A Fourth Turning Warning for America: Climax
Yesterday, I warned, again, that the center didn’t hold. There is no center in American politics. Americans are more divided than at any time since the Civil War.
(Read We Have the War Upon Us by William J. Cooper)
Today, I have a short warning from the great book The Fourth Turning by Howe and Strauss.
What Should Have Happened after 2016 #
Strauss and Howe prophesied an election that changed everything sometime during the Crisis era which began with the fall of Lehman Brothers (the last time Nancy Pelosi was Speaker of the House):
The winners will now have the power to pursue the more potent, less incrementalist agenda about which they had long dreamed and against which their adversaries had darkly warned. This new regime will enthrone itself for the duration of the Crisis. Regardless of its ideology, that new leadership will assert public authority and demand private sacrifice. Where leaders had once been inclined to alleviate societal pressures, they will now aggravate them to command the nation’s attention. The regeneracy will be solidly under way.
We got the realigning election with Donald Trump. He did what H. Ross Perot could not. He united conservatives and blue-collar patriots to win the presidency.
But Republicans in Congress did not advance Trump’s agenda. Republican Congressional leaders were either too timid to push, or they were political saboteurs (looking at you, Paul Ryan). Either way, Congress undermined the agenda, the mandate, that the people gave them.
As a result, the House of Representatives is now in the hands of, essentially, the Bolsheviks, while a true Gray Champion of the republic holds down the White House.
So what will happen now?
A Fourth Turning Prophecy #
Chapter 10 of The Fourth Turning is a prophecy written in 1996 and published a year later.
Even if the nation stays together, its geography could be fundamentally changed, its party structure altered, its Constitution and Bill of Rights amended beyond recognition. History offers even more sobering warnings: Armed confrontation usually occurs around the climax of Crisis. If there is confrontation, it is likely to lead to war. This could be any kind of war—class war, sectional war, war against global anarchists or terrorists, or superpower war. If there is war, it is likely to culminate in total war, fought until the losing side has been rendered nil—its will broken, territory taken, and leaders captured. And if there is total war, it is likely that the most destructive weapons available will be deployed.
That total war could also be a combination or series of several types of war. If a civil war broke out in the United States, would China, Russia, and Iran not jump in to finally render America helpless?
And then this, also from The Fourth Turning:
With or without war, American society will be transformed into something different. The emergent society may be something better, a nation that sustains its Framers' visions with a robust new pride. Or it may be something unspeakably worse. The Fourth Turning will be a time of glory or ruin.
So what will happen?
Consider the Millennials, how they were raised (Power Rangers, Captain Planet, Animal Planet, school uniforms, and conformity against human nature). Their demands of conformity, even in thought and speech.
Again from The Fourth Turning:
This youthful hunger for social discipline and centralized authority could lead Millennial youth brigades to lend mass to dangerous demagogues. The risk of class warfare will be especially grave if the 20 percent of Millennials who were poor as children (50 percent in inner cities) come of age seeing their peer-bonded paths to generational progress blocked by elder inertia. Unraveling-era adults who are today chilled by school uniforms will be truly frightened by the Millennials' Crisis-era collectivism.
It seems America is out of alignment. Republicans failed to fulfill their mandate with the House and Senate. The people turned, instead, to the other side. The Bolsheviks now run the House.
In this chart, the blue is the House of Representatives, the red is the White House. The Senate is the small area of overlap:
And this is who’s running the House:
It Gets Worse #
Yesterday, I asked on Twitter the rhetorical question, “How will his supporters respond if Trump is impeached and removed from office?”
What’s the answer?
Again, looking at the Fourth Turning prophecy from The Fourth Turning:
If the Crisis catalyst comes on schedule, around the year 2005, then the climax will be due around 2020, the resolution around 2026. What will America be like as it exits the Fourth Turning? History offers no guarantees. Obviously, things could go horribly wrong—the possibilities ranging from a nuclear exchange to incurable plagues, from terrorist anarchy to high-tech dictatorship. We should not assume that Providence will always exempt our nation from the irreversible tragedies that have overtaken so many others: not just temporary hardship, but debasement and total ruin. Since Vietnam, many Americans suppose they know what it means to lose a war. Losing in the next Fourth Turning, however, could mean something incomparably worse. It could mean a lasting defeat from which our national innocence—and perhaps even our nation—might never recover. As many Americans know from their own ancestral backgrounds, history provides numerous examples of societies that have been wiped off the map, ground into submission, or beaten so badly they revert to barbarism.
This is not a new observation. I wrote about the left’s bloodlust in February 2017:
Having lost at the ballot box, having lost in the court of public opinion, the left has decided to intimidate or kill its adversaries. Just like the Nazis. Just like the Leninists. Just like the Maoists.
You should really read People Want You Dead
An Observation, Not a Prediction #
We can’t know the future, but one outcome is certain: I am going to die.
I’ve been writing about my retreat from politics toward faith. I’ll be very blunt about that now.
I suspect that America is on a collision course with itself, and I’m not sure we have the will or the national intellect to stop it.
The Bolsheviks are younger, angrier, and more ruthless than the patriots. Something far worse than Venezuela or Cuba is probably the future for America.
Millennial leftists don’t want to win elections; they want to exterminate people who disagree with them. Like Stalin. Like Mao.
Millennials who are active in politics tend to be radicals and atheist. They have no moral restraints. Anything goes.
Millennial activists hate science. They have been fed scientism since birth and lack the intellectual training to discern the difference. Therefore, the advances humanity has made thanks to science will quickly reverse as cures for things like global warming turn out to be distress for man and beast.
If the Bolsheviks don’t turn America into a giant, barbaric, communist prison camp, the divisions in our country will leave us vulnerable to military attack. Iran, Russia, China, even the European Union could feel emboldened and attack. While we might be able to repel the attack, society would further disintegrate. The will to fight a protracted war isn’t there. We would move quickly to the most lethal weapons in our arsenal.
If these dire prophecies come to pass, my impulse will be to fight. To choose a side and fight to the death. Perhaps at the cost of my soul.
I am Selfish About Eternity #
Because my own death is 100% guaranteed, I am focusing on getting to heaven no matter what comes of the country I love and defended my entire life.
Former state Senator John Lamping told me that he has a simple hierarchy: God, family, country.
In order, that’s:
God
Family
Country
That’s the right way to live.
For many years, I had it wrong. My hierarchy looked like this:
Bill
Country
Family
Or sometimes:
Country
Bill
Family
I’m trying to get right with God and family. And I recommend it to everyone. No country is worth the price of a soul. Not even this one.
We are rapidly approaching the climax.