Talkin' 'bout A Revolution
When we do get there, it’ll likely be the end.
I’ve mentioned him on more than one occasion here on this Substack, but I regard Rudyard Lynch, better-known as “Whatifalthist” as among the very best of YouTube’s amateur historians. By “amateur,” I say that not to diminish, but in the sense he’s not a professional academic and he entertains as much as he educates. Though I regard myself as an original thinker, we’re all influenced by the thoughts of others more often than we realize and Whatifalthist has influenced my thinking like no other.
I’ve been trying to interview him for this Substack and I believe he was a subscriber at one point, but no longer. He has yet to respond to my messages, but I’m still holding out hope that one day, he’ll join us, because I think he’s one of the more important thinkers of our time, whether he realizes it or not. His vision of the future is compelling, if only because it’s based on existing trends, not fever dreams. Sure, there’s some “creative license” involved, too, but I don’t think Whatifalthist is pulling any of this out of the deepest, darkest recesses of his mind, which can’t be said for the doomers and survivalists who cut their teeth on the same stuff.
In his latest video, he makes a bold prediction: the United States will have its own version of the French Revolution. Here’s the entire video; I don’t expect you to watch it before reading on, but I do recommend you watch it eventually, because, like all of his videos, it’s outstanding:
If you watched it - wow, huh? I hope you also saw I’m so high on Whatifalthist’s content. He predicted a cataclysmic event without resorting to “millions will die!” or other hysterics doomers and survivalists like to indulge in. Though I’m skeptical something as dramatic as a violent revolution will occur any time soon, it’s possible one could happen during our lifetimes. When it happens, we’ll be at its mercy and the best you can do is ensure that it doesn’t catch you by surprise. Unless you’re in elite circles, I’d dispense with any fantasies about playing some historic role in such a momentous event.
I want to pick at some of the things Rudyard Lynch (I’ll be referring to him by his real name from here on out) gets at in the video. It’s not that I think he’s necessarily wrong, but some of his assertions need unpacking to understand fully.
Lynch draws upon a lot of material, including from scholars like Peters Turchin and Zeihan, among others, to support his thesis. What these scholars talk about is extensive and can be overwhelming if you’re not already familiar with them, so I’ll just say there’s a general consensus that history unfolds in cycles and the U.S. is approaching the end of a cycle sometime this decade. As you might imagine the end of the cycle is marked by crisis, culminating ultimately in a cataclysmic, revolutionary event like the one described by Lynch in his video.
Much as I try to stay away from the dramatic, I don’t think there’s any question there’s a storm brewing on the horizon. We might already be in one. 2020 was as substantive of a stress test we’re ever going to get, and though we’re all still here, we certainly didn’t pass with flying colors, either. If you walked away from 2020 feeling good about our country’s prospects, life must be going extremely well for you.
Which relates to the next point. One of Lynch’s common themes across his commentary is how social stability depends significantly on the state of men, particularly young men, in a given society. One’s opinion on gender roles bears no relevance here; history proves time and time again a society with lots of disenfranchised and disgruntled young men eventually destabilizes into chaos and disorder. It’s all fine to want better for women, but it cannot come at the expense of men.
Without getting too deep into it, America and the broader West is suffering from a masculinity crisis. What’s more, the system today seems to benefit females more than males. Look at the insane disparity between the two genders (and there are only two genders!) when it comes to degree attainment:
Why this is happening beyond the scope of both this piece and this Substack, but the point is that the elite-production ecosystem has come to be dominated by women, giving them at least a leg up at greater career and overall life prospects. Nearly everything in life today markets either to women or non-White men and that includes higher education, careers, and goods and services. None of this would be a problem if men, particularly White men (since they comprise a plurality of the population), were roughly benefiting the same, but they aren’t. Worse, women still seem completely dissatisfied with their lot despite objectively favorable outcomes:
I asked about the Left last entry and I’ll ask the same of women: if things are going this well for them and they still feel oppressed, then what would change these sentiments for the better?
