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Why 2025 Feels So Unsettled — and What History Tells Us About What’s Next
George Friedman’s 2020 book The Storm Before the Calm made a bold claim: America moves through two long-term cycles — Institutional (~80 years) and Socioeconomic (~50 years) — and both are hitting their crisis points right now.
Understanding these cycles offers clarity amid today’s chaos.
Institutional Cycle: 1945–2025 (Ending Now). A total of 3 Institutional Cycles in US History.
- Born in post-WWII optimism, it built massive federal bureaucracies to manage prosperity and global leadership.
- Over time, bureaucratic complexity exploded, rules outpaced citizen understanding, and unelected administrators began shaping key policy.
- Today, Americans across the spectrum feel ignored, over-regulated, and alienated from their own government.
- Common sense has given way to red tape. Trust in institutions is at historic lows.
Friedman’s forecast? The 2020s will force a constitutional-scale reset — a rethinking of how we govern, regulate, and reconnect citizens with power.
Socioeconomic Cycle: 1980–2020 (Also Just Ended). A total of 5 Socioeconomic Cycles in US History.
- The Reagan-era cycle focused on free markets, globalization, and technological elites.
- GDP soared — but so did inequality, offshoring, and credential-driven class divides.
- Millions were told, “The system is working,” even as their jobs, wages, and communities vanished.
By 2020, discontent boiled over — left, right, rural, and urban — demanding a more inclusive, grounded economy.
What’s Next in 2025?
We’re in the “storm” now. The pain is real — polarization, inflation, regulatory paralysis, distrust.
But Friedman’s message is ultimately optimistic:
Every cycle ends with renewal. Crises force reinvention. And America, messy as ever, reinvents better than any nation on Earth. Friedman outlined specific reason for this trait of America.
Expect the next 10 years to reshape:
- Who governs and how
- Who benefits from growth
- What “common sense” leadership looks like
History for all cycles points toward renewal and it is expected to last until the end of these cycles over the next ~80 and ~50 years.
The previous cycles will be examined in posts to come.
All the best.