Neil Howe and William Strauss wrote a very compelling book that encompasses this type of "reckoning" in cycles of American history. Basically they say we are due for one at the end of every saeculum (80-100yrs). A massive, society-altering event takes place which causes long bubbling and unresolved grievances to explode, forcing leaders and society to confront the inconvenient truths they kicked down the road for decades. Destroys old order and builds a new.
Examples include WW2, Civil War, Revolutionary War, Glorious Revolution, Armada Crisis, War of the Roses.
I was working as a mason's assistant during the summer of the Watergate Investigating Committee hearings in 1973. We were replastering the Brown University chemistry labs. Like most teaching labs at the time, we had televisions everywhere. I tuned in to the hearings while I worked. The committee was headed by Constitutional scholar Sam Earvin. The Republican delegation was headed up by Howard Baker. Everyone, including the witnesses worked in good faith.
There was no partisan bickering or sloganeering. Once the oval office tapes came to light and the Supreme Court required that Nixon turn them over, it was curtains for Nixon. You may recall, that it was a Republican delegation headed by Barry Goldwater who eventually talked Nixon into taking his last trip on Marine One.
In 1979, on a postdoc, I found myself working on Senate Banking Committee staff. As a dyed in the wool Dem, I thought I could tell the bad guys from the good guys. Then, in my first conference committee meeting, with the doors closed and the press shut out, I saw true comradery and affection between the Democrat and Republican members. They could work the differences out of pending legislation with ease. Mostly by splitting the difference and moving on.
What ended all this, in my view, was one man: Grover Norquist. He perfected the practice of primarying Republican members of Congress who did not toe the hard right line. Gradually, even the most popular moderate Republican members were run out of office. Donald Trump has taken Norquist's techniques to the next level in order to rip the spine out of every Republican in Congress since John McCain died.
Job One is campaign finance reform starting with Citizen's United. Nothing is more important.
The argument that America’s current crisis of trust stems from unresolved breaches stretching back decades, 100 years or even 200 years misses the more immediate and powerful driver: modern media systems that curate and shape perception in real time.
Today’s breakdown in confidence doesn’t require reaching back to the Revolution, Reconstruction, Watergate, or the Iraq War. The breach is happening now, daily, through a media ecosystem that is no longer primarily in the business of informing—but incentivized to influence. Major media institutions operate within corporate and political frameworks where narrative alignment, audience capture, and revenue models often outweigh neutral truth-seeking.
This isn’t speculation—it’s structural. Advertising dependence, consolidation of media ownership, and algorithm-driven amplification have created an environment where emotionally charged, divisive content outperforms balanced reporting. The result is not just bias, but systematic steering of public perception, where the same event can be framed in entirely different ways depending on the outlet.
Trust erodes not because Americans failed to resolve the Civil War or Civil Rights properly, but because citizens no longer believe they are being told the truth in the present moment. When reality itself appears fragmented—when facts feel negotiable—confidence in institutions collapses quickly.
In short, the breach is not buried in history. It is engineered in the present, distributed at scale, and reinforced daily into your place of work, your home and on your phone. Any serious attempt at “reckoning” must start there—not in the past, but in the systems actively shaping public understanding right now.
Trump's use of a war in Iran to distract us from his preference for raping children is a risk that the nation has tried before. Defeating Reconstruction, resisting Women's suffrage, opposing Civil Rights in the Sixties, and many others are all efforts that plainly defy our Declaration and Constitution but are entered into by people who are more concerned with their own interpretations of justice and who think that America is capable of carrying these contradictions into the future. Our nuclear weapons, our amazing military, our economy, and lately the fact we are 'protected' by two oceans are being used as excuses for our unforgivable behavior. Iran has plainly defeated Trump's ill-considered war and despite his best efforts to fan-dance that reality away, Americans will be paying for his foolishness and hatred for a long time.
They are referenced in this piece, but only with a few words regarding the stain of bankers getting bonuses rather than jail sentences after the mortgage crisis. Maybe as a more effective rhetorical exercise, this piece could have spent more than fleeting words regarding Clinton and Obama. But whether you choose to blow that up into a sweeping rejection of the article as an exercise in bias... That would be your rhetorical choice to reject dialogue. Instead, you can trade the snark for pointing out the imbalance in a meaningful rebuttal. A choice.
Neil Howe and William Strauss wrote a very compelling book that encompasses this type of "reckoning" in cycles of American history. Basically they say we are due for one at the end of every saeculum (80-100yrs). A massive, society-altering event takes place which causes long bubbling and unresolved grievances to explode, forcing leaders and society to confront the inconvenient truths they kicked down the road for decades. Destroys old order and builds a new.
