The Next Stage of American Collapse
America Got a Second Chance at Democracy — And It’s Blowing It, Badly
Sadly, you can see it from here. How happens. How it already is. History repeating itself, until the lesson is learned. The next stage of American collapse goes something like this.
American democracy survived fascism by a hair’s breadth. Trumpism was, yes, the rise of very real fascism in America. It was replete with everything from concentration camps to kids in them being “separated” from their mothers and fathers — which is a form of genocide — to minorities being hunted in the streets and seeking refuge in “salvation cities” to “bans” on whole ethnicities.
American democracy almost didn’t survive that. It got very, very lucky. The pundits will say it was a test of strength — but only the weakest democracies plunge that far into fascism to begin with. American democracy didn’t survive fascism because of the strength of its institutions, or the robustness of its judiciary, or even the sentiments of its populace — but because a handful of brave police officers at the Capitol prevented a paramilitary mob of supremacists from massacring everyone in their way in order to stop votes from being counted and certified.
If the coup on Jan 6th had succeeded? In destroying the votes, stopping the count? Trump probably would have declared martial law, or called for another election, or any number of incredibly dire scenarios. A majority of white Americans — who voted for Trump — would have supported it all the way down into full blown authoritarianism. Bang. That is how societies implode. That is precisely why, we now know, even top military generals were incredibly alarmed at just such a possibility — so much so that they began to prepare for it. So let me say it one more time: America got lucky.
Now America has something very, very few societies get: a second chance at democracy. But — and here I have to be painfully honest with you — it’s blowing it, badly. Because, like I said, you can see from here how things could go. Will they go that way? Let’s explore it together, through the lens of sociohistory — how great forces shape history, and how history repeats itself, when we ignore the power and weight of the lessons those great forces hold.
