Outlaw journalist Bari Weiss interviews "end times" historian Peter Turchin for The Free Press. Turchin sees cycles in civilizational evolution and believes, with some reason, we are now in what he calls "end times." It should be noted that he uses that term in a non-religious sense, to mean the winding down of one major epoch and the gestation of the next.
A major indicator of the present being an "end time" is the current over-production of elites.
As more and more of them (wealthy people) become players in politics, they drive up the price of getting into office. And more importantly, the more people are vying for these positions, the more people are going to be frustrated. They’re going to be losers. But humans don’t have to follow rules. This is the dark side of competition: if it’s too extreme, it creates conditions for people to start to break rules.
Turchin identifies Donald Trump as one of these rule breakers, which he certainly has been. This is an interesting interview and both the audio and the transcript are available, your choice.
Weiss points out that Turchin, writing in 2010, accurately predicted that 2020 would be a year with a lot of disturbing things going on. Candidly, they haven't gotten a lot calmer since.
We appear headed into a presidential election in which a man under multiple indictments runs against an incumbent who almost certainly corruptly sold influence to foreigners, some of whom are from unfriendly nations, and laundered the proceeds. Both are chronic liars. Talk about crappy omens, how can this contest be good for our civilization?
