What might U.S. History textbooks in future generations say about the time period in which we are now living?

There are many topics that future U.S. History textbooks would cover about our current time period. One topic that would be covered would be politics.

Future textbooks would very likely cover topics such as political gridlock, unhappiness with some of our political leaders, and the election of 2016. Textbooks would explain how the political parties were moving further away from each philosophically. As a result, there was less room for compromise by either party. This led to significant inaction at the federal level. The textbooks would explain how unhappy people were with our political leaders and our political system because so little was getting done. The textbooks would show how Donald Trump used this dissatisfaction to help him become the Republican nominee in 2016. The textbooks would show how Bernie Sanders was able to garner a great deal of political support, even if he didn’t get the Democratic nomination. The textbooks probably would cover how and why the Supreme Court had a vacancy that went unfilled for a significant period of time.

The textbooks would focus on our fight against terrorism. They would discuss terrorist attacks in the United States and throughout the world. From our wars in Afghanistan and in Iraq to our fight against ISIS, the textbooks would show how we tried to capture and/or kill some of the leaders of the terrorist groups. The textbooks would also focus on the difficulty of fighting in these regions and on the number of American casualties. The textbooks would highlight how we tried to bring democratic government to some countries that didn’t have democracy in the past.

Finally, the textbooks would show how we got into the Great Recession and what steps were taken to get out of it. The textbooks would focus on the active government role in helping American companies that were in serious financial trouble. The textbooks would focus on policies of the Federal Reserve, such as creating very low interest rates, to help get the economy going again. The textbooks would show that the economy eventually did recover.

These would be some of the major topics that would highlight the first 16 years of the 21st century and would very likely be found in the textbooks of the future.