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I don't know why. New threads in the sheen, repetitive as it may seem, are worth revealing. I think you write about it with a lot of nuance and restraint. Your pieces distinguish themselves when you illuminate new facets of a larger cultural system at work. I, for one, have never found you repetitive.
As an American, I HAVE a lot of grief when I write and think about America and its culture.
However, celebrating Independence Day this year, for the first time, was a revelation to me.
It really is about the Declaration and nothing else. Not fireworks, not barbecue, not parades.
The USA’s culture has accumulated a lot of deferred maintenance, like a greasy kitchen overrun by rats and roaches. The cleanup is due.
But the Declaration of Independence needs no cleanup. It’s a human document, perhaps flawed, perhaps showing signs of old age. In my view, it’s not only for Americans any more.
Irish-Americans love to say that everyone is Irish on St. Patrick’s Day. They have set the precedent: everyone can decide on the Fourth of July whether or not to be independent, and in that sense, everyone in the world is American.
To excerpt a less well-known quote from Jefferson’s document:
“A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.”
In 1789, when the American intellectuals of the time created a Constitution in the shelter of their meeting rooms, French mobs were storming the Bastille. France has had almost 233 years to tame their mobs, successfully only part of the time, while Americans at long last now have to deal squarely with mob rule, an established bureaucratic aristocracy, and a clergy compromised of high-tech media. Will they succeed?
The French may be French, and Americans American, but disaffected power-hungry intellectuals are a tribe unto themselves that cut across all national boundaries.
They've been singing the same song since Thomas Müntzer (Happy 500th anniversary!), which always succeeds brilliantly at destruction and fails spectacularly at creation, and goes a lil sumthin like this:
1. Express moral disapproval of evils and injustice;
2. Demonize existing institutions and power holders;
3. Revolt in name of newer, purer world;
4. Declare yourself and your ideas as Holy;
5. Denounce opponents as heretical enemies.
Actually this may even go back to Moses or Jeremiah, it seems to really strike a chord.
At the core is the battle on behalf of the folks who did most of the work, except for ruling and propagandizing. They called it the “Third Estate”, the rulers the Second, and the propagandizers the First. The Third Estate fought in France by mob rule led by fools, and they lost. They are still losing.
Wannabe geniuses like Marx, Lenin, Stalin, Mao, and Nancy Pelosi keep trying that same mob rule, each in turn wanting to be in charge of everybody.
France had some good, mediocre, and bad philosophers, but it’s not philosophy that caused Marxism and its spawn. It’s plain old thuggery, as represented by a fist raised in the air. You know, like BLM’s and Antifa’s.
That’s really all the Left has, a fist: no real philosophy. That’s why they are terrified by guns in the hands of individuals.
I read an interesting book recently called "Revolutionary Apocalypse" by Luciano Pellicani (2003) and one of the main ideas is that modern societies live in perpetual dialectical struggle bw the Merchant class (which succeeded or absorbed the Nobles) and an Ideas/intellectuals class (which succeeded or absorbed the Clergy), and who exist in a constant will-to-power tug-of-war.
That is (more or less), people w money think they have the right to rule vs people of ideas think the same, and while money speaks for itself (especially when coupled w technology), the Ideas people attempt to gain power by promoting egalitarianism and trying to whip up the commoners to revolt on their behalf.
This quote (among others) helped me better understand Leftists and their leaders, goals, movements:
"Intellectuals have tended to support anti-capitalist movements [because] in their view, a capitalist society is structurally incapable of achieving the supreme values they claim to incarnate. In effect, in capitalist societies, material values prevail “over all other values, with the consequence that the economy leaves its mark on every field of society and culture.”
The sensation of profound alienation and impotence experienced by intellectuals derives therefore from the incompatibility between the role of spiritual leadership they aspire to fulfill and the specific nature of the social order that revolves around values and forces that are completely foreign to them.
In this material world, pervaded by material values, intellectuals feel like aliens, who are unable to leave a mark on society. Their natural vocation is to guide consciences, indicate goals, transform the public ethos. The fact that modern society is dominated by economic issues, is impervious to their messages, and refuses to recognize their role of spiritual leadership offends them deeply. "
We all (no, bots, not you!) live in a physical world where muscles count, but as humans, even small children, we have powers of imagination. Intellectuals work in the world of imagination, which separates them to a greater or lesser degree from those of us who work primary in the physical world.
The big risk for those who work in the world of imagination is that they can become obsessed with power and forget the physical world and the need for those who work there. This is an ancient problem, but may have become more intense in a high-tech Global Village.
Bad guys in the purely physical world are limited by the range of their fists, guns, and armies, but the reach of bad guys in the world of the imagination is infinite.
However, not all intellectuals are bad guys. The American Founding Fathers, after all, were intellectuals.
I want to know more! How is it actually Foucault's fault that latter-day whig-progressive evolution has failed to deliver a better, richer future for children born after 1965? (including those who make it into the professional elites, who are doing great, but have no hope for the children they feel it's somehow cruel or immoral to produce)
Pardon the Founders were not intellectuals but practical if intelligent men. They were simply recognizing their situation and hammered out well thought solutions to the problem of a more perfect Union- they needed more centralization but just enough for a Federation, no more.
I agree that they were not intellectuals in the contemporary sense of highly credentialed (licensed, actually) graduates of academic institutions whose work is reviewed by peers empowered to reject it.
