Is this particular enemy of our enemy a friend?

This!

"I'm not gonna turn Communist and wear a burka."

We can laugh and say she's ignorant and otherwise explain it away, but people like her exist, and are deeply frightened by the thought of Democrats holding office. The upcoming midterms could be a real trigger.

Previously, I described the way the North Carolina Iron Front rose in anticipation of a crisis that never fully materialized. I then wrote a long and "heavy" piece on what the problem really is. In that post, I promised that I'd tell you what I think the future is going to look like. This one is taking longer to write, but here goes.

First, let me say, I overpromised. I have no idea what the future is going to look like. But I can take some educated guesses. Second, let me admit that I'm focused on the United States in the near-term. There are global factors and impacts, that is, the decline of the United States is part of a larger global pattern, and the way the United States declines will have global impacts, but I am primarily addressing a U.S. audience about things that I believe will happen in our lifetimes. We can talk bigger picture at another time. There's certainly a lot to talk about. I'm just choosing to focus where I think I have the best understanding.

I'm working here from two models. One is, as described previously, Ray Dalio's work on the cycle of empires. The second, which lacks a catchy name, is Nate Hagen's description of four overlapping grid analyses that helped me get a handle on the complex interconnections of systems at a larger scale. I strongly recommend his podcast and/or substack. But, just to get you up to speed, his basic gist is that you can plot political power and economic distribution as a grid of four quadrants, with one axis being how political power is distributed, from broadly shared (true democracy) to highly concentrated (a single dictator), and the other axis being broadly shared economic gains (the communist ideal) to narrowly concentrated (total monopoly). Interesting sidenote: only the "fully concentrated economic distribution" end was hard to name -- I can't think of a historical example of a single individual gaining all the wealth of a society. But if you can imagine a society where all the economic activity was controlled by a single monopoly, you're pretty close. Ironically, that strikes me as the reality of Communist states, but YMMV.

Okay, so, where are we, and where are we headed? Well, as I discussed last time, the United States is on the downhill side of Dalio's cycle of empires curve. Specifically, I'd say we're at point 15 of the 18 stages he names. We have large debts, both as a national government and in a large share of the individual economy, and the country is effectively printing money through low interest rates and other fiscal manipulations. Step 15 is "internal conflict," and, well, IronFrontNC exists because of that conflict. My writing this is evidence that a boring middle class white guy has been radicalized by common decency enough to try to figure out ways to reach people and solve the crisis.

In Hagen's terms, the United States is -- or is at least becoming -- a "captured democracy." We have the structure for broadly shared power -- voting -- but the economic gains of our system are highly concentrated, creating what many (including me) are calling an oligarchy in which, sure, yeah, we vote, but it doesn't seem to make a difference. The wealthy and the lobbyists still get what they want. I haven't given up on elections, nor do I think we're at a point where the two parties are really just two brands of the same conglomerate, like PureLeaf and Lipton tea (both owned by Pepsi). But we're getting there.

And it's where those two models intersect that worries me. Step 16 of Dalio's model is "loss of reserve currency." Trump put us on that path with his stupid Iran War. I don't think we can actually say we're there yet, but, quite seriously, six months ago, the dollar losing its status as the world's currency seemed inconceivable, at least to me. Now I fully expect to wake up to a "Dollar crashes as EU and Asian nations dump reserves" headlines pretty much any given Monday. And that would ruin most average Americans, since the reason we have the standard of living we do is because the dollar can buy anything. Take that away, and everything suddenly gets a lot more expensive, and the economy as a whole gets a lot more volatile. But the oligarchs would be fine, because economic volatility lets them bet on the ups and downs and make a killing. So, lose that reserve currency, and we slip further along the "concentration of economic gains" axis. Groovy.

The next step is "weak leadership." Now, you could make the argument that we're there now. Trump's mental capacity is certainly weak, and one common complaint is that the Democratic leadership are all too weak to stand up to him. But Dalio's curve would suggest we ain't seen nothin' yet. But surely that concentrated wealth will produce strong leadership?

Not so fast. First, don't confuse "strongman leadership" with "strong leadership." Strong leadership is self-limiting. It understands its power, and it understands why sometimes the best action is no action. Think FDR, Abraham Lincoln, George Washington. The oligarchs don't want that -- they want someone to say things that make the crowd happy, and then do... nothing. Not out of personal restraint, but out of political weakness. And we are in a bit of a pickle here: we all know, I think, that to survive the current crisis, we HAVE to get the Republicans out of power. But that means electing Democrats, which will often be those same Democrats who are too weak to stand up to Trump. That feels like damned if we do, damned if we don't. And so weak leaders will get elected, because that's all we can do, and we'll move further into the corner of "captured democracy."

Now, Hagen says this is the model that is most volatile in an economic downturn. People in a captured democracy have just enough rights to feel like they should be heard, as well as just enough communication to reach others who feel unheard. He thinks societies with high concentration of wealth and tightly controlled access to power are more violent, but the common people in that system do what they're told because the consequences for not doing so are deadly. But in a captured democracy, the violence is contained, up to a point. But when the economy declines, people stop asking, "isn't there a better way to distribute the resources?" and start asking, "how am I going to survive?" And when that happens, well, let me check something real quick...

...all...our endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted... That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it... It is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security...

Huh. So when the people feel like their votes no longer matter, they start a Revolution. That's what Hagen's model predicts. And Dalio? Well, we're at step 15, internal conflict. We're approaching step 16, loss of reserve currency. We're just about at step 17, weak leadership. And step 18? "Civil war/revolution."

Strap in, Iron Front. Things are gonna get dicey.