you're taking up arms against the government. All they do is say, oh, well, I thought you guys were Second Amendment supporters. And now you're getting mad about a gun. No, he's taking up arms against the government. Even MAGA didn't do that. They might have walked around with guns. They never took up arms against the government. They never were armed with guns and threatening the government, which is what he was doing. Alex Preddy, who was that gun for? Right. It was for ICE agents. It wasn't for citizens. It wasn't for rioters. Kyle Rittenhouse was in there trying to protect businesses from rioters. He wasn't taking up arms against the government. So it's crazy making that we don't have voices of authority who will say something about it. That's what scares me the most, is that they don't have the nerve or the courage to just say, wait a second, we can't do this anymore. Guys, what are you doing? Stand up for the ICE agents. Stand up for the federal government, and they won't because the Democrats believe that this will win them the midterms. So they're letting it go because they think. And so this is their solution. 10 years of selling nothing but fear. Now, here's the positive, is what I shared with you the other day. And I'll have to put it in the notes of this podcast on my substack, sashastone.substack.com actually, it's just sashastone.com now. And if you do that, by the way, if you just get a domain name on substack, you can link it on Twitter and it'll show the full link if it's just substack at Wal. Anyway, side note, but I sent you that report showing all those people leaving blue states and heading to red states. And that meant that the Republicans could win without even the swing states. So it would dramatically change the electoral map just because the left has become so crazy, the people have left these states. Like, I would leave, probably leave California if I could. I can't because my mom, you know, is ill and I have to be here for her. But, but I could see why people would leave who'd want to stay here. You know, not California's beautiful, but I just mean like in a blue state, like if they're nuts, they're not even going to stop the rioters.

B (45:18)

I'm just going to be very careful about what I say next. But part of the reason I have continued to talk about these ideas as long as I have is sort of an experience that I had about four years ago dealing with someone who I will just say is a man, for whatever it's worth, I'll just say is a member of Neil Howe's professional orbit who I had two conversations with. This. This person will remain anonymous, but I had two conversations with this person who has built a business for himself which essentially pedals special expertise and generational insight as the foundation of their business, and he's made a good living off of it. I engaged with this person in the attempt to just make them know who I was, that I was really interested in this subject and I was interested in engaging with other people in that professional circle to just say, hey, I'm kind of interested in contributing to this space and I feel like you ought to know who I am. I wasn't trying to wedge myself any further. I didn't feel. But as soon as this person picked up what my leanings are about a lot of things, I was Persona non grata. He told me to go pound sand. And that. That what that showed to me. I think you and I both understand this in a way that I think a lot of people are on our side of the aisle today do not, is that it's not just Democrat politicians and Democrat partisan figureheads in the media or like the craziest Marxist college professors on campuses, elite or otherwise, around America. It's not just those segments of people. It's so much deeper. It's the people who are CEOs or CFOs or whatever else of small businesses and say, 501 C3s that do really well and who profess their commitment to hiring the best people and all this morally uplifting stuff that sounds like it's taken from Oprah, but in reality, when it comes time to determining who gets opportunities to link up with them in the world of, you know, educated professionals around the big cities, they just exclude everyone who doesn't see things the way they do. Which only drives this polar polarization between red and blue America even more.

A (54:38)

We'll get to horrible, horrible, horrible Springsteen in a minute, but, oh, my goodness, just Jane Fonda out there, like, so people like my mom. My mom is very much, you know, right in the bubble, watches MSNBC and all that. She's very much a typical boomer in that way. And it isn't surprising that this boomer class would be so threatened by Trump. It isn't surprising because he's of their class and he's the great champion. And I feel so proud to have seen that, to be able to have lived through this and to watch one person take on. There's nobody else that could have survived what he's survived. I don't know where it goes. I'm just saying it amazes me every day that there he is with a smile, facing the camera and the press. But my nephew is in his 30s. He's a millennial. I know so many lost men who've just been left behind. There's a whole article in Compact magazine about the lost men. Because we live in a bizarre culture that has decided that white men are the enemy. And you can just say this openly. You can say it in award shows, you can say it in movies, can say it online. There's no punishment for saying everything's the fault of CIS white men. We cannot have a country led by people like that. I'm sorry. I don't care what it takes. I know people on the right. The only reason you know the right. I'm not saying they're perfect. I know they're not perfect. There are a lot of problems on the right, but they don't have the same kind of institutional power that the left has. They did in the 1940s, but they don't now. So that's all I wanted to say was the boomer that's understanding. The fourth turning is understanding the different archetypes, which Andy can explain, because I'm not good at it. But there's different archetypes that are born into certain times and how they meet. The moment the GIs met the moment to fight in World War II, that was an incredibly important. Obviously. And I think that how a generation meets the moment. For instance, let's just imagine that we. Let's just say I think about this all the time. Let's just say I don't think it would happen. But let's just say that China and Russia and Iran decide they want to get rid of the United States. This is how I've always seen a world war is these three countries fighting US and Israel, although Israel and the United States probably aren't much of a match for those three countries. So we'd need more, we'd need the allies of Europe as well. But let's say that they decide they don't like us anymore, they want to take us out, and they invade. Now, what do you think would happen with guys like Eric Swalwell and people like that, Gavin Newsom? Do you think they would be like, yeah, we have to fight all as one country, or do you think they'd be like, President Trump? We're going to fight against President Trump. We're going to help you take him out of power.

