No collapse of America, yet

A narrative I have been hearing from Ramz and others on the dissident/alt-right is that America is sinking, in the final stages of dying, is primed for civil war, etc.

Bill Gates Paul put out this video in which he wants bigger stimulus than the $600 because he believes that America is dying and he wants to ‘take all he can get

In the comments, many concur that America is dying/sinking:

Ramzpaul – I agree entirely. I was in the military and worked my ass off for years to get where I got so I fully believe in a meritocracy, but this ship is sinking and all but sunk. It would be like being on a sinking cruise ship and not saying; “Let’s drink all the booze and eat all the food we can before we plunge into the sea” with a Rand Paul type saying; “That would be wrong, it wouldn’t be the proper thing to do” – It’s like C’Mon, America is about to slip under the sea and there are people, other than Rand Paul too, being like this… So absurd! Give me All the money you want gov’t, give me $60,000 or $600,000 or more even. At least I could have as good a time as possible before America is a totalitarian shithole.

However, in terms of America dying or being in the final throes of its empire, the evidence does not beat itself out. All the evidence (stock market gains, strong currency, economic data, etc) shows the opposite: that America’s economy and position in the world is stronger and more dominant than ever since 2008 and even more-so since Covid. And as bad a things seem to be in America, they are worse in regions such as Southern and Western Europe, South America, Russia, and the Middle East.

Ramz and others possibly seek increased stimulus spending to hasten America’s collapse, in the hope of spurring hyperinflation. But given that CPI, treasury bond yields, and other indicators have not budged in spite of trillions upon trillions printed (and much more to come), suggests this is wishful thinking.

As bad as things seem bad now in terms of civil unrest and division, they were possibly worse even as recently as the ’90s, which had the Rodney King riots, the Waco siege, the Ruby Ridge siege, five incidents of abortion clinic murders (compared to just 2 incidents over the past 2 decades), the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, the 1995 Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building bombing, the 1999 Seattle WTO protests, and much more–all compressed into just a single decade. Crime was much higher too. In the early ’90s Los Angles had in excess of 2,000 bank robberies annually; now it is less than 300. I think Americans were spoiled by the unpresented calm between 2004-2014 or so , during era of Bush and Obama, whose polices, as bad as they were, did not evoke the sort of inimical, paroxysmal reaction that Trump has engendered.

Yeah, the ‘democratic process’ is broken due to possible fraud and other problems (but it worked perfectly in 2016 when Trump won, yet it was the left saying that the democratic process was broken due to Russian Facebook and Twitter trolls, but whatever. Neither side is logically consistent), and the half the country hates/distrusts the other half, yet outside of politics, it’s business as usual. Large companies and their executives not losing sleep or profits from the widespread belief that the 2020 election was stolen or that democracy is broken.

I agree with the video and general sentiment of the comments that the pull-yourself-up brand of conservatism that dominated throughout the 80s and 90s and early 2000s, is dead. The realization is setting in , made worse by the 2008 crisis and Covid, is that there are large segments of the population (mostly the poor and those with below/average-IQs) that cannot pull themselves up and are destined to poverty and subsistence living, so the only hope for these people is stimulus or some sort of UBI, not platitudes about having to pull yourself up.

The pushback against pseudo-libertarian Rand Paul shows that the realization is setting on by ‘the right’ that preaching personal responsibility and austerity for individuals while the government lines its pockets and enriches itself at taxpayer expense, is hypocritical. Instead of funding Middle East wars, foreign countries, aircraft carriers, forced vaccination, or bailing out Boeing, how about giving that money to individuals and small and medium-sized businesses, who pay the taxes that make everting run. The same government that seeks to shutdown your business and livelihood or put you out of your job, thinks it can make amends with a $600 check or a paltry PPP loan. Yeah right. I can understand and relate to the indignation.

But this whole narrative of America being in decline or dying seems like mistaking a delusion or fantasy for reality. Not gonna happen, as much as some of us want it to be so.