We appear to be creating two Americas, a dual narrative of the world that is unfolding simultaneously.
This phenomenon cannot be properly understood without highlighting the impact of the national media and social media. The media’s impact on global events has changed since the technological revolution, specifically in the 21st century. The change is most apparent in the movement from reporting on activity to creating activity. The “news” is now an influential piece and predictive of the action that follows in our culture.
We are in the midst of a cultural and political revolution, that has great potential to lead to physical revolution. The individual acts and occurrences across the country are rather unimportant but what is important is the optics of the situation.
The dual narrative of modern America
The dual narrative is commonly misunderstood as a left vs right battle. In reality it is a battle of American values (deemed from our constitution) vs collectivist ideology.
There are simultaneously two modes of history unfolding. This is the reality of circumstances vs digital presentation. The digital format reigns superior as a method of disseminating ideology and one’s world view. This is because of its global reach as well as its relative permanence. It becomes an immediate data storage of human history not as it actually was, but as it is presented. This is the battle of optics.
Americans have diverged on ways we consume information, both generationally as well as in “political” orientation. Older Americans get most of their information through mainstream cable news and mainstream newspaper outlets. The younger generations consume their information primarily via social media and “headline surfing.” Older millennials and Gen X tend to do some combination of both.
There is also a divergence in terms of what sources we get our information from. “Left” leaning and “right” leaning media sources (social and mainstream) filter the events of the world into narrative-driven propaganda that massively impacts the culture, ideology, and actual reality of the nation.
Our media sources are compromised as truth seeking fact finders, both internally and externally. Social media, as well as other news outlets, have elements that are infiltrated by near peer enemies of our nation (Russia & China) and propagate their agendas. Individualism Vs. Collectivism
To understand the duopoly, we must start at the root. To understand the situation as simply Democrat vs. Republican is to not understand the situation at all. The root of this outcropping is western ideology vs. eastern ideology, individual action vs collective action.
Eastern ideology, such as China, values the collective action enforced by the law. Western values call for individual liberty—the individual can not lose his rights due to swaying politics and angry mobs. The individual is respected as an autonomous being.
In the tail end of the 20th century, the Democratic party in the US went through a transformation that many of its followers are not fully caught up on or attentive to. This is the movement away from classical liberal values towards collectivists values. There is a constant battle between these two ideologies independent of nations and borders—it is human nature.
The deep rooted truth of this matter is the struggle between individualism and collectivism. Individualism is equated to liberty and freedom. Freedom to succeed, freedom to fail, and everything in between. Collectivism is the opposite, it’s the animus of paternalism. It is to be cared for, a floor and ceiling. In this paragraph, neither is being noted as good or bad; I am merely describing the dilemma we find ourselves in. Both of these are outcroppings of human nature. They always have and always will be, thus we will never be absent of this struggle.
This struggle is the seed of our political landscape we find ourselves in 2020. Now how we decode this struggle has very little agreement.
Political Parties
The political parties as we know them, are hardly existent or representative of a coherent set of values. These parties are better understood in a tribalistic matter as a red and blue team. As history unfolds, the media filters information into the duopoly, and perspectives are generated in accordance with the development of these two teams. There is no good way to define either of these parties in terms of values. The best way is by the underlying animus.
Analyzing the animus is not so clear. We assume that the left is for collectivist action and the right, for individuality. While this is close, we can be more accurate with the absence of parties and the notion of globalists vs. anti-globalists. Globalization and distancing from western values has occurred through both of our dominant parties in the 21st centuries through a micro and a macro atrocity.
The PATRIOT Act of 2001 came in the wake of 9/11. This was passed on the back of the mass fear everyone was experiencing. Whether it was warranted or manufactured, the feeling across the country was real. Our leadership acted quickly and thoughtlessly as the PATRIOT Act went flying through our elected officials with overwhelming support. This was a strong step in the beginning of the end of American civil liberties.