Hopefully, NOT! And the reason they have this power is the shortsightedness of the constitution to not include term-limits on Congress, letting bureaucrats run the country.
You’re right about the bureaucrats. They have hijacked the USA.
Bureaucracy is an ancient problem. There are historians who blame it for the partial fall of the Eastern Roman Empire to the Saracens, and later the total fall to the Ottomans.
Would Congressional term limits be enough to keep the bureaucracy under control? I have my doubts.
I’m thinking of an automatic expiration date for all legislative appropriations for all bureaucracies might be considered. All as in ALL.
But meanwhile we’ve got some cleaning up to do because the rats 🐀 and roaches 🪳 have taken over the kitchen.
No, they will not! And the reason they got this power is that the constitution failed to include term-limits for congress and UN-ELECTED bureaucrats are actually running the country.
My father was impressed by Americans, namely the occupation forces in Austria after WWII. My father's family had to flee Croatia because they were ethnic Germans. He wanted to emigrate to the US but settled for Canada.
I have heard stories about German POWs who were put to work in Canada in forestry, and after they were repatriated, did everything they could to return to Canada.
I guess those are just nostalgic memories, now that North America has gone woke.
The reason why we chose Canada to emigrate to after not being able to get into Germany was because one of my father's uncles refused to surrender to the Brits in Southern Austria in 1945 and hit out for two years until repatriations were done. At that point the Brits offered him a choice: Canada or Australia. He ended up working in a meat packing plant on the kill floor.
It is the left and centrists POV but that POV is invariably Projection. They look in the mirror and scream “Authoritarians” and their own twisted visages.
It is true that an actual genuine man named Trump getting into power by a fluke called Hillary slurring “Deplorables “ in public scared the living 💩 out of them, as did the non astroturfed Jan 6 protest.
They felt I’m sure like Alec Baldwin movie set when the gun went off - that wasn’t in the script.
It cannot be overemphasized our elected government are powerless performing carnival actors and we are governed by an increasingly delusional script.
Projection is also a factor on the Right as well. Everything unlikeable or obnoxious is either Marxism or globalism (neither of which is ever defined). To their credit, the Right are better socialised and typically do not mix their drugs with cross-sex hormones.
I went to NYC on business recently. The place has always been special for me, as my grand-grand-grandfather was one of the Ellis islanders at the beginning of the past century. He went to work in the mines in California for almost 20 years, then fled back after he pinned an Italian guy to the door with a knife for cheating on poker. He came back to Croatia and bought land, was the first in our village to buy horses instead of oxen. As it turns out he also fathered a few kids in Bay Area but hey, nobody’s perfect.
Back to NYC; America really looks tired, even more so now than last time I went in early 2010’s... Not only by infrastructure, but It looks like a place devoid of ideas, where culture wars reached such proportion they shadow everything else. Something went terribly wrong and until reading your article, I couldn’t really pinpoint what. Very insightful. If you go ahead and say some poor white sod who can’t afford aspirin in the Flyover Country that it’s all his fault and that he’s somehow privileged, you’re not really leaving doing anyone a favor.
America is in a very weird place right now. Our upper middle class (with a total population equivalent to that of Germany) is really doing better than ever in many respects. I live in one of these places and although you do see degeneracy creeping in (Pride flags have moved to the burbs), by most metrics these are still really nice places to live.
The rest of America has certainly declined though, even in my lifetime, as I’m not yet 40 years old. We just got back from a family vacation recently and it really is eye opening. Everyone outside of the upper middle class is profoundly overweight or obese. I’m talking around 70%. All races. It’s really bad. The stuff you read on Nemets’ Twitter feed is pretty close to reality once you go outside the upper middle class bubble. And most of this happened in my relatively short lifetime.
In the latter half of the essay you talk about hyphen Americans, which brings to mind Roosevelt's campaign to shame those of multiple loyalties. Maybe you knew of this?
Pat Buchanan's two recent books about his years working for Nixon made the case that the assimilation of "ethnic" (mainly Catholic) whites into the American mainstream was sped up substantially by the riots and increase in crime of the 60s-70s. George Wallace polled very well with these groups in 1968. The civic unrest, of course, was excused away by major media figures. Given recent voter trends in South Texas and San Francisco a similar trend may be occurring with today's Hispanics (or at least Mexicans) and Asians.
I'm very, very curious to see what happens with the Mexicans because they are such a large cohort and form majorities in many communities across the country. I imagine that the processes they will go through won't be homogeneous and they will assimilate/not-assimilate in various degrees.
True. I know of multiple cases where Mexicans in the USA have gotten static for being from the wrong part of Mexico compared to the other Mexicans around them.
It would appear it's working class Latinos who may rescue America from the demoralized NPCs that make a sizeable percentage of other demographics and the Democratic Party. They've generally socially conservative and anti-collectivist. They should be the base of a modern, reformed Republican party, unless the GOP follows it's NeoCon instincts and rejects them.
How could they rescue anything? They might supply voters to augment the voting base, but there is no reason to believe that working class Latinos would exert any greater influence on the political system than non-Hispanic white working class voters did previously. The US is unique amongst industrialised societies in containing working class influence. This success explains why the Left became captured by middle class progressives in the first place.
The social conservatism of the Republican base does not appear to have had much real-world influence to date. To date, surging Latino numbers have not stopped California from turning into a model form of Blue Dystopia. This may change, of course, but over time America will transform Latinos as it has all other groups.
