There is no meaningful difference between Clinton and Trump.
Both are narcissists.
Both are habitual liars.
Both are corrupt.
Both have a tendency to blame others for their failures instead of taking responsibility for their own actions.
Both treat the people underneath them poorly or with outright contempt.
Both think they are above the law, and seek to use the law to put down those who stand in their way.
Both are masters of saying what their audience wants to hear without saying anything of actual substance.
Both have flip-flopped 180 degrees on major national issues.
Both want to accelerate the same fiscal irresponsibility that got us into the Great Recession and prolonged it for so long.
Both are perfectly willing to order the military to do things that violate their sacred oath to defend the Constitution.
Both believe in an authoritarian government that violates constitutional principles and the basic rule of law.
I cannot, in good conscience, vote for either of them.
My greatest political fear is that our Republic is about to be overthrown and transformed into an Empire. We have a system of checks and balances to prevent that from taking place, but that system has been steadily eroded ever since the New Deal (or arguably the Civil War).
Eight years of economic stagnation have created a tremendous amount of restlessness. Looking at global trends, it seems that things are going to get worse before they get better. Historically, this type of chronic restlessness tends to lead to war, as leaders seek to either deflect it toward an outside enemy or channel it for their ruthless ambitions.
And both Clinton and Trump are nothing if not ruthless.
Everything old is new again. The authoritarian ideologies of the 20th century have resurrected and taken on new forms. Every day, I hear echoes of the deadly drumbeats on social media and the news.
Fascism is back. Communism is back. The 21st century equivalent of bookburning is taking place on campuses across the nation. The class warfare that started with the Occupy movement has taken on some decidedly racial undertones. If we’re following history’s playbook, a strong leader will soon emerge, promising security and prosperity at the cost of liberty.
Both Clinton and Trump promise to be that strong leader.
There’s a long tradition of doomsday predictions among political commentators in this country. At the risk of sounding paranoid, I’d like to chime in with some of my own. After all, just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean that everyone isn’t out to get you.
First, the gobal economy is about to suffer a massive downturn. China, Russia, the Eurozone crisis—it’s all headed toward collapse. The US will come out on top, but only because we won’t fall as hard as everyone else. We’re still going to take a fall.
Healthcare in this country will continue to be broken and unaffordable for the next four years. Best case scenario, Obamacare collapses and the gridlock in Washington prevents us from replacing it with anything else. Worst case scenario, socialized medicine stiffles innovation, costs and inefficiences skyrocket, and committees are formed to decide who lives and who dies, just like every other nationalized healthcare system.
The originalists on the Supreme Court will be replaced with activist judges who will dismantle the checks and balances of the Constitution, causing it to hang by a thread. Frankly, this is the thing that scares me the most. It’s already starting to happen with the controversy surrounding Scalia’s replacement, and he won’t be the only Supreme Court justice who passes in the next four years. This will be the ultimate legacy of whoever wins the presidency in 2016.
The world is about to get a lot less safe for Americans abroad. It’s already a lot more unsafe after eight years of Obama, but it’s about to get worse. The chaos in the Middle East will spread. Terrorist attacks will accelerate, both abroad and at home. The wars and rumors of wars will increase.
There are a number of unlikely but plausible scenarios I’ve been mulling over. The most frightening of these involves a second American civil war, in the form of an insurgency, and the true nightmare begins when the UN sends a peacekeeping mission into this country much like Lebanon or the Balkans. Like I said, I don’t consider it likely. But it’s just plausible enough that it would make an excellent novel—the kind that later generations laud as being written before its time.
In short, I predict another four years of economic stagnation, fiscal irresponsibility in Washington, cronyism, corruption, and collapse. If America becomes “great” again, it will only be the Empire at the expense of the Republic.
So what am I doing about it?
Stocking up on food storage. Growing a garden. Learning how to be a responsible gun owner. Striving to be as independent and self-sufficient as possible.
And you can bet that all of this is influencing my writing. There’s a war of ideas that’s raging right now, one that may influence the ultimate outcome of our era more than any elected official. As a writer, I see it as my responsibility to play a role in that battle, not through message fiction per say but through stories that reflect truth. I have no idea if any of my stories will be as influential as 1984 or Les Miserables, but I intend to write them as if they could be.
It appears we’ve been cursed to live in interesting times. Let us rise to the occasion and write timeless and interesting stories.
