George Friedman's (former Founder and CEO of Strategic Forecasting - STRATFOR) and now CEO of Geopolitical Forecasting (GPF) book - "The Storm Before the Calm" which came out in February 2020 just as COVID was breaking forecasts that the 2028 election - not the 2024 election - will be the decisive election of the changing dynamics in the US. While not part of his calculations, I would agree in that no matter who becomes President in 2024 - Biden, Harris or Trum - they will be one-term Presidents. If the Biden/Harris mess wins reelection, the country will be ready to decisively hand power over to conservatives. Trump will not run again, because he will be too old and will have been defeated twice. However, if Trump wins, he will have only one more term. This will leave the Republican Party at the crossroads - will it be a party which includes social conservatives as myself, or will it be the party of cultural Christians who disdain the culture wars?
I agree with this take that 2028 is set up to be a decisive election.
I've had a thought that the 2024 election is going to drive a new disgust towards gerontocracy, and maybe that in itself will produce some changes. It's likely going to be a long, long time before either party again nominates someone who will be entering his 80s even in a hypothetical second term. Previously, "this guy is too old" was just words to a lot of people, but now we all feel in our bones what it means.
But also, the 2028-2032 term will, by necessity, be the "bills coming due" era. Is that maybe what Friedman is alluding to? It's the time that the procrastination will by necessity be over and hard choices will actually need to be made regarding Social Security and Medicare. Not to mention, the rest of the Federal budget isn't in great shape either and neither Trump or Biden's second administrations are likely to do much to fix it.
Of course, the poor sap put in charge of trying to fix all this in 2028 still might not fare well electorally for the trouble.
As for the Republican Party and social conservatives, I don't think it needs to be an exact binary. Social conservatives will remain a relevant part of the coalition, but our influence will be weaker. How much weaker is what the battle will be, but there isn't anywhere else to go.
I recall a former police officer making this observation: when it comes to making endorsements, unions like the Fraternal Order of Police send out a formal notification to political candidates, informing them of their priorities and requesting a response as to how the candidate might meet those priorities. The Democrats used to at least respond to these but somewhere around 2016, stopped doing so. So that basically leaves police with no choice: go with the party that at least puts forth the minimal effort of pretending to listen to their concerns and seeking their support, or the party that doesn't even bother.
That's about what social conservatives can expect for Negative World. And indeed, Republicans can't afford to stop listening to us, but they can certainly decide to demote our concerns if that's what's needed to win elections. The Democrats, of course, are not about to start pretending to listen to us; their hostility will only grow.
Social conservatives cannot elections, but the Republican party cannot win without our support. The important thing for us is to demand something attainable, but also beneficial to us as a community.
Which, in my opinion, means probably giving up on restricting most abortions at the Federal level. Because it's so personally impactful, abortion restrictions generate a lot of resistance compared to tinkering with arcane aspects of the US Code that few people ever encounter. As a minority special interest group, you can achieve a lot more by pursuing things that other people don't care about as much or might even agree with you on.
But I think this is going to be a tough pill to swallow for many. A lot of Christians are shocked by the "betrayal" of J.D. Vance this week. And it's a legitimate argument to say that perhaps he's compromising too far. But what's the appropriate compromise then? Because the idea that we, a minority, can't compromise at all on an issue that the majority strongly disagrees with us on seems like political suicide to no good end.
This is why the Negative World framing that Aaron has provided is so important. A lot of American Christians still think that they are the Silent Majority, the Moral Majority. As the supposed majority, they think that the only barrier to enactment of their policy preferences is the weakness of GOP politicians.
Weakness of politicians explains lack of progress on true majority preferences, e.g. less immigration. But not on others, e.g. abortion, where Christians are out of touch with what the majority preferences are in this country.
Friedman doesn’t pay much attention to religion and culture (which I believe is his blind spot) but he has been pretty prescient on other geopolitical matters. For example he forecasted the Russian invasion to be in the early 2020s back in 2007. His reasoning for the turmoil of this decade has to do with his belief there are cycles in American history - one dealing economics/technology and the other with politics. They run on two different cycles, but this decade is the first time they have coincided. I recommend his book. He wrote an earlier book with a much grander vision - “The Next 100 Years”. That’s another interesting one.
