Wrong Turns

Majorie Taylor Greene called for a national divorce, something I wrote about several years ago when I had begun to sense that things had gone off the rails.  Fundamental schisms in our nation began to appear, schisms for which no compromise position is readily available: abortion, open border, defund the police among them.  These elements combined to produce a perfect storm, capable of ripping the country apart.   As with most relationships on the rocks, there is plenty of blame to go around, although at this moment, it is the neo-Marxists that are pushing us to the edge.  But conservatives and libertarians also contributed to the mess.

This era will not pass easily, I fear.  In a highly unscientific poll I conducted among some well-informed friends and acquaintances just prior to Covid, when asked whether the United States would continue to exist as a single sovereign entity 10 years from now, 14 said yes, 11 said no.  Of the 14 that said yes, 2 said yes with the caveat that it would exist 10 years from now, but not 25.  Admittedly, this was a small, and likely biased sample, but the numbers led to the conclusion that the U.S. cannot be counted on, that a substantial number of people believe that the American Experiment is unwinding.

Here are the six factors that permitted our Republic to become unstable—so unstable that “national divorce” was recently trending on Twitter.

China
Our false assumption about China is probably the single biggest misstep that damaged our nation.  And this was a bi-partisan error.   It started as an attempt to triangulate our posture in the Cold War with Nixon’s visit to China in 1972.   Within a short time following the Tiananmen Square massacre, our government pretended it didn’t happen and China was admitted to the WTO in 1995.  With that door open, China used that to systematically strip out our manufacturing base, steal our intellectual property, and then send their youth to the U.S. to be educated (see below) in a totally one-sided deal

As recently as 5 years ago, the free market gurus at the University of Chicago were still chirping that China would have to respond to its burgeoning middle class as its wealth grew and the regime would be forced to moderate.  There was very little dissent from that premise.  A few lone voices like John Mersheimer, who asserted, “You do not want China to become rich” were dismissed as cranks.  Libertarians like Deirdre McCloskey derided Trump’s attempt to correct this one way street in part through tariffs as “just plain stupid.”

The consequences of this error are grievous and were the exact opposite of what the “experts’ predicted.  China became more aggressive and tyrannical, reneged on its deal with Hong Kong, built a formidable military and is now threatening Taiwan.  It destroyed countless industries and small towns and deprived us of continuous opportunities to innovate and improve as factory floors moved to China.  Enabling the rise of a peer competitor will be seen as one of history’s greatest bludners.

Higher Education
Jonathan Cole wrote The Great American University ten years ago.  In it, he correctly claimed that the United States higher education system was the envy of the world, with the U.S. claiming almost all of the top universities in the world, with Columbia and The University of Chicago as the finest.  Even better, we ran parallel systems—private and public universities that competed with each other for students and faculty and it made both better.

My, how far things have fallen.  While there remain pockets of excellence, mostly in STEM departments, higher education is in a shambles, and many people, including Daniel Pipes, are predicting its collapse.  Like leukemia, critical theory has gotten into its bones, and rotted the entire system from within. 

Almost every bad idea has emerged from this poisonous system.  From denying basic Constitutional rights to a fair trial and free speech to renewing segregation emanated from college campuses.  Hatred of Western Civilization and America’s miraculous founding is bred there.  Yale, for instance, ceased teaching its course in Western Art.  The University of Chicago is now proposing to teach a course entitled “The Problem of Whiteness.”  The University of Illinois requires faculty to write an affirmative diversity statement to be considered for tenure.  Good luck getting a faculty job in any humanities, history, or English department if you are conservative or libertarian. 

Administrative State
It is now widely accepted- even by our own government, that the most likely genesis of COVID was the Wuhan Lab, funded in part by our own government and the notorious Dr. Fauci, through EcoHealth Alliance.  Fauci himself not only helped fund gain of function research that led to this dark chimera, he recommended masking and lockdowns, that did more damage to the U.S. population than a nuclear device set off in a medium sized city.  The CDC under Rochelle Walensky fortified his position, stripping Americans of many civil liberties, pushed vaccine mandates (even among children that present no risk), abrogated property rights by recommending rent abatement, and distorting, lying and demonizing anyone that took an opposing position (i.e. the Barrington Group).

The CDC and NIH need to be razed for doing what they did to us.

But the damage doesn’t end there.   The EPA, Department of Education, Energy Department all have developed a life and accrued power unto themselves never envisioned by the nation’s founders.  These agencies act separate and apart from our lawmakers and are wholly unresponsive to the will of the people.

But wait, it gets worse.  Over the past decade or so, enforcement agencies like the IRS and the FBI—agencies that we count on to play it straight have become political weapons, acting in a wholly partisan fashion to punish political enemies in a very Stasi-like fashion.  The F.B.I. is probably the worst of them, actively hiding the criminality of Hunter Biden, entrapping Michael Flynn,  the “kidnap plotters” of Gretchen Whitmer and most likely the January 6 protesters as well.  

Meanwhile, the agencies we count on to protect us—the Defense Department have been overrun by a group of technologically backwards sheep herders in Afghanistan and permitted a slow moving balloon to traverse the entire U.S. gathering intelligence.

Our administrative state is utterly out of control.

Tribalism and the Criminal Inversion
These go hand in hand so I lumped them together.  By pushing the “systemic racism” myth, black Americans that act badly have been able to escape the consequences of their anti-social behavior.  Moreover, in a warped effort to increase black “achievement,” the bar for performance has been lowered in all aspects of life—from college and graduate school admissions to promotions in the workplace,  what I have called a Reverse Apartheid has set in.  Stanford University’s incoming class is 22% white despite whites being 68% of the population.  United Airlines says it wants 50% of the pilots in  it pilot training to be black.  In cities like Chicago, which is nearly evenly divided among whites, Hispanics and blacks, it is nearly impossible to get a job in city government with any power unless you are black.  This state of affairs is breeding deep resentment.

Worse, is the celebration of the criminal class.  Whatever your view of the George Floyd incident, to have statues erected to this career criminal—a guy who was so bad that society put him away for 5 years—is obscene and ludicrous.   The same thing for Jacob Blake.  Blake it will be recalled, dove under a car seat groping for a weapon after police told him to stop and he was shot as a result.  Kamala Harris jumped on an airplane to visit him and told him she was “proud of him.” 

A society that reverses an emphasis on achievement and merit, and not only tolerates but erects statues and paint murals celebrating criminals is in deep, deep trouble.

Misalignment
In a happier time, the nation achieved a balance, however imperfect.  Government kept a watchful eye on business, so that it could not get too powerful and unaccountable.  The press kept a watchful eye on government to the same end.  But now government, big business, and media have all moved to the same side of the equation, with the citizenry on the other side.

Government is supposed to protect people against threats larger than they can themselves handle.  Yet in the last two large disasters it moved not to protect the bulk of Americans but to protect the elite.  Whatever you think about Roosevelt’s response to the Great Depression, his policy moves were aimed at lifting average Americans.  The policy moves in response to the Great Recession of ’07-09 and Covid hung average workers and small business owners out to dry while the weight of government protected the elite—Wall Street bankers and big business.  The local pub was required to be closed during Covid but Walmart could sell cases of beer. 

The forces tearing at our republic are numerous and complex.  I have highlighted just a few. 

We are in the most tumultuous time since WWII and I believe that freedom, liberty and truth will prevail in the long run.  But the next decade will be rough.