I’ve felt over the last couple of years, that there is a steep precipice in our path, up to which our current Ruling Class is staggering blindly. Not just our American path, but in the developed world generally, and in that of western Europe. Things just can’t continue as they are. There is a breaking point coming. Really, no one might accurately predict exactly what small spark will kick off the explosion or the fall from a great height, or exactly where it might occur. The precipitating powers move in the shadows, veiled by a news media which deliberately veils them anyway. Too many national and international elites are pursuing policies which benefit them, rather than the countries they are supposed to govern. Too many of the transnational ruling class, indeed, seem to be in competition to pour contempt and derision on their less-fortunate, relatively powerless fellow citizens … and that’s a situation which can’t continue indefinitely. People are too stressed, made angry by things which they can’t control. Road rage incidents, riots that flame up like a prairie fire, unprovoked beatings, mass brawls in fast food restaurants and on commercial airliners; people are snapping over the slightest provocation, a misheard word, a momentary inconvenience…
There are just too many small indicia of trouble – small things, taken individually which wouldn’t mean much. But all the big things pile up like firewood, only wanting the tinder – which I fear that the small things will provide, to our cost. Big things like the Covidiocy, locking people into their houses and out of a social life, and then the vax mandate which cost them jobs, BLM/Antifa riots and protests which wrecked downtowns, and inspired city governments to turn a blind eye towards property crime and the organized looting of retail outlets. The erasure of national borders is another one of those big things, stressing on a local level, when mobs of strangers suddenly show up and are favored with shelter, food and considerations not given to local citizens, deserving or not.
A recent incident which caught my attention and hinted to me that we are very close to the disastrous edge was the unprovoked knife attack at a school in Dublin – an attack which severely injured a woman and three children. (Link goes to Neo Neocon, and an interesting and informative discussion in the comment thread.)Initially, the local police were coy about describing the assailant, although he was captured almost at once. In the US, we have learned what to assume – with a high degree of accuracy – when a Person of No Description is apprehended after committing violence. Apparently, the Irish have learned that lesson as well. Having been fed to the back teeth with assorted petty and major crimes committed by an alien element – third-world migrants forced upon their communities by a governing class who appeared to be much more interested in currying favor with their international ruling class elsewhere in Europe, the locals chose to make their unhappiness in a language which the ruling class can’t ignore.
“… Some in Ireland believe too many people have arrived, too quickly, and that we need a ‘mature debate’ about it. But whenever they say something, they’re branded bigots and scum.”
Firey riots appear to be an acceptable means of protesting when it comes to an urban underclass, but only of the aggrieved are the right sort, dontchaknow. In any case, the national stereotype is of the Irish generally being truculent and ready to fight on any ground; after all, they fought being colonized by the British for a good few centuries; who would have expected them to lie down and be colonized by anyone else.
The observation in the above-linked article does ring very true to me; the ruling class willfully closing their ears to the voices of the ruled class by branding them bigots and scum. And deplorable, racists, stupid … Our own ruling elite did the same with the Tea Party. As courteous, reasonable, responsible and thoughtful a body of citizens as ever was in the United States political life, and for all that, called names and abused by the media, entertainment and political class.
Discuss as you will, while we still can.
I also expect political, economic, and social violence because we no longer have a shared Social Contract. This many different peoples, crammed together in one country, with no working rule of law or consent of the governed is going to collapse messily. And the re-imposition of a new Social Contract is going to have a high casualty rate AND whatever is imposed may have nothing in common with what were the ideals of America and a lot in common with medieval Europe or China during the collapse of a dynasty. I am figuring that the organic waste will impact the rotating airfoil next year. Those in power cannot allow honest elections, or rather the return of honest elections; and will do anything to prevent them. Expect a “state of emergency” and a “postponement” of elections at the least. A review of the German “Enabling Act of 1933” may prove useful. Since we do not have a real opposition party, conventional political processes will not prevent this. And if they are too blatant in rigging a fake election, they will cross the line of tolerance for many Americans.
