In September of 2020, I published a book entitled The Stakes. It was billed as a “current events” or election-year title. The election behind us, the candidate I recommended is no longer president. But the analysis which led me to that recommendation is very much still “current.”
To recap briefly (but read the whole thing!), the book explains how every prominent and powerful American institution, including the federal government, has been taken over by a hostile elite who use their vast powers to attack, despoil, and insult about half the nation. In the sixth chapter (excerpted here), I outline what I think America will look like if the present ruling class refuses to moderate, cannot be forced to share power, and has the wherewithal to keep its regime going. In the seventh chapter, I sketch several possibilities—from secession to Caesarism to collapse—that might result if it turns out that our overlords are a lot less competent than they think. And in the final chapter (excerpted here), I offer policy and other ideas that might enable America to avoid those fates....
The present American regime that they celebrate as “our democracy” is all but identical to classical oligarchy (discussed in those same books) while the “populism” that gives them the vapors is much closer to the democracy they claim to revere....
Our founders avoided the word “democracy,” in part because of its bad reputation, but also because they didn’t believe the government they built was—strictly speaking—democratic....
More recently, “democracy” has come to mean one thing and one thing only: majority rule. ...
Which is essentially what “democracy” means in Blue cities and states now.... That the Reds are outvoted every time, their preferences never considered, their interests never respected, is not merely irrelevant but a positive good. If those people had their way, we know what they’d do! “Progress” and “justice” require that they never get the chance....
This is why fundamentally republican but not purely democratic institutions such as the Electoral College are so viciously attacked and despised....
... if the ruling class refuses to allow reorganization to proceed, refuses so much as to give it a fair hearing—then one day in the not-so-distant future we will look back with fondness to a time when “secession” as a future prospect meant only redrawing state lines.