Examples include WW2, Civil War, Revolutionary War, Glorious Revolution, Armada Crisis, War of the Roses.
Current timetable of upcoming reckonings
May 2026
Jet fuel crisis
Oil, gas & fuel crisis
Fertilizer crisis
June - August 2026
Food crisis
Industry crisis
September - December 2026
Economy crisis
Social & political crisis
2027
Nuremberg Trials 2.0
Economic Reset
Disclosure
I was working as a mason's assistant during the summer of the Watergate Investigating Committee hearings in 1973. We were replastering the Brown University chemistry labs. Like most teaching labs at the time, we had televisions everywhere. I tuned in to the hearings while I worked. The committee was headed by Constitutional scholar Sam Earvin. The Republican delegation was headed up by Howard Baker. Everyone, including the witnesses worked in good faith.
There was no partisan bickering or sloganeering. Once the oval office tapes came to light and the Supreme Court required that Nixon turn them over, it was curtains for Nixon. You may recall, that it was a Republican delegation headed by Barry Goldwater who eventually talked Nixon into taking his last trip on Marine One.
In 1979, on a postdoc, I found myself working on Senate Banking Committee staff. As a dyed in the wool Dem, I thought I could tell the bad guys from the good guys. Then, in my first conference committee meeting, with the doors closed and the press shut out, I saw true comradery and affection between the Democrat and Republican members. They could work the differences out of pending legislation with ease. Mostly by splitting the difference and moving on.
What ended all this, in my view, was one man: Grover Norquist. He perfected the practice of primarying Republican members of Congress who did not toe the hard right line. Gradually, even the most popular moderate Republican members were run out of office. Donald Trump has taken Norquist's techniques to the next level in order to rip the spine out of every Republican in Congress since John McCain died.
Job One is campaign finance reform starting with Citizen's United. Nothing is more important.
Good piece, Scott.
You should change your name to Dr. Doom. It fits you well.
The argument that America’s current crisis of trust stems from unresolved breaches stretching back decades, 100 years or even 200 years misses the more immediate and powerful driver: modern media systems that curate and shape perception in real time.
Today’s breakdown in confidence doesn’t require reaching back to the Revolution, Reconstruction, Watergate, or the Iraq War. The breach is happening now, daily, through a media ecosystem that is no longer primarily in the business of informing—but incentivized to influence. Major media institutions operate within corporate and political frameworks where narrative alignment, audience capture, and revenue models often outweigh neutral truth-seeking.
This isn’t speculation—it’s structural. Advertising dependence, consolidation of media ownership, and algorithm-driven amplification have created an environment where emotionally charged, divisive content outperforms balanced reporting. The result is not just bias, but systematic steering of public perception, where the same event can be framed in entirely different ways depending on the outlet.
Trust erodes not because Americans failed to resolve the Civil War or Civil Rights properly, but because citizens no longer believe they are being told the truth in the present moment. When reality itself appears fragmented—when facts feel negotiable—confidence in institutions collapses quickly.
In short, the breach is not buried in history. It is engineered in the present, distributed at scale, and reinforced daily into your place of work, your home and on your phone. Any serious attempt at “reckoning” must start there—not in the past, but in the systems actively shaping public understanding right now.
A great companion piece and highly thorough analysis is at https://protectdemocracy.substack.com/p/nearly-half?r=s00eu&utm_medium=ios
/Users/joanbreibart/Desktop/Body Economics.docx We are a mess-- physically and mentally. Decades of LYING
Trump's use of a war in Iran to distract us from his preference for raping children is a risk that the nation has tried before. Defeating Reconstruction, resisting Women's suffrage, opposing Civil Rights in the Sixties, and many others are all efforts that plainly defy our Declaration and Constitution but are entered into by people who are more concerned with their own interpretations of justice and who think that America is capable of carrying these contradictions into the future. Our nuclear weapons, our amazing military, our economy, and lately the fact we are 'protected' by two oceans are being used as excuses for our unforgivable behavior. Iran has plainly defeated Trump's ill-considered war and despite his best efforts to fan-dance that reality away, Americans will be paying for his foolishness and hatred for a long time.
Any "breaches" during Obama's 2 terms?
They are referenced in this piece, but only with a few words regarding the stain of bankers getting bonuses rather than jail sentences after the mortgage crisis. Maybe as a more effective rhetorical exercise, this piece could have spent more than fleeting words regarding Clinton and Obama. But whether you choose to blow that up into a sweeping rejection of the article as an exercise in bias... That would be your rhetorical choice to reject dialogue. Instead, you can trade the snark for pointing out the imbalance in a meaningful rebuttal. A choice.