History Unfolding January 1, 2025 But first . . . What you should know about Jimmy Carter. Such a good life — and consequential presidency. Also . . . What you should know (and we should have been saying) about egg prices — and all the rest. . . . Both the Avian flu outbreak and the resulting rise in egg prices are results of Trump and GOP policies: deregulation, removal of safety protocols, zero antitrust enforcement, and encouraging price gouging. The same can be said about other issues. The rise in housing prices and scarcity of supply is directly traceable to GOP policies that allowed private equity and hedge funds to commoditize homes and trade them and the mortgage notes as securities. The train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio—which MAGA blamed on President Biden—was caused by Trump’s deregulation of railways. The baby formula shortage during President Biden’s administration, which was also blamed on Biden, was caused by Trump’s deregulation. . . . [In seeking your vote], Trump and Republicans promised they would fix everything—and they’re already admitting they were lying. Mortgage rates are going up right now because of fears about Trump’s policies. Prices are rising at your favorite stores because of Trump’s tariffs. And yes, the so-called holy grail of this election—egg prices—are rising because of Trump. Don’t let Trump and the Republicans blame anyone else. They said they’d fix things. They lied. Blame them, and message it loudly and clearly. Worth reading in full. And now . . . History unfolding. What you should know about The Fourth Turning, published in 1997 . . . [“The authors look back five hundred years and uncover a distinct pattern: Modern history moves in cycles, each one lasting about the length of a long human life, each composed of four twenty-year eras—or “turnings”—that comprise history’s seasonal rhythm of growth, maturation, entropy, and rebirth.”] . . . . . . as discussed last month by my fellow Baby Boomer, David Kaiser. He concludes by asking: . . . How has Trump, who has a very tenuous grip on reality, cannot absorb real information, and relies on intimidation to get himself through every situation he faces, won the allegiance of the American people? Why has he not paid a penalty for his complete absence of self-restraint, both personal and political? To which he has two answers: First — trite though it may sound — there is a little bit of Donald Trump in all of us — as Sigmund Freud, among others, certainly understood. All of us have chafed to some extent under traditional emotional and legal restraints and at some level have dreamt of denouncing them and letting ourselves go. And indeed, that I think is why the media can’t wait to headline Trump’s latest outrage. His rants are a new form of pornography — one apparently of which the public never tires. More importantly, the loosening of those restraints–personally, culturally, intellectually, and politically–has been perhaps the biggest mission of the whole Boom generation since it reached young adulthood in the late 1960s. Its first great political victory was the elimination of the military draft, that compelled young men to surrender two years of freedom–and perhaps their lives–for the common good. They liberated the arts from restrictions on subject matter and language, and tore down successive strictures against various forms of sexual behavior. They cut taxes and continued ending economic regulations. They have legalized various forms of gambling. They destroyed the respect for facts and traditions in my own profession of academia, with fateful consequences. And under Bush II, they arrogated to the United States to undertake any war anywhere in the world that served its idea of a greater good. Too many Boomers in too many fields have not allowed anything to stand in the way of what they wanted. Seventy years ago, a giant of an earlier generation whom I had the great good fortune to meet, Edward R. Murrow, concluded his broadcast on the evils of another demagogue, Joe McCarthy, with a chilling quote from Shakespeare: “The fault, dear Brutus, was not in our stars, but in ourselves.” So it is again. What my generation has done was only human. The self-restraint which, as the Founders realized, was essential to make the American experiment work, had weighed upon too many generations for too long. It could not, human nature being what it is, endure indefinitely, and it didn’t. It had indeed gone too far in some ways, and humanity has benefited from loosening some of those restraints. Now it will fall to future generations to re-establish some of those restraints and enable us to live together and solve new problems in the large, cooperative communities which their vast numbers now need to survive. Again, worth reading in full. Wishing you a healthy and happy 2025. It should be quite a year.