Catholic Hispanics will tend to have Woke children, Evangelical Hispanics right wing children who identify as “American First”. It’s not a coincidence that the first Republican elected to Congress from the Rio Grande Valley is a Latina fundamentalist Christian wife of a border patrol agent. This trend has only been accelerated by the papacy of the Woke Argentine Jesuit.
I couldn't stop myself from doing a couple of Fourth of July think pieces, and I'm not even American.
Some form of civic nationalism could, I think, work, but (and it's a big and probably disqualifying but) it requires willingness to expel those who reject the civic creed:
The basic model I work with here is religion. Anyone can convert to Christianity and receive the sacraments, but for the church to stay viable it has to excommunicate apostates. Similarly in a feudal system, anyone can become a vassal by swearing allegiance to a new liege lord, but they lose the rights of vassalage should they break their oath of fealty.
The civic nationalism advocated by people such as your the subject of your essay can only function if those who reject or undetermine the civic creed can be stripped of citizenship.
Theoretically sound, but impossible to do for obvious reasons. To me, no one is more unintentionally funny on this subject than David French and those who think like him when they have those routine outbursts and inform whoever is listening that they consider immigrants who adopt the values of the Constitution and Bill of Rights closer to them than their own blood relatives who reject it.
I'll take a look at your piece and suggest others here do the same.
That's the thing - defining a country as a moral community requires a will that is simply lacking. The Frenches of the world don't have what it takes to enforce it. Until that will emerges, if it ever does, it won't happen.
A country that trashes its own founding principles (and myths) while inviting millions of others to join it in the meantime is a very different country from what it once was.
It's also a country that won't survive long. I'm inclined to agree with your suspicion in that essay that the American ruling class has moved from cynicism to ideological possession, and that this is largely explained by the lack of checks on their behavior thanks to their status as hyperpower. In the process they've lost competency, leading to unforced errors; alienated the core population at home, on whom they rely for the military; and spurred opposition abroad. It won't end well for them.
The ongoing discussion that I've been having with some notable individuals (including some of my previous interview subjects) regarding this has revolved around just how long this experimentation in the USA can last. Everyone is working under the assumption that performance in tech/business/everything will suffer due to "wokeness", rendering the USA less competitive vs. others. But when will that really kick in? How much slack does the USA have?
That's the real question, isn't it? The Ottoman Empire spent centuries crumbling into senescence before finally getting ripped up and digested by more agile foreign powers. Lots of similar examples. Part of me wouldn't be surprised by civil war within the decade; another part wouldn't be surprised by a gradual slide into third world status that continues for another century.
The problem with this q. is twofold. It assumes that competition is everything. It is not. Elites in many 3rd world countries prefer manageable stagnation and the social stability it brings to doing a Meiji style reformation. Also, intelligent people always prioritise the value of intelligence and ability; they overestimate its advantages and the necessity for talent. In real-life institutions and groups there is very little need for intelligence at all, midwits have an advantage if they can manage the collective affect to their advantage. Eventually the neglect of talent will have its predictable effect, but do not forget there would have been vast numbers of galley-slaves and serfs with high IQs who never got a chance. Tough for them, but it suited those in charge at the time.
At its peak (the mid-20th c) the US ruling class stook its cues in behaviour, education and culture from the upper classes of Europe. The transformation of Europe (its Americanisation) in the last few generations has largely euthanased the old high culture of the aristos and haute bourgeoisie there. Without the example and influence exerted by peers and rivals steeped in a high culture the US elite has become plebeianised in its manners and intellectual life. This has accelerated and compounded the coarsening and dumbing down of the elite. In noting this I am not pleading for a revived aristocracy in America or making a case for cotillions and debutantes balls as a cure for social decay, just noting that any elite needs a degree of peer level cultural and aesthetic competition.
I wouldn't remind a return to debutante balls for the upper classes and barn dances for the lower. Either are more elegant and well suited to the European character than grunting away in a nightclub.
Politics is Power, Divide and Rule, this is the greatest political outcome of 1965 (who’s aim explicitly contra Soldo above was Black assimilation, at least until the Ink was dry). We were for a moment after WW2 until 1965 entirely too United and had entirely too much cultural unity.
One must see who the winners of Power struggles are you know?
Karens in DC and HR.
Administrative government got an enormous boost from 1965, and so did lawyers, so did HR.
That Civil Rights violated all promises of going too far, that it became instantly a tool of abuse and extortion was warned against by such as Barry Goldwater and Reagan who previously supported civil rights, but didn’t like the poison pills.
If you’re going to refer to Christopher Caldwell do understand that’s his core argument in his recent book.
For whatever reason The elites simply reorganized our divisions and changed who was the evil marginalized group to rally against (this is the key to open borders which is more or less the policy since 1965, going after 85% of the population is unwise).
So Black is now White and White is Black. The lower rungs priorities were rearranged.
Politics is Power.
The Balkanization of America was done by the elites because they wanted it that way, we’re seemingly easier to control.
We were anything but Balkanized in 65, and even into the 90s - its all social engineering.
As far as the de-industrialization poor people are easier to control as well. See also the constantly changing rules, also control is easier. More laws than man can count- again, its power and control.
Great essay and spot on. The US right now is analogous to the late Roman Empire c.375 or so.
