A revolutionary political earthquake lies up ahead. The popularity of Trump foretells this. We’re feeling the tremors right now. But the feeling of revulsion for the Washington establishment is not yet clear enough and widespread enough in the minds of the people to manifest in a revolutionary “break point.” But I believe such a lack of widespread clarity is the lull before the storm. And the storm is coming in the form of a pervasive economic crash that will shake up Americans in a way they have never before experienced.
It is then that the needed clarity will be achieved. It is in times of great crisis that people are susceptible to a more truthful view of things, and will be more willing to take revolutionary action. If freedom is to be restored in America, it will be at this time when the establishment way of doing things for the past century – political centralization and Keynesian monetary theory – comes under suspicion as highly flawed ideology and political tyranny. It is here when all is chaos and despair that the coming break point will be reached and a chance to restore freedom will be available to us.
When the crisis really hits, when the dollar is dropping like a rock in a dry well, when tanks are in the streets to restore order in scores of new Fergusons and Baltimores pockmarking the country, when unemployment hits 25% and no one believes the BLS lies of 5% anymore, when the Feds are snooping in the skies above with thousands of drones over our own country, when a smarmy President spews out still another unctuous speech from the White House about how “government is here to help you,” then the breaking point will be reached in the minds of the American people.
This profound “break point” is coming to America as sure as the tides wash in to our shorelines. Our stock market is like the Titanic on April 15, 1912. It is living on borrowed time, and all the King’s men and horses are not going to be able to put this Keynesian Humpty back together again. The coming economic crash will make 2008 look like a walk in the park. Humans’ penchant for the “normalcy bias” is keeping us all in a state of dangerous apathy. It’s the same mindset that prevailed on Wall Street in 1929, before Robespierre and the Jacobins in 1793, ahead of Lenin in 1917.
Two Profound Choices
The coming tumult will bring us one of two profound choices. There will either be a rebirth of liberty and a harkening back to the principles that built our Republic prior to 1913, or there will be a plunge into a neo-fascist dictatorship in which we lose our freedom totally.
Which will it be? It all depends upon whether Americans still have that love of liberty dwelling in them. I believe they do, but if I’m wrong, then a thousand year Dark Age awaits us. We certainly have major hurdles to overcome if freedom is to be saved. And the primary hurdle is whether we can influence enough Americans between now and the coming crash to be able to control political policy as we are climbing out of the crash.
This is the all-important time period – the aftermath of the Great Depressionary Collapse – when the country is rethinking its past policies and evaluating what role they had in the collapse. This is when it will be possible to implement radical ideas for the restoration of freedom.
This is when libertarians, conservatives, and independents will be ready to break politically from the Darth Vaders of Washington who have been keeping Americans so submissive for the past 80 years. Then is when a charismatic leader will appear to offer the people a way back to sanity, a way back to the Republic.
I believe Americans still possess that love of liberty which would spawn such a restoration. But they will have to be informed as to what direction to move in an inspirational way that reaches millions of them. This cannot be done via conventional politics working within the Democrat-Republican establishment. The establishment is the problem, not the solution. What will be needed will be a revolutionary way of thinking outside the box of Democrat-Republican conformity.
When the tumult is raging all around us, this is when we as a country will have to make our choice. Do we capitulate to the collectivists that rule our politics and economics in Washington, in the schools, and in the media? Do we obey their vision and move the country toward a regional government as a prelude to a One-World government? Do we centralize our banks into a World Banking system of fiat money? Do we further implement liberalism’s neo-fascist political forms, but continue to fallaciously call such a system “capitalism” so as to ease it into the public conscience as a permissible way to govern?
Or do we move to restore the principles of freedom that built America – strictly limited government, federalism, and a literal interpretation of the Constitution? Do we begin to purge the countless “special privileges” with which our social welfare state maintains its power?
Will conservatives, libertarians, and independents be able to influence policy enough to reject the entire idea of Keynesian economics and restore a sound monetary system with a role for gold? Will we be swamped with the egalitarians and their shrieks for more wealth redistribution, or will we enact a flat tax that supports “equal rights,” and eventually repeal the 16th Amendment and abolish the IRS? Will we continue pursuing the insane militaristic world hegemony of the neocons with trillion dollar military budgets and wars that dominate our foreign policy? Or will we recognize that such insanity is a great part of what bankrupted us and brought about the crash?
Freedom or Fascism
It is in the aftermath of the coming crash that the “break point” will take place. And it will manifest in one or the other of the above denouements. Freedom or Fascism will come to America. Which will it be?
If it is to be freedom, then it will only happen if millions of patriots unify around an independent political candidate that breaks from the Democrat-Republican monopoly in the way that Ross Perot broke in 1992. Only this time, he must stand clearly for freedom instead of the “vague reformism” that Perot stood for. AFR has published an essay, Salvation of America, that outlines how this scenario can be brought about. It points the way toward a profound realignment of today’s political paradigm.
Peace and serenity are not coming to our world. Turmoil and revolution lie up ahead. We as a people will be confronted with a huge and Homeric choice that will determine the fate of mankind for centuries. Let us hope that we as patriots have made our case well.
Nelson Hultberg is a freelance writer in Dallas, Texas and the Director of Americans for a Free Republic www.afr.org. A graduate of Beloit College in Wisconsin, his articles have appeared in such publications as The American Conservative, Insight, Liberty, The Freeman, The Social Critic, The Dallas Morning News, and the San Antonio Express-News, as well as on numerous Internet sites.
He is the author of The Golden Mean: Libertarian Politics, Conservative Values
Email: NelsonHultberg (at) afr.org