Relevance to COVID-19
COVID-19/Wuhan Virus, came to our seas in 2020 (although it’s hotly debated when the first case actually occurred). Through murky circumstances surrounding Wuhan, this virus quickly impacted more than just the health of the world. In the early weeks of the virus, it traveled unknown and without major damage. When the people, and the media, recognized the circulation of the virus, all hell broke loose. No other story could run on the news, and it was as if everything in the world froze except the virus. People were legitimately scared, and heavy-handed laws that have never visibly been seen before were passed on the back of a fearful population. Businesses were shut down, lockdown orders were in place, people had to limit their movement in public places for only “essential” services.
As information on the virus emerged, showing the world that we have escaped catastrophic danger, the media reinterpreted the numbers and peddled fear back into the hearts of Americans. The spirit of individual responsibility diminished, and many Americans became dependent on the government. Some became dependent with joy and others with frustration.
As you can see, these occurrences transcend party lines and are both examples of a removal of western values and a nation built concerning the constitution. The governmental response to COVID-19 is a historical pivotal moment in the death of western values on a large scale. I speculate this has set back the progress of humans for at least a century, specifically in the realm of progressive ideology. The most disheartening fact is that most Americans accept their new lives without protest.
America’s current cultural revolution
America is going through a cultural revolution, and it is not small. It will drastically change the course of humanity. If globalization is victorious, classic American values will collapse and be replaced. The replacement will be a Chinese-style communist party that has already infiltrated the American left.
The truth about Trump supporters
Trump was elected in 2016 for reasons that many people on the coasts either dismiss or do not fully understand. To many, Trump represents the spirit of the “other” side of America. The one that consumes the majority of the geographic land in America yet shares very little culturally with the west and east coast view of America. Either through wisdom or passed on values, this part of the country sees America for what it is, a land of opportunity and freedom. Liberty is valued over security in this middle region. The middle Americans have been demonized by west coast elites, the billionaire class, and its more “educated” populations spilling out of universities. The Trumpians are not conservatives, they are anti-globalists. They are the “essential workers” who have had war waged on them unknowingly and accidentally by their former brothers from the coasts. Trump shows the animus of having pride in citizenship, isolation politics, and an American self-reliance. Chinese propaganda has run absolutely rampant in the left wing politics of America, and good-hearted people have become narrators of a Chinese-based globalist view of the world.
The gridlock of our government that our founders purposely created is the reason that populist control has not entirely taken over American politics. We have been at war with our own constitution, a document that only middle America holds with high value as they get pinned falsely as regressive and uneducated in our “sophisticated” world. We have created an environment where those who have the most ethical view of the nation—and how it should be upheld in a pragmatic world—are demonized as hateful and evil. This is all while many Americans on the other side of the globalization argument are persuaded through their hearts and compassion to have a Clinton-Bush-Obama era view of a globalist world.
Control of the “left”
The “left” controls the media, entertainment industry, and the universities. These are all industries that have gained power and control during the immense globalization process. Our “essential worker” class, middle America, which still fuels and feeds the nation, has been demonized as ignorant and moronic. The essential workers and the working poor (the losers of globalization), have felt demonized for a long time, unappreciated and ridiculed for having a pro-American view of the world.
Whether people like it or not, our constitution and the brave work of our founding fathers is one of the most important elements that has allowed us to not be taken by communist control. The destruction of America from within is being ported through the left and our institutions. The origin of this is both domestic and propagated from our foreign adversaries.
The potential for another World War
The trade war with China is at the heart of the determination of global winners and losers. At a certain point before the end of the 21st century, the US will either need to decouple with China or it will decouple with itself. The decoupling with China will most likely cause a third World War. This will be a uniquely fought war due to the increase of military technology, most of which has only been tested. If the axis is victorious in WW3, a Chinese-style rule will consume the globe. At some point down the road, another revolution will spark, with the same spirit as the American revolution. Hopefully the revolutionaries read upon the American founding fathers and mirror a society in its image.
If the allies win WW3, it will be on Americans to move forward into the world with more self-reliance and to learn from our mistakes that have created this revolution—an unneeded propagandist revolution in front of everybody’s eyes. We need to value citizenship and our constitution more if we want to come through the next thirty years without catastrophic negative results.
Regardless, at the end of the day, an American-style society will succeed, one that values individual rights. The American experiment has proved that it is the most ethical way to govern large quantities of people. Next time, we need to do a better job at educating people on the importance of American values. If western values fail, it may take half a millennium to recover from the ideological damage. But eventually, a spark will happen again. And freedom will someday come back in style.
