Nations change course slowly, like giant ocean liners. True disasters take a long time to unfold. If you think things look terrible now, you’re not using your imagination. The Biden Administration has only been in power for a little over a year. They got their crowbar in the door early with COVID, but we’ve barely tasted what the professional political class has in store for us.
Imagine gas at $10 a gallon, or $15. Imagine food staples so scarce you have to buy them with a ration card (displayed in a government-mandated phone app that tracks your family’s consumption). Imagine a new pandemic with a pathogen much deadlier than COVID, that actually kills a substantial number of the people it infects. Imagine an infrastructure attack that erases peoples’ bank accounts. Imagine a real, global war.
I’ve already written in support of Ukraine here, and I have been warning about the danger of a Russia-China alliance for a long time. But something about this Ukraine business rubs me the wrong way: All the people who updated their profile pictures with vaccination status to posture and to shame their friends have now updated their profile pictures again with Ukrainian flags. The mainstream media is in lockstep support. We’re bombarded with ridiculous stories about the “Ghost of Kiev” and Ukrainian farmers dismantling Russian tank columns. Last Friday, former presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush visited a Ukrainian church together to lay flowers.
Something is definitely wrong here.
When we see the real establishment out in such force, it should set alarm bells off in our brains: We may not understand the nature of the lie, yet. But we can be certain they are lying to us.
It used to puzzle me that Bill Clinton and George W. Bush were so close and personable, after all the terrible things they and their supporters had said about each other. But that was back in those innocent days before I realized that the distinction between political parties is superficial compared to the real distinction between power on the one hand and ordinary people on the other. Clinton and Bush have no disagreements severe enough to challenge their joint commitment to being in charge. There may be no honor among thieves—and that’s all politicians are—but they afford each other broad recognition and support, as members of the same class.
We should be cautious here because the long-term goals of establishment politicians line up much better with America’s enemies than they do with the goals of most Americans: Expensive gasoline limits our personal mobility, and can be used to pressure us en masse toward electric cars, which offer less freedom of movement and can be switched off remotely. Expensive food leaves us with less discretionary money to spend, which means a more controlled economy. And a war, among other things, is the greatest opportunity of all for government to expand its power. (If you doubt that, just remember that metered parking in cities was introduced as a temporary revenue-raising measure during World War II.)
Europeans never really wanted to be free: They experimented with democracy briefly and decided it wasn’t for them. The Europeans who wanted freedom had already come here. America is the only place on earth where a significant segment of the population is committed to freedom. (I would have included the rest of the Anglosphere before witnessing their tyrannical behavior during COVID; I would have been wrong.)
That commitment to freedom doesn’t exist in our government, of course, but it exists in the hearts of the American people. The challenge government faces is to see just how far they can push us while preserving the illusion of freedom. Much of this façade crumbled during COVID, and large chunks of the ugly truth are becoming visible with respect to Ukraine. But instead of slowing down, the establishment is speeding up: Pedal to the metal, aimed at the bullseye of disaster. This is their big chance, and they see this as an all-or-nothing opportunity.
America is waking up, but slowly. It’s two years until the next presidential election. Welcome to the most dangerous two years in American history.