But I will push back that leads us with no place to go. A new third party which combines conservative economic policies with a higher focus on social issues. I’m not sure Trump populism is sustainable and at the end of the day, we need a strong culture founded on Christianity. Otherwise we will collapse as a nation.
The book is "The Storm Before the Calm"? I put it on my list.
Trying to start a third party in America has always struck me as a bad idea, and I think it makes less sense now than ever. Trump demonstrated that the parties are the most hollow they've ever been, and the GOP more than the Democrats. They're available for the taking, for whoever can gather enough support to claim them. There are no party elites watching the gates anymore. But the brand, and the party infrastructure still have value. It's a lot easier to take them over than to try building something from scratch. So it's just going to be an internal wrestling match within the GOP. If social conservatives can't gather the support to win that wrestling match at least sometimes, we certainly can't gather the support to launch a viable third party.
As for collapsing as a nation, I think I'd agree that insofar as the decline of Christianity in the West is inexorable, our broader civilizational decline will also be inexorable. I don't think that means we need to collapse in that event, at least not on the scale of decades -- given enough time, everything built by man will collapse. There are a lot of countries in the world much worse than America that haven't collapsed. There's a great deal of ruin in a nation.
One thing I’ve been questioning lately is how relevant the right-left dichotomy still is anymore. Left-wing politics is about equity, right-wing politics is about hierarchy. “Right-wing populism” almost sounds oxymoronic. The new dichotomy for this century will be globalist vs. localist: cosmopolitans that are “citizens of the world” (plus the people that serve as the fungible cheap labor that deliver their DoorDash meals) versus people that feel rooted to a place and identity.
It will be interesting to see how Christianity fits into this dichotomy, as while Christianity was the original cosmopolitan force that overtook pagan notions of rootedness, some self-identified Christians today invert these values into Christian nationalism vs. globalist secularism.
It's a good thought, even if I'm not quite sure that globalist vs. localist will be THE central conflict of the century. I'm more with Aaron -- there's a lot that's hard to foresee in this period. Just that a lot of things are breaking down and not much is being built up.
To your point about Christianity and globalism vs. localism, here's a conflict that I haven't seen many people call out: Christians as localists are increasingly skeptical of American global power. That power has been instrumental in spreading Pride around the globe (an association that is especially obvious when you notice things like Macedonia holding its first Pride parade shortly after joining NATO). American globalism is in some sense hostile towards deep-rooted Christian tradition wherever it finds it abroad, whether in Eastern Europe, Africa, or Asia.
But conversely, Christian missionaries do benefit heavily from globalism, and probably, in various respects, even from the same US state power that also endeavors to spread Pride. There is a much larger evangelical missions presence in Ukraine than Russia (which, unlike Ukraine, in my understanding more or less openly persecutes Protestantism). Places like Taiwan and Hong Kong are also more open to missions than mainland China. I think China and Russia's rulers both view missionaries as, in some sense, an arm of US influence that threatens their hold on power, and I'm not sure exactly how incorrect they are in doing so. Of course, in China, we can at least say the state is the unambiguous enemy of the Gospel, but in Russia, there's some room for debate.
My parents have talked about how in China, there were people that asked them why they were following a “Western religion.” And my parents were cosmopolitans that read Western philosophy and theology, and both studied theology abroad, mom in Singapore, dad here in the US. So it definitely is true that in China, Christianity is portrayed as a tool of Western power, but the ironic thing is that Christianity is in decline in the West and rising the most in Africa.
And while many Christians are skeptical of global power now, it is also true that Christianity was responsible for global power in the first place. That’s what I mean when I say that Christianity was the original cosmopolitan vision: the command that we should go and make disciples of all nations, so that the whole world becomes Christian.
If folks didn't like the religious right they are really not going to like the Post-religious right. Both the Democrat and Republican parties rendered themselves irrelevant.
To quote https://x.com/DouthatNYT/status/704462319074594816 (Feb 29, 2016):
A thought sent back in time to the theocracy panic of 2005: If you dislike the religious right, wait till you meet the post-religious right.
