The Old World is Dead

It's weird, feeling like you're "ahead" of everyone else in the stages of grief. While everyone else is angry or bargaining or depressed over a traumatic event, you've moved on ahead of them all into acceptance. It's a stark disconnect that others seem to pick up on no matter how hard you try to hide it, too. The lack of tears, the hollow rituals of rage you might engage in to placate others, they come off as insulting, a feeling of "you just don't get it" as it were. Other, wiser people who share in your trauma may look to you for guidance - you made it through this before everyone else, so surely you must know something they don't.

I find myself in just such a position, hounded by peers, friends, and family members for insight or guidance into current events. After all, they know I'm a systems analyst type of person, that I thrive in long-term planning, that my OCD ensures I'm rehearsing hundreds and thousands of different branches that stem from a single event. I can't fault them for seeking my input to soothe themselves and their own grief, though it's incredibly taxing on me to suffer through the same questions again, and again, and again.

Denial: The President can't do that!

Anger: Why isn't Congress stopping him?!

Bargaining: The Courts will stop him!

Depression: Nobody's doing anything.

Acceptance: ...America has failed, hasn't it?

Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression, Acceptance. The five stages of grief, expressed in the most common questions, complaints, and refrains I'm confronted with by others. Yet these only scratch the surface of what has happened on a global scale. It's a remarkably Americentric point of view, even by American standards. My friends from other countries have similar takes, but still fall short of accepting the brutal, harsh truth of the near-future:

The Old World is Dead.

The Trust Thermocline

John Bull wrote an excellent thread about the concept of the "Trust Thermocline" - the idea that trust is a resource companies fritter away with price hikes, bad policies, arbitrary restrictions, or other bad ideas, until suddenly an invisible threshold is crossed and they begin bleeding customers very quickly. It's often a death-knell for an enterprise, something most companies simply cannot ever claw back from; those that somehow survive never reach the pinnacles they had prior to crossing it.

Ironically enough he wrote this thread on Twitter, which means I cannot effectively link it here. Elmo purchased Twitter, alienated its userbase and advertisers, promoted Nazis, and basically speedran the company through its own trust thermocline into near-oblivion - only recently rebounding its valuation to roughly what he paid for it originally, likely through his own cult of personality being buoyed by his close association with Führer Trump and the insanity of the financial class. Still, adjusted for inflation he's managed to lose 9% of its value since he purchased it - and substantially more, if Twitter had remained on the S&P 500 Index and grown in value similar to other stocks. Elmo is an excellent fundraiser, but he is not a good businessman.

Aside: I'd been working on this draft for over a week when news broke that Elmo would sell X to xAI - essentially laundering the lost value off the books, giving himself greater control over it by paying off shareholders, and boosting its valuation.

I stand by my earlier opinions of the muppet.

I bring up this detour into vocabulary because it's an important concept to understand. The Trust Thermocline doesn't merely apply to companies, it applies to all human relationships in general. It's why abuse victims can tolerate so much harm until they very suddenly stop, and walk away or seek help. It's why spouses can tolerate a lot of fighting, dissatisfaction, anger, and animosity before finally seeking a long-overdue divorce.

The United States has already breached that Trust Thermocline with the rest of the world. It's just such a profoundly sudden shock, that much of the world doesn't quite know what to make of it. To attempt to put things into context, it'd be the equivalent of your landlord raising your rent by 100%, while also throwing out your furniture, holding a gun to your head, punching holes in the drywall and demanding you pay for the damages, and pissing all over your pants while claiming you made them do this to you. The landlord also wants to annex your neighbor's houses so they can do the same thing there.

Oh, and half of your roommates voted for said landlord to do all of these things, but somehow thought the landlord would do it to other tenants, but not them, even though the landlord literally told them they'd do all those things if elected.

Crude metaphors aside, that's the reality of the current era. The United States, the world's largest economy, hegemony for a hundred years, the wealthiest country in human history with the best military known to mankind, a shining example of Democracy that other countries emulated, learned from, or imitated...is dead.