Our nation, and the global community at large, is on a crash course with massive globalization through nation packs. These are expanded on and eventually will end with the centralization of power. The global convergence of power will be propagated via eastern ideologues and will be approved by the American people due to mass manipulation and the inability for wrong-think: to be the keepers of our own thoughts. This will create global governance through the following steps. An agreed upon “need” for global law to fight seemingly well-intentioned issues such as environmental concerns, poverty, health, and promotion of peace. The law will have to be established by some kind of acting body—similar in function to congress, our literal law makers. These laws will have to be carried out by an executive branch as well some type of global police force, most likely allied nations’ military forces. These would only be logical steps. This will be how we create a de facto entity holding global power.
Race issues in 2020
A look at 2020 would not be complete without an analysis of race in America. Anytime you live in a racially diverse nation, there is always the potential for racial tensions. The hearts and minds of well-intentioned people are being weaponized through propaganda. The media is at the heart of the racial tensions in America. The racial tensions will fade quickly if we revert back to western ideologies and divorce from calls for collectivism. If we continue down the collectivist lines, the racial tensions, as well as other divides, will not mend whatsoever.
People should not be treated differently, under the law, based on their race. Race alone is a difficult proposition to define. Though for many discussions concerning race and America, it cannot be expressed how important it is to have a clear definition; this is part of the reason it is perverse to have any kind of law embedded with racial discrimination. This includes affirmative action laws.absolutely no law should concern race.
Race does not impact ideology. The anecdote to racism is to treat individuals as individuals.
Movements to delegitimize the police are communist in origin and utilize good-hearted sympathetic people as the carrier of the mission. The following is a nefarious process that has been utilized in human history before.
The first step is being hyper-critical of police action and creating mass distrust and hysteria. Claim racist roots and that the organizations are poorly trained, incompetent, and immoral. Next, cut budgets to insure failure of the system. Afterwards they will standardize police training to a federal standard (the departure of community policing). As cities collapse in crime, bring in federal forces for protection. Through these processes, as laid out in Marxism and Leninism, you create a federalized police force and have less decentralization of power amongst the law enforcement entities. This is the death of community policing.
Generational lens
There is a significant amount of generational lens in which we view the world. Generational gaps in terms of worldview are getting exacerbated due to technological advancements. Someday, my grandkids will find it ridiculous that I grew up in a time before cell phones. Though now, the older generations think of the millennial generation as very technologically advanced. Generation Z, is so much more integrated with technology at a young age that it is almost incomparable to the childhood of previous generations, especially the baby boomers.
For thousands of years, the advancement in technology impacting our way of life has been significantly slower. For the most part, before the 20th century, you lived in a similar fashion to your grandparents’ generation. This is no longer the case, and may no longer be the case again in the future. . At least until a catastrophic global collapse, which will inevitably happen at some point in the next ten centuries.
2020 appears to be the clashing of four generations who all have strength, but manifest that strength in very different ways. Sadly, the Greatest Generation is hardly with us anymore as they all approach being centenarians.
Baby boomers hold a significant amount of the nation’s wealth and political power. If you look at the major contenders of both the 2016 and 2020 elections, almost all are baby boomers. While they hold sway, they fail to integrate technology and are being rejected by younger generations for their worldview. For the most part, this generation has failed to adapt to the changing world and will be dethroned over the next decade. Until then, they will continue to wield economic power, though they do not have innovative solutions for the modern world. Socially and culturally, this generation holds very little power.
Generation X is a smaller generation that seems to fit in this in between state between the millennials and baby boomers. Generation X, being raised by the boomers, holds public institutions in high regards. Exceptions are not a rarity but in general, this generation holds little power economically and culturally. This generation created a strong middle class.
The millennials are a generation of rejection. This generation had the first hint of childhoods with technology but nowhere near that of Generation Z. The childhoods of millennials are dissimilar from each other, unlike the previous and post-generations. Millennials hold little economic and political power but have a high amount of cultural sway. Though touted as lazy, the millennial generation has shown the ability to gain vast amounts of power. This generation holds a high amount of hyper-successful people as well as a high amount of unsuccessful people. This is a generation of great disparity. While there is little agreement on politics and worldview, this entire generation rejects our current political and economic landscape. Everyone is informed (though not always in a logical orientation) and opinionated.