George Friedman's (former Founder and CEO of Strategic Forecasting - STRATFOR) and now CEO of Geopolitical Forecasting (GPF) book - "The Storm Before the Calm" which came out in February 2020 just as COVID was breaking forecasts that the 2028 election - not the 2024 election - will be the decisive election of the changing dynamics in the US. While not part of his calculations, I would agree in that no matter who becomes President in 2024 - Biden, Harris or Trum - they will be one-term Presidents. If the Biden/Harris mess wins reelection, the country will be ready to decisively hand power over to conservatives. Trump will not run again, because he will be too old and will have been defeated twice. However, if Trump wins, he will have only one more term. This will leave the Republican Party at the crossroads - will it be a party which includes social conservatives as myself, or will it be the party of cultural Christians who disdain the culture wars?
I agree with this take that 2028 is set up to be a decisive election.
I've had a thought that the 2024 election is going to drive a new disgust towards gerontocracy, and maybe that in itself will produce some changes. It's likely going to be a long, long time before either party again nominates someone who will be entering his 80s even in a hypothetical second term. Previously, "this guy is too old" was just words to a lot of people, but now we all feel in our bones what it means.
But also, the 2028-2032 term will, by necessity, be the "bills coming due" era. Is that maybe what Friedman is alluding to? It's the time that the procrastination will by necessity be over and hard choices will actually need to be made regarding Social Security and Medicare. Not to mention, the rest of the Federal budget isn't in great shape either and neither Trump or Biden's second administrations are likely to do much to fix it.
Of course, the poor sap put in charge of trying to fix all this in 2028 still might not fare well electorally for the trouble.
As for the Republican Party and social conservatives, I don't think it needs to be an exact binary. Social conservatives will remain a relevant part of the coalition, but our influence will be weaker. How much weaker is what the battle will be, but there isn't anywhere else to go.
I recall a former police officer making this observation: when it comes to making endorsements, unions like the Fraternal Order of Police send out a formal notification to political candidates, informing them of their priorities and requesting a response as to how the candidate might meet those priorities. The Democrats used to at least respond to these but somewhere around 2016, stopped doing so. So that basically leaves police with no choice: go with the party that at least puts forth the minimal effort of pretending to listen to their concerns and seeking their support, or the party that doesn't even bother.
That's about what social conservatives can expect for Negative World. And indeed, Republicans can't afford to stop listening to us, but they can certainly decide to demote our concerns if that's what's needed to win elections. The Democrats, of course, are not about to start pretending to listen to us; their hostility will only grow.
Social conservatives cannot elections, but the Republican party cannot win without our support. The important thing for us is to demand something attainable, but also beneficial to us as a community.
Right.
Which, in my opinion, means probably giving up on restricting most abortions at the Federal level. Because it's so personally impactful, abortion restrictions generate a lot of resistance compared to tinkering with arcane aspects of the US Code that few people ever encounter. As a minority special interest group, you can achieve a lot more by pursuing things that other people don't care about as much or might even agree with you on.
But I think this is going to be a tough pill to swallow for many. A lot of Christians are shocked by the "betrayal" of J.D. Vance this week. And it's a legitimate argument to say that perhaps he's compromising too far. But what's the appropriate compromise then? Because the idea that we, a minority, can't compromise at all on an issue that the majority strongly disagrees with us on seems like political suicide to no good end.
This is why the Negative World framing that Aaron has provided is so important. A lot of American Christians still think that they are the Silent Majority, the Moral Majority. As the supposed majority, they think that the only barrier to enactment of their policy preferences is the weakness of GOP politicians.
Weakness of politicians explains lack of progress on true majority preferences, e.g. less immigration. But not on others, e.g. abortion, where Christians are out of touch with what the majority preferences are in this country.