The costs of government including defense are out-of-control, the economy is sliding and heading towards a collapse (especially when the US dollar loses reserve currency status), and we are beset by enemies all around. A difference is that for 50 years previously, the US has effectively opened its borders, with the Biden Admin now effectively declaring it to be wide open. We have destroyed our common Christian European culture and have been far more concerned about newcomers than establish citizens.
I think a Civil War in the immediate future is very unlikely (though not impossible) but I do so regions in the US that over the next 30-50 years might slide away from the US, because the local elites no longer think that paying taxes to the US and following its overweening rules and regulations. If the federal government refuses to let that happen, then a Civil War could well happen; it will be bloody beyond belief.
Nico do you recall Michael Barone writing years ago “Hard America, Soft America “ * that the Hispanics will develop here as the Italians did? I grew up with Italians (working class Irish-Italians- some Poles - rest Scot Irish- Rust Belt NY) and I have worked with and served with a lot of Hispanics and he’s correct, Current Thing Coalition Rulers notwithstanding.
The great American assimilation engine being work. Also living around people.
* Barone has an encyclopedic knowledge of American politics to at least the county level, and no small grasp of the sweep of our history. Something that MIGHT cheer you up Sr Soldo. Seriously I’m Irish, we’re the gloomiest people on earth (ask the American Italians) but you are getting TOO BlackPill
2. The Hispanic population is massive in proportion to the rest of the USA when compared to the Italians upon their arrival. As they Americanize, they will leave their own imprint on what it means to be American, and that will no doubt be significant enough to differentiate it from what it meant to be American in 1950.
The Hispanic population is not new - many have been americanized for a generation or more - no longer speak Spanish or don't check Hispanic off on the census
Niccolo, I enjoy your work! There are good points in your essay, On America. However nothing is as simple as it may seem. The choir of the "hyphenated folks" are the noisiest perhaps, but only a small percentage and the least real in the fabric of everyday people. The purported rise in White Nationalists is a pipe dream of the left (check out hate-crime stats). Cleary there are significant numbers of blacks, hispanics and asians who are multifaceted citizens and lining up on the other side of the far-left, progressive line in cultural issues as well as politics. Like all countries, the U.S. has exceptional opportunities, significant challenges and serious problems. Throughout history, in even the darkest times of prejudice and institutional discrimination, immigrants created their own "American Dre from China, East Asia and India and yes even those "White-European" folks like "Irish need not apply"; "Jews not allowed"; or my Italian grandfather who heard a constant flow of colorful epithets due to his ethnicity... and even today with the example of Nigerian immigrants, what seems to matter most is the culture and the work ethic and the family ethic. Academia is doing it's very best to deconstruct the common culture of liberty and pursuit of happiness through hard work that can unite all people and replace it with victim consciousness, which helps no one, not even the real victims! I think most Americans, born here or recent immigrants, are beginning to see that "man behind the curtain," (the false wizard of Oz)—and recognize the charlatan for what he is... much needs to change on this we all agree,,, there is still much to instill hope.
This is a good post, Wendy, and it's one of the reasons why I refuse to count the USA as "down and out". Your country has an incredible history of resilience, with a lack of predators in the neighbourhood.
Cheers to you! Thank you, I am learning so much outside of my little paradigm of town, county, state, region, nation, continent... etc! Being a global citizen doesn't mean we relinquish who we are or where we are from — it means we recognize and appreciate the wonder of all of us... It's so important especially when "our betters" keep telling us who we are for our own good— such an arrogant bunch! Keep up the good work.
I read a stat somewhere recently that circa 1950 the USA was responsible for half of the world's total manufacturing production. Incredible.
1971 can be reversed with energy commodity money aka - BTU penny, oil barrel dollar, KwH dollar, etc. Oh wait green fine 'Sols" aka solar KwH.
https://wtfhappenedin1971.com/
Happy 4th of July to my American readers!
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Man, I think you're actually the best cultural critic I've read in the past several years. I really appreciate your interpretations.
I appreciate the kind words, roktaw. I get a lot of grief when I write about America and its culture(s).
I don't know why. New threads in the sheen, repetitive as it may seem, are worth revealing. I think you write about it with a lot of nuance and restraint. Your pieces distinguish themselves when you illuminate new facets of a larger cultural system at work. I, for one, have never found you repetitive.
Interesting that you say that. Everything you write seems eminently sensible to this generically American gen-Xer.
I don't remember the US looking run down (except for inner cities) until the last 25 years or so, speaking as a solid Gen-Xer, but yes.
As an American, I HAVE a lot of grief when I write and think about America and its culture.
However, celebrating Independence Day this year, for the first time, was a revelation to me.
It really is about the Declaration and nothing else. Not fireworks, not barbecue, not parades.
The USA’s culture has accumulated a lot of deferred maintenance, like a greasy kitchen overrun by rats and roaches. The cleanup is due.
But the Declaration of Independence needs no cleanup. It’s a human document, perhaps flawed, perhaps showing signs of old age. In my view, it’s not only for Americans any more.
Irish-Americans love to say that everyone is Irish on St. Patrick’s Day. They have set the precedent: everyone can decide on the Fourth of July whether or not to be independent, and in that sense, everyone in the world is American.
To excerpt a less well-known quote from Jefferson’s document:
“A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.”
I second this. Nic is a master.