Not literally, dead (I, an American, am still writing this after all), mind you, but essentially a still-warm corpse being kept in motion through oligarchy and fascism. It is an entity that has no future but chaos, death, and destruction; a zombie shambling through the global stage, feasting upon the resources of anyone weaker than itself. Canada hates us, Greenland hates us, Europe hates us, China hates us, the UN hates us. Meanwhile, Führer Trump makes temporary inroads with Russia, North Korea, India, and other authoritarian, apartheid, or ethno-nationalist regimes. The entire world order was thrown into chaos in two short months, though I argue this is just the openly festering stage of decay of a long-dead corpse that everyone else is finally noticing.

Aside: In the week it has taken me to write this piece, Glorious Leader has already had a falling out with Putin.

How did we get here?

I argue America began burning through the Trust Thermocline starting with Reagan, rejecting the commendable self-sacrifices of Jimmy Carter's early policies in favor of flirting with the hot new girl on the block at the time, neoliberalism. Americans abandoned the solidarity of the post-war era in favor of a loud-and-proud "Fuck You, Got Mine" message of independence and individual accountability - if you were sick, poor, homeless, or jobless, it's your fault for not pulling yourself up by your bootstraps. This love affair continued through Reagan into Bush Senior, supercharged with Bill Clinton, was exported abroad through American Hegemony in the Cold War, and would've soldiered on had its cheerleaders not gutted the future of their own children in the process. These policies and politics followed a familiar cycle: a loosening of regulations in times of boom, and a harsh austere rebuke of its naysayers in times of crisis. Countries that demanded an alternative were sanctioned, overthrown, destabilized, or just simply exploited through classic corruption. People and parties who campaigned on more modest politics were vilified for not being "centrist" enough - a fun new term that described not the increasingly-rightward political center, but rather any act that appeared to attempt to tug politics and policies away from neoliberal ideals.

This erosion of trust occurred through the imposition of American ideologies abroad, in policy and politics alike. The American Government dictated who and who wasn't "human" in their eyes, like prisoners (inhuman) or white Christians (peak human). It dictated economic policy, human rights agendas (such as prohibiting reproductive rights for women, or supporting apartheid regimes against non-whites), military policy, global conflicts, and global trade. It ostensibly did all these things for the good of the world, yet history has long since proven it was solely for the good of their moneyed classes and a singular generation of people. Internationally, American policies left large swaths of the Global South in cycles of perpetual violence via deliberately engineered political instability - the consequences of which now come to bear on Europe and America in the form of mass migrations of people from the very countries destabilized and exploited by the neoliberal West.

All of this is to say America has been chipping away at its trustworthiness for over fifty years now, and the world was already falling out of love with an American Hegemony as early as the 1990s with the formation of the European Union and the rise of China. As America's own domestic policies continued to fail and its dual parties unresponsive to the demands or needs of its people in the face of multiple crises, the stage was set for the triumphant return of fascism to the global arena, now amplified by modern technologies and corporate-owned mass media empires.

Thus was Donald Trump elected to the Presidency - once as a sex-pest TV Star and Cult of Personality, and a second time as a convicted felon-turned avowed authoritarian.

And America finally died.

Killing an Empire in One Easy Step

The crux of any empire - business, government, economic, etc - are its institutions. Humans are a fickle, short-lived species that fail to plan for futures and outcomes they cannot foresee, and Americans are the most vapid of the bunch. Knowing this, wiser predecessors built their empires on institutions to provide a degree of persistence and continuity between generations of leaders, as well as to control potential outcomes so as to avoid known pitfalls or harms.

Institutions are what grant empire legitimacy. Think about it: you give no credit to the crazed man on the sidewalk proclaiming themselves to be GodKing of Sol and commanding your worship, but you absolutely adhere to the rule of an entity with institutions backing its existence, even (and especially) if you disagree with them. Your company has legitimacy because of its institutions: its finance department pays your salary, its HR department manages your benefits, its Sales team brings in revenue, and its IT team keeps your laptop working. Likewise, governments have legitimacy because of their institutions: taxes are collected, services rendered, bureaucracy provides guidance, the Judiciary enforces laws, the Legislature creates laws, and the Executive operates things on a day-to-day basis.