If you think this isn’t a big deal, consider that it’s having a tangible political impact. It seems that the real dividing line between the Democratic and Republican parties, for exmaple, isn’t gender or even race, but marriage. From the Washington Examiner [bold mine]:
Adding marital status to the mix, the GOP advantage among married men shoots up to 20 points (59% Republican to 39% Democrat) and shrinks among unmarried men to just 7 points (52% Republican to 45% Democrat).
But what most people don’t know, including everyone who works at Politico apparently, is that among married women, Republicans still maintain a sizable 14-point advantage (56% Republican to 42% Democrat).
But if Republicans are winning married men by 20 points, married women by 14 points, and unmarried men by 7 points, then who is keeping Democrats competitive?
Single women are single-handedly saving the Democratic Party. By a 37-point margin (68% to 31%), single women overwhelmingly pulled the lever for Democrats.
And:
The message the Democratic Party has for men is clear: You are, at best, worthless. Democratic Party programs have empowered women to procreate without you entirely. In fact, most likely, you are a #MeToo pervert who needs to be punished, without due process, by a college inquisition board. If you want, you can be a silent ally for women’s causes, but please don’t ever talk — we’ve heard enough from the patriarchy already.
No wonder men, and women who want to be married to men, are fleeing the Democratic Party in droves.
Single women have become a powerful demographic, constituting a pillar supporting the most powerful political party in the country, perhaps the entire world. It’s a party on track to achieve statehood, if only in a de facto sense, if present trends continue unabated. I’m not in the business of criticizing anyone for their voting habits (can’t say the same about leftists), but longtime readers also know I regard the Democratic Party very negatively, due both to what they stand for and the fact they’ve achieved near-total domination of not just our politics, but our lives.
The achievement disparity plus the fact men and women are increasingly finding it difficult to forge relationships increases social tensions and is driving an entire demographic into the arms of the state. Perhaps the Regime’s multicultural anti-male and anti-White political coalition is destined for failure (something Lynch gets into), but for now, it remains on the ascent. Our private lives very much become public when it fortifies the positions of those in power or triggers revolutions. There’s a lesson for you: if you want to live in a society, you have to mind the business of others to an extent.
If you still don’t think there’s a problem, look at how wildly divergent the political views of boys and girls on the cusp of adulthood have become:
Though the events of 2020 seem to have had much to do with it, there’s still a glaring discrepancy between the two genders. Maybe there’s more than meets the eye, but I don’t think it’s a stretch to say that young men and women have diametrically opposed visions for what the country is supposed to be. It’s also a reflection what life has become for men and women in today’s world. Young women are becoming more leftist (I hate misusing the term “liberal”) because it’s more conducive to their livelihoods, while young men are becoming more rightist because the left-leaning society has become more hostile to them,
What’s this leading towards? Again, I’m not a social commentator, so the most important thing you need to learn is that these trends bode very poorly for societal stability in the U.S. How you personally feel about gender issues is irrelevant because tangible outcomes are all that matters. A society where males and females are so at odds, where nobody’s getting married, let alone forming relationships, it’s a society dying a slow death. It also means lots of angry, underachieving young men. You can blame this on men themselves, but if our society wasn’t so hostile to masculinity, do you really think things would be just as bad? The fact is, men (and to an extent, women) are being set up for failure today. If you set people up for failure, success means nothing because it was never the intended outcome.
Read this passage from a recent entry on Rod Dreher’s blog. It’s a good segue to what I want to talk about next [bold mine]:
The transformation of the US military into a woke institution began under Barack Obama, was not impeded by the clueless and buffoonish Trump, and resumed under Joe Biden. Now, as you have seen, only 60 percent of Americans report confidence in the military. Just this week, a friend down South e-mailed to tell me that his high school senior son, a kid who has very high test scores and a GPA, and who has dreamed of attending a service academy since junior high days, has decided not to apply to a service academy. Why not? He told his father he doesn’t trust the government.
This summer, the young man participated in a Coast Guard program for potential recruits. He was not picked to come to the in-person program, but he joined 99 other young men in being invited to take the online version of the program. Every one of the online, second-class participants were white and male. My friend said looking at the Instagram promotional shots of earlier in-person classes of this same program revealed not a single white face. Such is the “diversity and inclusion” of the woke military. I know this family, and I know that they are Christians, and have close black friends. But they did not raise a fool in this boy. He knows that his government and its institutions are now set to discriminate against people like him, because of their race and sex.
