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Is Anyone Else Worried?
Is anyone else worried that the damage America suffered this year might be fatal? It’s been known for at least ten years that the early 2020s will, shall we say, be marked by political instability. Multiple crises are projected to explode simultaneously (or near enough): a demographic crisis, an “elite overproduction” crisis (our elite class is simply too big), and a fiscal crisis. In addition, many of us expect these crises will spark an additional ethnic crisis.
The populist conservative strategy to deal with all of this was to engineer a really good economy and try to split off part of the black working class from the progressive left (even a small number of black defectors would totally destroy the Democratic Party’s “demographic advantage”). Such a coalition would be powerful enough to finally stop the games that elites have been playing with immigration and trade policy, greatly lessening the risk of a civil war breaking out.
The idea that this strategy might fail is frankly frightening. If you think the BLM protests are bad, think again; things can get so much worse. We could easily see an ethnic death spiral, where poor whites come to believe elites want to ethnically cleanse them with trade and immigration policies, Hispanics think white people want to turn them into serfs to pay for Social Security and Medicare, white progressives finally realize that black people are culturally Southern, anti-Semitism returns in a really big way, and in general all hell breaks loose. And while all of this is happening the aforementioned crisis of elite overproduction sparks a massive wave of domestic terrorism as downwardly mobile elites lash out in the way elites have done throughout history: by organizing violence.
I just don’t know what to make of all of this. It’s a frightening situation.
Published in General
Right now Virginia still has ‘sanctuary counties’ regarding gun laws, the real test will come as soon as the Left feels empowered to enforce their dictates in red areas (starting with state and federal money, triggering a wholesale appeasement campaign by the political and donor class) and ending with the military, feds, and national guard.
Those same high-skill immigrants voted en masse for the Left, both nationally and in strategic places like northern Virginia; so long as the Left controls cultural and educational institutions, the only immigrants who might not be an asset (at the aggregate level) to the destruction of the country are religious refugees.
I would agree, but only if there are no qualified Americans to do the job.
These trends would be very serious even if we did not face the massive, competent, aggressive, smart, threatening and patient Chinese, but we do and it’s hard to imagine how we survive as a powerful and prosperous nation.
We don’t have to be #1 in the world on absolutely everything.
That’s a complicated situation. The CCP is very much aware that political instability in America can spill over into China via trade flows. Conventional wisdom aside, I think we’re still in the “love/hate relationship between great powers” phase in our relationship with China. Of course it won’t last; the current generation of CCP leaders won’t be around forever, and the Chinese people themselves do seem to have become more belligerently nationalist in recent years (at least that’s my impression).
Right now there’s a huge incentive for American and Chinese elites to start a Cold War to unify our respective populations, and they might even cooperate with each other in that endeavor. Unfortunately history shows that this sort of thing can very quickly spiral out of control. I think there’s a real risk we end up in some kind of hot war with China, though I’m not sure what form it would take.
I think we overestimate the extent that nuclear weapons deter hot wars between great powers. When two countries both feel the need to use war to unify their domestic populations, they will find ways to fight each other that fall short of a nuclear Armegeddon.
I note that even Andrew Klavan, on his podcasts, now occasionally says that all things made by man come to an end, and that America will eventually come to an end, and all we can do is work to make sure it doesn’t end today. Not exactly an optimistic viewpoint, although certainly true, from a man who used to predict a coming religious revival in America not too long ago.
“Multiple crises are projected to explode simultaneously (or near enough): a demographic crisis, an “elite overproduction” crisis (our elite class is simply too big), and a fiscal crisis.”
I must have missed the memo; since when did class warfare become a conservative ideological talking point?
Since the upper classes all started voting for the Democrats? :P But seriously, conservatives have always complained about elitist rich liberals.
I don’t think Joseph Eagar actually identifies as a conservative; but as to the larger point, class warfare of a sort became a reality after corporate America declared war on most conservatives (‘class’ in this case indicating the college-indoctrinated Left, who tend to be fairly well-off overall, and with cultural warfare as bread and circuses for those who can’t get a job outside of Starbucks with their useless degree).
“elite overproduction”…Sir Francis Bacon remarked–way back in the 1500s!…that one cause of sedition and mutiny in any polity is “breeding more scholars than preferment can take off.” A modern translation might be “producing more college graduates, especially those with graduate degrees, than can find jobs they see as worthy of them.”
See my post Higher Education, Un(der)employment, and Dissatisfaction.
Yes
@egar, redneck & foster:
The unemployment rate among the college educated was at its lowest level in 10+ years prior to its recent spike which is an artificial product of the Covid-19 lockdowns.
