In 2010,
Richmond Times-Dispatch commented "Filmmaker Steve Bannon has put together a genuine horror flick. It's about the U.S. economy." although anger over the bank bailouts and concern over deficit spending, specifically that "Our government is spending money that we don't have. The longer we wait to fix that problem, the tougher the solution" have been described as issues on which liberals and conservatives may agree. The portion of the film which blames the housing crisis on efforts to help African Americans, specifically on the
Community Reinvestment Act, was criticized as inaccurate. A February 2017
Time magazine cover story titled "Is Steve Bannon the Second Most Powerful Man in the World?" interviewed author
Neil Howe. The story reported: "Bannon contacted Howe about making a film based on the book (
The Fourth Turning). That eventually led to
Generation Zero, released in 2010, in which Bannon cast the
2008 financial crisis as a sign that the turning was upon us. Howe agrees with the analysis, in part. In each cycle, the post-crisis generation, in this case the baby boomers, eventually rises to ‘become the senior leaders who have no memory of the last crisis, and they are always the ones who push us into the next one,’ Howe said. But Bannon ... seemed to relish the opportunity to clean out the old order and build a new one in its place, casting the political events of the nation as moments of extreme historical urgency, pivot points for the world.' Howe said he was struck by what he calls Bannon's 'rather severe outlook on what our nation is going through'." Historian
Sean Wilentz described Strauss and Howe's generational theory depicted in the film as conceit and fiction, while historian
Michael Lind described it as pseudoscience. Historian
David Kaiser, who was consulted for the film, reported that Bannon discussed with him what Strauss and Howe considers the past crisis wars, specifically the
American Revolutionary War, the
American Civil War and
World War II. Kaiser said of Bannon, “He expected a new and even bigger war as part of the current crisis, and he did not seem at all fazed by the prospect.” A 2017 review in
The Washington Post states, "Bannon now seems to be trying to bring about the Fourth Turning." ==References==