One key point in Ireland, which I really expect to be pushed here is the abolishment of their equivalent of free speech. Right now they are literally making it a felony level crime to say or possess anything that is offensive or might provoke violence. At least such speech or possession by Irish. Quick hint. “Indigenous people” have legal and moral superiority over everyone else. Unless the indigenous people are European descended.
This is not going to be pretty.
Subotai Bahadur
Sgt Mom: “Really, no one might accurately predict exactly what small spark will kick off the explosion or the fall from a great height, or exactly where it might occur.”
We can’t predict what damn fool thing in the Balkans will trigger the explosion — but we have a very good idea about what the underlying driver will be: simply, Big Government is Bankrupt!
The debts and obligations of FedGov amount very approximately to about $1,000,000 for each taxpayer — which is more than the gross lifetime earnings of the average taxpayer. Realistically, that debt won’t be paid. As the financial collapse proceeds, the free government cheese will stop — creating many unhappy people. Where things go from there is anyone’s guess. But it could happen surprisingly quickly.
no one might accurately predict exactly what small spark will kick off the explosion
Whatever it is, it better spark tens of thousands. If it sparks you alone, then you’re a “known wolf,” “sudden jihadi,” “lone assassin,” or “right-wing nut.”
There’s a difference between a real “son of liberty” and cosplaying.
I suspect that the de-organized Tea Partiers are much of the reason the sparks haven’t already caught fire. They didn’t die, they weren’t (all) imprisoned or exiled, and they still do their bit to improve their communities, or at least cut the rest of us all little slack. It’s the folks with short fuses who’ve been suddenly red-pilled by crime, inflation, and yet-another-friggin-dumbass-government-mandate who will usher in the Boogaloo.
I think the precipitating event will be the Election next year. I have a hard time conceiving a scenario by which either side will accept the other side winning. The Right, more specifically Trump and his supporters, see with good reason the whole system is stacked against them and the Left sees Trump as an existential threat
It is conceivable that the crisis will be postponed by the Left accepting the notion of a second Trump Administration and deciding to fight within the bounds provided by the 2020 Election and 2017 Russian Collusion Hoax but from a psychological perspective I think that is a non-starter. The Left, with its response to 1/6 and the Trump indictments, has started on a escalation ladder and is competing not against Trump would mean for the country per se by rather against its fears of what a future Trump Administration would mean for it.
The problem with escalation is that each step of the ladder not only prohibits deescalation but in turn mandates victory as the only acceptable choice. To quote the old Neil Young song, once you’ve started up the ladder, “Once you’ve gone, you can’t come back” If the Left’s response to 1/6 to use it to quash allegations of voter fraud, then it becomes imperative that their approach to 1/6 never comes to light. If the Left politicizes the criminal justice system by indicting Trump in order to promote what they think will be an unelectable candidate, then it must follow that Trump can never be allowed to take office
My guess is, right now, that the Left is about to take the next step up the escalation ladder. Trump, after all those indictments is leading in the polls, Biden as a candidate is problematic, and the overall domestic and international environment is looking dicey. I think right now the Left, looking at this and realizing they have gone too far to ever chance losing, takes the 2020 playbook and turns it, a la Spinal Tap, up to 11. Above the horizon, impossible to ignore voter fraud. Civic unrest with false flag domestic terrorist events. The constant, overbearing promotion of Trump as the ending of American democracy with the very explicit threat that if he is elected there will be revolution and secession. Think I’m exaggerating that last point? Read the 2020 Transition Integrity Project report which describes just that
To bring that point back to the top, it is when the Left takes that next step up the escalation ladder that it will become impossible for many on the Right to accept a Democratic victory, rightfully seeing it as nothing more than a coup. The Left will do it, not out of strength, but out of fear. After that, pick it.
The DemonRats are still trying to keep the 2020 election theft under wraps as they prepare to steal the 2024 election.
Michigan has put Trump, and indeed any R off of their primary ballot by moving the primary to 1 week before primaies are allowed by R party rules.