Competent humans understand that to attack an institution is to attack the empire itself. Sometimes these attacks are justified, in order to reform the institution into a superior entity that better benefits the populace. Think of the Civil Rights and LGBTQ+ movements, gradually pushing Institutions to cease arbitrary and capricious harms on flimsy and subjective definitions of identity, and instead to focus on efficiency of society through equal treatment of all persons. Humans naturally want their institutions to benefit as many as possible (to increase their legitimacy and grow their power) while remaining efficient (and discrimination of any stripe decreases efficiency of society as a whole, by removing otherwise productive persons from it). As institutions are imperfect creations of an imperfect animal, revisions and improvements are a necessity for growth.

However, many attacks on institutions aren't just unjustified, but actively harmful to the survival of the empire itself. Dictators, Authoritarians, and Fascists all loathe institutions during times of transition, because institutions harm their ability to grow their power base and harm their enemies. It's why the first thing these monsters do is attack institutions beloved by the people as villains of progress: social security, the postal service, education, the military, science, civil rights, as well as destabilizing global politics by questioning longstanding alliances, imposing tariffs, restricting trade, and jailing tourists. The goal is destabilization as a form of self-fulfilling prophecy: the outsiders are our enemy, and by causing all of this harm to them we prove their hatred of us.

This is how I know America is dead: its institutions have been gutted so quickly, so thoroughly, and without meaningful resistance, that it's impossible to undo the damage. No amount of Judicial, Legislative, Executive, or civil intervention can undo what's already happened. The remnants of the American Empire was cut down in two months' time by a putschist and his cronies, supported by the willful cowardice and impotence of the opposition, and all by following a plan dreamed up by Corporate Oligarchs and revealed to the public months before the election. To pretend there is some way to salvage the empire, let alone restore it to glory, is negligence of the highest order.

The Consequences of Our Actions

Looking inward alone paints a bleak enough picture to cause worry. In fact, sharing my rough drafts and observations with others was often met with a refrain that, even for me, I might be worrying too much, connecting dots in impossible ways. I can paint the picture using internal anecdotes and resources, but surely I can't do the same with hard data...right?

Unfortunately, we can also see immediate consequences of these actions from external sources.

Let's start with our neighbor to the north, Canada:

All of that alone seems to have happened suddenly, and at first glance don't seem interconnected beyond the present administration. Yet the fact we've already seen effects this pronounced, this quickly after policy changes, suggests a far larger shift in attitudes towards the American Empire by our Canadian friends. These sorts of boycotts or travel changes don't happen in a vacuum, they rise because of persistent dissatisfaction at home and a sudden enemy to rally against as a whole. Canada already had similar issues as America in political apathy and frustrations, and the sudden hostility from a (former) ally might be the spark the people needed to reform and revitalize their country, taking an independent bent with fewer dependencies on their American neighbors; if polling data is to be believed, their upcoming election could firmly cement a new adversarial status quo with America.

Still, fierce disputes between neighboring countries is not enough to point to wholesale decline of a nation. If that were the case, China would've collapsed into the sea from its neighborly hostilities long ago. To truly support our argument, we must look globally, not locally.

Europe is seeking to abandon US Cloud Providers
The EU is creating its own Linux-based OS for public-sector organizations to reduce dependence on American Operating Systems
The Dutch Parliament has called for ending dependence on American software

Again, this is still just Europe, but the context is what matters: these are traditionally our staunchest allies, our chief trade partners who consume our innovations, our services, our inventions, and our products. We share military strength and alliances, we exchange intelligence, we expand corporate presence into Europe first, and the rest of the world thereafter. Our economies are fiercely intertwined together in such a way that the US disproportionately benefited for decades (at least in terms of raw GDP), yet the EU and Canada were generally content with their side of the bargain so as not to complain.

Now, in the span of a few months, the foundational elements of a post-America transition have already been laid in part. Our closest allies are running away from us faster by the day, and show no signs of stopping their retreat. Worse yet, these are just the public events that we know about; it doesn't even get into what is actually happening behind closed doors, in board rooms or security councils across the world as companies and countries alike grapple with the building fallout.

