The Structural Problem of America and Fixing It

Considering One Part of a Much Larger Problem

It’s been a while since I wrote, since most of you seem to prefer videos, which I’ve been posting over at YouTube from time to time. But nothing beats writing for complex ideas, and after years of consideration on certain subjects, I feel like now is an appropriate time to encourage the reconsideration of ideas embedded in my earlier writing. To be clear, I do not fundamentally believe that you can solve the moral, demographic, economic, or other problems of the United States absent a hard reset that will cost much blood and treasure, but if things in Texas go fully sideways, and they may because of actors not understanding one another, at all, then the question of what comes next may become valid very quickly. Understand that if a shooting war breaks out, the old system is likely gone forever, and something new will replace it. To describe that interregnum is an invitation for incarceration, but let’s imagine what can be better than what we have.

At core, the American crisis at present comes from the rabid disconnect between a globalist elite whose priorities directly conflict against the population of most of the United States whom they are impoverishing in a rearguard action to keep a status that is already gone. The multipolar world was here when you stopped having industry, when you indoctrinated instead of educated, when you discouraged your own people from having children, and when the elites then asked us for help, we collectively told them, rightly, to piss off. The empire is dead, having killed the republic, and yet people remain. I used to think there were nations in wait, and at one time, there may have been as those echoes endure in the empty places of North America, but consumption and comfort have eroded human ties to the point where we basically have to start from scratch. This is not entirely a bad thing, so long as we root whatever comes next in a moral culture, demographic equilibrium, and resurrection of the family and sanity in accordance with nature. Most of my writing focuses on that, because those upstream issues matter most, but the question of organization is the imperative chaos and tyranny both force.

One reason the elite succeeded in imposing their order is like many mercantile efforts, they centralized power in hubs (NYC, DC, SF, etc.) while using wealth and prosperity to gain legitimacy. After twenty years of stupid wars, of attacking foundational stock, the insane Covid response, and just the everyday contempt of being forced to constantly fight one another with no faction gaining more than nominal influence, people cannot help but look above to see their enemies. As this realization spreads, you realize the new America will be realist about biology, far less consumerist, and will choose to decentralize. A lack of trust will guarantee legitimacy has to be confined by locality, and as the austerity that is already crippling for both the poor and middle classes manifests not just as inflation, but as deprivation, the focus of production at local levels will return. Industry may yet supplant usury. Look to the Russian example for how that can cause revitalization. But, as this is a structural analysis, we’re going to look at governance structures today, borrowing from concepts fleshed out in far more detail in the first New Albion book.

Democracy is a word we hear a lot, but which is rarely practiced. It is a good system WHEN practiced locally, with people in charge you can hold to account who care about and share your concerns, and against whom you can actually exercise influence. It works well in a small New England town meeting, and becomes a disaster when practiced in some megapole. An assumption from this is power will be more localized - whether people come together, or whether warlords control small areas, it’s going to have to be a case where the loyalty to the new regime comes from the rewards they can deliver - foremost being safety, stability, and sustenance. Just being able to feed your own, year after year, would become a priority in a warzone or post-war world. We struggle to imagine that, but having talked to people globally who’ve been through it, I trust their testimony as accurate because it makes sense.

Can we jump the pain? Maybe. If towns take care of their own, and prioritize meeting survival needs versus the old order, it could happen. Sheriffs can build out their possies, and militias of common men could hold areas not so attractive that they become targets, but not so bereft that they are dead zones. There will be many of those as the global extraction economy gets de-emphasized versus the local production economy. Of necessity, the smaller the polity gets, the more productive arts will take up the energy of the people.

I once imagined a new separation of powers that worked like this to enable such. The town selects a mayor who collects taxes and puts forth the budget. The town votes on that, and edits as needed, and can remove mayors. Mayors, collectively, vote for who run their counties, and that is your legislature. The legislature also serves as role of judiciary, removing lawyers from the equation in favor of responsive citizen justice, and the mayors are the check who can remove those running counties at any time. Because they’re subject to citizen pressure. In New Albion, I imagine a monarchy above whose job would be cultural, educational, and foreign affairs, to graft cultural unity through soft power, but this scenario is evolving differently. The leadership split in tomorrow’s America, if things get kinetic, will be you need domestic governance to make things, and top level governance to defend, take, or destroy things. You’d basically have the military overclass, because without it, you lose.

Who makes up these people? Military, ex-military, law enforcement, militias, and anyone able and willing to impose their will on others. They will have de facto authority, but the shrewdest will work with who manage resources to share legitimacy and authority through productivity, to begin building de jure authority as the successor states to America. This could happen through the states, though it seems unlikely because the same problems that infect DC plague them. And while I can imagine a single national solution in some scenarios, that seems less likely to me, and will likely be an unstable empire built on a cult of personality. No, I think we’d see heavy balkanization with somewhat unpredictable borders, which will eventually resolve along sane geography, like ideological demography that will have ethnic flavor, and the capacity for force projection.

Remember, this will be a world where money is pointless, and ownership is what you can take. Our current just in time logistics model basically assures as much, because we don’t make many things, and those we do make are not so near where most people live. The violence would be worst just after the beginning, when the bloodletting settles grievances, and when the die off is strongest. Cities will be bad, and they will be cordoned off by well-armed and anxious suburbanites. Foreign actors would exacerbate the chaos. Yet, eventually, there would be a calmness in an emptier and wiser America, waiting to see what could come next.

I know people aren’t ready for the networking and thinking this would require, and I know the government and well funded NGOs made it impossible to build any truly sustainable alternative to the kleptocracy on the Potomac. But, you better start thinking. I’ve made no secret that I hope to get out of the way, but it does feel this week like time may be running out for those to escape. When the dollar breaks, all plans from that world end. If Biden backs down, we get a little more time, but if not, then the next provocation that is upheld will always run the risk of being the last. This is beyond partisanship, by the way. This is about people who see a country being built where they either have no future or the future is substantially worse. So, people will not let that be imposed, will not help it happen, and as desperation grows, will be more willing to fight. It is a sorry joke, but if the American dream of mass consumption isn’t offered at the Drive-Thru, people do start to ask what is the point?

God help us. We are not great at helping ourselves.