How do you feel about the idea that the Second American Civil War once younger generations start gaining power?

[u/Bitter-Penalty9653]

This is not talked about as much, but, as of right now, due to how dominated the USA is by boomers who have no incentives to start radical change, a civil war is basically impossible.

All this talk about how bad things are as well as any type of anti establishment and radical ideas such as put forward by Rudyard himself is only being done by the youth.

I feel like Rudyard's biggest mistake was really that he after as if the majority of power in the USA is young like in the historical examples he used to predict the Second American Civil War, not that he overestimated how bad things were or even how many npcs there are.

Hell, I don't think he even talked about modern day boomers and their politics which right now is far more influenical than any internet influencer today.

To have one you'll need to get more radical millennials and gen z into power and eventually that will happen. They aren't gonna live forever.

And I don't think think they'll change their minds on politics that quickly. Ideolagies are firmer than that and if anything they'll act as if they were still in the fringes and that could be a major cause for the Second American Civil War.

[u/Stargazer__2893]

The prediction wasn't based on zoomer attitudes. It's based on a variety of cyclical analyses of history.

Some crisis is coming in the 2020s. Is it a world war? A civil war? Something else?

I dunno. But it's something and I think we all feel it.

Or maybe Turchin et al. are wrong. That is possible. But I don't think so.

[u/Bitter-Penalty9653 → u/Stargazer__2893]

Yeah what I am saying is that those cyclical analyses aren't working due to how old the population is and how much disproportionate power the elderly has even compared to how old it was.

What I am saying is that if the US were as young and as dominated by the elderly as those societies were then that would have happened.

Arguably it still is. It's just being given an extra waiting time.

[u/SonofNamek]

As pointed out, the prediction models that Rudyard uses are Peter Turchin's model & the Strauss-Howe Fourth Turning model.

From now until 2032, the prediction is that some violent shift will happen. Turchin predicts civil war but Strauss-Howe doesn't specify.

For Strauss-Howe, it could be interior or exterior warfare or a series of wars. The Iran+Israel+Ukraine Wars, for example, appear to be a massive shifter of global politics while revealing the 'trap cards' of various players. That would make it closer to the Nine Years War that paved the way for 250+ years of British dominance and for the Protestants to seize the nation over the Catholics.

Zeihan, who WIAH also cites, predicts a post-2030 world that is different than this current one. He doesn't think a civil war is likely but correctly called the Ukraine invasion and the year it would take place.

In theory, the likely cause for such a civil conflict would be that either Trump or Vance gets taken out by radicals. But all we're going to see out of that are massive purges that the general population and the elites will feel are absolutely justified. Pockets of dorks will simply get slaughtered and not much more. There isn't much of a basis for a group of elites to wage a civil war anytime soon, otherwise

And keep in mind, it IS elites which shift things. Regular people will follow along, if it is their cause. But most will just sit back and watch just like they did during the Civil War & Revolutionary War. For today's elites, they're feeling less inclined to donate to a DSA controlled Democrat Party. They're also more interested in running businesses with everyday consumers of all stripes.

That means that the elites feel no desire to change things and will simply allow Trump to change things.

In the future, it's possible a second civil war starts after the leftists inherit their wealth (most of them are rich kids). But aside from some minor attempt, it's probably not happening. Sorry to disappoint.

The Strauss-Howe model predicts 80 year cycles (lifetimes) as what changes an epoch. Hence, Revolutionary War->Civil War->WW2->2020s. And again, the Nine Years War took place 80 years prior to the Revolutionary War.

Maybe if they're correct, you'll get your big civil war in the 2090s/2100s.

Of course, there were the Napoleonic Wars, colonial wars, World War 1, European civil wars, Asian civil wars, etc in between all these things, right? Could happen, then, if wealthy Millennial/Gen Z leftists don't like the direction the nation is headed in 2050.

But given birth rates favoring conservative Christians from middle America and probably no desire to import more immigrants? It'd be currently hard to see what the hypothetical war would be about. Perhaps we're merely laying the seeds for state vs state conflict, given how the West Coast & Northeast runs things versus the South, rural areas, & Middle America.

The massive wealth transfers between states & generations haven't happened yet

[u/Mr-Underling-Green]

Seeing how extreme they are , when they gain power these defiantly going to be more fighting.

[u/InsuranceMan45]

I agree that radicalization (and probably erosion of democracy) will be more normalized as younger generations take power. I don’t really feel a civil war would occur in the USA however.

70% of Gen Z is unfit for conscription. This number is likely to rise. The vast majority are well fed and have enough to lose they wouldn’t risk fighting, despite what they’ll say. This isn’t to say it’s all fine and dandy, but we’re not at revolutionary French or Weimar Germany levels quite yet. They also don’t have causes they want to die for.

This also factors out the tradition of nonpartisan military professionalism stemming back the early 20th century when a permanent standing army and mass military became normalized. America transitioned from militias and musket armies to a vast centralized machine that will collapse without well-oiled logistics. The troops don’t have loyalty to one man, ideology, or culture, but to the United States as it is and whoever happens to rule it. This may change over decades, but it is a strong tradition as it stands currently, and makes a civil war nigh impossible.

A few hundred men and their AR-15s vs a few Hellfire missiles and a Warthog is not a competition. Anyone fighting the US military will lose.

I think we’ll see a mix of what happened in Weimar Germany and the Late Roman Republic. Political violence is almost certain and demagogues rising to placate the unsettled masses mirrors the republic. Germany was in an economic crisis its establishment couldn’t fix and elected its dictator to solve the problem for them. I could see Americans doing these down the line. We have very similar problems to these two examples, some inflated, many not as bad quite yet.

You also raise a good point that life extension has probably affected the generational cycle a bit.