American Fall

In a blog called Naval, there is this piece called American Fall.

If the New Democrats remind you of the old Republicans, consider that they both always had war, immigration, bailouts, and trade in common. The poorest now unexpectedly find themselves sheltering with the neocons, the Chamber of Commerce, Wall Street, lobbyists, and every nervous foreign regime dependent on American financial and military largesse. Mirroring an unstable Middle Eastern state, an uneasy alliance of elites and minorities rules over the angry masses, even as the blue-collar workers and trade unions slip out the back door.

The Libertarians, the Greens, and the Socialists find themselves homeless once again, now joined by a moral minority.

Disturbingly, the gun owners, the police, and the military are in the wrong demographic. Who, the Elites wonder, is sitting on the hundreds of millions of guns and over a trillion bullets out there? How, exactly, are the unarmed Americans going to disarm the armed Americans? Even for the blissful turkey, Thanksgiving eventually arrives.

Technology-created prosperity may be a third way out, but technology displaces one generation as it prepares the next. The abundance that it creates is hardly a substitute for the self-determination and meaning that people crave.

Ultimately, it may be the Elites that sue for secession. Just like Syria and Iraq, perhaps America is two countries now – the coasts and the center, the city and the country, the Elites and the Populists. Social media and identity politics reinforce tribalism, and expose the absurdity of ruling sea to shining sea from a single iron throne.

If a new Berlin wall were to go up, we’d have to put it somewhere in Austin.

Perhaps a stable solution exists. In the meantime, it’s war in November, the most polarized election in memory. Trump’s demand is simple – “America first!” So is Clinton’s warning – “Après moi, le déluge.”

Read more here.

This article was linked by Gerard Vanderleun. At the beginning of this piece which I just now see was written in 2016, the writer tells us this is a sequel, and we should read American Spring first. I will do that and post excerpts next.