A (71:20)

Yeah. And think about this. I often think about it because I, as, as a Gen X, are following the boomers. Like so many women of my generation, we got into the Oprah era of trauma and healing from trauma. And that meant getting into therapy and that meant fixing ourselves. Well, we fixed ourselves. We wanted to fix our country, but we wanted to fix our kids. And this is where things start to get really bad for the left. And nobody realized it. They're starting to take things too far in this direction. You are an older millennial. So you didn't have. We've talked about this before, but you didn't have a coddling parent. My generation of parents. I did coddle my daughter. And I have such deep regrets about this. Everybody, every parent has regrets in how they raise their kids. But me and my sisters always talk about my sister. Yeah, we talk about how when we were raising our kids, my daughter was born in 1998 and 1999, was Columbine in 2001, was 9, 11, she was 3. And at that point, we were starting to mount one fear on top of the other. We had fear of school shooters, we had fear of terrorists, we had fear, fear of child molesters, we had fear of bullies. And so we protected them and kept them inside. Well, what was happening right then too? The Internet. So what did they do? They got online and that's where they found their freedom, this Gen Z. And they began living this virtual world, this virtual fantasy world which would ultimately result in gender affirming care and all this other crazy stuff. They don't know what real life is. They don't know what natural life is. I was watching them last night, and this in Los Angeles, they had this protest. It was actually kind of funny because on YouTube you had the chat, and the chat are like trolls. And they're making the funniest comments as you're watching this thing unfold. It was really funny to watch the chat, but it was this mob of people who were sitting there screaming at the ICE agents like, you're going to go home and commit suicide because everyone hates you. How do you sleep with yourself? How do you. In this bullhorn, you know, how do you live? The ICE agents are just standing there and like, how do you, how do you live with yourself? You know, you're so demonic. Nobody likes you. No woman would ever want to marry you. You're so gross. Why don't you go home and kill yourself? And then they. They all gather at this other place, and this punk rock band shows up, and they're screaming this, you know, f eyes. And then all of a sudden, these, like, sad, lumpy people start doing this weird circle dance. And the people on the right are like, what is going on? And they're doing this. And I'm just looking at them, and I'm thinking, there's no gender here. Like, there's no understanding of boy and girl. There's no real understanding of who they are in space, who they are in this universe, who the girls are, who the boy. You know, as we grow up, that's how we as humans relate to each other. Like, there's the pretty girls, there's the men looking at the girls. There's all that stuff happens when you gather as young people. But these people, all they had was f ice, and they were, like, hurling themselves around in a circle, and I was looking at them, and the women were all covered up, and you couldn't even tell what was going on. The boys were afraid to look at the women. I was just like, this is so sad. This is so sad. But it was also scary. It was also scary that this is going on in Los Angeles and all over the country and will continue to go on and has been going on since Trump's first term, you know, Evergreen College and all that. So I don't know what you call this generation of crazy. I don't understand what you. You know, you're a millennial. I'm Gen X, and I guess they're Gen Z, but what are they? Like, what. What is this weird group of people?

B (76:03)

But. But those of us who were born in the years roughly spanning the later 70s through the early to mid-80s, we all had some, I want to emphasize again, some similar personality traits and points of reference, even though we were members of different generations, just because we were young at the same. And that's how you get generational cusps seeming similar to one another. I first noticed in meaningful measure for the first time when I was spending a year working out in Montana when I was about 3, that most of the people who are working with at this company based out there in a small town. I'll just name it here in Phillipsburg, Montana, for those of you who've been there. It's a pretty place, but it's middle of nowhere. Most of the people who were staff and interns at the company I worked at were under 25. And I saw in those people when I was there a herd instinct play out that was totally unlike anything that I had experienced in high school, college, before I was in high school. And applying all of these ideas that we're talking about here in generational archetypes. And the archetype that millennials are is more collectivists than other generations, which we are. Even people my own age, we're more collectivists than people a little bit older than us. We are. But that propensity to lean into the herd instinct, just from what I've seen, and I've seen a lot of evidence of this, just greater amongst people young and further, you go down the age ladder within the millennial generation, maybe even to the generation after us, that that company just gets greater and greater. And perhaps not surprisingly, the political polarization within the birth demographic, younger than me on the left and the right, just night and day, and sharp as it is among all generations, including among people around my age of 40, amongst people around 30 and over, the reality divide so huge. And the craziness, the first, the craziness of the left as well as the very regrettable. Yes, very regrettable, very regrettable beliefs being espoused by some on the extreme right.