Things haven't even gotten bad yet, at least for them, but they're still hauling ass away from America. Though for the readers who still think this is a recent trend, boy do I have some bad news.

Footgunning the Future

Compounding the issues of our present allies running away from us, is that the current administration is also driving away both current and future talent through its actions. Whether it's disappearing immigrant students from college campuses, firing top researchers and shuttering science agencies, attempting to shutter the Department of Education, or allowing Elmo and company to gut Social Security, the message is loud and clear: you have no future in America.

This message has been received exactly as well as you'd expect from any country gladly courting fascism and driving a brain drain, with savvy French Universities offering safe harbor to American scientists and open discussions of whether there's an immediate future for research here, or even if Der Führer has kicked off the biggest brain drain since Nazi Germany. Statistics for University enrollment won't be available for months, but if it's anything like the decline in Canadian tourism into America, it could spell doom for America's higher education system.

Social Security is particular wrinkle whose effects won't be seen for years. Never mind the fact that young people have serious doubts about the availability of the program when they reach retirement age, or the fact the program is generally popular with Americans, or that the payment of benefits don't actually drain the Federal budget; any existing entitlement program is a ripe target for oligarchs, as (in their minds) it takes money from them to give it to the enemy (you). It's open knowledge that Wall Street would much rather they manage those funds, cherry-picking stock prices over any given period as proof that those funds would be better off in their hands; the data, on the other hand, shows 20-year returns on pension funds being lower than the stock market's own growth, but with significantly higher fees than the cost of running Social Security. Privatizing social security would place one of America's most beloved institutions in the hands of the same bankers who have nearly, partially, or totally collapsed the economy not once, not twice, not thrice, but at least thirteen times in America alone - and demolish the futures of over three hundred million Americans in the process.

Students see no future in America during or after their studies, researchers see no future in their life's work, and workers see no future where they can retire. All of this is by design, a plundering of America's immense wealth for the benefit of its already wealthy.

When a country loses its ability to see a future for itself, it effectively dies.

America has no such vision of the future, only a nostalgia for a past that never really existed.

(Re)Building a Future, Together

I'm far from the only one discussing the bleak reality of the present era, yet my peers continued to turn to me for something that the media was not providing. I can only surmise it's because I'm one of the few not merely sobbing in the misery of the Western gestalt, but actually looking ahead to see what might come next. In a time where so many cannot envision a future for themselves, I'm able (through the incredible powers of OCD-fueled rehearsal, insomnia, and hyperfocus) to envision multiple futures for myself and others - and paths to achieving them. This is seemingly in short supply given the wealth of Op-Eds where columnists squander ten-dollar words expounding their personal trauma instead of going anywhere of value. "Woe is all of us, for we are powerless to do anything," is a chorus I'm quite sick of, and it seems like everyone else is as well.

So what futures lie ahead in this brave, new world? It depends greatly on how much you desire to cling to the past - and how hard you're willing to work toward a better tomorrow.

Restoring Legitimacy

It's no secret that Americans fetishize the Founding Fathers, although Constitutional Scholars familiar with their bodies of work would likely point out that's for good reason: the Founders were, in a sense, the Systems Architects of their time. They didn't simply draft founding documents like the Declaration of Independence or the Constitution, they also openly discussed and debated aspects of these documents in essays and papers. It's through their volumes of documents that we can understand their intentions at the time, and see the intended pathway they laid for us out of such a crisis.

Alexander Hamilton said it quite clearly in Federalist Number 28:

If the representatives of the people betray their constituents, there is then no resource left but in the exertion of that original right of self-defence, which is paramount to all positive forms of government; and which, against the usurpations of the national rulers, may be exerted with infinitely better prospect of success, than against those of the rulers of an individual State.

The argument that the Federal Government has betrayed their constituents is not merely hyperbole or incendiary, nor is it new. Yet accepting that the American Government has betrayed its citizens is a critical first step toward righting the proverbial ship. What other word could you use to describe the emotions on display at Town Halls for representatives on both sides of the aisle other than betrayal? How else could you describe the authoritarian policies of a government elected by less than 1/3rd of its citizens, much of whom come from gerrymandered districts and states? Or of a government whose electoral system has deliberately ignored the popular vote five times? Betrayal seems quite the apt descriptor.

