Kayfabing Our Way To Disaster
Kayfabing Our Way To Disaster
“I think waiting for this to be called a civil war is not smart.”
Arguably, two of the biggest news stories of the day are inflation and the 2021 U.S. Capitol attack, or “1/6.” Which issue galvanizes you seems to depend on partisanship - those on the Left seem deathly afraid of what happened on 1/6 and what it all means, while the Right and more independent-minded Americans are more concerned with inflation.
More on all that in a bit. I want to bring your attention to the following two-part (to be three-part, at some point) series of videos. Created by Jake Orthwein, they provide a sweeping history of the relationship between politics and professional wrestling. It might sound crazy at first, but set your incredulity aside and watch both videos. Not only does the argument make sense, it provides one of the best unorthodox explanations for how America ended up where it is today. Few arguments have influenced my thinking more than this one. Again, watch first, then read on.
Here’s Part Two:
My summation of Orthwein’s argument is this: following victory in World War II, the United States capitalized on success by building an incredible economic engine which provided the highest standard of living in history to the general population. With the world’s most powerful military and tremendous global influence, there was seemingly no stopping the American juggernaut, even as it encountered severe turbulence in the 1960s into the 1970s.
Until stop, it did. What happened? Orthwein’s argument is part of an increasingly prevalent view that America’s decline began far sooner than most people realize. The year 1971 features prominently in this view - it was the year the U.S. moved the dollar completely off the gold standard and it was also the year, data shows, that Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and median male income diverged. Why this happened is a topic of debate and speculation and, if you want to take a deeper dive into the topic, I highly recommend you visit the website “WTF Happened In 1971,” which Orthwein links to in the description of the videos. For now, it suffices to say that since 1971, the economy has continued to grow, but the well-being of Americans hasn’t grown alongside it.
What do I mean by this? Well, I don’t mean that our living standards have declined - they’ve improved immeasurably, without question, during the last 50 years. What I mean is that each generation has found it increasingly difficult to gain wealth, buy homes, and acquire other assets which not only make for a nice life, but ensure that we can maintain our well-being throughout the entirety of our lives and ensure our children and their children will enjoy the same. The decline of the dollar’s purchasing power alone reveals how much harder it is to get by these days:
Then there’s been a hollowing out of the middle-class, the widening gap between the upper-classes and those below it, the effects of globalization, outsourcing, importing cheap labor, etc. The likelihood of a Millennial like myself or a “Zoomer” being able to afford a house like our Boomer and Gen. X predecessors and building up the same kind of wealth as they did is low, boding ill for our long-term well-being. If our standard of living hasn’t declined, an argument could be made our quality of life most certainly has. It’s a controversial argument, but I think there’s plenty of data there to prove it has merit.
The topic is too vast to adequately cover in one blog post, but the important thing to take away from this is that the predicament America finds itself in today is rooted in two facts: 1) We stopped growing in a “real” sense and 2) Instead of recognizing this reality, we decided to find a way to keep the party going instead of adjusting to this reality. In many ways, everyone alive today, myself included, has benefited from this choice, but it was paid for at a high cost and the bill is finally coming due.
The “kayfabe,” pro wrestling-speak for “staged,” is beginning to fade and give way to a harsh, more feral reality. As Weinstein explains, growth is one end of a continuum that includes violence at the other end. The U.S. seems to be trending towards the “violence” end of continuum today. Naked force is something that tends to prevail in a situation when there’s not as much to go around for everyone, but the U.S. has been able to avoid a de-evolution into this state by managing to fake growth and fake politics. But how long can we keep up this charade?
It’s important to stay in perspective - neither Weinstein, Orthwein, nor I are arguing the U.S. is on the verge of societal collapse. Yes, I’m fully aware I just completed a post on how another civil war is coming, but I believe I’ve convincingly argued how it can still happen without our country completely self-destructing. The argument, instead, is that the America as we’ve known it is either over or is in its last throes and what this country will become during the rest of our lives is something quite different. It’s a scary thought, but remember that America was a vastly different country 100 years ago. So much has changed in a relatively short period of time and so much can change again in a short time-span, especially in an era where information travels in an instant.
I was reminded of Orthwein’s videos and what Weinstein said after reading this fascinating Twitter thread on the “Great Inflation,” the last time the country endured a serious bout of sustained increase in the cost of goods and services. The entire thread is worth reading, but the following frames are most relevant to the discussion because it correlates with what’s been said about how post-war growth made America what it is today and how the end of it will lead to our undoing:
It’s worth noting that free market capitalism is often blamed when trying to explain economic stagnation, rising inequality, and downturns. However, for much of the post-war period, Keynesian economics has been the dominant theory on how to run the economy. While Keynesianism is still capitalistic, it’s advocacy for government intervention in the economy means the state plays a major role in not only generating growth, but also creating the conditions where economic downturns occur.