Well written, and some of my own fears also…. What scares me worse is that the pain is pushed down the road and foisted onto the backs of my sons. Working on some of the self sufficiency too, but injuries from Iraq mean when it hits the fan I’ll likely be a casualty of the conflict. Because of that, I strive to prepare my boys to stand tall against the winds that seek to push us down. Wow, that sounds paranoid but they called everyone who predicted our bubbles collapsing wackadoddles too.
I don’t think it’s going to come to a shooting war just yet, and if it ever does, I suspect there will be pockets of instability rather than total war (kind of like how pockets of the country, such as Nevada and Detroit, felt the recession much worse than other places). But yeah, you make a very good point about kicking our problems down the road, which will make the reckoning even worse when we can’t put it off anymore.
I don’t think we need all out war to have violence… Look at our sad history of rioting in inner cities. Sadly, I live near one such city so I expect the potential is there.
I see. Take care of yourself.
Yeah, we are planning on moving as soon as we can to a bit farther from the city center as soon as we can. Learning to make gardens where we grow edibles too… Trying to start a local YARD SHARE here too. Where people pair up, some without yards but with knowledge etc. An interesting communal co-op that spreads the access to green space, knowledge on growing, helping hands and preservation of the food. This is an area where your Mormon kinfolk have a leg up.
Damn, why was I never told of this committee deciding whether I live or die? Actually, comparing life expectancy between the US and ‘socialised healthcare’ countries I guess it’s because the committees are just deciding everyone lives. I wonder who it is in the US deciding people need to die. No innovation? What nonsense. More dangerous overseas for Americans under Obama? Not according to the actual stats. You mean not including accidents, just terrorism? 105 under Obama vs 246 during the previous seven years. Economic growth over the past sixty years – really? Obviously it has been excellent apart from the latest crap (though nothing has been done to make sure that won’t happen again). Maybe you meant economic disparity – that’s doing pretty well: http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2013/12/05/u-s-income-inequality-on-rise-for-decades-is-now-highest-since-1928/
What else? China’s economy – heat has already gone out, but it didn’t collapse. It’s developing out of its third world factory economy into a service based economy, which will continue to strengthen the world economy. Eurozone crisis – Greece? Meaningless in the world stability sense. Eurozone is going strong.
Mid East instability will spread? Strange thing to say as Russia pushes into Syria, Saudi Arabia into Yemen and the US into Iraq. Not to mention Turkey might actually be starting to do something.
UN going into the US is plausible? Does that need a comment? Take a look at the recent armed resistance in America recently. This is a big step back from militant actions in previous decades. The riots were disappointing but haven’t affected national stability. And civil war? I wonder what will happen when a 2nd amendment fanatic meets an Abrams or Apache. Personal firearms are pointless when it comes to taking on the government, unless the intent is suicide by cop.
I haven’t kept up on the Scalia replacement, but all I recall is the Republicans being pig-headed stubborn on principle. So I guess we can’t comment on that unless they’ve actually decided to participate in their democratic system.
Oh, what have I missed? Both your presidential nominees are idiots – yes, it’s been rather entertaining for the rest of the world. Cronyism will continue – forever and always. An empire will develop – I can not fathom how. Why would the Oligarchy allow that to happen? Corruption and fascism in the form of social justice – of course, I’ve been dealing with it my whole life. I’m just glad a large bunch of very loud but mostly ineffectual people have taken it too far and we are beginning to see a push back. There will be no equilibrium in specific cases, but broadly it will be a little better.
Meanwhile, in this country, the Opposition leader has fled the country because of an arrest warrant, 18 members of his party are under arrest, mainly for ‘defamation’ (the sort of thing you see in any political debate in the western world) and despite many having legal immunity. Political commentators and NGO workers have started to be rounded up as well. Next door a military junta rules with absolute authority after riots there a couple of years ago. From where I’m sitting, this whole post looks like first world problems. By all means write it into fiction – I know how good you are and will buy those books – but settle down with the scaremongering.
The thing about these kinds of predictions, though, is that you’re crazy until you’re right.
In 1913, it was crazy to believe that 100 million Europeans would die of political causes in the next 31 years. In 2005, it was crazy to believe that a housing bubble even existed in the US market, let alone that it would throw the global economy into a tailspin from which it would not recover in the next ten years.
Of course, being crazy does not make one right. But saying “you’re crazy” is not a valid refutation, either.
As for “first world problems,” if we’ve reached the point where a global recession is considered to be one, that’s a pretty good sign that we’re living in the midst of a collapse.