Sorry Niccolo, your conclusion is too self-defeating and hopeless, do you really believe that the country has no hope? Should we just give up?
In 1789, when the American intellectuals of the time created a Constitution in the shelter of their meeting rooms, French mobs were storming the Bastille. France has had almost 233 years to tame their mobs, successfully only part of the time, while Americans at long last now have to deal squarely with mob rule, an established bureaucratic aristocracy, and a clergy compromised of high-tech media. Will they succeed?
An excellent question.
Comprised, not “compromised.” But Sigmund Freud is grinning at me from the next world.
Ironic when you think most of the modern day, leftoid collectivist ideology is based heavily on french "philosophy"
The French may be French, and Americans American, but disaffected power-hungry intellectuals are a tribe unto themselves that cut across all national boundaries.
They've been singing the same song since Thomas Müntzer (Happy 500th anniversary!), which always succeeds brilliantly at destruction and fails spectacularly at creation, and goes a lil sumthin like this:
1. Express moral disapproval of evils and injustice;
2. Demonize existing institutions and power holders;
3. Revolt in name of newer, purer world;
4. Declare yourself and your ideas as Holy;
5. Denounce opponents as heretical enemies.
Actually this may even go back to Moses or Jeremiah, it seems to really strike a chord.
At the core is the battle on behalf of the folks who did most of the work, except for ruling and propagandizing. They called it the “Third Estate”, the rulers the Second, and the propagandizers the First. The Third Estate fought in France by mob rule led by fools, and they lost. They are still losing.
Wannabe geniuses like Marx, Lenin, Stalin, Mao, and Nancy Pelosi keep trying that same mob rule, each in turn wanting to be in charge of everybody.
France had some good, mediocre, and bad philosophers, but it’s not philosophy that caused Marxism and its spawn. It’s plain old thuggery, as represented by a fist raised in the air. You know, like BLM’s and Antifa’s.
That’s really all the Left has, a fist: no real philosophy. That’s why they are terrified by guns in the hands of individuals.
I read an interesting book recently called "Revolutionary Apocalypse" by Luciano Pellicani (2003) and one of the main ideas is that modern societies live in perpetual dialectical struggle bw the Merchant class (which succeeded or absorbed the Nobles) and an Ideas/intellectuals class (which succeeded or absorbed the Clergy), and who exist in a constant will-to-power tug-of-war.
That is (more or less), people w money think they have the right to rule vs people of ideas think the same, and while money speaks for itself (especially when coupled w technology), the Ideas people attempt to gain power by promoting egalitarianism and trying to whip up the commoners to revolt on their behalf.
This quote (among others) helped me better understand Leftists and their leaders, goals, movements:
"Intellectuals have tended to support anti-capitalist movements [because] in their view, a capitalist society is structurally incapable of achieving the supreme values they claim to incarnate. In effect, in capitalist societies, material values prevail “over all other values, with the consequence that the economy leaves its mark on every field of society and culture.”
The sensation of profound alienation and impotence experienced by intellectuals derives therefore from the incompatibility between the role of spiritual leadership they aspire to fulfill and the specific nature of the social order that revolves around values and forces that are completely foreign to them.
In this material world, pervaded by material values, intellectuals feel like aliens, who are unable to leave a mark on society. Their natural vocation is to guide consciences, indicate goals, transform the public ethos. The fact that modern society is dominated by economic issues, is impervious to their messages, and refuses to recognize their role of spiritual leadership offends them deeply. "
We all (no, bots, not you!) live in a physical world where muscles count, but as humans, even small children, we have powers of imagination. Intellectuals work in the world of imagination, which separates them to a greater or lesser degree from those of us who work primary in the physical world.
The big risk for those who work in the world of imagination is that they can become obsessed with power and forget the physical world and the need for those who work there. This is an ancient problem, but may have become more intense in a high-tech Global Village.
Bad guys in the purely physical world are limited by the range of their fists, guns, and armies, but the reach of bad guys in the world of the imagination is infinite.
However, not all intellectuals are bad guys. The American Founding Fathers, after all, were intellectuals.
I want to know more! How is it actually Foucault's fault that latter-day whig-progressive evolution has failed to deliver a better, richer future for children born after 1965? (including those who make it into the professional elites, who are doing great, but have no hope for the children they feel it's somehow cruel or immoral to produce)
Postmodern nihilism opening the door to Jacobin-Stalinist thuggery and Big Tech opportunism.
Pardon the Founders were not intellectuals but practical if intelligent men. They were simply recognizing their situation and hammered out well thought solutions to the problem of a more perfect Union- they needed more centralization but just enough for a Federation, no more.
I agree that they were not intellectuals in the contemporary sense of highly credentialed (licensed, actually) graduates of academic institutions whose work is reviewed by peers empowered to reject it.
If the Founders had been intellectuals the Hanoverian Empire would have extended to the Pacific in record mine.
😀
Hopefully, NOT! And the reason they have this power is the shortsightedness of the constitution to not include term-limits on Congress, letting bureaucrats run the country.
You’re right about the bureaucrats. They have hijacked the USA.
Bureaucracy is an ancient problem. There are historians who blame it for the partial fall of the Eastern Roman Empire to the Saracens, and later the total fall to the Ottomans.
Would Congressional term limits be enough to keep the bureaucracy under control? I have my doubts.
I’m thinking of an automatic expiration date for all legislative appropriations for all bureaucracies might be considered. All as in ALL.