Friedman doesn’t pay much attention to religion and culture (which I believe is his blind spot) but he has been pretty prescient on other geopolitical matters. For example he forecasted the Russian invasion to be in the early 2020s back in 2007. His reasoning for the turmoil of this decade has to do with his belief there are cycles in American history - one dealing economics/technology and the other with politics. They run on two different cycles, but this decade is the first time they have coincided. I recommend his book. He wrote an earlier book with a much grander vision - “The Next 100 Years”. That’s another interesting one.
But I will push back that leads us with no place to go. A new third party which combines conservative economic policies with a higher focus on social issues. I’m not sure Trump populism is sustainable and at the end of the day, we need a strong culture founded on Christianity. Otherwise we will collapse as a nation.
The book is "The Storm Before the Calm"? I put it on my list.
Trying to start a third party in America has always struck me as a bad idea, and I think it makes less sense now than ever. Trump demonstrated that the parties are the most hollow they've ever been, and the GOP more than the Democrats. They're available for the taking, for whoever can gather enough support to claim them. There are no party elites watching the gates anymore. But the brand, and the party infrastructure still have value. It's a lot easier to take them over than to try building something from scratch. So it's just going to be an internal wrestling match within the GOP. If social conservatives can't gather the support to win that wrestling match at least sometimes, we certainly can't gather the support to launch a viable third party.
As for collapsing as a nation, I think I'd agree that insofar as the decline of Christianity in the West is inexorable, our broader civilizational decline will also be inexorable. I don't think that means we need to collapse in that event, at least not on the scale of decades -- given enough time, everything built by man will collapse. There are a lot of countries in the world much worse than America that haven't collapsed. There's a great deal of ruin in a nation.
One thing I’ve been questioning lately is how relevant the right-left dichotomy still is anymore. Left-wing politics is about equity, right-wing politics is about hierarchy. “Right-wing populism” almost sounds oxymoronic. The new dichotomy for this century will be globalist vs. localist: cosmopolitans that are “citizens of the world” (plus the people that serve as the fungible cheap labor that deliver their DoorDash meals) versus people that feel rooted to a place and identity.
It will be interesting to see how Christianity fits into this dichotomy, as while Christianity was the original cosmopolitan force that overtook pagan notions of rootedness, some self-identified Christians today invert these values into Christian nationalism vs. globalist secularism.
It's a good thought, even if I'm not quite sure that globalist vs. localist will be THE central conflict of the century. I'm more with Aaron -- there's a lot that's hard to foresee in this period. Just that a lot of things are breaking down and not much is being built up.
To your point about Christianity and globalism vs. localism, here's a conflict that I haven't seen many people call out: Christians as localists are increasingly skeptical of American global power. That power has been instrumental in spreading Pride around the globe (an association that is especially obvious when you notice things like Macedonia holding its first Pride parade shortly after joining NATO). American globalism is in some sense hostile towards deep-rooted Christian tradition wherever it finds it abroad, whether in Eastern Europe, Africa, or Asia.
But conversely, Christian missionaries do benefit heavily from globalism, and probably, in various respects, even from the same US state power that also endeavors to spread Pride. There is a much larger evangelical missions presence in Ukraine than Russia (which, unlike Ukraine, in my understanding more or less openly persecutes Protestantism). Places like Taiwan and Hong Kong are also more open to missions than mainland China. I think China and Russia's rulers both view missionaries as, in some sense, an arm of US influence that threatens their hold on power, and I'm not sure exactly how incorrect they are in doing so. Of course, in China, we can at least say the state is the unambiguous enemy of the Gospel, but in Russia, there's some room for debate.
My parents have talked about how in China, there were people that asked them why they were following a “Western religion.” And my parents were cosmopolitans that read Western philosophy and theology, and both studied theology abroad, mom in Singapore, dad here in the US. So it definitely is true that in China, Christianity is portrayed as a tool of Western power, but the ironic thing is that Christianity is in decline in the West and rising the most in Africa.
And while many Christians are skeptical of global power now, it is also true that Christianity was responsible for global power in the first place. That’s what I mean when I say that Christianity was the original cosmopolitan vision: the command that we should go and make disciples of all nations, so that the whole world becomes Christian.
If folks didn't like the religious right they are really not going to like the Post-religious right. Both the Democrat and Republican parties rendered themselves irrelevant.