We ARE in a Revolution

America is on the precipice of a political revolution.  Revolutions have occurred similarly with devolutionary stutters and stops over a period then a revolutionary moment later defined by historians. America is in the middle of a revolution that will fundamentally change governance and behaviors over the next century.

While primary school textbook history tends to focus on major events – the storming of the Bastille, the execution of the Tsar and his family, the attack on Fort Sumter - these are merely events on a timeline which historians later determined to be the start.  Revolutions tend to evolve along a timeline with a major confluence of events only later recognized at the commencement of a revolution.

​The American Revolution certainly occurred on a continuum starting with the Albany Congress in 1754 in which a group of citizens formally advocated for a colonial government, Patrick Henry’s initial proclamations in 1765, a series of British taxes and autocratic governmental actions, the Boston Massacre in 1770, the Boston Tea Party in 1773, followed by the first Continental Congress in 1774, initiation of military actions in 1775, and then the Declaration of Independence in 1776.  Finding a line of demarcation to determine when the revolution began becomes impossible absent an arbitrary finding, and the general populace didn’t recognize it at that time.

​The American Civil War was evolutionary although schoolbooks present it as commencing in February of 1861 when the southern states formally seceded by forming the Confederate States of America.  A closer examination shows the war’s roots starting with the covenant against importing slaves in 1808, the Missouri Compromise in 1820, the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854, the Dred Scott Supreme Court decision in 1857, the Lincoln Douglas debates in 1858, and the election of Abraham Lincoln in 1860.  

The United States is in a revolution.  The following events, in chronological order, support this thesis:

• The Internet brought to life by the worldwide web in 1994 disrupted conventional journalism removing conventional recognized objective presentations.  There is no more Walter Cronkite.  Later advent of social media has provided a platform for spreading conspiracy theories, election interference by foreign countries, and divisive propaganda igniting groups of citizens who hate other groups for their beliefs.  The population has separated into two ‘sides’ – Conservative and Liberal – each reinforced and parroting opinions provided by tribal Infotainment. Each despises the other.  
• Income disparity has reached an unsustainable level (detailed in a previous post located at https://www.michaeldonnellybythenumbers.com/michaeldonnellybythenumberspost/july-25th-2020).  Economic cataclysms in the United States tend to accelerate that process so this will increase the number of citizens with little or no investment in society and no hope for the future resulting in further escalations of conflict.
• The antiquated Electoral College system, rooted in compromises related to the institution of slavery, has resulted in the election of two Presidents, George W. Bush in 2002 and Donald Trump in 2016, who lost the popular vote.  This functionally disenfranchises the people of the country and corrodes trust in the electoral system.
• The Legislative Branch is ineffective and anti-democratic.  It has ceded war powers to the Executive Branch resulting in a Forever War in the Mideast draining resources and morale in the longest American war.   The Legislative Branch is bound together only by the need to approve budgets and is unable to provide any substantive reform legislation and so has resulted in governance that has not evolved with society.
• The Citizen’s United Supreme Court finding of 2008 removed restrictions on election funding by ‘Big Money’ which resulted in gout of dark-money special interest campaign funding undermining democratic processes and results.
• The Executive Branch since 2010 has operated increasingly by Executive Orders – a fundamentally anti-democratic behavior.
• The militarization of civil police service after 9/11 resulted in extreme civil unrest beginning in the Ferguson Riots of 2014 (which started the Black Lives Matter movement).  Civil unrest exploded after a video showing police torturing and murdering a black man in Minneapolis in 2020.
• There is a theology adopted by prominent Conservatives contained within a book – The Fourth Turning: What the Cycles of History Tell Us About America's Next Rendezvous with Destiny – which predicts a cataclysm during this time.  Steve Bannon and other prominent figures have adopted this work as a credo that involves ‘deconstructing the administrative state,’ a formal platform for revolution.
• Government employees publicly advocate for “alternative facts” and governmental figures routinely lie about substantive matters undermining trust in government.
• Conspiracy theories abound, including Qanon, a group alleging a group of Satan-worshiping pedophiles running a global child sex-trafficking ring is plotting against President Donald Trump, who is battling them, and this will lead to a day of reckoning involving the mass arrest of journalists and politicians. The President when publicly questioned neither confirmed nor denied the theory but was happy to embrace the group.
• The United States is in the middle of a pandemic similar to the Spanish flu of 1918 and the federal government’s response has been chaotic and ineffective.
• Economic conditions are the worst they have been since 1932 and they may degenerate further depending on the course of the COVID pandemic.
• The death of Ruth Bader Ginsburg will almost certainly lead to the seating of an extremely conservative Supreme Court justice further tilting the court to the right.  This will lead to restricting or outlawing abortion and a slate of other rulings antithetical to Liberals further deepening resentment and unrest.
• The separation of Americans based on religion, race, and sex results in a lack of consensus on measures to improve economic equality – economic development, growth in wages, improvement in the healthcare system, and this further limits the opportunities for stabilizing measures.

​When one looks at the current situation the debate might better be reframed as now that we are in a revolution what do we do now?  A similar time during the 1960s was addressed with legislative moves such as the Voting Rights Act, desegregation, Affirmative Action, and social programs to reduce inequality, plus the later withdrawal from Viet Nam and attendant retreat from overseas adventures.  The 1930s saw the legislation of social programs such as Social Security, labor laws, a meaningful minimum-wage, an estate tax, and a tax code later adopted by virtually every other civilized nation.  Much of these gains have been eroded over the past 40 years and it is reasonable to argue that is the primary reason for the current unstable society.

​It is not dramatic to say the events of the next 60 days will be a big determinant of the near term, but the bigger questions of income inequality and constitutional reform are topics that will be explored in later posts.

​The court finding on Citizen’s United is available at https://www.oyez.org/cases/2008/08-205.  An intriguing discussion of the militarization of police is discovered at https://www.charleskochinstitute.org/issue-areas/criminal-justice-policing-reform/militarization-of-police/.  Copies of Executive Orders can be obtained at https://www.federalregister.gov/presidential-documents/executive-orders.    Information on Qanon is presented at https://www.wsj.com/articles/what-is-qanon-what-we-know-about-the-conspiracy-theory-11597694801.  Information on Steve Bannon and The Fourth Turning can be found at https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/08/us/politics/bannon-fourth-turning.html.