But meanwhile we’ve got some cleaning up to do because the rats 🐀 and roaches 🪳 have taken over the kitchen.
No, they will not! And the reason they got this power is that the constitution failed to include term-limits for congress and UN-ELECTED bureaucrats are actually running the country.
Whichever ethnic group has superior weaponry/firepower can retake America.
No, there must be organization and there is zero
That is unacceptable, but it is also likely correct
My father was impressed by Americans, namely the occupation forces in Austria after WWII. My father's family had to flee Croatia because they were ethnic Germans. He wanted to emigrate to the US but settled for Canada.
I have heard stories about German POWs who were put to work in Canada in forestry, and after they were repatriated, did everything they could to return to Canada.
I guess those are just nostalgic memories, now that North America has gone woke.
The reason why we chose Canada to emigrate to after not being able to get into Germany was because one of my father's uncles refused to surrender to the Brits in Southern Austria in 1945 and hit out for two years until repatriations were done. At that point the Brits offered him a choice: Canada or Australia. He ended up working in a meat packing plant on the kill floor.
🎆🇺🇸 from this American to you…let freedom ring, etc etc.
"..... centrists and liberals view as growing support for authoritarianism on the right side of the political aisle...".
I think you have you aisles mixed up.
Well, yes...but this is from their POV.
It is the left and centrists POV but that POV is invariably Projection. They look in the mirror and scream “Authoritarians” and their own twisted visages.
It is true that an actual genuine man named Trump getting into power by a fluke called Hillary slurring “Deplorables “ in public scared the living 💩 out of them, as did the non astroturfed Jan 6 protest.
They felt I’m sure like Alec Baldwin movie set when the gun went off - that wasn’t in the script.
It cannot be overemphasized our elected government are powerless performing carnival actors and we are governed by an increasingly delusional script.
Projection is also a factor on the Right as well. Everything unlikeable or obnoxious is either Marxism or globalism (neither of which is ever defined). To their credit, the Right are better socialised and typically do not mix their drugs with cross-sex hormones.
I went to NYC on business recently. The place has always been special for me, as my grand-grand-grandfather was one of the Ellis islanders at the beginning of the past century. He went to work in the mines in California for almost 20 years, then fled back after he pinned an Italian guy to the door with a knife for cheating on poker. He came back to Croatia and bought land, was the first in our village to buy horses instead of oxen. As it turns out he also fathered a few kids in Bay Area but hey, nobody’s perfect.
Back to NYC; America really looks tired, even more so now than last time I went in early 2010’s... Not only by infrastructure, but It looks like a place devoid of ideas, where culture wars reached such proportion they shadow everything else. Something went terribly wrong and until reading your article, I couldn’t really pinpoint what. Very insightful. If you go ahead and say some poor white sod who can’t afford aspirin in the Flyover Country that it’s all his fault and that he’s somehow privileged, you’re not really leaving doing anyone a favor.
The meta verse will look as beautiful as you like
This is Indeed not insignificant imhkp. I think we are all allowing that prospect to lull and compensate us.
I am very bullish on the Metasphere (from an investment standpoint). I think it is going to do quite well.
America is in a very weird place right now. Our upper middle class (with a total population equivalent to that of Germany) is really doing better than ever in many respects. I live in one of these places and although you do see degeneracy creeping in (Pride flags have moved to the burbs), by most metrics these are still really nice places to live.
The rest of America has certainly declined though, even in my lifetime, as I’m not yet 40 years old. We just got back from a family vacation recently and it really is eye opening. Everyone outside of the upper middle class is profoundly overweight or obese. I’m talking around 70%. All races. It’s really bad. The stuff you read on Nemets’ Twitter feed is pretty close to reality once you go outside the upper middle class bubble. And most of this happened in my relatively short lifetime.
In the latter half of the essay you talk about hyphen Americans, which brings to mind Roosevelt's campaign to shame those of multiple loyalties. Maybe you knew of this?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyphenated_American
Oh yes. The subject of assimilation and ethnic identity (not just pertaining to the USA, but everywhere) has long been a favourite of mine.
Pat Buchanan's two recent books about his years working for Nixon made the case that the assimilation of "ethnic" (mainly Catholic) whites into the American mainstream was sped up substantially by the riots and increase in crime of the 60s-70s. George Wallace polled very well with these groups in 1968. The civic unrest, of course, was excused away by major media figures. Given recent voter trends in South Texas and San Francisco a similar trend may be occurring with today's Hispanics (or at least Mexicans) and Asians.
I'm very, very curious to see what happens with the Mexicans because they are such a large cohort and form majorities in many communities across the country. I imagine that the processes they will go through won't be homogeneous and they will assimilate/not-assimilate in various degrees.
True. I know of multiple cases where Mexicans in the USA have gotten static for being from the wrong part of Mexico compared to the other Mexicans around them.
It would appear it's working class Latinos who may rescue America from the demoralized NPCs that make a sizeable percentage of other demographics and the Democratic Party. They've generally socially conservative and anti-collectivist. They should be the base of a modern, reformed Republican party, unless the GOP follows it's NeoCon instincts and rejects them.
How could they rescue anything? They might supply voters to augment the voting base, but there is no reason to believe that working class Latinos would exert any greater influence on the political system than non-Hispanic white working class voters did previously. The US is unique amongst industrialised societies in containing working class influence. This success explains why the Left became captured by middle class progressives in the first place.
