Tag: National Service

Our Zombie Republic: A Review of Ezra Klein’s ‘Why We’re Polarized’


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

It’s comical — in a tragic, macro kind of way. The United States is one presidential election away from tyranny and we’re all supposed to just sleep until it happens.

Remember, the issue is, the Republican Party no longer believes in politics as we conceive of it in a liberal democracy and see democracy as a means to either obtain or maintain power. That’s it. They have no policies other than screaming about “cancel culture” while they wait to take power again (then never let it go.)

Reading Ezra Klein’s “Why We’re Polarized” changed my (political) life for how it opened my eyes as to the crux of problems before us. It all boils down to white people are nervous about losing the majority and, as such, some basic concepts about the American experience that I assumed were just, well, the American way are actually all lie. (In a sense.)

The lie is — America is an idea and a melting pot so we race, while our original sin, is something we’ve gotten past on an institutional level. Psyche! Turns out the idea of “America is an idea” is, actually a phantasm. America is only an idea when white people feel comfortable with their place on top. Now that that’s changed, well, we have (waves hand) all this. It’s an idea when white people allow it to be an idea. Otherwise, fuck you, it’s blood and soil. Remember, in the 1850s, it was Germans that everyone was worried about! But, as I’ve written before — it’s also white blue collar men who now can’t get laid that are a problem in our politics.

Anyway, I loved Klein’s book but for one thing — the ending. The ending s u c k e d. The reason — all the solutions he proposed at the end of the book were useless. Me, a deranged anonymous crank on the Internet, have been able to come up with at least one solution better than all his pie-in-the-sky “solutions.” I propose that we institute National Service over the next four years if we want to save our Republic.

In fact, National Service is the ONLY way to solve our current long-term macro problems. If every 18 year old was absolutely fucking forced to live with someone from outside their state regardless of their education or life goals then our common sense of what it means to be “American” would be significantly re-inforced.

Klein’s solutions were the political equivalent of hoping Jesus Christ comes back.

So, if you can simply stop reading when you get the last chapter, I think you’ll really enjoy Klein’s book. It really, really helped me understand why were so totally, completely fucked.

National Service: How To Stop The Second American Civil War Of 2024


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

It seems to me that if we really want to avoid the GQP seizing control in about 2024-2025 and start murdering people like me (and maybe you) we need to take a serious, serious look at national service.

In fact, I would go to so far as to say that at this point the implementation of National Service would be the only thing standing between us and autocracy or civil war. The reason is: if good old boys from the Deep South regardless of wealth or schooling were absolutely FORCED to interact with fey libtards from Brooklyn at a tender, impressionable age, then, well, maybe the two sides might come to some sort of understanding.

Maybe the GQP wouldn’t be so absolutely fucking scared of brown people and women with sexual agency that they wouldn’t want to suck the political cock of an absolute fucking idiot like Donald Trump. UGH.

This will never happen, of course.

The Right knows that I’m right and they’ll claim it’s socialism. They WANT good old boys to hate liberal progressives so they can ram through tax cuts for plutocrats. They get young hack MAGA judges in exchange.

Anyway, as I always say — the United States is fucked. Get out while you still can before the Killing Fields are opened.

MAGA Seditionist Secessionist Grievances Elude Me


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I really struggle to figure out the specific reasons why growing number of MAGA seditionists have decided that secession — and the resulting violence — is their only course of action.

The closest reason I can think of is their devotion to their ding-dong Dear Leader is so absolute that they believe all his fraud claims and would rather destroy the Union than allow Biden to become president. But here’s the thing — this is still very poorly thought out and not very concrete.

At least with the 1860 secessionist crisis, there was a concrete fear that the South had — by definition, Lincoln being president would lead to first a retrenchment of slave power and then its ultimate destruction. That, at least, has some logic to it.

But to have such absolute support for just one person that you would rather leave the Union than accept Biden is legitimately POTUS now is rather curious. It still seems like a very abstract fear. Where is all this passion — even if it’s empty for the time being — coming from? From my conversations with conservatives, it seems it boils down to an absolute fear of the abstract concept of cancel culture. This is the idea that just by being conservative, a person risk having their lives ruined by liberal-progressive “cancel culture.” This is a really big deal for MAGA and Trump talks about it all the time.

I would suggest, however, that the real origin of our current clusterfuck is the end of the American dream for white blue collar men without a college education. In short — they can’t get laid. They feel left behind because not only can they not afford to get married and have kids, but they also feel that the growing economic power of women — with its associated sexual agency — makes finding a mate more difficult in the first place. The racism and willful ignorance springs from that, as well.

While it’s way too late, I’ll tell you how we could have fixed this problem — national service for all 18 year olds. If, say, AmeriCorps had been true national service and we had 30 or so years of all 18 year olds across the country being forced to hang out with each other for 18 months a lot of our problems would have been preemptively solved.

But’s too late now.

The damage is done. We’re just one political 9/11 event away from the entire Union States buckling and Blue and Red states actually beginning to attack each other on the battlefield.

The question now, of course, is we simply be locked in political neutral for a few years until the passions die down or will we not be that lucky.