The Fourth Turning: Is the American Experiment Over?

[Analytics]

In 1997, a pair of intellects wrote a book called “The Fourth Turning: An American Prophesy.” The basic hypothesis is that sociological dynamics cause history to go through 80-year cycles, each four "turnings" long, that begin and end with a massive revolution. Specifically, they said that America in the 1990’s was like America in the 1910’s and 1830’s and 1750’s, and that tensions within society would escalate so that by the mid 2020’s, things would burst the way they did 80 years earlier (WWII), or 80 years before that (Civil War), or 80 years before that (Revolutionary War), or 80 years before that (the Glorious Revolution), or 80 years before that (the Spanish Armada crisis), or 80 years before that (the War of the Roses).

You can read more about the theory on the “Strauss-Howe generational theory” Wikipedia article.

In 1997, they predicted that in the early 00's, America would start to get strained, triggered by either a terrorist attack, a banking and economic collapse, a pandemic, or something of similar magnitude. They predicted that the strain would grow greater and greater so that by the year 2023 or so, things would explode in a way commensurate with WWII, the Civil War, or the Revolutionary War.

I thought this was fanciful in 1997. But now I wonder what will happen if Trump is sent to prison. The American experiment is based on a set of commonly held values and beliefs about reality, and I’m just not sure we have that anymore. Is the Fourth Turning upon us?

[Doctor CamNC4Me]

Thank you for posting this. I’m in IL right now for a thing and I was grabbing coffee this morning when I noticed a truck had a ‘United We Stand’ sticker on its rear window - I was struck by the messaging, for many reasons, but one in particular - the sheer nonsense of it. Like many of us, I’m subtlety gripped by a dreadful feeling that we’re headed for legitimate civil upheaval, whatever that looks like these days. Being in the Heartland, I can tell you that the commonly held view of urbanity is as immutable as a preacher’s desire for tax-free dollars.

[huckelberry]

Analytics,Your question has at least some interest. I, who have not been selected as prophet, think that it is not over but rough times happen. I find myself thinking of 1968 and the sense that the country was tearing itself apart. I do not think our agreements and shared values got us through but instead the necessity to go to work and tolerate our differences enough to get work done got us through.

I think our country has all sorts of various and conflicting beliefs and values. We tolerate that. I think the civil war involved conflicts of practice and belief that started breaking down the economic work together foundation of the country so the country really did start tearing itself a part.

Changes in 1910 seem more complicated as to me how they lead to ww2. There were significant social culture industrial conceptual changes in the country. Perhaps our expectations of imperial power and influence(entangled with other countries desires) led to ww2.

I find myself remembering all of a sudden. An 80 year cycle might be marked from end of ww2. The 1990s is the time Russia starts its struggle with the collapse of the USSR. Russian panic over its own instability and failures could generate escalating conflict. Or not.

[huckelberry]

Thank you for posting this. I’m in IL right now for a thing and I was grabbing coffee this morning when I noticed a truck had a ‘United We Stand’ sticker on its rear window - I was struck by the messaging, for many reasons, but one in particular - the sheer nonsense of it. Like many of us, I’m subtlety gripped by a dreadful feeling that we’re headed for legitimate civil upheaval, whatever that looks like these days. Being in the Heartland, I can tell you that the commonly held view of urbanity is as immutable as a preacher’s desire for tax-free dollars.

Doc, I cannot claim to be free from the dark thoughts you mention but I suspect differently. Sure there are differences in belief, understanding, politics from the rural areas to more urban. I live in a rural area of a liberal state, Washington and the differences in views stick deep. At the same time, ranchers or growers here are not some isolated independent Jeffersonian units. Growing harvesting and marketing are all large scale industrial activities which depend upon the relationships with the more urban areas as well as with the world. Our wheat is sold around the world, shipped large scale and nobody intends to harvest it without industrial equipment.

I expect our farmers will work with the outsiders and look down there noses at them as has gone on for some time.

[huckelberry]

Then I have thought at times that Rush and Fox embarked on projects which have a potential to destroy the country. Generating fear and hate can be fun and profitable to a point but there is a point when destruction can get real. But then it would no longer be profitable.

[Moksha]

Those cycles sound like Nostradamus, but Trump has signaled a civil war a number of times if he is jailed. For many of his followers, Trump represents their best hope of attaining a fascist dictatorship and they do not want to see that hope derailed.

[Gadianton]

I thought this was fanciful in 1997. But now I wonder what will happen if Trump is sent to prison. The American experiment is based on a set of commonly held values and beliefs about reality, and I’m just not sure we have that anymore. Is the Fourth Turning upon us?

It's an interesting idea though I'm not a big believer in historical cycles, but Trump being sent to prison, an actual prison, not just an ankle bracelet, would be the greatest single positive event for this country of the last decade. I don't have much hope for that but it would be the greatest day for America, like, ever.

Trump is a meme, and "both sides" are at fault for perpetuating it. I don't think the unhinged right have a set of facts that they believe about reality such that putting Trump into prison will put us on the brink of civil war. That's an Alex Jones talking point. Once Trump is no longer on the front page of Fox and CNN every day because he's physically prevented from committing further crimes and schemes, conservatives will stumble around a little bit looking for direction while mostly going back to whatever else they were doing, like making dinner or walking the dog.

My biggest sociology lesson from the pandemic was how a single picture of a dumb American might end civilization. It doesn't matter how many rolls of toilet paper the world has, or how many Americans know how to count, what matters is our beliefs about how many Americans can't count. If I believe a large number of stupid people will run the stores for TP, then I must get to the shelves first. I must beat the stupid people there, but I also must beat my fellow believers in stupid people. In many situations we make decisions based on what we think everyone else is going to do, and that is the most rational decision.

Same thing with meme stocks. Game Stop's fundamentals don't matter, what matters is if everybody else thinks that everybody else is going to buy Game Stop.

Trump has no fundamentals, what matters is that everybody on the right thinks that everybody on the right loves Trump. None of those Trump preachers really love Trump, in my opinion. They love money and believe their congregations love Trump. What it will take to end Trump is the equivalent of supermarkets slowly coming around to setting quotas on how many rolls of TP you can buy. If I think most stores will prevent stupid people from buying more TP, then I don't have to go to the store for a long time. If Trump news fizzles, Trump evaporates; if Trump goes to a literal prison, then Trump news is over, and the dumb Trump mob (the Republican party) loses coordination and falls apart.

[drumdude]

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_W ... ming_film)

[ajax18]

if Trump goes to a literal prison, then Trump news is over, and the dumb Trump mob (the Republican party) loses coordination and falls apart.

The age of the Democrat uniparty is here. All dissenters will suffer Trump's fate just as Mark Levin predicted in American Marxism.

[Gadianton]

If that's true, then you only did it to yourselves. Meme stocks only ever make a handful of people rich.