Peter Turchin: Entering the Age of Instability after Trump

Intro:

From what I have seen so far, it seems unlikely that the Trump administration will succeed in reversing these negative trends. And some of the proposed policies will likely make them worse. For example, drastically reducing taxes on the wealthy Americans will hardly strengthen fiscal health of the state. Thus, I see no reason to revise the forecast I made three years ago: “We should expect many years of political turmoil, peaking in the 2020s.” But this is a science-based forecast, not a “prophecy”. It’s based on solid social science, the workings of which I have left “under the hood” in this article intended for a general audience. But the science is there. If you are interested in looking under the hood, see my recently published book, Ages of Discord.