As a fan of the Foundation series, I believe we will never be able to predict specific events in advance. But there are trends that are predictable.

For example, many people on Medium like to blame Donald Trump for USA's woes. But he was only a catalyst for political forces that were already forming. If it was not Trump in 2016, it would have been someone else later.

In a similar vein, if the USA does elect a Democratic president in November and somehow curtails the violence, that administration is likely to sow the seeds for the next period of turmoil.

When we formed our political institutions, we had such a primitive understanding of psychology and its various sub-fields. Hopefully, our next democracy will use this knowledge to create institutions suitable for the 21st century .

BTW, the political scientists are not in this way of thinking.