A (79:26)

Okay. You know, like, my daughter, she grew up with social media and that she's evolved. Her brain has evolved with social media. And I don't think people talk about this enough, which is that my daughter talks like she lives in a communist country to me. She'll say things to me in secret that she knows she can't say online, she can't share with her friends. And whenever I see her do that or I hear her do that, that makes me just want to fight harder to end whatever this madness is. I don't think she should. Every time I feel that in myself, of like, oh, you can't say that. I fight against it, and I say, yes, I can say it. I'm gonna say it. And yes, that. That does lead to the craziness on the right, the Nick Fuentes and all that. Like, they're doing that same thing. And, you know, we have to be able to say that's bad. Even though they're getting millions of views, that's bad. And that is something we're going to have to confront as a society. And if it gets bigger, then it will kill the right and they won't win, and we'll be stuck with these people in our government, and you and I will be in gulags. Like, we will. Like, I don't know what's gonna happen to us, you know, if the Democrats gonna. But when I see my daughter, she says, I would never say this to my friends, but. And she'll secretly share her thoughts with me, which is what they do in China. In China, they. They have these dual personal what they can say publicly and what they say privately with their closest, most trusted friends. And they've just learned to live like that. And maybe that's the case with these younger generations. They're just growing up to live like that. But what I noticed was in 2018, when I first saw the Evergreen College documentary, I remember how shocked I was, but I also remember how verboten it was to tell anyone to talk about it publicly for my friends to even acknowledge it. They wouldn't even acknowledge it. They thought it was racist to even acknowledge it. And this guy, Benjamin Boyce, did a really long series on Evergreen, which I highly recommend people watch. I think it's like a 21 part series on YouTube. Watch the whole thing, it will blow your mind. It blew my mind back then so I could see this coming. This force that was at Evergreen is now, has taken over the Democrats, has taken over the left. That's what's in Minneapolis right now, this force. So they're not just fighting for pre Palestine, they're fighting for open borders. Borders are now racist. ICE agents are racist. The movie that's about to win Best Picture, which is called One Battle After Another is about this force and how sort of they're fighting this systemic racism. This country that is infected with white supremacy. They just believe this, right? Imagine having to grow up in a country where they're telling you who you are just by the color of your skin and that you're supposed to go along with that. Like we can't. So the Great Feminization. Helen Andrews gives this speech and what she says at the end of it was I'm not saying women shouldn't have good strong paying positions. They shouldn't be in power, she says. I'm saying take your thumb off the scale. You know, let's let everybody compete and see who rises to the top. Let's let you know, we cannot be a country where the best and the brightest are held down because they happen to be white men. They tried. We've tried it the last 10 years, 20 years, whatever it is, it's failed. So anyway, I just got off track. I don't even know what I was talking about. I'm sorry.

B (84:52)

So gener the term Generation X we've long associated with people your age, which is generally speaking people born in the 60s, 70s and very early 80s. That term was actually first used in Great Britain in the middle of the 1960s when there was a lot of talk about the group of teenagers and younger people who were later called the Mods during the sort of the, the cultural awakening that happening happened in, in Britain, especially in the cities in Britain. Generation Gen X or Generation X is one of the terms used to describe that group of people. Then it later got picked up as a name of one, one of Billy Idol's bands in the 70s I think before he really hit it big. Years down the line from that it was the name of a book published by a guy named Douglas Coupland was a Canadian author. I forget if he was a novelist or what his particular niche was. But Generation X, the book was published in 1991 by this guy, Douglas Coupland who made it basically about. He was Canadian. He made the book about sort of angry, alienated, underemployed or unemployed youth of Canada who were sort of following in the boomer's footsteps and just like in America, didn't like it. But in addition to not liking that following the boomers, these were people who were basically told they were boomers all the time but didn't believe it. Not too long after that the Spike Lee movie Malcolm X came out and the letter X was all over the place. And to make the quick progression from there is that that got co opted into well, hey, a lot of younger Americans seem to be wearing a lot of this X merchandise either for the movie or for other reasons. And so when the media and the top rungs of the social sciences in cahoots with the media I think ultimately settled on a generational label for people your age, it fell back on this letter that they were noticing was being supported on T shirts and ball caps and in other ways by younger Americans at that time. And they thought well it just kind of fits them. Their, they're hard to figure out. And they're kind of edgy and alienated and the letter X just fits them. So let's use that. That's how Generation X got its name. And it was settled by about 1993. That same year, there was a story in Advertising Age which endeavored to try to give a label to the kids coming behind Generation X. So the kids born in 1982 and later, so we were up to, I guess, fifth or sixth grade and younger at the time. And the term used in this piece was just Generation Y. Why? Because Y follows X. For a long time, I would say up until about 2009 or 10, Gen Y was a term that was commonly applied to millennials, my generation, until it fell out of favor around 2010. And millennials became the consensus name for people born 1982. And later, in about 2014, the term generation Z first appeared. And I can't remember if it was first used in the media or by one of the big mastheads in the social sciences, but it was basically, as I see it, a byproduct or an extension of the same logic that caused the same group of people, the same, like, high flown professionals, to try to label millennials Gen Y in the early 90s, which was, well, we've sort of run out of things to say about the generation that's coming of age right now. What's the next group of people and what are they like? And it was the same logic, okay? This group, Millennials, has been called Gen Y. The people coming after them must be called Gen Z. And they applied an arbitrary. So they applied this arbitrary letter that was based upon this convoluted series of, you know, progressions of letters being used to describe generations that had been going on since the 1960s. And they picked an arbitrary start date for the people they called Gen Z that was based on their relationship with the Internet and social media and the fact that people born starting around 1997 don't have any meaningful recollections of September 11, 2001. So they picked 1997 as the arbitrary starting point for the new group. On assumptions that I don't believe actually work in practice, it's my contention, this is just me now, that the people the media has been calling Gen Z for years, at least on the older end, they're born between about 1997 and 2004 or 5. You're actually looking at people who are the same archetype as people born 1982 to 1996. And so therefore those people today, in their 20s, are actually the younger section of millennials. They've been mislocated generationally in my honest assessment, as a different generation than millennials, when in fact they're younger millennials. They were certainly protected with greater zeal and given more structure, and they were the coddled.

