On (American) Revolution
This was written in June 2020, but published here in response to the Capitol Hill riots in January 6th 2021
I’m watching the May / June movement in the US from Singapore, in the orbit of China. BLM and MAGA square off across all 50 states.
The protests are being refigured in Asia as a sign of social disorder and collapse.
If your mode of identification is with power holders, the US is in collapse. If your mode of identification is with the oppressed, then abundant freedom is evidenced.
The opportunity is when the event is perceived by the oppressed.
Ben Thompson and James Allworth had an instructive podcast, “Speech and Systems.”
Their main point: the convulsive riots in the US are the system doing its job. Provided the process is respected, provided that events don’t end in a tyrannical crackdown and media blackout, then the institutions of democracy are preserved.
Contrast this interpretation with eschatologist Anna Khachiyan: the US has reached the end of its era of exceptionalism. Naked psychotic flat earthers throw drunken punches with black rights activists. The whole thing feels exceptionally unhinged.
Maybe moments of refactoring must look unhinged. These are the durations when a social order unravels and reconstitutes.
We here recall Winston Churchill’s most timely wisdom: “Americans will always do the right thing, only after they have tried everything else.”