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LNS14027662
It was also at its lowest rate for blacks in decades, if I remember correctly. Though I suspect that many of the college-educated were under-employed, at least in terms of their own expectations. In any event, indoctrination (albeit largely through different avenues) into neo-Marxist ideology is the common denominator.
I’m no Obama, but we should bring a blow torch to a fire fight. Don’t get in their faces; but when they get in yours, burn them with their own nonsense. This is how we’ll win. It’s so easy that this is why I’m not worried and still enjoying myself.
So don’t you find it more than a bit ironic that you lump these folks into the “elite” and then claim that they’re a problem? This is *exactly* a Marxist critique. You just have a different definition of who the “elite” are.
Yes, things are frightening, but I’m also optimistic. I have faith in God, but not the government. I try to do what good I can, when and where I can. The same for my kids and husband. These are dark times, but Americans are stubborn and we won’t let ourselves get eaten alive. (Granted, that’s already happening.)
I never said the ‘elite’, I said the college-indoctrinated Left; that includes many corporate and professional elites, as well as those who cling to an inflated self-perception on the basis of mostly useless degrees, and the cultural progressivism surrounding that self-perception. I also don’t think they represent an inherent oppressor class, they’re just the problem here and now. When cultural and educational institutions were not completely controlled by the neo-Marxist Left, neither the college-educated nor corporate America were a particular problem.
Yes!
What’s the difference between Marxist and neo-Marxist?
Solid point. Elitists is more accurate. Snoots works too.
My beef is with class warfare rhetoric, whether it comes from the Right (the college educated, “Chamber of Commerce Republicans”, corporate America) or the Left (the “rich”). At least the Left seems to have a much simpler definition of what the problem is. If I’m misunderstanding your argument, I apologize. I was drawing a straight line between Egars original comment (“elite overproduction”), my response, and your defence of the premise.
Elite overproduction is not exactly a left-wing idea, especially since historically “surplus elites” have turned to socialism to maintain their status. As far as I know no one has ever come up with a policy response to it; countries usually just live with the violence that comes from the labor market adjusting. Sometimes they’ll postpone it by subsidizing elite jobs, but this tends to be very expensive financially.
On welfare? Like all those “white working class” drug addicts in Appalachia and the rust belt, after all the vast bulk of all welfare in the US goes to poor whites? Of course if the idea that importation of “cheap foreign labor” drives out native workers and thereby through some magical process cleanses them out of the society why would that not hold true of “high skill” jobs?
It seems to me American’s still don’t give into those conspiracies by and large no matter how much they are perpetuated by white bigots.
I imagine it is because many of their ancestors were in fact immigrants during those dysfunctional phases, and then quickly got over it. As pretty much every immigrant group has with the exception of our African American immigrants whom we perpetually hobbled with various State policies designed to keep them from getting ahead.
How about we get back to free markets, free trade, free association and freedom of speech? Freedom is why I joined the Right. If the Right decides to become another cabal of collectivists count me out.
I think you are making my point for me. I support more immigration. It’s just that I would prefer that the large majority of immigrants have STEM education so that when they arrive here they are very likely to start businesses that create jobs verses go on various public assistance programs (which we can’t afford because the whites in Appalachia are already doing a good job of bankrupting America by themselves).
I’m not for white socialism nor am I for black and brown socialism. I’m against socialism regardless of whether the supplicants are country music rednecks or not.
True. But I don’t see why we would want to invite more people who aren’t already our problem so we can dole out more of it. It is not just poor whites who don’t like unchecked immigration. “High skill” jobs require a greater fluency in English and a better understanding of American culture. Before Donald Trump drew out self-righteous, insulated white liberals, the issue never really occurred to me. It’s not my problem in any direct sense, but I do think a country with little cultural confidence shouldn’t bring in people who just want better consumer goods.
I don’t know if you went to American public schools but it is set in such a way that if one lives in a city with any ethnic diversity, it is the poorest people who end up in integrated classrooms. The closest feasible remedy has been to add IB and AP programs to the poorer schools and ROTC programs to the wealthier ones. But as I’m sure you can imagine, it’s pretty limited. This is about making people feel better about their intentions – that’s all.
I can understand the aversion to class warfare rhetoric, but it has frankly become impossible to ignore that ‘Chamber of Commerce’ and ‘corporate’ Republicans have overwhelmingly sided with the Left and against conservatives on most issues; it was apparent several years ago, and is being shown in stark relief right now.
If they are true immigrants and not H1B serfs who can be sent back to the mother country if they change jobs.
Ironically, the liberal sociologist Christopher Lasch wrote a book about this in the nineties- ‘The Revolt of the Elites and The Betrayal of Democracy.’