At a couple of speaking engagements for my book, "Still Trending: A Divided America from Newspaper to Newsfeed," questioners have asked if I thought there might be another American civil war looming, given our national discord. I'm no Nostradamus, of course, but I've answered "no" because I didn't see an issue quite as salient as slavery jarring us.
Well, I've just finished reading a rather startling book, "The Fourth Turning is Here," by historian Neil Howe, and I must say it has given me pause.
In a nutshell, the book goes back centuries to show how a saeculum that basically reflects a human lifetime of 80-something years and several generations involves four epochs or "turnings." Mirroring nature's four seasons, these constitute a period of Crisis, a High, an Awakening and an Unraveling. As a nation, we're now in the winter season of Crisis. Go back the 80 or so years in a saeculum and you'll find the Crisis of World War II. Prior to that, 80 years corresponded to the Civil War, and 80 years before that internal war was the American Revolution.
Coming out of those crises were High periods. The country established a settled constitutional republic after the Revolution. Industrial expansion and the benefits, however bnef, of Reconstruction followed the Civil War, and the post-WWII boom spawned a vibrant middle class, the suburbs and American prominence on the international stage. What's interesting about the latter was that economists forecast massive unemployment with the return of the soldiers from overseas, but economic growth prevailed mightily instead.
So Howe predicts that the latest Crisis will end around 2030 up to a few years later. What tends to bring society out of Crisis and into a High is war. Is that a possibility with, say, China, the target of much diplomatic wrath these days? Howe also notes in passing that a contemporary Crisis could produce a most distressing outcome — an overhaul of the system into fascism.
With the uncertainty generated by the Trump administration and Elon Musk's increasingly unpopular role in overhauling — and undermining —
the very foundation of America, is another civil war possible? In response, we shouldn't change the channel just yet. In other words, stay tuned ...
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