OP-ED: The storm has arrived: America’s defining moment
Fate whispers to the warrior,
“You cannot withstand the storm.”
The warrior whispers back,
“I am the storm.”
– Author Unknown
Every few generations, America faces a storm. The skies darken, institutions creak, and the comfortable certainties of what we see as normal politics give way to something ominous and more dangerous. We are living through one of those moments now.
Historians William Strauss and Neil Howe called it a “Fourth Turning.” These are periods when a society’s old order collapses and a new one is born, usually through crisis. Think 1776. Think 1861. Think 1941. Each crisis reshaped the republic. This one will too.
Our current Fourth Turning began around 2008, when a financial crisis shook the global order. Since then, record polarization, broken trust in government, economic uncertainty, and cultural chaos have revealed the structural stress beneath the surface.
The crisis that exposed everything
The COVID-19 pandemic didn’t create this moment; it exposed it. A confident nation might have rallied together. Instead, we fractured. Federal, state, and local leaders contradicted each other. Bureaucracies faltered. Public trust collapsed. The word “mandatory” was introduced into daily life. Lockdowns, masks, distancing and vaccines became cultural battle lines rather than public health measures.
The crisis also expanded government power in ways that would have been unthinkable a few years earlier and hardened political divisions already simmering. This wasn’t just a health emergency; it was a stress test of America’s civic spine. The cracks were hard to miss.
Eroding trust
Fourth Turnings depend on trust – trust in institutions, leadership, and a shared sense of national purpose. But in this era, much of that trust has been burned away.
Politicized controversies, such as the “Russia hoax,” did lasting damage. They didn’t unite the country; they corroded faith in the justice system, the intelligence community, and the democratic process itself. When people no longer believe in the referees, they stop trusting the game.
This kind of legitimacy crisis isn’t new. In the 1850s, competing narratives around slavery and secession fractured the nation long before the first shot at Fort Sumter. In the 1930s, political bitterness in the form of resentment to the Treaty of Versailles, global depression and the failed League of Nations, preceded World War II. Today’s political “investigations,” double standards, and weaponized narratives fit the same pattern – trust-eroding shocks that make the ultimate crisis more explosive when it comes.
The coming fork in road
Fourth Turnings always end with a defining event – a war, a political realignment, or a sweeping internal reckoning. This one may be no different.
A war with China over Taiwan is no longer unthinkable. Political violence has already reared its head, as when an assassin’s bullet grazed Donald Trump in Butler. Major cities have endured riots and unrest. Economic tremors continue beneath our feet. History teaches us that these are the sparks that can turn tension into a Chicago Fire.
Meanwhile, the political landscape itself is shifting. The Republican Party is attracting younger, working-class, and minority voters in ways unimaginable a decade ago. The Democratic Party increasingly relies on older, urban, college-educated blocs. Blue states, like Pennsylvania, are trending purple. Washington County has become solid red. Neither party looks the same as it once did – and neither may emerge from this era unchanged.
Renewal or unraveling
The future is not inevitable. Fourth Turnings don’t guarantee collapse; they guarantee change. After the smoke of previous crises cleared, America emerged stronger – with a constitution, an industrial economy, and a postwar boom. But that outcome depended on leadership, courage, and a shared sense of nationhood.
Today, those ingredients are in short supply. Too many institutions are busy protecting their turf rather than earning trust. Too many leaders seem more eager to divide than unite. And too many citizens have tuned out, numbed by serial outrage cycles and cheap cynicism.
This is dangerous. The end of a Fourth Turning is never a soft landing. It is a fork in the road: national renewal or national unraveling.
Choosing the next chapter
COVID exposed the weaknesses of a brittle system. Manufactured and politicized crises eroded public faith even further. Now, rising geopolitical tension, growing political violence, and rapid demographic shifts are pushing the country toward a decisive moment.
But history is not destiny. The American experiment has survived previous storms because ordinary people, not just presidents or generals, stepped up to rebuild. That kind of civic courage is what this moment demands again.
If we want renewal, we must begin with hard truths. America needs institutions rooted in accountability, not ideology. It needs faith, grounded in tradition and Scripture, to hold steady the moral compass. It needs families, communities, and civic bonds strong enough to outlast the next shock. And it needs strong leaders, within both parties and outside of them, who can rise to the occasion.
The Fourth Turning is not coming. It’s here. Its ending will not be written by fate, but by the courage of a people determined to define their future.
Dave Ball is the former chairman of the Washington County Republican Party.