You have males, White males in particular, being erased from public view, despite constituting a plurality in society. You have the whole country, the whole damn world, blaming all their problems on them. Yet they still keep showing up to do the dirty, hard work of protecting and running civilization. How long can this continue, though? At what point do they decide they owe nobody their labor and sacrifices? And most important, who’d replace them?
Speaking of the military, what I found most interesting about Lynch’s thesis concerned the armed forces. Longtime readers have probably figured out I’m black-pilled about the institution: I regard it as politically compromised and untrustworthy with respect to doing right by the American people. Before going further, I urge all of you not to take it personally: the military’s job is to follow orders. Expecting them to go against the grain is a fool’s errand. Having a military with an independent impulse isn’t conducive for stability, either, so be careful what you wish for.
Based on that, one would expect the military to side with the Regime, right? I’d think so. However, the situation may be more complicated than that. Lynch cites history to predict that the military would likely fracture in the event of revolution. While the upper echelons of the force - the service chiefs, in our case - would undoubtedly side with the Regime, at lower levels, the military just might choose the other side. America has no such history of mass disobedience at any level of its armed forces (at least nothing they’ve been able to get away with), but a major political crisis or any other situation where the existence of the American state was in jeopardy could change that. It’s difficult even for me to believe the military would be the one institution that’d remain intact through such a transition, since the existence of the armed forces is tied directly to the state’s existence.
If top military leadership wouldn’t rebel, then who would? History shows mid-level officers - think colonels - are often the ones who go off the reservation. These officers are senior enough to marshal the men and material needed to affect a rebellion, while junior enough that they’re far removed from the influence and prying eyes of political leadership. The U.S. military may be too heavily politicized at this point for a rebellion by mid-level officers to be possible, but it’s definitely not going to emerge from within the junior officer corps nor the enlisted ranks. I think the senior officer corps is effectively “bought off” at this point, since they are heavily influenced politically and any sign of dissent in a crisis situation would be closely scrutinized. This leaves the mid-level officers as the only possible source of effective military disobedience. Whether they could actually pull it off is an entirely different question altogether.
The other reason we should be skeptical of the military remaining on the sidelines during an existential state crisis is because it’s the one institution the public still largely trusts, even as that trust has eroded immensely over the last few years:
The more you trust an institution, the more you expect it to do right by you, rather than standing quietly aside. I’m not predicting a specific outcome aside from the fact there would be a loud chorus of Americans demanding our soldiers takes sides in a revolutionary environment. Obviously, left-wing Americans would demand they remain loyal to the Regime, while right-wing Americans would demand they turn against the Regime. It’s scary to think about, because if we ever got to that point, things have gone horribly wrong in this country. At least, there’s no way to expect the military to weather the storm unaffected. There’s no revolution in history where the people with guns and uniforms didn’t take sides or make a side for themselves. 2020 being the mostly peaceful upheaval it was, the armed forces took sides, whether anyone wants to admit it or not.
Historically, Americans have been more anti-militaristic than not. They’ve been wary of a full-time standing armed force, knowing full well it can be exploited by the state to oppress the citizenry, as has happened constantly throughout history. Since World War II, however, Americans have become a little less skeptical, as evidenced by the fact the military establishment seems to get no smaller. After enjoying almost 20 years of unquestioned adulation, public confidence in the military has now reverted to 1990s levels, so while the majority still trusts those in uniform to do right by them, all Americans may be coming to regard the institution with greater wariness.
Between the two sides, the Right has been the more militaristic and Lynch believes the Right will become more so with time, even as the military turns decisively against them in favor of the Left. Meanwhile, the Left has been the more anti-militaristic of the two factions and may become even more so in the future, using their natural distaste for the armed forces to impose greater control over them to ensure their political reliability. The situation is ironic for both sides: the Right may like the military, but the love is unrequited, while the Left likes the military less, thereby recognizing the importance of getting the institution under its thumb. Regardless, both sides clearly view the armed forces as an important player in the conflict to come.