A (91:42)

Yeah, no, I agree with that. My daughter, she's born in 1998 and she is, I consider, a younger millennial, which I would define those as people who follow the rules, who want to be good citizens, who. My daughter is very much a good citizen. And that's, you know, what led to the whole woke madness. But it's also, you know, she would never, for instance, break the rules. She would never, like, drive without her driver's license or run through a red light or anything. You know, and we clash in that way because I come from a rule breaking generation. You know, it's funny, sometimes I laugh at it that she's such a good girl Scout. You know, she's so. And her whole generation is like that because they were raised by us, right? We raised them to be good people. My niece is younger and my daughter notices a difference between her, my niece's generation and my. They're not the same. They're. They're different. The. So they would be more Gen Z the later. My daughter's more a younger millennial and she knows that. She actually says that to me all the time she says, I don't really, I don't think I'm part of Gen Z. Gen Z's younger. And they are, they're like my niece's age. So they'd be about, I don't know, hitting 20s, early 20s right now. Not late 20s. Late 20s is younger millennials. You're an older millennial. But she's at the very end of that. And you're right that it doesn't really have a specific end point like these are. There is wiggle room between these, these various archetypes and how I'm absolutely 100% Gen X. Like, I, even though I was born right at the beginning of it, that was my generation. That's how I grew up. And I, and I know that my daughter Emma is very much of the millennials, for better or worse. It's good and it's bad. And I worry about what's happening for young people on the left and the right of this new generation, because I feel like they're following the rule. The rule, the millennials who stick by the rules. And you don't see that as much on the younger side on the left and the right. You see these crazy young right wings, right wing dudes, you know, who show up at these various events, and you hear them speak, you're just like, whoa, whoa, what's that? And I think younger people. So maybe the Gen Z types are starting to be more independent, think for themselves, question everything. Maybe a little more like Gen X. Now, just quickly let's go over the archetypes, because there are three components to the Fourth Turning. When Andy and I get together, we just sort of talk about stuff we don't really have a good way to. Like, this is what the fourth Turning is, which we should do more for people who just want to know about that, which we don't. We sort of assume everybody already knows. But the fourth turning generations are the time you were born in and the archetype you were born in. And I get these confused because I always confuse silent with boomer, hero with prophet. So will you explain the archetypes and how they fit through generations?

B (94:52)

Sure. So basically, and this dovetails to the. The term itself, fourth turning, that what Strassenhauer essentially said in that book is that history is not only cyclical, it's seasonal. And as an extension of that seasonality, history, they contend, like nature has four seasons. It has a spring, it has a summer, it has an autumn, has a winter, or an equivalent of each of those. And there are certain Things that happen. There are certain ways that societies change over the course of each of these four eras or turnings, and is with that a certain climate that influences the way children are raised, which in turn makes each generation born in each of those four turnings a separate archetype. Okay, to start at a, at an easy point in time, the boomer generation is an archetype that Strauss and how called the prophet. And that name harkens back to all these names, but I think especially the prophet archetype, hearken back to biblical references about just explaining or contextualizing the character arc of certain major figures in especially the Old Testament, and how and why they had a certain orientation towards spiritualism or, or building a kingdom or whatever it is. But in the case of boomers, they grew up a generation consumed with values, principles, right and wrong, individuals living by their own internal compass, by their own inclinations to express themselves. And I would also add in certain other respects, self indulge or morally pre to others at the other opposite or less instructive end. But the point is, boomers were the group of people that had absolutely no memory of World War II, even as small children. For that reason, Strauss and Howe actually locate the boomer generation as starting in 1943, not 46, which is what we've been hearing since time, since the boomers were born or since the boomers were coming of age. They've always been located as 46 to 64. But 46 to 64 is actually the essence of it, is that that's just when a lot of people were born. When you actually look at the personality of the people themselves, very individualistic rather than communitarian, consumed with right and wrong values, principles, kind of self involved, but also, you know, on, on their better days, very morally wise and, and able to sort of pass along counsel to younger people about sort of, you know, eternal, you know, nuggets of moral wisdom and right and wrong. Boomers are the generation that's most concerned about those things, that has the closest lifelong orientation to all those things. And when you look at when that personality in our current American context was dominant in terms of when people were born, it's 1943 to 1960, Generation X. And the other thing I should say.

