Flip-Flop

I've been wondering.

When I was in highschool, my fantastic history teacher, (Wayland Currie, by the way), took us through the American election process. After analyzing all of the results, we noticed that the American politic tended to cycle about every twenty years. Twenty years of democratic control, twenty years of republican control and back and forth ad infinito.

Looking back on the last 36 years or so, though, I'm starting to see a different trend emerging. Since 1968, there have only been 12 years of democratic control of the white house. And, because of the current war, I'm going to lean toward another four at least. That will end up being 28 years for republicans, 12 for democrats. (And who knows, maybe we can get Michael Steele to run against Hillary in 2008.)

Now what I've been wondering is: Could this be the inevitable rebellion of the children of the children of the sixties? Are the Gen Xer's and Y-ite's becoming more conservative because they realize that their parents are the ones who screwed this place up in the first place? I mean really. No one my age had anything to do with the election of the worst president of the modern era. (Jimmy Carter, if you were wondering.) And Carter had everything to do with the current unstable situations in the Middle East and Asia.

Not that the aging hippies like Michael Moore, Susan Sarandon, Dan Rather, Tom Brokaw, and Peter Jennings, are going to go quietly. I'm going to go out on a limb and predict this election will be called a virtual draw until six months after all the lawsuits are settled when in reality, the vast majority of Americans, who understand that the political system that allows them to express their thoughts freely is worth exporting to other less fortunate cultures, will vote for the continuation of our current path forward.

Now that all of the children who have grown up with the internet are ready to take control and express their opinions, maybe the mainstream media's stranglehold on information is weakening a bit. In general, people my age do not watch the evening news. They surf the internet constantly looking for updates and reading real time evaluations of current events. It's a decent bet that they don't really care who the suits in the idiot box want them to vote for. That kind of silliness might have gotten Clinton elected twice, but more people are starting to listen to their kids. And the kids are starting to understand that they have access to the information required to know that they are correct.

Well, that was kind of a ramble, but you get the gist. The pendulum is slowing. Now, if we can only get it to stop in the right place.