The deep historical forces that explain Trump’s win

Our research shows that political breakdown, from the Roman Empire to the Russian revolution, follows a clear pattern: workers' wages stagnate, while elites multiply

In the days since the sweeping Republican victory in the US election, which gave the party control of the presidency, theSenate and the House, commentators have analysedand dissected the relative merits of themain protagonists - Kamala Harris andDonald Trump - inminute detail. Much has been said about their personalities and the words they havespoken; little about the impersonal social forces that pushcomplex human societies to thebrinkof collapse - and sometimes beyond. That's a mistake: in order to understand the roots of our current crisis, and possible ways out of it, it's precisely these tectonic forces we needto focus on.

The research team I lead studies cycles of political integration and disintegration over the past 5,000 years. We have found that societies, organised as states, can experience significant periods of peace and stability lasting, roughly, a century or so. Inevitably, though, they then enter periods of social unrest and political breakdown. Think of the end of the Roman empire, the English civil war orthe Russian Revolution. To date, wehave amassed data on hundreds ofhistorical states as they slid into crisis, and then emerged from it.