The End of American Democracy

1,800 words

“It’s tough to make predictions, especially about the future.”—Yogi Berra

“We are all interested in the future, for that is where you and I are going to spend the rest of our lives.”—Plan 9 from Outer Space

Note: On September 14th, 2024, Greg Johnson spoke to the Institute for Historical Review on the question, “Will America Survive to 2040?” This essay is extracted from the notes for that talk, with a few post-election remarks added. I wish to thank Mark Weber for inviting me to speak and everyone who showed up to listen.

A lot rides on US presidential elections, so predicting the outcomes is a big business. Predictions are always tricky, but there’s one thing we know for sure: no matter who is elected president, the other half of the country will think he is illegitimate.

That wasn’t always the case. But in recent years, American politics has become so polarized that substantial numbers of Americans are now speaking of secession, “national divorce,” civil war, and even disallowing certain candidates and parties from running for office.

Aristotle’s Politics is one of the great foundational works in Western political philosophy. In it, Aristotle lays out what has come to be called the “mixed regime.” It is a mix of different social classes, basically the elite and the masses. A mixed regime has an aristocratic element, a monarchical element (usually drawn from the aristocratic class), and a popular element. These different groups play different roles in government. Aristotle describes such a regime as different groups taking turns ruling and being ruled, according to the fundamental laws that define their roles and powers.

What makes it possible for people to, in effect, hand a loaded gun to others, who belong to different social strata or factions? Obviously, they can’t be all that different to begin with. They are counting on an underlying social unity, which makes possible mutual trust, which makes it possible to cede political power to one’s rivals without fearing for your life or for the future of society.

Aristotle didn’t conceive of multiparty democracy, but in such systems, the different parties also take turns ruling and being ruled, which again is only possible against the background of deep social unity and trust.

In America today, however, we are no longer one nation divided into two parties. We are becoming two nations competing for power within the same borders. These two nations increasingly hate and fear each another. Thus, no matter the outcome of an election, both sides believe that the other side is too dangerous to be allowed to enjoy power. It doesn’t matter who gets the most votes. That’s the end of American democracy.

The Left stole the 2020 presidential election because Donald Trump was judged too dangerous to be allowed in the White House for another term, and it didn’t matter who had the most votes. Trump won in 2024, primarily because of better safeguards against fraud, but also because his margin of victory was so large that overturning it would have required the fabrication of implausible numbers of ballots. Based on their internal polls, the Democrats knew this would happen, so they apparently didn’t even try to cheat. But closer Senate and House races were stolen by the Democrats, which means that they still have both the means and the motive to steal another presidential race, should the opportunity present itself.

It is just a matter of time before team Red or team Blue decides to put an end to elections entirely. At that point, one party will establish a dictatorship and ban the other. Now, looking at the lay of the land, looking at the character of the people on both sides of the political divide, ask yourself: Who has the character, the will-to-power, to create a one-party state in America? Is it the Democratic Left? Or is it the Republican Right? Who is more likely to throw the other in a dungeon: dragon lady Nancy Pelosi or milquetoast Mike Johnson?

You can buy Greg Johnson's Is America Doomed? here.

There’s no question that the greatest threat comes from the Left. Not only is the mainstream Right too weak to crush and proscribe the Democrats, they are also too weak to resist the Democrats doing the same to them. Their strongest instinct is to hang on to the status quo, no matter how untenable it may be, and pray that somehow things will get better, preferably without them needing to do anything courageous.

Where does this put white advocates? I loathe the Left. I would love to see their organizations outlawed and their politicians, activists, and donors barred from public life. I would like to see Leftists purged from academia and the media. I would love to live in a serious country, and that’s what a serious country would do to rid itself of Leftism.

But then I remind myself that I do not live in a serious country. And when I look at the Republican party, I honestly can’t say that I want those people to rule unopposed. If only both parties could lose. Because that’s the only way for white Americans to win.

There are a lot of White Nationalists who imagine that we can move from our present mess to a white ethnostate by means of a finite number of steps undertaken within the current political system, by existing parties and political leaders.

