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Many of us have heard the term, Fourth Turning, referenced or discussed over the past decade or so. But the term was actually coined by two American demographers some 27 years ago.
In their 1997 book, “The Fourth Turning” demographers William Strauss and Neil Howe viewed history through a generational lens. Their compelling account organizes Anglo-American history into seven repeating cycles starting in the fifteenth century.
The authors make a compelling case that man’s nature, as forged by generations, drives history through amazingly similar cycles by distinguishing four generations by the phase into which each was born:
They use a Roman term (“saeculum”) that basically covers a long human lifetime. As the generations are born, mature, age and pass, they give each saeculum a seasonal and cyclical quality. Noting many recurring patterns over the ages, their study and organization of history along these recurring cycles has informed the names they have applied to identify each of the phases: The High, The Awakening, The Unraveling, The Crisis.
To fast forward to the current cycle, our last Fourth Turning Crisis was the Great Depression/WWII era. We’ve since gone through the ‘High’ of the 1950s, the ‘Awakening’ of the ‘60s-‘70s, and the ‘Unraveling’ of the ‘80s-‘90s. In our book, The Seventh Crisis - Why Millennials Must Re-Establish Ordered Liberty, Antony Stark and I illustrated that America, and indeed many western societies, have entered a seventh such fourth-turning crisis at about the time of the 2008 financial crisis.
As of 2009 we hadn’t yet read the Fourth Turning book, but the spontaneous nationwide energy of the middle-America-founded tea party, signaled to us that the national reckoning we long felt would come, was indeed upon us. The organized American Left provided plenty of signals in the ‘60s and ‘70s that they were here to upend America’s foundations. The Reagan era gave us hope that the Left may be vanquished. But, mis-directed and mis-managed national leadership through the Clinton and Bush years, resurrected the specter of a coming reckoning with the Left. As the Obama years wore on, characterized by intentionally stoked societal division and supreme cynicism from Obama and the Democrats, enough Americans recognized the rot in our political elite, that they turned to the outsider, Donald Trump in 2016.
In the Biden years, the Executive branch has been run by a cabal of committed Leftists, Marxists, and Collectivists of all stripes. The result has played out across America and most ominously across the globe. The destructive forces of the totalitarian international Left have ignited violent challenges to Western ideals in Europe, the Middle East, and East Asia. For those who cherish civilization, the result has been a titanic disaster – the destruction of cities and countries, and the death of millions of people. The hard-core Left are undoubtedly pleased… the Globalists who seek to solidify their rule over us, not
so much.
President Trump’s first term was distinguished by a resurgent economy at home, and no outbreak of war overseas. And it was marked by an articulate and stirring defense of Western Civilization Trump delivered in a speech in Poland. If not yet a lasting peace, he certainly left us a ‘freezing-in-place’ of the world’s wanna-be conquerors.
Against history’s odds, he has again been elected to the presidency. But this term will prove to be vastly more consequential than the first. For the forces seeking America’s decline or destruction have been largely exposed, as they conduct their rear-guard actions in the plain light of day. As President Trump enters the oval office this time, both his, and most of the American people’s eyes are wide open to the threats and immensely consequential challenges ahead.
President Trump’s election marks the opening of the Resolution phase of this Fourth Turning. The resolution means things will be irreversibly different when this Turning concludes.
The world of 1946 had a completely new ordering from that of 1932. America’s unquestioned triumph in the war established it as a global hegemon, enjoying a richly deserved peace and prosperity, marked by a standard of living unmatched in the world. And its quantumly superior military, assured its place for decades to come.
So too will the international ordering, and America’s society and economy be markedly different when this Fourth Turning completes its resolution.
A majority of the American electorate realize our economy has been mis-handled, and that our ruling political class has been deceiving us for their power and their benefactors’ increasing wealth. And the ‘woke’ ideology is causing widespread upset and resentment throughout the culture. That majority also realizes we face a ruling Chinese Communist Party bent on becoming a global hegemon. Including Russia and Iran, indeed it does appear to clear-thinking Americans, that our enemies are circling.
Indeed, many sober observers believe World War III has already begun: through cyber and economic warfare, and visibly and kinetically in Ukraine and the Middle East. The analogy is that WWII probably began in the mid-‘30s, but didn’t uncontrollably explode until Hitler’s invasion of Poland in 1939. Today we may well be on a path to WWIII, unless the U.S. takes some adroit measures to avert such a catastrophe. Unfortunately, international affairs seem to be waxing toward a boiling point. How the U.S.’s international interests are handled will be determinative as to how this Fourth Turning resolves.
But, on the domestic front, the wind direction has clearly reversed and is now blowing from the Right. Each day another corporation seems to announce it’s dropping DEI training. And the media and tech executives are suddenly prone to make favorable references to, and seek meetings with, Donald Trump. But, judging from their antics after the 2020 election, we know they blow-with-the-wind and can only be relied upon until the next game-changing election. To assure a permanent resolution, it is up to the right-thinking employees of those companies to assure the new shift has staying power.
Making these favorable developments permanent is not a spectator sport. Donald Trump is not going to get CRT out of your local school, nor the drag-queens out of your libraries. President Trump’s win at the polls has shifted the prevailing winds and provided us valuable cover, but we each have to put our shoulders to the wheel and make it happen in our own spheres of influence. His election marks just the beginning of the Resolution – by no means its endpoint.
One true critical wild card ever in play is the status of our economy. Regardless of any rosy appearances, our $36 trillion of national debt projects danger throughout every sector of the economy. Those dangers can be leveraged and capitalized upon by both our sovereign enemies, and operatives of the American Left within. The need to service that debt makes it a certainty that the economy can be brought to its knees or imploded through the debt markets. The willingness of our adversaries and enemies to trigger such an implosion will remain an unknown – because they will be continually evaluating the impact of such destructive moves on their nations and themselves. Most of us can do little to affect macro-economic developments – but they will hang like a sword-of-Damocles over the entire Resolution phase of this Fourth Turning.
Great good fortune, and a mighty effort by many, has placed the ball again in our hands, but it’s still up to the patriots of our nation, in all walks of life, to see that the good changes that are made have staying power beyond this incoming Administration. We expect that strong signals will be called at the national level, and we must be ready to animate them at the local level.
If we’re able to execute on the game plan, the Resolution of this Fourth Turning will be a nation emergent from its nightmare, and reinvigorated and re-established back on the foundation of a great Constitutional Republic on which it was so brilliantly founded.