But what if it’s not the military whose loyalty is most up for grabs? At least, not those currently in serving in uniform, but veterans - those who’ve served and are now out of uniform? After all, they’re no longer beholden to obedience and can speak and act more freely as civilians. I’ve written in the past about how veterans aren’t the potentially destabilizing force some commenters have attempted to characterize them as, but like their uniformed counterparts, they cannot be expected to remain on the sidelines in a revolutionary environment, either. They’ve given their blood, sweat, and tears in defense of this country and are among the most patriotic of Americans. Adding fuel to the fire is the fact many of them have grown angry and cynical of what this country has become and what those in power have forced them to fight and die for. This Internet meme encapsulates the sentiment among many veterans today:
I don’t worry about the radicalization of veterans as much as some others do, but if the U.S. ever enters a revolutionary environment, you can bet the veterans will be at the forefront, leading the charge. Americans, for now anyway, still trust those who serve and have served and just as both sides seek the military’s support, they seek that of veterans, also, since they’re civilians and are more free to pick sides than those who wear the uniform. Using their experience and skills learned while in the service, it’s not hard to see veterans forming militias and paramilitaries to fight hostile political partisans, protect their communities from criminals, or, God forbid, fight those in power.
That said, there’s also reason to believe veterans won’t be as decisive of a factor as one might believe. First and foremost are the numbers. There aren’t as many veterans as you might think and not all of them are of fighting age. Reflecting the aging of the population and the legacy of the draft, the median age of those who’ve served is 65 and the median age of post-9/11 veterans is 37, in turn indicating that the number of those who are most likely to comprise the ranks of militias and paramilitaries is likely to comprise a small minority.
Comparisons with the Freikorps of post-World War I Germany belies the proportion of the population that’d been drafted to wage war. We just don’t have the same level of critical mass, not enough to create a national-level force. Maybe at local levels, you might see veterans making some noise, but I seriously doubt we’ll see a Freikorps-like force constituting a nationwide paramilitary. Finally, one cannot assume that veterans are all aligned politically and the fact they can freely pick their loyalties means we’re likely to see more fracturing among former soldiers than among current soldiers.
Perhaps the true X-factor are the American people themselves. This country has always belonged to its citizenry first and even in war, it was the citizenry, not just the professional soldier, who that did much of the fighting. Obviously, that’s changed over time. However, Americans, much to the chagrin of many, are collectively also the most heavily-armed populace in the world. Many of these guns are in the hands of bad actors, but many still are in the hands of the law-abiding, patriotic Americans who seek only to protect themselves, their families, and communities.
I’ve made my feelings on the January 6, 2021 U.S. Capitol protest clear (short answer is that I wasn’t impressed), but I think a reason why the Regime was so unnerved by the event and why they continue to harp on about it as though it were the worst thing to ever happen to this country was that it proved on some level that the Right had insurrectionary potential. Factor in the guns and you understand why so many seek the disarmament of the American populace. It’s not about protecting Americans from themselves - I think anarcho-tyranny proves the government could care less about protecting us - but about the Regime protecting itself. Unlike the Left, which relies on the government and criminals to exercise violence on their behalf, the Right has the tools for doing so in their own hands. It makes you wonder which side is actually stronger. The Left may have a preponderance of “soft” power, but its the Right that might have the upper hand with regards to “hard” power, even without the military on its side.
Okay, that got all really dark and dreary in a hurry. Again, I’m not predicting anything here and I sincerely hope nobody comes away from this thinking that one day, we’re going to have to take up arms against our fellow citizens and the government. I’ve repeatedly made it bluntly clear that this is something we should avoid and I think, for the most part, we will. Rudyard Lynch does make a compelling, realistic case for the potential of revolution in the U.S., however, and I think I’ve shown that the ingredients are there. While I think we’ll take much longer to get to that point than he seems to believe, the alarm bells - the divergence of the genders, in particular - are already going off. It remains to be seen what the two factions will end up being or what issue ends up forcing the split, but I think we already have a rough idea of how it might shape out. As is the title of this blog, we’re not there yet, but you can see it from here.
