This story was originally published by the WND News Center.
An author who is known for coining the "Millennnial" descriptive and has seen his predictions for the future actually happen is warning that America is blundering down the road to another civil war, and four of five predicates for that calamity already have happened.
It is demographer and historian Neil Howe who was interviewed for an analysis by the Daily Signal, and who explained internal divisions so deep they can lead to a reprise of the war between the blue and the gray is more plausible than most people think.
"In 1997, he published a book with Bill Strauss, 'The Fourth Turning: An American Prophecy—What the Cycles of History Tell Us About America's Next Rendezvous with Destiny.' In that book, he suggested five catalysts for a major crisis—and four of the five have already come to pass," the analysis explained.
On the Daily Signal Podcast, he explained one predictor was a crisis over debt, and he called it a "new tea party movement," a label that subsequently was used during the 2010 fights by that name.
"The other one was a WMD [weapon of mass destruction] attack on New York City," Howe explained, citing how the catastrophe of 9/11 paralleled that worry.
"The other one was the [COVID-19] pandemic, and the fourth one was Russia invading a former Soviet republic," such as Ukraine, he explained.
What's left?
"A nullification crisis, where one or more of the states would actually nullify federal regulation, which would lead to a new secession movement," he warned.
His theory is that the United States can expect a major crisis about every 80-100 years, like a Great Depression or a World War II, events that he calls "fourth turnings."
And he says already in America the divisions between "red" and "blue" are so deep each considers the other "perfectly evil," the analysis explains.
"When most of what you're talking about is the width of sidewalks and the diameter of sewer pipes, just coordination issues, democracy works really well," Howe says. "But when you're talking about issues that virtually define who you are, it doesn't work. He (Carl Becker, author of the 1941 essay 'The Dilemma of Modern Democracy') said no one is going to accede to a vote count that goes 51% against you. You are not going to give up everything you believe in just because you came up three votes short."
He said the fact that there now are leftist enclaves inside conservative states, and vice versa, actually makes his theory of coming conflict stronger.
He also warned that the American government, during this time period, already is "so huge," when circumstances of conflict generally make governments larger.
And he cautioned about the impact on the American military and its effect on the world.
"If it requires our forces around the world to stand down for six months, the entire world will remake itself," he said. "The entire world, for better or for worse, depends upon our presence to be what it is."
He's just not sure what will be the trigger, though.
"You've got to feel everything's on the line to push you to do something."