Generation Z has yet to fully develop. They appear to show rejection for the millennial generation and show pushes towards conservatism. This is in opposition to the underlying radical left that dominates vast swaths of our culture. This radical left culture was generated in most part by the older millennial generation. Generation Z holds almost no cultural or economic power and while insignificant, are entering adulthood and now obtaining the right to vote. This generation will play an important role in either the stabilization of the country (Boomers/Gen X) or a push towards revolution that the millennials have conjured.
The mismatch of economic, political, and cultural power, holds our country in a perpetual misunderstanding. The internal worldviews do not perfectly overlay, yet we are forced to live in each other’s worlds at different times. When a millennial goes to work they may be forced to do things that they do not see as productive or important. When a boomer goes to the movies they may see ideologies they reject and see as a dangerous influence. Gen X will see millennials succeed far more than they as well as millennials unable to do the most simple of manual tasks.
We all must coexist in this collision.
The rise of communism in America
The rise of communism in the United States is being recognized by many, but making an enormous revitalization. The move from privately owned entities to publicly owned is rather easy to promote. Many empathetic people and people in the working class believe this is in their best interest. The lack of historical knowledge, of times, peoples, and events before us is profound on a populational average. The common person has almost no deep understanding of the French Revolution, Russian Revolution, rise of Nazism, or the American Revolution for that matter. It is the burden of the few who know this to pass down this information in a digestible format, to their peers. The historians are the gatekeepers of knowledge and one of the most important features of maintaining a civilization though rarely thought of as such. Why would you build a house without a blueprint, especially if the blueprint is laying next to you on the floor? Historians are these blueprints, they can identify trends in culture and the mirroring of the past. To ignore history and not study it meaningfully is an atrocity against mankind and a crime to your neighbors.
Communism entering almost every level of our institutions (particularly public ones because it cannot thrive in the private sector) is not an accidental occurrence. There is a very small percentage of our domestic population that is trained in marxism and leninism that works to promote the publicization of our nation. More powerful and influential than domestic propagation is outside interference. Russia, and more particularly China, heavily influence American’s worldviews and ideology. America controls popular culture, but the Chinese control our hearts and minds. The perversion and disgust of American values and the classic “patriot” come almost entirely from Chinese propaganda. The Chinese, like most global entities (US, Russia) desire global domination and total control. This is an outcropping of human nature and important to be recognized. This is not specific to the Chinese or any other population.
China’s recent claim to world power came from the globalization movements and particularly the movement of manufacturing from the United States to China’s mainland. The US, the largest consumer of goods globally, pours our economic strength into the pockets of the Chinese government through global trade. We have become dependent on Chinese manufacturing.
Everything has become politicized in America, and the media has blocked American’s ability to think. Perhaps I should say that Americans have allowed the media to block their ability for independent thought. People believe things that they would not normally believe due to political anger. The trade war with China is something that we should rally behind and unite. At some point we need to bring manufacturing back to the United States.
If we do not, over the next few decades we will see rises in power in other Eastern countries such as Vietnam. The manufacturing will also be moved more towards Central and South America, as Brazil and Mexico begin to boom and become global powerhouses.
If we continue with our current trajectory, the power of the American economy will pad the pockets of the East as well as South America, while continuing to create massive wealth disparities in the US. There will be the continuation of global winners and losers as this extends into the millennial generation. You will have a hyper successful class, the globalists, and the unbelievably poor class who are the losers of this mass migration of the American economy. The wealth divide will be so great that more public programs will have to be created to support the poor. These will be masked as Robinhood programs and degrade individual freedoms and private ownership.
As these public redistribution programs grow we will have just created a de facto communism out of appeared necessity. Globalization, the leaving of low-paying and low-skill American jobs, the inability to keep our economic wealth due to globalization, and the hyper divide in terms of the future wealth gap, will all culminate in Americans allowing communism to enter our politics with open arms.
As a note, it is important to recognize that this was written in the first half of August 2020. There will be more unfolding of events the remainder of this year that are not captured in this essay.