B (121:43)

Because, because they came along after the war. They were the indulged kids of the immediate post World War II era. They came of age in the 60s and 70s. And as I said, as I described before, this archetype in history, and it's not just in America, it's very much a worldwide phenomenon and it has roots going back thousands of years. Generations that are born after eras like World War II. They, they grow up the most, at least as children on average, the most indulge in secure security and material comforts. They, they grow up very, very self assured, very individualistic, very concerned about right and wrong, very concerned about charting their own path in life and not necessarily thinking what's good for them. Maybe, maybe this is the key thing to the profit archetype, especially when they become great champions in old age, is they, they believe that they have arrived at a moment or an epiphany of absolute moral clarity about what's right and what's wrong for the nation. And they don't let that sense of moral clarity cloud their leadership decisions. And that's what gives them a certain personality and it also makes them very divisive leaders. Yeah, like when they're in old age. They hated him like Abraham Lincoln and Franklin Roosevelt were hated when they were, when they, when they were in leadership in particular. I think in Franklin Roosevelt's case, it seems like he was more hated in the middle to latter part of his administration than at the outset, which initially, when I came to that conclusion, didn't make a lot of sense. But he was just somebody who brooked no opposition and he was very smug and very self assured and very much into the idea that anybody who opposed him was wrong by definition, that is an extension of the prophet archetype. And it's why the boomers that we still have in power today have this personality that, whether they're on the left or right, they have this messianic kind of sheen or surface to them that is not characteristic of other people. But the. But the great champion is a phenomenon that comes along only in eras like this, and it's always of the prophet archetype. Neil Howe has hedged on this.

B (131:45)

This is very important. Barack Obama was born in 1961, and he had a childhood that was about as disconnected and scattered and chaotic as a person can have. Sometimes I think the way people tell the stories about him, it. That's. That part's not always appreciated. They know that his, his, his father wasn't around when he was young, but it's like he was abandoned by both of his parents. And even in the years when he was living with his mother, he was living with his mother on the other side of the world. And then when his mother's second marriage wasn't going so well, he moved back in with his, with his mother's white parents and had this very, I guess, disaffected sense of, you know, having loving grandparents. But being in a situation where you're being raised by your grandparents is a little weird. And growing up in Hawaii, it's very multicultural, it's very diverse, but you didn't really feel like he was like anybody there and nobody could really understand him. And all of his fires of personal and political ambition were born out of this very scattered early series of experiences. Again, I want to be very clear. It's not as though people born in the very early 60s suddenly, like suddenly a switch flipped and everyone born 1961 and later had a totally different childhood than people born 1960 and earlier. It's just that the dislocations felt by people born in the early to mid-60s, even as small children, created a dominant growing up experience among people born in that time that made them a fundamentally different generation from the boomers who came before them and made them therefore a different archetype. And last thing I'll say about the specific point is it's very interesting and important to, in my, in my opinion that Strauss and how first made this observation about the difference between boomers and Gen X in the very early 1990s in their first book. And they located Generation X, the beginning birth year of generation X, as 1961 back then, and this was before Barack Obama became famous. There are many, many other examples of very famous people born in the early 60s who I think stand out as great illustrations of the Nomad archetype as a personality or as a character in history. The fact that they got the beginning birth year at 1961, even back then, even before the first Gen X president was even famous, I think is an astonishing testament to the fact that the things they got Right. They got really right. And one of those was when Generation X began.

B (136:42)

And one of the things that has been true of hero archetype generations like mine, like the millennials through history, is that we get caught in the crossfire of all of this when we're young adults. We're born and raised during eras like the 1980s and 90s and 2000s when there's suddenly this totally new, at least going all the way back to 1982, that whole notion that kids should be assiduously protected, assiduously given structure, closely closely monitored to make to ensure their physical safety as often as possible. When that became the new dominant child child raising ethic in 1982, that one's totally different, at least in the Modern context. The previous time that kind of sharp pivot in attitudes toward raising kids happened was in the very early 1900s, just, I think, just after the beginning of the 20th century. And that's very important for people to know because the group of people that later became the GIs, or the greatest Generation, as they're more often called, they fought in World War II. And they did have this sense that, yes, their country needed them. Yes, collectively, they were expected to do something big. But this basic orientation that they had toward doing things in groups or having this very kind of upbeat, optimistic, but collectivist and bland kind of Persona that has been talked about so much about the GI or Greatest Generation, they, the foundations of that aspect of their personality did not start with World War II and their war deployments. It did not start even with the Great Depression. It started when they were little kids. And the parallel, the easy parallel to today, and that connects millennials today with millennials 20 or 30 years ago is, yes, the political environment is different. Yes, the social protests are crazier and getting crazier and scarier, and the violence, when it's breaking out, is getting more and more politically motivated and on a mass level, more and more, more and more intense and more and more destructive. But it's coming out of the same archetype and the same approach to looking at life that is very characteristic of the hero archetype. In young adulthood.