When we do get there, it’ll likely be the end. Not the end of the country or the American civilization, but certainly the end of the republic and everything we’ve known our whole lives. I sure hope nobody here’s looking forward to that day, but it’s no longer something we can pretend could never happen here.
Did you watch Rudyard Lynch’s video? What are your thoughts? Are we in a pre-revolutionary environment? Let’s discuss in the comments below.
UPDATE: i made note of the scholar Peter Turchin earlier in this post, who Lynch cites as having greatly influenced his thinking. Today, Compact Magazine published an essay written by Christian Parenti, an economics professor at John Jay College, where he scrutinizes a new book authored by Turchin. Read the whole essay if you wish, but I find these last few paragraphs relevant to what I’ve talked about in this essay:
This brings us to perhaps the greatest weakness of End Times: Turchin never attempts to theorize the state. In America, there now exists one of the most powerful states in human history. It is so well-funded, amply and ably staffed, technologically sophisticated, and legally empowered that its methods and means of social control are qualitatively different than they were even in 1980.
Instead of the sort of truly destabilizing political upheaval Turchin has long been predicting, the 2020s have seen the rise of a new, seemingly apolitical totalitarianism, in which mostly Democratic politicians and closely aligned private and public entities have massively expanded the surveillance and censorship apparatus built up under the Bush administration in the name of combating foreign terrorism, and turned this apparatus against the American citizenry. This has involved novel forms of cooperation between private corporations, nonprofits, and government, but in the lead are the state’s security, intelligence, and policing agencies.
Worse yet, as surveillance, censorship, and repression increase, so, too, has consent for such measures. A recent Pew Research Center poll found that “65 percent of Americans support tech companies moderating false information online, and 55 percent support the US government taking these steps … even if it limits people from freely publishing or accessing information.” As recently as 2018, Pew found that only 39 percent of Americans supported government censorship. What explains this drastic shift towards acceptance of censorship? It seems likely that the successful propaganda campaigns of successive administrations—stoking fear of terrorism, misinformation, viral infection, and other dangers—played a pivotal role.
If war is the health of the state, it would seem that domestic political unrest can justify growth of the domestic security state. It is hard not to worry that the structural tensions described by Turchin, rather than laying the groundwork for eventual regime change, are doing just this. In this case, the danger comes not from surplus elites, but from super-empowered elites who, in the face of extreme inequality, feel their privileges threatened and through the bloated security state are seeking to rule in an increasingly undemocratic and unaccountable fashion—and succeeding.
The PMC’s “fear of falling,” rather than prompting revolt, fuels the politics of elite social control. If downwardly mobile professionals see themselves as cultural elites because of their tastes and degrees, and see a threat to social stability as coming from the growing ranks of those immiserated and left behind by the current economic order, then siding with state repression may seem quite rational. This formula can work for both the left and right branches of the professional class: Right-wingers can fear immigrants and urban blacks, liberal professionals can fear the white, gun-loving deplorables; in the end, it all adds up to the same old reactionary middle-class politics that endorses the repression of the many in the interest of the few.
Parenti closes by saying that crisis, including the threat of civil war, is likely to strengthen the Regime, not weaken it. After all, where do people turn if they feel their world is falling apart? Most people expect those in power to try and stabilize the situation, not let the system fall apart. Only in the mind of a doomer do those in power not put up a fight. It’s their legitimacy at stake, after all.
It’s important to understand that Parenti is speaking about the here and now. I believe Turchin’s upheaval is at least a generation away and by then, the overall situation will have deteriorated considerably. So while Parenti is likely correct the Regime will become more powerful in the short term (think the next five to ten years), the peak of their power is likely to be short-lived, due to the mounting of crises, Generation Z and older members of Generation Alpha becoming adults, and the inherent fragility of the left-wing political coalition. The 2020s may be end up being an eventful decade, but it’s also more of a prelude to the real thing.
The revolution may very well be coming, but I still think we’re a good distance away from it. Use the time wisely and don’t forget to enjoy life while we still can.
Max Remington writes about armed conflict and prepping. Follow him on Twitter at @AgentMax90.
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