Therefore, Michigan primary votes will not be counted in the National Repub primaries.
Looking at Ireland, as I recall, during the 30 years of the Troubles, there were about 3,000 active Provos, in a population about the size of the LA area, and even the deployment if the SAS there could not stop it.
(Of course, IN MY OPINION, the Soviets sponsoring the Provos did not want them to actually win, just to keep the Brits demoralized and too busy to stop Soviet adventures worldwide.)
If the feces hits the rotating blades here, we might find a few more than 3000 people involved nationwide, even if only as independent resistors.
There is this thing called “a preference cascade” in which, suddenly, everyone realizes that the thoughts and feelings they have been having are not theirs alone, that large numbers of people think and feel exactly the same way; the result is a transformative event and it occurs dramatically and without any precursor.
America is composed of groups, often quite diverse groups, and always has been, except those groups have always been united around a common bedrock philosophy of what America is and should be, what America offers and the opportunity to contribute to it. That coalition of common agreement and participation has been severely eroded by one of those groups – the so-called elite – who have restructured the social, economic and politcal environment to best suit themselves and engaged a remarkably effective propaganda organization to support that restructuring, dangling the promise of partnership to encourage their support, resulting in the creation of an unholy cabal operating solely for the cabal’s benefit.
That cabal is fracturing, rapidly, and along predicatable lines: few trust anything from mainstream media anymore, most now know how fragile, inept and disconnected from reality our leaders are, how oppositional and destructive their operational structure is, but as individuals the citizens feel limited in how to respond.
When that preference cascade hits, and it will hit soon, it’s going to be “Katy Bar the Door.” Every group “has a list” of grievances based in the disregard and poor treatment they’ve received and will be looking to settle scores. I’ll guess the first attempt will be peaceful – calls for legislative relief, positive government action (such as closing the border and cease throwing trillions randomly into the economy which primarily benefit themselves), elections – and when all that fails, which it must, because those at the top do not dare allow it to succeed, there will be a Different Response.
About 80 years ago, there were precursors to what Hitler intended which were treated with ignorant benevolence, leading to the German military running rampant over western Europe. A coalition opposing Hitler was formed, and conducted operations to, first, stop them and then reverse their gains, restoring what had been before. America became engaged after the war had been going on for a couple years, and that resulted in a slow turnaround. By late 1943 it was obvious Germany was headed for not just defeat but destruction and a rational mind would have decided it best to negotiate a cessation of hostilities. Those among Germany’s leaders who knew exactly what Germany had been doing behind the scenes were quite aware it was “all or nothing” because once civilized people learned the truth there would be no possible salvation available through armistice, and fight to the death in the dire hope of survival was the only course.
We’re in a similar position with America’s current leadership; although the “fight to the death” part hasn’t arrived, one can see parts of it from here as leadership flails about searching for something, anything, that will protect themselves and stave off the reckoning.
It won’t work. The choices are simple and binary: Accept that Things Will Change and conduct an orderly retreat and retire the conflict after an armistice or suffer The Reckoning.
Massive change in American political, governmental and economic structure is very long overdue. The country is The United States of America, not America with a huge monolithic central government and fifty insignificant political, social and economic subdivisions; herding government – all government, including state and local – back into its Constitutional corrals from where The People may manage it is an imperative.
That will be accomplished by structured, controlled action or it will be accomplished by force. Whether that force is political, economic or violent I do not know, but I would very much prefer the first two over the third. I suspect my preferences will count little in the final assessment, so I am attempting to prepare for all three because all offer varying levels of destruction and disruption while things are being sorted out.
Regardless of which of the three, or combinations thereof, are employed, there will be chaos, false starts, changes which are negative rather than positive, but I am hopeful that such will be brief and the results positive. The goal should be for everyone to work toward that end, whatever effort is required in the interim, proffer it willingly. Life is not a spectator sport, extra points are awarded for participation and achievement.
Re: There is a breaking point coming. Really, no one might accurately predict exactly what small spark will kick off the explosion or the fall from a great height, or exactly where it might occur.
