If you look at America’s history, you see major defining moments when it seemed the potential for complete collapse of the democratic experiment was close at hand. We were born in revolution with a violent war preceded by protests and riots against the oppressive laws of King George. The revolutionary war and its’ aftermath was violent and heart wrenching. The loyalists to King George were people without a country. They were looked upon as traitors to the new nation and unwanted by the British themselves. These were trying times in the 1780’s. America was truly inventing itself out of bravery, and the need for freedom in all areas, especially speech and religion. This period would set up the ongoing 80 year cycle of America reinventing itself in order to get rid of old patterns that no longer served itself.
It was during this Revolutionary War period that America was inhabited by Germans who came to America to fight alongside the British. Germans participated on both sides of the Revolutionary War, with approximately 30,000 German auxiliaries, known as Hessians, fighting for the British. We already had German colonists in America who sided with the Revolutionaries. I mention this as Benjamin Franklin complained that we were being inundated by foreigners who didn’t speak the language and changed the street signs to German from English. From the get go America had issues which they perceived a threat to their culture. This pattern would continue as part of America’s ongoing struggle to learn assimilation. America, the grand experiment to develop the rights of the individual, was to help change the world and its’ ability to assimilate the various cultures and races of the world. It was her destiny to do this as the number 5 life path in numerology, July 4, 1776. She is forever working on this destiny.
It should be noted that the original colonists had slaves from the Caribbean and Africa. This gave America another class and race to assimilate. In time, the Mexican American War 1846-1848, was in line with America’s policy of Manifest Destiny and its aggressive move West. The Mexican-American War was fought after the U.S. annexed Texas, leading to a conflict over disputed territory, with causes including American ambitions and the desire to acquire California. The U.S. won the war, culminating in the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, which resulted in Mexico ceding vast territories in the Southwest to the United States, including present-day California, Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, Utah, Nevada, and parts of Colorado and Wyoming. This territorial expansion was part of America’s belief in Manifest Destiny but also exacerbated tensions over the expansion of slavery, ultimately contributing to the American Civil War.
So you now can see that the United States had residents of all these states who spoke Spanish, were darker skinned than the Europeans and had to begin the assimilation with the nation. It was in 1850 when California became a U S state. These states were not threats to the culture of the US but it is wise to remember that all these states were once part of the Spanish speaking world with Mexican cultural roots. To this day California and Texas have large groups of the population from Mexico. This is not new.
The next 80 year cycle would bring us to the Civil War where the Southern states were afraid of losing their right to have slavery. This cycle of war and the loss of 650,000 Americans again brought a huge cultural shift to the country with focus on a strong Federal government instead of individual states ruling themselves. The release of the slaves in the South brought convulsive years of bloodshed, injustice and race and cultural upheaval. The same pattern to bring on change so that the nation could reinvent itself was repeated. Eventually in the 1880’s American would experience the Industrial Revolution which would lead America to wealth and freeing of many physical jobs from the general population. It also brought in more immigrants to fulfill the numerous vacant manufacturing jobs available in the US.
The next 80 year cycle would bring us to the 1940’s and World War II. America would go through another brutal war and another leap in her manufacturing prowess. She became the strongest nation and wealthiest nation after the war ended. During the next 80 years following this war, many institutions were formed including NATO, Department of Defense on August 10, 1949, (originally the Department of War in 1947) the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) on July 29, 1958, and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) on September 18, 1947. These are just of a few of the numerous agencies formed after WWII.
The point of showing this 80 year cycle is to help us understand that America is currently in another 80 institutional cycle. We launched it with the COVID in 2020 and it will end by the end of the 2020’s. In the meantime, her citizens will go through convulsions, breakdowns, disruptions and more while she decides what she wants to change and what she wants to keep. It can feel like a death spiral. Past 80 year cycles were all types of do or die years. Survival was key. It is true for our current times.
George Friedman, a geopolitical commentator, cites that people operate out of fear or greed or both. It is the standard human characteristic throughout history. Certainly fear drove the American Revolution, a do or die condition. Certainly the Civil War was another fear of destruction and a do or die condition. The same goes for WWII another survival test. Today’s war of survival is a cultural change fear. This is the driver behind all the while Christian nationalism, the January 6th riot, the banishment of immigrants under the guise of removing criminals, the attempt to shut down universities under the guise of being anti-Semitic, the attempts to silence the media and the press, infiltrating cities with armed uniformed Federal enforcement, weakening the first amendment right of separation of church and state, banning of books in schools, attempts to weaken laws by ignoring them and other tests of the government.
The fear of losing the White European Heritage is the driver of this enormous cultural change. It is estimated that this demographic shift is driven by the faster growth of the non-white population, particularly among Hispanics and Asians, and the aging and declining white population. The United States population is projected to have its first non-Hispanic white-majority year between 2040 and 2050. Some say it will be 2042 to 2045. It also brings changes to the religious makeup of the country. Hence, you also see a grasp to hang on to the Christian religion in extreme forms of evangelism and patriotism.
This is the cultural fear of the original white population that has run the country since its’ beginning. It is easy to experience the change. This is the upheaval of the 2020’s. It will continue in earnest for a few years until we get past 2028. Change occurs in countries when it is experiencing large race and cultural changes. It is also now going on in Europe with its darker skinned immigrants from Africa and the Middle East. The old world is desperately trying to hang on to what is slipping away. The vitriol, the protests, the arrests are all part of the struggle to hold on to the old power. It won’t work. It especially won’t work in the United States as its destiny is to learn and practice assimilation. It is driven by fear.
Our current administration represents the past and it’s job was and is to disrupt so that the country can reinvent itself. This administration is not going forward past a certain date. The people have to decide what is important to keep and what to improve. Our institutions have become bureaucratic and need modernization. It is also a test of our willingness to defend as we did the Revolutionary War, the Civil War, an WWII what is important to us. It is America’s pattern to reinvent itself. We can see the handwriting on the wall that our country will have a majority brown-skinned population and a minority white population. Parts of the nation will assimilate faster than others but we are all in this together. Remember, we don’t personally remember the Civil War but we do know the country survived.
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