The Storm Before the Calm: America's discord, the coming crisis of the 2020s, and the triumph beyond

Common sense, the ability to see consequences far removed from the technical issues, has been banished.

and those technocrats who must be disrupted in order to rebuild an efficient government and public life.

Therefore, as in all social fears, there will be an increasing belief in the coming decade that the federal government is in the hands of conspirators. Such a conspiracy was unthinkable in the two prior institutional cycles, because federal power was simply not that vast. But in the 2020s the image of the federal government will make deliberate col

The institutional shift will weaken the credibility of the technocracy heading into the 2028 election.

The university is the battleground of the crisis of the 2020s because it is the system that fuels the broad social bureaucracy.

The technocracy has the upper hand against the white working class, although it is a tenuous hand, as can be seen by the election of Donald Trump. But this is merely the opening confrontation.

The financial problem that will frame the sixth cycle is a surplus of money in the economic system and its distribution. The surplus arose from the success of the fifth cycle and the maturation of the microchip economy. As I’ve mentioned several times, the big issue is lots of available money and not enough opportunities to invest in things that cr

The 2016 election signaled that the political system had sensed the underlying tension, just as happened in the 1968 elections. The political conflict of 1968 would not be closed until 1980. So too the political tensions of 2016 won’t be closed until 2028. First recall that there has always been a politician from the declining class who holds the f

undertaking frequently lacking a center from which it can be understood.

1945, emerging from World War II, and dramatically expanded the authority of the federal government not only over states but over the economy and society as a whole.