This is commonly called a black swan event. A lot has been written about its severe unpredictability and the difficulty of preparing for it since the concept was first put forth by Nicholas Taleb. See his book here https://www.amazon.com/Black-Swan-Improbable-Robustness-Fragility/dp/081297381X.
He postulated three things about a black swan event:
1. The event is sudden and surprising.
2. The event has a significant impact.
3. After the initial analyses of the event, some will claim that it could have been predicted. Data or indicators were available but were not heeded. This is often Monday morning quarterbacking.
Nothing can be guaranteed not to happen. Trying to game plan the impossible is often a useful exercise so one doesn’t get caught with their pants down.
Concur that next year will be a watershed; things can’t continue as they are. I believe the Left Elite are preparing to use force against conservative citizens; note the DOJ/FBI’s recent declaration that “right wing extremism” is now the largest internal security threat. The Elite (literally Master Subaotai’s TWANLOC) will turn the switch on with Antifa/BLM type riots, hoping to provoke that right-wing counter-response, which they will use to justify further curtailment of our freedoms (see: Ireland) and impose more federal control of elections, citing safety concerns. It needn’t be a major event; note how the Left hyped Charlottesville and J6 into major events.
The Left’s hold on America is, however, brittle. The Left has consciously carved the populace into too many tribes and set them against each other. Absent some Back Swan event around which the citizenry can unite (a precedent cascade), this tribalism means that force may be required to re-establish a new form of governance. Some tribes won’t get all they want.
To make anything work, the illegals will have to go. They are simply too much of a drain on the treasury, plus they have not been asked to assimilate (quite the opposite). That’s gonna be ugly. Also, there is too much anecdotal evidence that our enemies abroad have used our border insecurity to emplace paramilitary forces here. That’s another wild card.
Let me add a ray of hope to the doom and gloom. We can point to numerous examples of empires collapsing and societies tearing themselves apart, and the political shenanigans in Europe as the Elite impose more and more restrictions on basic freedoms.
Alone of all these examples, America has a unique set of founding documents to fall back on. Whether or not they can save us depends on who’s left standing when the fighting’s over.
I recommend reading – but not necessarily believing – _The Fourth Turning_.
I don’t think it will be the 2024 election. If 2020 didn’t do it, 2024 will not. It may be some sub-incident related to the 2024 election, though. It will be something that has happened several times before, but it will be a straw that breaks the camel’s back. It won’t be something new or large.
The US may get lucky and it will be an external event that triggers a return to sanity, here. For example, a war in Europe. How likely is that? Oh wait, there is one. How likely is that to escalate to continent-wide? The Poles certainly think it’s likely. They’re buying every armament that’s for sale.
Well as per my earlier comment regarding Democratic panic, I see in today’s Washington Post Robert Kagen’s op-ed “A Trump dictatorship is increasingly inevitable. We should stop pretending.” (https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2023/11/30/trump-dictator-2024-election-robert-kagan/ ) Paywalled of course
I won’t analyze the content of the article except to note that many of things he warns us that Trump wants to do regarding “political enemies” the Democrats have already done. No word yet if Trump plans to toss protesters into solitaire for a year for the crime of parading through a public building. To call the piece hysterical is to give hysteria a bad name
What I find significant is two things. The first is the the size of the piece and the location. It’s huge, 5000+ words and it’s being printed by what it amounts to the Washington Establishment’s paper of record. This isn’t a 5 minute rant by Joy Reid generating some ideological sugar high, it’s an endorsement by the powers-that-be calling for war.
Second, not only is the language shocking but the essay explicitly uses images of Caesar, Napoleon, and what looks Stalin. Why not the Little Austrian? Well that might be a step too far for now and plus there’s always MSNBC for that.
However the message is still the same, for the Left the election of Trump will mean the descent of the dark fascist night for America. Left unsaid, but implied, is the old parlor game of what would you do if it was 1932 and you had the chance to stop Hitler. Won’t you do anything possible? Aren’t all actions, given the stakes, justified?
