Many are in despair right now about the state of American politics and democracy. We imagine a Trumpian dictatorship or the liberals finally destroying our country. A recently published novel uses as its premise that it’s 2030 and the United States has collapsed.

But I’m not worried about these things.

What gives me hope is a book called The Fourth Turning: What the Cycles of History Tell Us About America’s Next Rendezvous with Destiny. It was published in 1997 by William Strauss and Neil Howe and it discusses generational theory, which is all that Boomer-Gen-X-Millennial stuff. According to their analysis of world history, there are four eras, or Turnings, that have repeated for centuries and which will continue to repeat. Whenever things look like they’ll be this way forever, we move into the next era which brings changes no one foresees.

These four eras, or turnings, follow a cycle that doesn’t change.

• The First Turning is a High era of relative peace and economic stability.
• The Second Turning is an Awakening era of questioning and moving away from tradition and shared vision.
• The Third Turning is the Unraveling, an era of growing intolerance and strained or broken bonds.
• The Fourth Turning is a Crisis. Think American Revolution, Civil War, The Great Depression & WWII.

Here’s my quick graphic representation.

To put this in historical perspective, here’s the turning we’re in now.

I believe in Strauss and Howe’s theory because their book gets so many things right. The Fourth Turning discusses the characteristics of the G.I. Generation, Silent Generation, Baby Boomers, Generation X and Millennials and their descriptions are eerily accurate. If you’re alive right now, you’ll find yourself in the pages of this book.

But what’s really impressive are their predictions. Well, they aren’t really predictions. Strauss and Howe offer possibilities that could happen in the coming Fourth Turning or Crisis. This book was published 29 years ago, but look at what they gave as one scenario:

A charismatic anti-intellectual demagogue could convert the ad slogans of the Third Turning into the political slogans of the Fourth: “No excuses.” “Why ask why?” “Just do it.” Start with a winner-take-all ethos that believes in action for action’s sake, exalts strength, elevates impulse and hold weakness and compassion in contempt. Add class desperation, anti-rationalism, and perceptions of national decline. The product, at its most extreme, could be a new American fascism.

– William Strauss and Neil Howe, The Fourth Turning, 1997

They wrote that 29 years ago, so I have faith that they got some things right.

They make the point that ever since the homo sapien species has existed, cultures around the world have recognized the cycles of nature and astronomy and even human life. Everything moves in cycles and what can feel like it’s gone forever will be back again at dawn or when that season comes around again.

But Western cultures have been strangely resistant to the idea that things move in cycles. Americans especially like to see things in a linear way: history is in the past and it’s not coming back. We say “Those who don’t know history are doomed to repeat it,” and “History doesn’t repeat itself, but it rhymes.” These aphorisms suggest that what happened before won’t happen again or is at least avoidable. But actually history shows that we repeat our societal dynamics, moods and experiences over and over.

Americans like to think what we experienced during our lifetime was the first time that kind of thing had ever happened. But the first American feminist views were expressed in the 1800s, our current chasm between the wealthiest Americans and workers is not new, and over generations we’ve been around and around the roles of men and women, and even how wide or narrow the distinction is between men and women.

Sure, we didn’t have smart phones or social media 250 years ago, but the feeling that technology is changing society too fast has been with us for centuries (did you know books were supposed to be the downfall of civilization?).

You might have noticed that my graphics don’t show an end year to the current crisis. But Howe published another book in 2025 that gives his analysis of the new millennium and I believe that book predicts that this crisis era will end around 2030 (Strauss didn’t co-author this one. He died in 2007).

What catastrophe will happen to bring the United States together and make us feel like we’re all on the same side again? Well, a global pandemic didn’t do it, so who knows? But there might be a clue in the fears about A.I. Left-leftist Bernie Sanders and right-rightist Steve Bannon spoke at the same event this month on the urgent need for controls to keep A.I. agents from acting on their own. Who saw that coming?

No one saw it coming because everyone who’s ever predicted what the next decade will bring has gotten it wrong. In the early 1960s, Americans predicted that in the next ten years we’d eliminate poverty and all be living in automated homes with robots. In the 80s there was the fear that drugs and teen pregnancy were going to ruin ALL future generations. And as late as the 2010s the common belief among most citizens was that American world dominance and cooperation with other nations would last forever.

The humor of South Park‘s 1999 song “Blame Canada” depended on how absurd the idea was of there ever being outright conflict between the United States and Canada. But after the current president’s assertions about making Canada part of the U.S, the lyric “They’re not even a real country anyway” has not aged well.

So, come on, everyone! Stop making predictions about what’s going to happen next. You’re basing them on what’s been happening over the past ten years and that’s the wrong way to go. Take a look at either The Fourth Turning or Neil Howe’s 2026 update The Fourth Turning Is Here: What the Seasons of History Tell Us about How and When This Crisis Will End. That’s the best information on which to base your guesses.

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