Listened to a podcast with a person who lived in the ussr when it fell and was comparing it to current day America. Basically they were saying that people are becoming more cynical and don’t really believe in the project any more and are waiting for something to come along and fundamentally change things.

With gorbachev it was a turn to democratic liberal capitalism, with trump its a turn to autocratic neo-mercantalism.

Both could bring down the great empires of the twentieth century.