B (151:54)

Yes, they were raised. Started when, when they began being born as a group in the 1840s, they were raised in a manner that was very characteristic of hero generations born after them as well as before them. They were in terms of that they were encouraged to be more achievement oriented. They were given more conspicuous structure and conspicuous protection. But, and this is Strauss and Howe's argument, the Civil War, when it materialized, came so fast and was so ferocious that by the time and based upon fact that Strauss and House said this group of people started to be born from the year 1843, they still had not really reached full young adulthood when the Civil War came in. What they basically contend is that when a country, America or any other, has a crisis that materializes so swiftly and wreaks so much destruction as the Civil War did in the 1860s. It can create a situation where the hero archetype gets skipped because the social, the total unfolding of social and political conditions that confirm a hero archetype are sort of undercut. So Woodrow Wilson and Teddy Roosevelt's their generation, Strauss and how Contend actually grew up as an artist archetype and were more interested in living lives of. Of sort of figuring themselves out, but having this kind of strange mix of loyalties between being very instructive and civic oriented, but also wanting to fulfill their innermost desires. They were, they were indecisive. And that's a characteristic trait that's been true of artist archetype generations going back centuries where they always want to split the difference. They always, or I won't say always, they have a strong orientation towards smoothing over differences and smoothing over hurt feelings and at times ignoring, ignoring hurt feelings. This in terms of the Silent Generation, made them a great generation of civil rights leaders and figureheads when they were young because that gave them a cause to join that was. It was really the only cause that they had that could remotely measure up to what the GIs had during World War II. But at the very same time, artist archetypes don't tend to produce strong leaders, which is why someone like Martin Luther King amongst that particular generation and four archetype, four artist archetype generations in general, figures like Martin Luther King and I would add Teddy Roosevelt to stand out so much. Because when you actually look at the roll call of presidents they've produced, compared to the other three archetypes, it's pretty underwhelming. So every archetype produces different strengths and weaknesses.

A (155:28)

After the Civil War, they had that era where this whole group mobilized to build a KKK and to stop the Reconstruction, the rebuilding of the south, put in segregation. It seemed like so much of the south was held back because they were so resentful at having lost the war that they prevented progress. And all they really wanted to do was separate and bitterly cling to the remnants of their former glory. Which is why Martin Luther King rising up and fighting for civil rights was so important of that time. And anybody else who decided to go along with them. That was an interesting time. I'm so fascinated by the post Civil War America on both sides, really, because one side just grew wealth, like unimaginable wealth into the Gilded Age. Ridiculous wealth, horrific wealth. Right. And then in the south, it was a totally different story. And I Don't know enough about it to say what it was. All I can assume is that they just were clinging to the past. That's just doesn't. I don't know enough about it to say exactly what went on. But today's generation after this horrific war, I want to say I can already see some signs of change in this young group. Like this phenomenon of trad wives on the. You see these women, they're young, like, like Nara Smith on TikTok. I think she's like 22 or something and she's already had like four kids. And there's this, there seems to be this turn toward traditionalism and old fashioned values that is even rising within progressive circles on the left. I mean not, not these crazy progressives, but Nara Smith, someone like her. There is, I think, this feeling of, you can feel this generation pulling away from these crazies and wanting to have like the husband, you know, and the kids and the traditional way of life. I can feel that anyway, happening on, on social media that I see not everybody wants to be what, what they would have called in my era, a hairy legged feminist. You know, they want to be attractive to men. You know, life goes on. Look, we don't have 8 billion on this planet for nothing. Like you can't just say, oh, we're gonna. The people on the right are having more kids. The people who have more kids control the future. People on the left aren't. So we're talking about these generational forces. So you're saying like, like you're talking about the silent generation heading into the 60s and all that whatever this new silent generation is going to be all, you know, the kids that are being born are going to be being born to conservative parents, a lot of them traditional parents, not these crazies who don't even believe in having kids. They just believe in aborting them. So, you know, not all of them, but they're weird about kids on the left now. You know, it's like brave new world.

B (158:39)

My kudos. Yeah. Is that one of the things that has become sort of a topic that I've revisited from time to time, whether I've been producing material for the podcast or not, because it's, it's just something that has, I think enhanced my way of thinking about how things got to be the way they are, is I came along I think in particular, I think this, particularly when I was in high school, I came along at a time and in a place where the logic of what you did as a young person to succeed and get ahead was defined in such straightforward, conventional and insistent terms. You get the best grades and get the most extracurriculars you can in high school, you go to college. You not only go to college, you go to the best college you can, you get the best grades you conceivably can in college. While you also have a good time, if you want to go get a professional advanced degree, you go do that. And this is really something that I think people 10 and 15 years younger, younger than me, don't have the same relationship to. But when I was applying to graduate school in 2009, I was all about getting the best grade that I could, the best score that I could on the placement exam to get in the best graduate school I could. I mean, in the immediate aftermath of the global financial crisis and the jobs crunch that went with it, it was totally a point of insistence that, you know, if you were young and you were shut out of an entry level job, you had to go get an additional degree and you had to do the best you could to get in the best school you could to get the best job opportunities you could get for yourself on the other side of finishing that degree. That is totally gone now. And I think one of the ways it's a little bit, this is a little bit germane to what you were saying about the traditionalism. But what I think a lot of these trends, especially on the conservative side of things, but may not exclusively be, is it's, you see younger and younger people breaking away from the life paths and the life paths of sort of credentialism and self indulgence that were laid out for people when we were their age. They're just coming along in different circumstances now, and they've got a little bit of a different frame of reference. So to me, it's not surprising. I've got, I guess, a few mixed feelings about exactly what's driving all of the forces behind, like, as you said, the travel life phenomenon, for example. But I, as soon as I started picking up on what it is, I was like, oh, that's gotta be mostly women. Young, younger than my peers, for sure.