More:
The thread goes on to explain how President Richard Nixon was responsible for not only exacerbating inflation, but laying the foundation for ensuring ensure inflation would become chronic (like getting rid of the gold standard completely). It then provides an overview of how Paul Volcker made an unthinkable choice, triggering the worst recession since the Great Depression to kill inflation, ensuring that the remainder of the 1980s into the 21st century became a time of prosperity, likely the last great boom for America.
The things to understand is that the U.S. has, for half a century now, been living off the massive gains generated in the quarter-century following the end of World War II, up to that critical year of 1971. At some point, the growth was going to become unsustainable and you can’t win forever. When the government started spending money to correct social problems, it likely accelerated the arrival of the end of real growth and subsequent presidents implemented policies that stunted growth, while making sure the train didn’t grind to a complete halt. In that sense, it wasn’t so much that economic growth after 1971 was fake, it’s just that it increasingly came to benefit fewer and fewer people. What was fake was the illusion that all Americans would continue to benefit from the changing socioeconomic order. In the present day, it’s plain to see how fake it is.
All this came to be because, in the minds of Jake Orthwein and Eric Weinstein, we never thought we’d stop growing. Or at least, we never thought it’d happen on our watch. The idea that the good times would last only 25 years out of over 200 total years of existence is difficult to fathom. The problem is that it’s taken so long for people to realize the party may have ended decades ago and we’ve been living off the largess created by prior generations who are now long since gone (the Greatest Generation) or aging out of the workforce (the Boomers). Of course, nobody counts on the good times ending on their watch, otherwise, what’s the point? It’s a feature, not a bug, of both civilizations and humans, to keep moving forward and attempting to build something bigger and better. But it’s a conscious decision to pretend that a system where the economy grows, but incomes stagnate, is sustainable. Again, what use is economic growth when increasingly fewer people benefit from it?
When contemplating the ultimate fate of America, you have to understand that all empires, like humans, follow a similar life-cycle. Famous investor Ray Dalio has a superb video explaining this life-cycle, which you can watch on your own time. For now, review this visual and ask yourself: where does America currently fall on Dalio’s timeline?
You really need to watch his video for a more detailed breakdown of each stage of the cycle in order to draw a more firm conclusion. Despite the certainty with which I tend to speak on matters, I have to admit that I’m not entirely certain where the U.S. currently falls on Dalio’s timeline. On one hand, we seem to be in the “Debt Bubble and Big Wealth Gap” chapter of empire. Debt is a serious problem, but the collection hasn’t started yet and it’s likely we’ll be able to keep piling on indefinitely, at the risk of what’s likely to be a catastrophic economic collapse at some point, with an outside chance of happening in our lifetimes.
On the other hand, we do seem to be in something of a “Print Money and Credit” stage of empire. America’s money supply has grown tremendously the last few years, though it must be said, if not for the economic downturn induced as part of the anti-COVID campaign, it’s unlikely this would’ve occurred. Draw your own conclusions, but my guess is we’re either approaching the peak of empire or we’re just past it.
A critical context for understanding Dalio’s timeline is that, according to his calculations, empires tend to last 200 - 300 years, on average. He’s not the only person who holds this view, so the question then becomes: when did the U.S. become an empire? I’m not sure of that, either. Some believe it was when the U.S. acquired its first overseas territory, while others believe it was during the presidency of Franklin Roosevelt in the 1930s. Either way, this means America’s still within the average lifetime of empires, meaning we may be headed for troubled times, but a collapse is still far off.
Still, when you look at this graphic, it’s easier to conclude America is on the wrong side of the hill. Everything here is either currently happening or on the verge of happening:
Nobody knows for sure how long this country’s got, but we’re definitely in a crisis stage. We’ll have to see how it plays out. By the way, as of this writing, the Federal Reserve has raised interest rates by the highest amount since 1994. After almost a decade of near-zero interest rates, it appears the Regime can no longer deny reality.
Going back to the topic of professional wrestling, it’s no secret that an unusually large number of performers have died prematurely. I say “unusually” because, unlike, say, mixed-martial arts, or MMA, pro wrestling isn’t real fighting - it’s theater. For something so fake, the consequences are so devastatingly real. There’s plenty of literature out there explaining why, but I want to add that, unlike MMA, in pro wrestling, the show goes on. The fact that it’s all a work means, in order to preserve the illusion and keep the show going, you can’t let anything stop you, even death and injury. Of course, there are exceptions, but when wrestler Owen Hart died live on a pay-per-view event on May 23, 1999 after falling nearly 80 feet during a botched aerial stunt, the event continued, a decision which remains controversial to this day.
Is this all starting to make sense, now? Do you, reader, understand why people think politics became pro wrestling? Even when the consequences are fatal, the show has to go on, because stopping it has far too many strings attached and hurts the overall bottom line. But for how long can you keep going like this before the people not only realize how fake it all is, but also how costly it all is? At what point does the performative violence, such as what we often see during political protests, turn into a genuine expression of discontent and hatred?
As Eric Weinstein is shown saying at the end of Part Two of Orthwein’s video, “I think waiting for this to be called a civil war is not smart.” A most unsettling warning.
Max Remington writes about armed conflict and prepping. Follow him on Twitter at @AgentMax90.
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