Acknowledging betrayal isn't nearly enough, however; we must also restore legitimacy to government by adhering to the US Constitution. In a sense, the very oligarchs who have seized command of our institutions also gave us the best weapon to use against them: Originalism. Just as the Supreme Court continues to argue that they should interpret the Constitution based on its text rather than personal preference, so too should we. Doing so first requires a Constitutional Crisis from the Federal Government, something that is guaranteed by the President and Vice President in their public statements regarding Court Orders and Judges. Once we have one, however, we also need the Legislature to fail to address it through legislation - something the GOP Congress has also sworn to do by impeaching Judges and dismantling the Judiciary.

With the Constitution ignored, the betrayal is complete, and a power vacuum opens. Military officers are sworn to defend the Constitution, and many government positions have similar oaths of office. These people must then choose their allegiance: to the oligarchy, or to the Constitution.

Those who reaffirm allegiance to the Constitution as written have legitimacy. All others become the enemy, and the shattering begins.

The Great American Shatter Belts

State Governments should already be discussing plans for succession following the recognition of the illegitimacy of the Federal Government. As bleak as that sentence sounds, it should be part of basic disaster preparedness for any government entity as a form of continuity of government; if a part of my chain breaks, how do we function after? Governors and AGs should already be consulting with neighboring states behind closed doors, building alliances and preparing for the fallout.

This is where America is likely to balkanize over political differences, should the Federal Government fail. In places like the Northeast, tightly integrated economies, access to major shipping hubs, superior public transport, and a higher ratio of educated citizens make them more likely to remain allies in some form - provided they don't join Canada outright. Meanwhile, the Southern States have long taught revisionist history celebrating the Confederacy and downplaying the critical role of slavery in its existence, which in turn feeds into their own narratives around distrusting Governments and retaining independence. Western states look like large monoblocs from the air, but suffer from competing forces wanting everything from statehood to independence to techno-authoritarianism. Midwestern states honestly just want to be left alone - by big corporate agriculture, by the Federal Government, and by their own neighbors more often than not. This doesn't even get into the complexities of the American territories, none of whom can seem to demand statehood but also aren't likely to stick around should the Federal Government collapse, nor does it get into the National Security ramifications of Alaska and/or Hawaii seceding outright.

Regardless, it's highly unlikely that America would remain unified should the Federal Government lose legitimacy. Those regions who band together behind the Constitution are likely to retain global legitimacy as a government, while those who decide to "start anew" aren't likely to find much support except from similarly-partisan allies abroad. Territories might have the easiest time acclimating, with oceanic islands freed from the Jones Act finally being able to get prices under control and develop economically around tourism - provided they don't try aligning themselves with other nearby colonies instead, seeking the protection of empire but with more comfortable handcuffs than America offered.

How likely is balkanization? If we look at what the oligarchy are doing, they already seem aware of this looming future and are moving their necessary institutions to their new homes.

America, EU-Style

Balkanization isn't the only possible outcome, of course. A far more preferable one might be some sort of EU-style reformation, acknowledging the modern ineffectiveness of the Federal Government and Constitution, and agreeing to divert responsibilities and rights back to the states as independent countries of a sort - including representation on the global stage. Major institutions - like the Military - could remain under a significantly reduced Federal Government, freedom of goods and movement would happen under the "American Single Market" or "American Travel Area" (akin to the European Single Market and Schengen Area respectively), and states would return to competing through policy and infrastructure instead of merely proffering tax breaks or subsidies.

The downside to this approach is straightforward enough: the American oligarchy already hates the EU, and isn't likely to support or embrace such an institution in the Americas. It's why they've emulated the authoritarian tactics of Putin, Orbán, and Erdoğan of hypernormalization, disinformation, and suppression. It's why they push a narrative of stagnation on the EU often based solely on GDP, even though the EU is actually quite comparable in productivity and purchasing power to the US - while working fewer hours and having a higher quality of life. In essence, the EU is a more dangerous threat than China: countries with democracy, social safety nets, and diverse economies who aren't susceptible to the grifts, manipulations, and harms of the US oligarchy.