The social conservatism of the Republican base does not appear to have had much real-world influence to date. To date, surging Latino numbers have not stopped California from turning into a model form of Blue Dystopia. This may change, of course, but over time America will transform Latinos as it has all other groups.
Catholic Hispanics will tend to have Woke children, Evangelical Hispanics right wing children who identify as “American First”. It’s not a coincidence that the first Republican elected to Congress from the Rio Grande Valley is a Latina fundamentalist Christian wife of a border patrol agent. This trend has only been accelerated by the papacy of the Woke Argentine Jesuit.
People say Latinos don't use the word Latinx. Where I work the young (college age) ones do.
I couldn't stop myself from doing a couple of Fourth of July think pieces, and I'm not even American.
Some form of civic nationalism could, I think, work, but (and it's a big and probably disqualifying but) it requires willingness to expel those who reject the civic creed:
https://barsoom.substack.com/p/what-is-america
The basic model I work with here is religion. Anyone can convert to Christianity and receive the sacraments, but for the church to stay viable it has to excommunicate apostates. Similarly in a feudal system, anyone can become a vassal by swearing allegiance to a new liege lord, but they lose the rights of vassalage should they break their oath of fealty.
The civic nationalism advocated by people such as your the subject of your essay can only function if those who reject or undetermine the civic creed can be stripped of citizenship.
Theoretically sound, but impossible to do for obvious reasons. To me, no one is more unintentionally funny on this subject than David French and those who think like him when they have those routine outbursts and inform whoever is listening that they consider immigrants who adopt the values of the Constitution and Bill of Rights closer to them than their own blood relatives who reject it.
I'll take a look at your piece and suggest others here do the same.
That's the thing - defining a country as a moral community requires a will that is simply lacking. The Frenches of the world don't have what it takes to enforce it. Until that will emerges, if it ever does, it won't happen.
This is why I wrote the piece - https://niccolo.substack.com/p/the-desquamation-of-america
A country that trashes its own founding principles (and myths) while inviting millions of others to join it in the meantime is a very different country from what it once was.
It's also a country that won't survive long. I'm inclined to agree with your suspicion in that essay that the American ruling class has moved from cynicism to ideological possession, and that this is largely explained by the lack of checks on their behavior thanks to their status as hyperpower. In the process they've lost competency, leading to unforced errors; alienated the core population at home, on whom they rely for the military; and spurred opposition abroad. It won't end well for them.
The ongoing discussion that I've been having with some notable individuals (including some of my previous interview subjects) regarding this has revolved around just how long this experimentation in the USA can last. Everyone is working under the assumption that performance in tech/business/everything will suffer due to "wokeness", rendering the USA less competitive vs. others. But when will that really kick in? How much slack does the USA have?
That's the real question, isn't it? The Ottoman Empire spent centuries crumbling into senescence before finally getting ripped up and digested by more agile foreign powers. Lots of similar examples. Part of me wouldn't be surprised by civil war within the decade; another part wouldn't be surprised by a gradual slide into third world status that continues for another century.
How long for America? Long.
You have to consider our matchless geographic position and nuclear weapons. IOW the fate of others is not ours (say the Ottomans).
How long for these pyschos in charge now?
Well this is how we’ll get ______ as long as ______ is as strong or stronger than the Current Thing Coalition.
The problem with this q. is twofold. It assumes that competition is everything. It is not. Elites in many 3rd world countries prefer manageable stagnation and the social stability it brings to doing a Meiji style reformation. Also, intelligent people always prioritise the value of intelligence and ability; they overestimate its advantages and the necessity for talent. In real-life institutions and groups there is very little need for intelligence at all, midwits have an advantage if they can manage the collective affect to their advantage. Eventually the neglect of talent will have its predictable effect, but do not forget there would have been vast numbers of galley-slaves and serfs with high IQs who never got a chance. Tough for them, but it suited those in charge at the time.
At its peak (the mid-20th c) the US ruling class stook its cues in behaviour, education and culture from the upper classes of Europe. The transformation of Europe (its Americanisation) in the last few generations has largely euthanased the old high culture of the aristos and haute bourgeoisie there. Without the example and influence exerted by peers and rivals steeped in a high culture the US elite has become plebeianised in its manners and intellectual life. This has accelerated and compounded the coarsening and dumbing down of the elite. In noting this I am not pleading for a revived aristocracy in America or making a case for cotillions and debutantes balls as a cure for social decay, just noting that any elite needs a degree of peer level cultural and aesthetic competition.
I wouldn't remind a return to debutante balls for the upper classes and barn dances for the lower. Either are more elegant and well suited to the European character than grunting away in a nightclub.
Politics is Power, Divide and Rule, this is the greatest political outcome of 1965 (who’s aim explicitly contra Soldo above was Black assimilation, at least until the Ink was dry). We were for a moment after WW2 until 1965 entirely too United and had entirely too much cultural unity.
One must see who the winners of Power struggles are you know?
Karens in DC and HR.
Administrative government got an enormous boost from 1965, and so did lawyers, so did HR.
That Civil Rights violated all promises of going too far, that it became instantly a tool of abuse and extortion was warned against by such as Barry Goldwater and Reagan who previously supported civil rights, but didn’t like the poison pills.
If you’re going to refer to Christopher Caldwell do understand that’s his core argument in his recent book.