A (161:44)

No, they're young, younger women who, as you say, don't remember the past. They just think, this is so cool. You know, I want to be. And I've seen them, not just white women. Nara Smith's not Even white. One thing I think that we should just leave our audience with is one thing to think about the future, and that is to take it back to Neil Howe Demography. These immigrants coming in, closing the border, protecting the border, opening the border, all of that is going to influence the future. If we don't fix schools and they're still indoctrinating people, and you have these immigrants coming in that are taught the same thing, they're going to be having children. They have more children than any other group. That's why they're growing faster than any other group. So everything we say could be null and void, given that, because it's an unpredictable element of a country. We won't understand probably, if that happens, because you're not really talking about American culture anymore. You're talking about whatever this new thing is where this group has decided that marginalized people should be brought in to even things out. And that's going to change the future of the country in interesting ways. People from Mexico and a lot of Latin American countries tend to be conservative Catholics, but these crazy woke people certainly aren't. So I don't know. I mean, it's all a mystery of how it's all going to go. But I understand that the J.D. vance type of conservative and the Donald Trump perhaps, and if people want to take it to Tucker Carlson and all that, Matt Walsh and that, they're very worried about that. And you could say, oh, well, they're just racist. They just want to preserve the white race. But it's also about American culture, preserving American culture. And it's a conversation people don't really want to have. Even though if you ask them quietly and privately, like I said to my friend, would you be happy if 30,000 Nigerians were dropped into your small town in Connecticut? Like, I wish they dropped them into this town I live in which is 96% white and very liberal. Are you going to tell me that you're going to be happy with 30,000 or 3,000 or whatever it is, Nigerians suddenly living there? That's going to change things dramatically in America. So that's another weird fight that no one really wants to talk about because nobody wants to be called a racist. But America can't just be, you know, a haven for the third World. We can't. We can barely take care of our own at this point. So, anyway, I'll leave you with that. Thank you for. What has it been, three hours? We did a Joe Rogan podcast.

Summary

Podcast Summary: Free Thinking Through the Fourth Turning with Sasha Stone

Episode Overview

Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. Introduction and Context: [00:00–05:51]

Andy’s Background: Formerly wrote and podcasted as "Paul Zimmee Finn" for privacy and career reasons, especially due to the controversial nature of Fourth Turning ideas being linked to Steve Bannon.
Fourth Turning Origin: Book by William Strauss and Neil Howe (1997), proposing that American history moves in generational cycles with every 80-90 years (approx. four generations) culminating in a crisis (“Fourth Turning”) that remakes society.

Notable Quote:

“America goes through an era...totally transforms the social, economic and political and institutional face of American society, totally beyond prior recognition, and creates a new order, as it were, out of a previous order that was dying going into the era.” — Andy [02:39]

2. The Current Fourth Turning and Its Discontents [05:51–13:39]

Changing of the Guard: Millennials supplanting Boomers—generational conflict inherently part of the Fourth Turning itself.
Bannon, Obama, and the Real Starting Point: Sasha discusses how the 2008 financial crisis, rise of social media, and Barack Obama's election signaled the current era’s start; also, how populist movements on left and right (Occupy, Tea Party, MAGA) exploded after 2008.
Imminent Dangers: The main struggle is now less economic and more about identity, reality, and worldviews (“1984” vs. small-town America).

Notable Quote:

“These two worldviews couldn't be more different. And that's what we're fighting for right now. That's the future. That's why this is such a scary moment.” — Sasha [08:51]

3. Critique of Neil Howe & Bannon’s Interpretations [13:39–17:55]

Elite Blind Spots: Andy and Sasha argue Neil Howe’s Ivy League, boomer-centric analysis is out of touch with today’s crisis, while Bannon is both more prescient and more conspiratorial.
Can the Fourth Turning Be Steered?: Bannon’s desire to “guide the ship” is naive—the cyclical waves are too powerful for individuals to control.
Technocrats vs. “The Great Feminization”: The role of tech bros and the dominance of new identity-driven elites.

4. Left vs. Right – Beyond Ideology [17:55–21:42]

Reality Split: The left and right now exist in parallel realities, not just different political ideologies.
Minneapolis as a Case Study: “The left means business and the left wants to completely recreate the country in their own image.” — Andy [18:38]
Comparison to Civil War: Deep divisions are now more personal than at any time in U.S. history, possibly even more so than in past crises.

5. Historical Parallels: Civil War, WWII, Revolutionary War [21:42–28:19]

Insight: Major turnings always feature deep division and reality splits, rarely resolved.
Civil War/WWII Conundrum: WWII ended division through unifying crisis (the war), while Civil War and Reconstruction left wounds unhealed—a warning for the present.

6. Danger Signs: The New Ruling Class and Moral Elitism [28:19–31:55]

Modern “Ruling Class”: A new class, mostly on the left but including some on the right, whose main currency is moral preening—often existing in media, academia, and the corporate world.
Duration Estimate: Strauss & Howe’s turnings last 16–25 years; we’re likely to face five to seven more years of turmoil.

