The Next American Revolution
AI, Family, and Global Power
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The year 2025 marks the beginning of a new American cycle after the previous cycle ended in the early hours of November 6, 2024. Cycles are not ‘good’ or ‘bad’ and solutions to problems in the last cycle are usually the causes of new problems in the new cycle. The prior cycle began after the end of WW2, when the very large ‘Baby Boomer’ generation was born. The Boomers are hitting peak retirement in 2025 and the torch is being passed to a new generation. The last cycle saw the very significant passage of the Great Society welfare program, the Civil Rights Movement, and globalization. How this next cycle of American history will play out is impossible to predict. However, we can make out a few trends. Before we do that however, we must discuss the last cycle and its legacy.
America: 1945-2024
To understand the last 80 years, you have to put yourself in the shoes of the largest generation in American history: the Boomers. This generation was conceived as WW2 veterans came home and started large families. To have space to raise these families, they moved to the suburbs (and built them) which generated tremendous economic activity and the American geography we take for granted today.
In 1965, President LBJ, supported mostly by WW2 veterans and older constituents (the oldest Boomers were barely 18), passed sweeping Great Society reforms that touched many aspects of society, including the burgeoning Civil Rights movement. The Great Society reforms also changed immigration laws and began the largest migration wave in American history. All told, more than 60 million people came to the US, started families, and contributed to the 200 million people in total added to the US population between 1945-2024. This population growth fueled the economy and US GDP grew by $24 trillion in 2023 dollars from 1945-2024.
In the 1970s, the American economy got sick due to external oil shocks. To heal the economy, Democrats and Republicans alike shed many of the New Deal political economy policies put in place after the Great Depression of the 1930s. The treatment worked and the deregulated economy soared. It worked so well in fact, that politicians would keep deregulating until 2008.
Midway through this phase, America defeated its arch geopolitical rival the Soviet Union and began to run around as the world’s sole superpower. The idea that it could shape the world in its own image lasted three decades from the early 90s to early 2020s.
Globalization will reverse but not stop
That brings us to today and the election of Donald Trump in the early hours of November 6, 2024. He ran on many things, but restricting the immigration and unfettered free trade of the last American cycle were two major themes in his campaign. The free movement of people and goods are by definition ‘globalization’, and their restriction in 2025 will slow or reverse the convergence of the world. There will be winners and losers but it’s fair to say the US will continue to be a superpower, in terms of living standards and raw power, in 2025 and well beyond.
The US as the sole global superpower was an abnormal situation and the rise of the Chinese civilization returns the world to a more common arrangement, historically speaking. The Russian civilization is also rising out of the ashes of the Soviet Union. These three great powers - the US, China, and Russia - are the new poles in a multipolar world and their actions will reverberate through the rest of the world. China and Russia are cooperating more and more, something the US should seek to reverse in 2025.
Even if the march of globalization will slow or reverse in 2025, that doesn’t mean the world will stop being closely interconnected. Supply chains, pandemic vectors, and the Internet will all remain closely intertwined in 2025 and the US will remain closely tied into the rest of the world, regardless of its rhetoric.
Clash of civilizations
As the post-Cold War era of American unipolarity fades, a new global competition is emerging between distinct civilizational blocs. This rivalry manifests most prominently in the growing tension between the United States and a resurgent China. The rise of the Chinese civilization is already causing and will continue to cause conflict between the US and China. In 2025, there will be more economic warfare, cyber warfare, and other conflict between the US and China, but neither stand to benefit from an all-out kinetic war so we will stop short of that if we’re lucky.
Additionally, while the US wishes to be done with the Islamic terrorism that has been simmering for most of the twentieth century and escalated dramatically after 9/11/2001, Islamic terrorism is likely not done with the US. Even if the US stops large scale, shock and awe attacks like 9/11, it’s still vulnerable to smaller, lone wolf attacks inspired by organizations like ISIS. Warped Islam spread by disaffected young men on the internet will be extremely difficult to eradicate, especially while preserving civil rights and privacy.
Finally, the rebirth of the Russian civilization after its collapse in 1991 exploded into hot conflict with the West in 2022 with the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Russia is beating Ukraine on the battlefield and Is in the driver’s seat to win the war outright. However, Russia’s reputation in its immediate near abroad has deteriorated (see Putin’s apology to Kazakhstan after unintentionally downing their airliner) and its domestic economy is facing inflation from war spending so both sides have reason to make some kind of deal. The West will not be happy and pre-2022 borders will not be restored, but if we’re lucky we’ll see an uneasy peace in Ukraine in 2025.
The American Family
Back in America, society is changing profoundly. Millennials, the large cohort that is the children of the Boomers, are getting married less, having fewer children, not buying starter homes, and are saddled with student debt. At the same time, the largest transfer of wealth in human history between Boomers at the peak of their savings and their Millennial children will pick up steam. The Millennials may be on hard times now, but they’re about to inherit a whole lot of money.
Falling birth rates and marriage rates are correlated with bad economic outcomes so calls for more pro-family and pro-natal (pro-child birth) policies will grow. Having achieved their decade’s long goal of overturning Roe v. Wade, the pro-life movement will shift from being anti-abortion to pro-natal.
The Technology Revolution
The rapid march of technological progress will reshape American society in 2025 and beyond, particularly through the rise of artificial intelligence. While previous technological revolutions primarily automated physical labor, AI will automate cognitive work—from legal research to medical diagnosis to creative tasks. This represents a fundamental shift in how humans relate to machines and work itself.
The impact on the American family and society is already visible but will accelerate. While social media and screen addiction pose documented risks to adolescent mental health and social development, AI presents both promises and perils. It could help personalize education, improve healthcare outcomes, and boost productivity. However, it also raises profound questions about privacy, surveillance, and the nature of human interaction in an AI-mediated world.
In the workplace, AI will not create permanent technological unemployment—history suggests humans are remarkably adaptable in finding new forms of work. However, the transition will be disruptive. Traditional white-collar professions that seemed immune to automation now face AI competition. This technological shift, combined with demographic pressures from falling birthrates and labor shortages, will spark a new labor movement. Unlike previous labor movements that focused on wages and working conditions, this one will center on human autonomy and dignity in an automated world.
As America enters this new cycle in 2025, it faces a complex web of challenges and opportunities. The demographic torch-passing from Boomers to Millennials, coupled with the largest wealth transfer in history, will reshape domestic social and economic landscapes. Externally, the nation must navigate a multipolar world where technological advancement, particularly AI, continues to accelerate while globalization recalibrates. The solutions to yesterday's problems—from the Great Society reforms to economic deregulation—have created today's challenges, just as our responses to current issues will shape the problems of tomorrow. While the exact contours of this new American cycle remain uncertain, one thing is clear: the nation's ability to adapt to these transformative forces while preserving its core values will define its trajectory in the decades to come.
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