This is why I commented above about not only 2024 Election being the moment, but the critical decisions for 2024 are being made now.
Excellent piece of analysis. I have only one quibble. That is “unprovoked attacked”. No, provoked by Mohammed whose dictum was to kill the non-believers. The enemy (one of many) is already inside the gates and knows he can get away with anything. I once scuba dived in a baitball – a huge sphere of small fish, all swimming in a circle. Suddenly, the wall of fish in front of me opened. A barracuda came floating in, doing its best to look harmless. But every one of those fish changed its path so as to be just out of striking range of the quiet killer. Stay out of striking range of the predators which governments have invited as guests.
markedup2
I’ll second reading Strauss and Howe’s various books. They didn’t get everything right but they did provide a useful analytical tool. (and if you don’t believe that generational groupings produce valid information, take a gander at the results of a survey posted by AVI https://assistantvillageidiot.blogspot.com/2023/11/feeling-happy.html)
I disagree, though, about the possibility of the 2024 election providing the spark and share the pessimism of a number of other commenters. A lot of people suspended disbelief about the 2020 election due to COVID and Trump’s lightning rod personality. At this point I think the vast majority of people expect a ‘normal’ election season that’s shaping up to be anything but ‘normal’. There’s a high probability that Biden (and likely Harriss) will be Toricelli’ed off the Democrat ticket outside the usual primary process. There’s an equally high probability that Trump will wind up both the GOP nominee and facing incarceration. I have been convinced for a long time that the Democrats were willing to go to the mattresses in 2020/2021 to disrupt the Electoral College if Trump somehow beat the margin of fraud. I suspect that they will be prepared and execute the plan if whoever is on the ticket in November 2024 loses.
Mike
Post Robert Kagen’s op-ed “A Trump dictatorship is increasingly inevitable. We should stop pretending.”
Robert Kagan worked in the State Department during the Reagan Administration, and wrote an authoritative book on Nicaragua: A twilight struggle: American Power and Nicaragua, 1977-1990. He has written a number of other books on American foreign policy.
As such, I find it sad to infuriating that he would write that in the WaPo. But like Mike said, the Demos fear Trump doing to them what they did to Trump.
The idea that Trump would create a dictatorship is astoundingly asinine, and I question the judgement and sanity of anyone who would make that bizarre claim.
But I suspect Kagen and the rest of his never-Trump pals don’t really believe their never-ending stream of lies and accusations against Trump.
I think they are pants-peeing terrified of what will happen if they lose control of the US government and might have to face real investigations of what they have done over the years and why. The endless vote fraud is only the tip of the iceberg, I bet.
Kagan is in the father of his late father, the great Donald Kagan, leading classicist and decryptor of Thucydides, his monograph was scathing, if people were more classically minded he might have used Pisistratus and even later era tyrants, but that isn’t allowed,
in this platonic kakistocracy they have fashioned, where nothing works, the alternative must be warded off,
Yes, the country is increasingly dysfunctional, is no longer recognizable as a nation in an ethnic, ideological, or any other sense, and the ruling class is hated and distrusted by many. However, it is improbable that there will be a revolution or some similar historical singularity next year, or the year after that, or the year after that. The Internet tends to bring everything that happens in the world so close to us that we tend to over-interpret the significance of recent events. The unprecedented prosperity we have created binds us to the status quo. For the most part, people are just too comfortable to rebel. Things haven’t yet gotten so bad that they are ready to risk what they have in hopes of replacing it with something that may well be a great deal worse. It’s unlikely that the people of France or Russia had Robespierre or Stalin in mind when they rebelled, but that’s what they got. Such opportunists and fanatics will always be waiting in the wings to take advantage of the chaos of revolution. Be careful what you wish for.
It’s certainly sad that a country as great as ours once was, a beacon of hope for people everywhere, has now become a huge red light for the rest of the world, a warning that the path we have taken leads to national self-destruction, and to avoid it at all costs. It certainly begs the question, “What is to be done?” The best answer I can come up with is, “Try to survive.”