It's also why an EU-style entity could work in America. Elevating state governments into independent countries part of a larger Federation would let each of them act in their own interests or build communities with their neighbors. Regions like New England and the Rust Belt, with its glut of industry and infrastructure, would be primed to be the Germany or France of the new America - while consistently unprepared states like Florida or Texas would be forced to grapple with their crises alone, and finally address their gaps in safety nets or building standards, lest they continue to decline to the equivalent of an American Greece. It'd also finally break the all-or-nothing politics of American foreign policy, by letting countries choose which states they wish to ally with - while having a single market to sell their wares to, just like before.

The Pain is the Point

America won't figure out its future right away, obviously, but predicting the short-term is far more difficult than the long term. What I can predict is increased pain on Americans by foreign neighbors who finally refuse to tolerate the tantrums of a dying empire. Brexit was very much the last straw for the EU, and they're none too keen on tolerating similar behavior from America. Canadian companies have even taken to firing American workers, and it's a trend that's likely to increase globally over the foreseeable future. Ironically enough, the current trend of outsourcing by US tech companies is likely to backfire if and when the current administration tires of its Nazi Muppet, with the GOP having to square the circle somehow of its racist immigration policies and claims of promoting American workers. Once you add in the trade war and its expected escalation this week, and the only real short-term future for Americans is pain, suffering, and misery.

It doesn't have to be all doom and gloom, nor does the pain have to be inflicted equally. As mentioned earlier, foreign countries can simultaneously inflict pain on America while also helping Americans as well as themselves. As America clamps down on and discriminates against its LGBTQ+ population, courting that demographic through asylum or refugee statuses and job relocation schemes could benefit Europe's domestic talent pools while also helping out a vulnerable population. It's a well-known secret that a lot of LGBTQ+ persons are also highly active in the technology industry, a handy skillset to have if, say, you want to build a domestic cloud and technology stack. Depriving America of its brightest minds and most diligent workers while it continues outsourcing those same jobs abroad is a double-whammy that could cripple the American tech juggernauts, if done at scale and combined with sensible regulations.

Aside: If you are a European entity looking for said worker, I am currently available for full-time employment. Contact info is on the About page.

The same goes for artists, scientists, academics, and other professionals: hire them away if you can, help them immigrate to their new home abroad, and rob America of the talent it desperately needs to survive its fascist turn.

Speaking of pain, now is also the time to double-down hard as the trade war expands. Moving away from American technology is a great first step, but don't hesitate to pull out the old anti-apartheid playbook and close down airspace or withdraw landing rights from airlines, or place sanctions on what goods could be exported to America. Tax American companies hard instead of letting them preserve their tax havens, and stand your ground on privacy and environmental laws. Seize the power vacuum left behind by the vacating of American foreign policy instruments like USAid or Voice of America, and collaborate with your allies to build better and more efficient replacements atop their ruins, further eroding American credibility abroad.

Like the title says, the pain is the point.

The Night is Darkest before Dawn

In times like these, it's all too easy to succumb to the idea that there's nothing that can be done, that this is the end of days, that there is no better tomorrow ahead of us. I reject that notion because I have lived through worse before, and come out the other end better for it. Sometimes we can learn simply by listening, and other times we must suffer trauma for the lesson to stick; this is firmly the latter case.

There is great hope for tomorrow because America is failing. An opportunity to define a new world order, one focused on environmental and egalitarian policies. A chance to build a harmonious relationship with our planet and neighbors instead of an exploitative one. We can stand up for our friends, our neighbors, our colleagues, and our families, while rejecting the -isms of the world prior. We see it in protests against Elmo, in the replacement of gutted USAid programs, in the outpouring of support for disappeared foreign nationals. America is failing, but Americans are increasingly stepping up to the challenge ahead of them.

When tomorrow looks bleak, picture the world you'd rather live in instead.

Then fight for that tomorrow with everything you have.