7. Current Political Flashpoints and Migration Trends [31:55–36:52]

Left’s Sanctioned Violence: Sasha’s concern over left-wing actors taking up arms and mainstream establishment silence.
Red State Migration: Increasing flight from blue to red states, potentially shifting the electoral map.
Virginia’s Example: Democrat wins lead to policy shifts and drive further migration/polarization.

8. Immigration, Demography, and the “New Slavery” Analogy [36:52–41:09]

Demographic Strategy: Democrats are accused of importing loyal new voters via open borders—a direct line to Civil War-era Democratic pro-slavery policies, per Sasha.
Race, Immigration, and Political Power: Perverse incentives to racially code politics and use identity as a sorting mechanism.
The Great Feminization: The rise of women in leadership as a fundamental societal shift—“not for the better.”

9. Boomers vs. Millennial Dynamics [41:09–54:35]

Boomers’ Self-Justifying Narrative: Neil Howe shifts from blaming Boomers for structural problems to blaming young men for family formation decline.
The Value of the Original Fourth Turning (1997): The first book offers a more objective, pattern-recognizing analysis; newer interpretations (esp. post-Jan 6) are “hindsight bias.”
Why Trump is the ‘Grey Champion’: Only he fits the archetype as described in original work—an aging boomer who channels (and resists) generational tides at great personal cost.

Notable Quote:

“Trump is considered the great champion by Andy and I both because of how Neil Howe and William Strauss describe the great champion in the original book.” — Sasha [52:35]
“What would we do without Trump? He's the only guy who can rescue this country from the young people so they can have a decent future.” — Sasha [52:59]

10. Generational Archetypes Explained [54:35–71:20]

Four Archetypes (By Season):
1. Prophet: (Boomers & analogues, e.g. Abraham Lincoln) – Value-driven, self-indulgent, become great champions in crisis.
2. Nomad: (Gen X) – Independent, wary, hardened; survivors of breakdown periods.
3. Hero: (Millennials) – Group-oriented, protected, “trophy kids,” rise to collective action in crisis.
4. Artist: (Current young children and (historically) silent generation)—Sensitive, adaptive, prioritize fairness/expertise, often less decisive as leaders.
Cycle Mechanics: Generations respond to the context of their upbringing. Each turning fosters the next archetype in response/counter-response patterns.
Boomer–Gen X–Millennial–Artist Progression: Detailed personal/social examples for each.

Notable Quote:

“History is not only cyclical, it's seasonal...As an extension of that seasonality, history...has four seasons. It has a spring, it has a summer, it has an autumn, has a winter, or an equivalent of each...” — Andy [94:52]

11. Gen Z, Technology, and Algorithmic Socialization [71:20–84:52]

Millennials vs Gen Z: Generational boundaries are arbitrary; Andy asserts most “Gen Z” are really late-wave millennials.
Unique Traits of Today’s Young: Raised in algorithm-driven reality, pressured toward conformity, struggle with dual public/private personas (akin to Communist China).
Evergreen College as Harbinger: 2018 campus activism now mainstreamed throughout the left.
AI as Looming Factor: Brief mention of how AI adoption will drive yet more societal change, likely amplifying Fourth Turning turbulence.

12. Artist Archetype and What Comes Next [145:21 – 158:33]

Artist Generations: Born into the chaos (“winter”), come of age in relative peace; less likely to lead, more likely to adapt and soften prior conflict.
Role of Artists in Past (e.g. Silent Generation): Produced creativity, reconciliation, and professionalization.
Hope for Future Artist Generation: Signs of a return to tradition, “trad wives,” etc. may signal a conservative, stabilizing trend.
Lingering Demographic and Cultural Shifts: Immigration, birth rates among conservatives/progressives, and educational system’s role will determine the country’s future culture.

13. Final Reflections and Warnings [158:33–End]

Perils of Wishful Thinking: Andy and Sasha warn against assuming a happy ending; outcomes can be catastrophic as well as redemptive.
“Preserve American Culture” Angle: Sasha expresses concern over the American identity and cultural cohesion in the face of mass immigration and leftward drift.
The Importance of Understanding History’s Patterns: Both hosts implore listeners to engage with the original Fourth Turning and generational theory to better grasp where America is headed.

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

Timestamps for Major Segments

Introduction, guest reveal, and Fourth Turning concept: [00:00–05:48]
Current era and critiques of Bannon/Howe: [05:51–13:39]
Left vs right, reality splits: [17:55–21:42]
Historical context and personal divisions: [21:42–28:19]
Ruling class and future roadmap: [28:19–31:55]
Migration and demographic transformation: [31:55–36:52]
Immigration and identity politics: [36:52–41:09]
Boomer, Millennial, and silent generation analysis: [41:09–54:35]
The place of Trump as ‘gray champion’: [54:35–71:20]
Gen Z/Technology/societal change: [71:20–84:52]
Archetype deep dives: [94:52–145:21]
Artist generation and the unknown future: [145:21–158:33]
Final warnings, demographic concerns, parting thoughts: [158:33–End]

Tone

Conclusion

Links Mentioned:

Sasha’s Substack
Generation Report (YouTube)
[Andy’s Substack & Recommended Episodes](provided in show notes)
Book referenced: The Fourth Turning by Strauss & Howe (1997)