So What, Now What?

The fracture we are witnessing feels inevitable. It happened the moment a man was chosen for saying he’d go back to the past, “Make America Great Again!” not some hopeful utopia, but nostalgia. The past however, was/is bitter for some people and not so sweet as remembered by this man. He wants to go back to clearly tiered systems, one for the rich, one for the poor, one for the whites, one for the non-whites, one for the winners and none for the losers. His aspirations are pure capitalistic in nature, even if the vehicle of exploitation can be considered socialist in nature, though my preference is closer to big bad F- word. The outcome now is no aspiration but self aspiration. No power but my power. Your government body my presidential choice.

So people fight back, because who wouldn’t fight back in that scenario? When fighting back doesn’t look proportional, that is when escalation can happen more quickly as justification is gained and that will speed up the deterioration. So this is truly the ravine- a reflexive distancing being created by actions no one has any power over. Everyone just struggling to survive.

But while it’s true it looks bleak, it’s also good to remind ourselves people are still people and not the unclear shadows on the other side of the ravine.

Personally one thing that has given me slight hope, was the shoddy parade given by the American miltiary for his birthday. While I am not American I was proud of the soldiers for that display. Their casual defiant attitude belies the underlying mess that is our democracy, everyone is an unruly angry presence and while we struggle to work together, the underlying message can still be shared in solidarity. It wasn’t a well crafted message of defiance, but it got the job done better in my opinion because of that.

I mean it’s truly funny that one of the richest man in the world, one of the most powerful man in the world, can’t cobble a group of people together to give him one of those synchronised goose-step display any 3rd world tinpot dictator could snap his finger for. Maybe that’s an exageration, but it was funny non the less and a show of unruliness of the miltiary, that they are capable of disobey an immoral order.

I am not sure what sort of ravine this will be, but this gives me hope it will be a disorganised display- like a clown show- because that was the resistence the people were capable of displaying, which limits the amount of damage that can be done. A comical hope for an ineffective government, ironic in nature.

Are you talking about a real moment or an imagined one?

A date or a fig ment?

I appreciate the note (and the energy it takes to write this kind of note).

When I was deeply involved in the world of innovation, a new idea (or solution, product, program, etc) would come along and get presented to an audience (ie decision makers, buyers, investors, etc). An early reaction of the “audience” (especially those less versed in the world of innovation) was to try and put the new thing into an already established, well understood category. “Oh, it’s like this.” or “This is one of those.” Sometimes that worked okay. Often it didn’t. Often the old categories didn’t fit at all. A new mental model (paradigm) was required. Trying to match the new thing to an old category ultimately slowed down adoption.

I think that is part of why I like the framing of what this IS using the Great Ravine. (The other part is that I loved the trilogy and Dark Forest was my favorite of the three). It matters less what sort of -ism is active in a Great Ravine. What matters a lot is how bad things are; how bad they will get; and how excruciatingly long those bad things will last.

That said, I do think there is value in correctly defining what this is, be it fascism, authoritarianism, socialism, or some new term-ism. Yes, time - and stuff getting a lot worse - will help society apply the appropriate label. When that happens . . . history will not be kind.

It’s imaginary I think. But the slogan says “again”, so the nostalgia is real because nostalgia is based on memory, it doesn’t have to be true.

The word “nostalgia” was first used in 1688 by Swiss physician Johannes Hofer in his medical dissertation to describe a pathological form of homesickness, a disease he linked to the pain of separation from home, particularly among Swiss mercenaries. Derived from the Greek words nostos (homecoming) and algos (pain), the term was initially a medical diagnosis for the severe symptoms experienced by soldiers far from their native land.

Emotional memory is a powerful force.

we’ll take a cup of kindness yet,
for auld lang syne.

Great note, and right on to describe the IS.
Solutions? I do not think any solution directly using our governmental structure works. Any scenario you laid out ends in some sort of Civil War or a totalitarian regime.
The only solution I see that could break us out of the Ravine into a good place is mass marches and movements. Congress and the Judiciary are sensitive to public opinion. If/when they see the mass of Americans grossly unhappy with the new order, they will allow that New Order to be negated.
Yes, the other side of the Ravine will not be like our past. But maybe we can carry over most of he Bill of Rights.
Would this work? I would contend we climbed out of the ravine about the time of Nixon, in part, was because of awareness created by people in the streets.

Off-ramp? The Titanic can’t have an off-ramp. But we can damn well build lifeboats. And we can build them with an “Ark” to carry the seeds of a freer, more human future a “Compass” to steer.

We are not headed back to “normal.” The old order has already shifted into a new equilibrium of state control, protectionism, and financial repression. Like the Titanic after striking the iceberg, the system is too large, too brittle, and moving too fast to turn away. There is no off-ramp.

But collapse is not the end. Just as the Flood is a recurring story across human civilization, so is survival and renewal. Our task is not to deny the storm or to pine for calmer seas — it is to steer by the Compass and build Arks that carry forward what matters most.

• The Compass keeps us oriented when the maps fail: Presence, Trust, Integrity, Wholeness, and Play. It prevents fear and chaos from driving us into authoritarianism or despair.
• The Ark is the vessel that preserves seeds of knowledge, culture, story, and resilience through the storm. Its planking and sails are self-hosted, open-source AI — tools that protect autonomy of mind and meaning outside state or corporate capture.
• The Second Foundation is the hidden network of Arks and Compass-keepers. It survives quietly, protects what cannot be replaced, and seeds renewal when the Flood recedes.

We may not be able to avoid the crisis; history has entered its Fourth Turning. But we can choose whether it becomes an uncontrolled wildfire or a controlled burn that clears space for renewal. That choice rests on whether we prepare now: preserving knowledge, building resilient infrastructure, shaping stories of sacrifice and rebirth, and connecting Arks into a living network.

I find it odd. Well actually I don’t find it odd that, after what the Democrats have done to Trump over the past 8 years that totally rejected any concept of norms, you can’t imagine them pulling another stunt if it looks like they aren’t going to regain the House. They have a few hundred judges thst seem willing to do anything thry want, including ignoring the Supreme Court l

I mean, you can continue to argue that this isn’t really [insert -ism here] if you want. You can continue to argue that ‘it would be even worse’ with the other side if you want. You can continue to argue about who ‘started it’ if you want. But I’m done with that.

One of the many reasons I object to all of this is precisely because I believe it will—not would, will—be worse when the other side does it. I really don’t like the Trump flavor of state capitalism, and I’m going to absolutely hate the Ocasio-Cortez version even more.

I’m in agreement with the main thrust of this article and believe that the “game” has fundamentally and irreparably changed in the U.S. However, as a pessimist by nature, I find it helpful to challenge my negative biases by thinking about what might go right, or what unforeseen circumstances could bend the arc of history in a more constructive direction.

From this perspective, my mind gravitates toward some sort of galvanizing event—a major west coast earth quake, or a hurricane event of a magnitude similar to Andrew or Katrina—that proves the worth and need for a functioning government (and immigrants in the construction sector). In other words, an event that reveals the pitfalls of the “performative” governance that has come to define the U.S. system.

Even under such a scenario as outline above, it’s difficult to be optimistic and hopeful when I look at the analog of Covid. In the initial stages of covid, I thought a global/national health disaster might function as a binding agent for society—a cause to rallying around.

How wrong that line of thinking was to prove.

As a result, I’m far from certain that another domestic catastrophe would spur the degree of change now required to return the U.S. to a more collaborative form of politics, but there’s a chance.