The Next Great President
The next Great President will be elected in 2020, 2024, or 2028. There will be an epic crisis that will challenge this president to prove the country’s belief in him or her was well founded. Let’s hope that this person in time of crisis will be able to rise to the challenge and prove his or her mettle. I will discuss in the subsequent sections what types of challenges the president is likely to face at that time. It might not be a war, but if past history provides insight to our future path, then I believe that war is possible.
The work of William Strauss and Neil Howe in the book Generations points to a coming crisis in the 2020s. What form will this crisis take? Will it be a global pandemic? Will it be a nuclear terrorist attack? Will it be a world war? Or will it be some cataclysmic climatic event? It may be too soon to tell, but we can make some educated guesses. The world continues to be a dangerous place. Multiple hot spots around the globe are sparking like flash points in a California wildfire. A single flash point could end up being the start of an escalating chain of events leading to worldwide conflict, such as the seemingly minor occurrence (assassination of Franz Ferdinand, the Archduke of Austria-Hungary) that ignited the First World War.
Current events are pointing toward another great worldwide crisis in our future. Events unfolding in the Middle East are dynamic and dysfunctional. There is civil war raging in Syria, a bloody sectarian war ongoing in Yemen, threats of nuclear proliferation in Iran, and a host of other regional conflicts. In addition, there are hot spots around the world: Afghanistan and President Ghani are at odds with President Trump and the security forces there; President Trump’s recent decision to pull troops out of Syria could result in a reestablishment of ISIS/ISIL in the area; North Korea’s leader Kim Jong Un is testing missiles and threatening the stability of the Korean peninsula (and the world) while building up stockpiles of nuclear weapons; and Ukraine is struggling to maintain control against insurgents while Russia’s President Vladimir Putin is challenging their independence with the of annexation of Crimea and the potential for further land grabs.
Climate change is affecting weather patterns around the globe and impacting millions of farmers and ranchers. Serious drought conditions are affecting the Western United States and large parts of Africa. And other areas of the world are getting much higher than normal rainfall. Hurricanes and tornadoes are coming more frequently and wreaking more damage. There are more storms causing more damage than ever before. The number of storms causing more than $1 billion has been increasing exponentially since the 1980s, and all you have to do is say the name of one of these storms (Sandy, Irene, or Katrina) to provoke an emotional response in whomever you are talking to. Besides climate change and weather damage effects, there are other environmental issues that potentially could be catastrophic. Worldwide air and water pollution are severely affecting our quality of life. Bad air is affecting asthma patients and is a general health concern. Water pollution of our oceans is causing dramatic changes to sea life and our fish food stock. What will all of these issues lead to?