Now, I enjoy a good game of fantasy football as much as the next guy, but I don’t put too much stock in such plans. We just don’t know enough to plan that far ahead.

But there are some things I know about the future with varying degrees of certitude. I am certain that nothing lasts forever. I am certain that institutions built on false principles are not long for this world. I know that in a divided society, whoever is elected president will be denounced as illegitimate by the other side. I know that there are increasing numbers of people who just want to put an end to the farce of multiparty democracy in America, because it’s just too dangerous. I know that American democracy and America itself are coming to an end, as two very different nations are struggling to be born.

I know these things. But I don’t know whether America will fail as a state in 2025 or 2040. I don’t know if America—from sea to shining sea, some islands over here, fifty states united—will become a white homeland again.

But I have no doubt about the most important question for me, which is the fate of white people on the North American continent. We will create a future for ourselves in North America. But when and how we do it are still open questions.

We should be very open to different forms of government and different maps. We shouldn’t be wedded to the current American system and current American geography.

In the airplane safety instructions, they always tell you that in the unlikely event you survive a fiery or watery crash, you must exit the plane in an orderly fashion, and please don’t try to take your luggage with you.

I think white Americans are going to survive a fiery crash, and we shouldn’t be so foolish as to think that we can take all of our baggage with us. We shouldn’t be so foolish as to think that we can hold on to the institutions and territory of the current United States. We shouldn’t be like the monkey who grabs a banana in a jar and becomes trapped because he won’t let go of it. We might have to shed some possessions to save our skins. We should be open to that.

So I am a long-term optimist and short-term agnostic. But what do we do in the here and now?

We do what I’m doing right now. We spread ideas. We explain what’s wrong with diversity. Then we explain the alternative. We explain why white identity is a good thing. We explain why white identity politics is inevitable, necessary, and moral. We give people a positive image of the white ethnostate.

We don’t know how the current order will end. We don’t know how the next order will begin. But we do know that it is more likely to be a world of ethnostates if we convince people that ethnonationalism is both desirable and politically feasible.

If we don’t give people a fundamental alternative to multiculturalism, they’ll simply replicate it again and again, like California refugees replicate the problems they flee wherever they go.

This is why I will always be grateful to Donald Trump, and it has nothing to do with what he did in the White House. In fact, Trump’s greatest achievement, in my view, was on the day that he announced his candidacy for president.

The US political establishment, both Democrat and Republican, had a gentleman’s agreement never to compete on immigration and globalization. That’s the way the system is run. You have all kinds of inessential choices, but on the things where the establishment is united, you don’t get any choice.

But Trump broke that gentleman’s agreement, unleashing the forces of nationalism and populism. Large numbers of people—far larger than I suspected—were excited about that. The genie was out of the bottle.

P. J. O’Rouke was a very humorous Republican writer, yet his imagination and sense of humor failed him when he confronted the Trump phenomenon. In 2016, he endorsed Hillary Clinton, saying that “She’s wrong about absolutely everything, but she’s wrong within normal parameters.”

What are normal parameters? They’re the things that we don’t get to vote on, like immigration and globalization. Trump was a danger, because he was outside “normal parameters.” He was a traitor to the ruling class, and that’s why they hate him.

Now, when he got into office, Trump was mostly a disappointment. And some of the good things he did on the immigration front were reversed by Biden. But Trump won a much more durable victory in the battle of ideas. He overthrew the “normal parameters” and offered an alternative that people actually want.

Nationalism and populism will outlive Trump. And as they find more adherents and better standard-bearers, they will transform American politics, and politics around the world. That’s a winning strategy. We must emulate it.

There’s a website called Demotivators, which does parodies of those motivational posters you see in offices. My favorite demotivator is a picture of a snowbank. From the top, there’s a little snowball rolling down, getting bigger. The motto is “Teamwork: A few harmless flakes working together can unleash an avalanche of destruction.” That’s how politics works. Every great, world-changing social movement coalesces around a few harmless flakes challenging the “normal parameters.” But together we can unleash an avalanche of destruction, or in our case, creative destruction, an avalanche of racial rebirth for whites in North America and around the world.