For whatever reason The elites simply reorganized our divisions and changed who was the evil marginalized group to rally against (this is the key to open borders which is more or less the policy since 1965, going after 85% of the population is unwise).
So Black is now White and White is Black. The lower rungs priorities were rearranged.
Politics is Power.
The Balkanization of America was done by the elites because they wanted it that way, we’re seemingly easier to control.
We were anything but Balkanized in 65, and even into the 90s - its all social engineering.
As far as the de-industrialization poor people are easier to control as well. See also the constantly changing rules, also control is easier. More laws than man can count- again, its power and control.
Politics is Power.
Politics is also sex. Money too.
Uh, gee, hope you had a lucky weekend 😂
Not as lucky as Hunter Biden's I am sure, but I did my best.
Great essay and spot on. The US right now is analogous to the late Roman Empire c.375 or so.
The costs of government including defense are out-of-control, the economy is sliding and heading towards a collapse (especially when the US dollar loses reserve currency status), and we are beset by enemies all around. A difference is that for 50 years previously, the US has effectively opened its borders, with the Biden Admin now effectively declaring it to be wide open. We have destroyed our common Christian European culture and have been far more concerned about newcomers than establish citizens.
I think a Civil War in the immediate future is very unlikely (though not impossible) but I do so regions in the US that over the next 30-50 years might slide away from the US, because the local elites no longer think that paying taxes to the US and following its overweening rules and regulations. If the federal government refuses to let that happen, then a Civil War could well happen; it will be bloody beyond belief.
It's interesting watching deluded warhawk think-tanks create maps of a post-collapse Russia, carved-up into small states.
I agree it's unlikely, but from what I see based on the societal fracture I know who I'd be betting on breaking up and it ain't Russia.
Ok here’s an interview- Christopher Caldwell.
(If you have and I missed sorry)
Nico do you recall Michael Barone writing years ago “Hard America, Soft America “ * that the Hispanics will develop here as the Italians did? I grew up with Italians (working class Irish-Italians- some Poles - rest Scot Irish- Rust Belt NY) and I have worked with and served with a lot of Hispanics and he’s correct, Current Thing Coalition Rulers notwithstanding.
The great American assimilation engine being work. Also living around people.
* Barone has an encyclopedic knowledge of American politics to at least the county level, and no small grasp of the sweep of our history. Something that MIGHT cheer you up Sr Soldo. Seriously I’m Irish, we’re the gloomiest people on earth (ask the American Italians) but you are getting TOO BlackPill
1. I am never "blackpilled"
2. The Hispanic population is massive in proportion to the rest of the USA when compared to the Italians upon their arrival. As they Americanize, they will leave their own imprint on what it means to be American, and that will no doubt be significant enough to differentiate it from what it meant to be American in 1950.
I know too many of both to be worried.
In any case they are not doing this to us, our own wipipo good whites are.
White Lotus HBO show are...
as far as the Hispanics - Bienviendos Naturamente Falangismas.
The Hispanic population is not new - many have been americanized for a generation or more - no longer speak Spanish or don't check Hispanic off on the census
Definitely not monolilthic, yes!
Niccolo, the meds are culture-specific and need to be graded on a spectrum. What Americans mistake for a black-pill is consumed as a red one by Slavs.
I tend to fall within the camp deemed "Spenglerian" in that I expect everything to get worse before it gets better.
2 good interviews for you
Christopher Caldwell
Michael Barone
Niccolo, I enjoy your work! There are good points in your essay, On America. However nothing is as simple as it may seem. The choir of the "hyphenated folks" are the noisiest perhaps, but only a small percentage and the least real in the fabric of everyday people. The purported rise in White Nationalists is a pipe dream of the left (check out hate-crime stats). Cleary there are significant numbers of blacks, hispanics and asians who are multifaceted citizens and lining up on the other side of the far-left, progressive line in cultural issues as well as politics. Like all countries, the U.S. has exceptional opportunities, significant challenges and serious problems. Throughout history, in even the darkest times of prejudice and institutional discrimination, immigrants created their own "American Dre from China, East Asia and India and yes even those "White-European" folks like "Irish need not apply"; "Jews not allowed"; or my Italian grandfather who heard a constant flow of colorful epithets due to his ethnicity... and even today with the example of Nigerian immigrants, what seems to matter most is the culture and the work ethic and the family ethic. Academia is doing it's very best to deconstruct the common culture of liberty and pursuit of happiness through hard work that can unite all people and replace it with victim consciousness, which helps no one, not even the real victims! I think most Americans, born here or recent immigrants, are beginning to see that "man behind the curtain," (the false wizard of Oz)—and recognize the charlatan for what he is... much needs to change on this we all agree,,, there is still much to instill hope.
This is a good post, Wendy, and it's one of the reasons why I refuse to count the USA as "down and out". Your country has an incredible history of resilience, with a lack of predators in the neighbourhood.
Glad you enjoyed it!
Cheers to you! Thank you, I am learning so much outside of my little paradigm of town, county, state, region, nation, continent... etc! Being a global citizen doesn't mean we relinquish who we are or where we are from — it means we recognize and appreciate the wonder of all of us... It's so important especially when "our betters" keep telling us who we are for our own good— such an arrogant bunch! Keep up the good work.
Simply put our elites turned on us in the 60s and never turned back.
Well said!