• Trump’s radical domestic and international policies that cause no real improvement to average Americans are a sign America is at the end of its era.
• For the first time in US history, America may be about to face both an institutional and socio-economic crisis together this decade.
After allowing a team of Elon Musk’s aides to take over the Office of Personnel Management (OPM), the human resources arm of the United States overseeing 2.2 million government workers, emails have been sent out to government employees offering incentives to quit.
The Trump administration plans to downsize its workforce of federal employees/civil servants in a bid to save costs, a big push away from allowing expertise to run the federal government.
With Trump himself, a man who never entered the realm of politics until he’s bid for president, absent of the political moulding that takes place in the decades of political tenure ship by having no previous roles in government before taking the reins of the nation demonstrates a stark shift away from the era of technocracy and one of the return of the generalists.
The 80-year institutional cycle
The last 80 years post-World War two have been one dominated by the technocrats in the United States, with experts dominating the fields they are experts at leaving generalists with little to no influence.
Covid-19 was a great outline to the effect this can have with the experts in the field of medicine dictating the entire nations decisions, solving problems they are experts at without knowing the problems they create in other fields.
The foreign policy decisions in Libya are another example with foreign policy experts knowing what’s best for American interests by removing Libyan dictator Colonel Gaddafi but heedless to the popular interest of Americans themselves of a world without terrorism, something that Libya became flooded with the vacuum of power left behind.
The generalists would always be able to see things from a less politically constrained lens and can therefore lead to different results however without expertise and research moulded into the echelons of power alongside generalists, we find radical decisions that can have devastating effects being made such as Trump’s recent plan to occupy Gaza and displace the entire population.
Every 80 years as an institutional cycle comes to an end there tends to be crisis before a new cycle begins, the first came after the Revolutionary War, which eliminated British imperial rule and installed a union of states and a republican form of government. The second, some 80 years later, came after the Civil War, which established the primacy of the federal government over the states. Eighty years after that, World War II extended the power of the federal government over American society and put in place a technocratic government, one full of experts in which the generalists become something of the past.
Each cycle would end on a crisis before the new cycle would begin and in the current cycle it seems as though the Trump presidency is the crisis at the end of the cycle of technocrats, an individual who is trying to solve the problems of the technocratic rulership but is unable to find a suitable way of doing so.
The 50-year socio-economic cycle
In the 1970s the American economy was in a bad state with soaring interest rates alongside a president who looked as if he was about to go to jail.
Unemployment was soaring with the country deemed to be on the brink.
Today the United States is in a similar situation where things are still getting more expensive in the United States with more people being driven to poverty, on top of that the United States cultural divide has only been becoming greater with the Roe and Wade ruling allowing the ban on abortions to come into effect along with Donald Trump recently outlining that there are only two genders in his inauguration, a culture divide is brewing.
Donald Trump is a divisive figure who cannot solve America’s socio-economic problems rather can only identifyit and make rash erratic decisions as a result. To blame illegal immigration as being a key reason for the US’s economic problems turns a blind eye to the real inequalities of wealth that is bothering the American people.
A demographic crisis is looming for the United States because of their aging population and low birth rates. The current policies on illegal immigration will not solve these problems rather only exacerbate it.
Trump is a symbol of a leader who is trying to remain in the old system of doing things by keeping the rich wealthy and making the poor poorer, an individual who has identified the problems the people are facing but is unable to change the system to an effective structure to tackle these problems. The blame on immigration for the economic problems is just one of many examples.
Trump will likely push the American culture divide to a realm not seen before this century while exacerbating the current economic problems for the lower class creating huge problems for the American political system thereafter.
The two crisis’s together for the first time
Although cycles are never guaranteed to repeat itself even with its track record of repeating itself numerous times, the signs for the end of today’s institutional and socio-economic cycle are apparent and thus we can conclude it is a likelihood that crisis’s will once again arise, and the cycles will repeat.
If the geopolitical analytical predictions are true and there is indeed an institutional and socio-economic crisis this decade it will be the first time both crises happen during the same or similar period.
The United States has now reached a point where if certain screws and cogs are unturned in the political system it could provoke widespread dissent and chaos not seen since the major wars, something the 2021 January 6 capitol riots will seem petty when compared to.
Even if the chaos is not taken to the streets as it was during the previous crisis’s the ballot box could well be a battle between new forces with radical ideas on both sides of the political spectrum.
The only way to mitigate the diaspora of chaos amongst a government that was voted in for that same chaos, is to provide a radical new plan and new way of doing things.
The American system is posed for change regardless of what pathway it decides to choose and in the presence of such chaos and turmoil, it’s likely the United States will be for the first time since the civil war, be truly occupied with itself.
American chaos followed by temporary isolationism
The United States has been in conflict for most of this century.
Since the fall of the Soviet Union it has found itself in a unique position it had never been in before, the position of the sole superpower of the world.
The world has changed since then with the rapid rise of China,but the United States still maintains the global dominance it gained since then.
The United States which compared to some of its allies, is a relatively new country with being in the position of a superpower for a far shorter duration then the empires of the past.
It’s failure in wars from Vietnam to Afghanistan demonstrates its inability to function as a superpower in occupying countries to assert its dominance. The British empire on the other hand occupied India for 89 years and extracted $45 trillion from India during its colonial rule while using mainly Indians to rule over India to prevent preoccupation in military conflict and imperialistic tendencies from the Indian people to rise.
The United States on the other hand had directly gotten involved in Afghanistan and Vietnam, pouring in tens of thousands of troops in each conflict resulting in the deaths of thousands and injuries of multiples.
The new American empire is starting to learn from itsmistakes and has since started negotiations with groups it once considered terrorists such as the Taliban and the new Syrian administration.
The withdrawal from Afghanistan and the signs of withdrawal from Syria are a sign the United States is suffering a fatigue of global conflicts yet the shift away from global conflicts is not something that the United States can currently get itself out of because of the current systems at play with regards to Israel and its self-proclaimed obligations on the world.
If chaos ensues no doubt, the United States will be occupied in its own affairs than to deal with foreign powers going against its world order it has set, however if America is enveloped by crisis’s the idea of feeling a need to protect its image to continue a world in its shape will become even less appealing to its people who are already fatigued as a result of endless wars this century.
After every institutional and Socio-economic crisis, the United States came back stronger and more united with the crisis’s not being enough to permanently fracture the state. However, the United States has never had to encounter both anInstitutional and Socioeconomic crisis during the same or similar period in its history.
The results of the crisis are unknown and the depth at which the United States must engage with its problems are unpredictable and therefore the length at which the United States becomes occupied with itself is unknowable and a great opportunity may lye for those seeking to expand their influence and power in a world away from American hegemony including those who are seeking to thwart US allies in power and influence during an absence of support.
