What will the US look like 30 years from now?

It is a momentous time for America, with the rest of the world glued to watching the greatest reality show on Earth. But how will the United States look back on it? What will the country be like in, say, 30 years’ time?

Sometimes it is easier to gauge what will happen a generation hence than it is to guess what will happen next week. So to try to set this election in its historical context, here are some ideas about the next stage of America’s journey: some things we can be pretty sure of, some that we really do not know at all, and some that we can hope for.

So what do we know? Start with population, then the economy.

We can be confident that the US population will carry on rising. There will be about 400 million people living in the US by 2050, maybe fewer, maybe more if immigration and birth rates pick up a little. The latest UN estimates put it at about 380 million, though back in 2008 the Pew Research Centre estimated that it would be 438 million. Either way, the country will become more racially diverse. Pew estimated that just under half the population will be non-Hispanic white and just under one-third Hispanic; the number of black people will remain around 13 per cent, while the Asian population will have risen to nearly 10 per cent. So at some stage, probably in the 2040s, the white majority will have become the minority. The US has always been a nation of immigrants, but at that moment, when the majority becomes the minority, it will have become a truly multiracial one.

Crucially, the growing ranks of young Hispanics and Asians will account for more than half the workforce. That is where much of the drive will come from to sustain another generation of American exceptionalism. The most important point looking forward is that the US does remain the magnet for talent that it currently is. Were it to become less attractive then not only would population growth be slower; its economy would likely be less vibrant.

Whatever happens, however, by 2050 the US economy will indubitably be smaller than that of China, becoming the second-largest economy for the first time for more than 100 years. It will be much richer per head, but the tipping point where China passes the US, probably in about 10 years’ time, will be a difficult one for the country’s self-image. The reset of Sino-American relations that has taken place over the past four years will endure, whatever happens in US politics over the next couple of decades. But it is worth noting an intriguing possibility spotted by a team of researchers in the University of Washington and published in The Lancet in the summer, that by 2100 the US would pass China to again become the world leader. This would be largely the result of the fast-falling population of China. Actually I expect the regaining of top dog status by the US to happen earlier, perhaps in the 2070s, though the uncertainties that far off are huge.

Can we be confident that the US economy will remain the most vibrant in the world? Here it is really a question of judgement, rather than any sense of certainty. US high-tech companies dominate the world, with the only real challengers being Chinese ones that have effectively copied their technology. Europe is not in the game. Japan is not there either. India will become much more important as its economy passes Japan in size, but its challenge feels a little way off. So the big question is whether China can develop independent technology that is more attractive in global markets than the US equivalent. We can’t know the answer to that, but we can be reasonably confident that the US will continue to be innovative in developing its technology and aggressive in deploying it.

What about hopes? How will the US preserve and hopefully improve social harmony?

Right now this looks a momentous challenge. There is zero common ground between “build a wall” and “open the gates”, to take just one issue. To be realistic, these social pressures will probably get worse before they get better. The current tensions between populism and elite liberalism will continue through the 2020s. There is a temptation to see one side emerging as a winner, but it’s much more likely that there will be some sort of consensus established in the 2030s. The best historical parallel is the way the student protests of the 1960s and early 1970s waned as other concerns, particularly about unemployment and inflation, moved to the forefront.

So it won’t be a question of one or other tribe winning the current battle of ideas as to how the US should organise itself. Rather the country will reach a broad consensus on social policy, rather as it did on economic policy in the 1950s and 1960s. The populist revolution will have done its job in reconnecting the elite with the middle class. Other issues, notably climate change, will dominate the agenda.

To many this will seem Panglossian. It is certainly optimistic, given the current tribal animosities. But I think we will look back on the present discord as a passing phase, a difficult and painful one, but a phase nonetheless. Many of us on both sides of the Atlantic sure hope so.