Reading Michael Anton’s rejoinder to my response to an article that appeared in Chronicles, I noticed that he and I agreed categorically on certain points: Whatever madness is afflicting this country and the rest of the West can in no way be blamed on the founders of the American republic. The rot set in later, despite the political achievement of those who won American independence and framed the Constitution.
Further, the woke enthusiasm and anarcho-tyranny now besetting us may have to burn out on their own, seeing that we’ve had exceedingly limited success as a country controlling these disorders. Assuming that we are lucky and this combination of cultural radicalism and political totalitarianism does collapse, how exactly would that happen?
According to ancient philosophers, political societies undergo deterioration (phthora) owing to both internal and external causes. They lose the ability to deal with internal disorder, while they are increasingly threatened by foreign enemies. Adversaries jump in for the kill when aberrant political leadership acts consistently against the common good. The foreign challenges that the Biden Administration is now facing, from the hacking of fuel supplies to the war that Hamas has unleashed against Israelis, to the recent expressions of Chinese and Russian adventurism, are intended to take advantage of an administration that has turned inward toward bizarre diversions such as battling white “systemic racism,” to carrying out a “green revolution” while simultaneously paying off Democratic constituencies with increasingly devalued money.
The present administration, which represents both the woke Left and partisan Democratic interests, refuses to pay attention to a hemorrhaging Southern border. Allowing illegals to overrun a largely unprotected border to fill the country, starting with Texas, with future Democratic voters, is the transparent reason for Biden’s inaction in the face of this stampede. Federalizing elections, while removing controls against fraud, and then awarding statehood to the District of Columbia and possibly Puerto Rico would allow the Left to create a permanent electoral majority, certainly at the federal level. Packing the Supreme Court with Democratic partisans, another project of the Biden Administration, will prevent these actions from being judicially overturned.
An American government that is preoccupied with such vagaries will not likely be inclined to meet foreign challenges boldly. Making sure that our military is taught critical race theory, that the CIA recruits plenty of lesbians, gays, and transsexuals, that American embassies fly the Rainbow Pride flag next to the Stars and Stripes, and that our president cheerleads an international crusade against global warming defines our supposed national interests.
If readers of this website notice the dottiness of these priorities, so do foreign foes, who will take advantage of our nutty government. Why shouldn’t they? I certainly would do so if I noticed that the American federal administration was becoming a lunatic asylum. Our new foreign policy priorities have been accompanied by the emergence of internal problems that are likely to get worse—for example, increasing energy shortages and soaring crime rates in cities. Spiraling inflation is also underway.
