A New World Order

America just endured another “most expensive and divisive election in our history.” The next day no tanks appeared on the streets, the Red Wave did not manifest, the Trump-backed election-deniers did not win, and life went on as usual, realizing this election was not the prophesied “end of Democracy as we know it.” In light of this, maybe it is time to start thinking about the next election!

The attack on Pearl Harbor that finally forced America to enter WWII forced us to spend a fortune in blood and treasure to create a new world order, and ultimately secure nearly eighty years of relative global peace and prosperity.

I am a big fan of the theory outlined in The Fourth Turning, the subject of our Member Monday discussions on March 20, 2017 and again on July 6, 2020, which advanced the 500-year cyclical nature of Anglo-American history marked by sequential 80-year secula each containing four parallel twenty-year biblical (four score) cycles.

America itself is internally divided, and the world order she established is being challenged not only by aspiring superpowers including China and Russia, but by transitory dictatorial regimes like Iran and North Korea.

This pending challenge to the existing global power structure is being played out in places such as Ukraine, where American treasure and technology are backstopping David as it confronts the Russian Goliath; in China’s challenge to the whole of Asia; and in the Middle East, where Israel’s technological and military might has been unleashed as the protector of those very Arab countries who most recently were its sworn enemies.

While the 246 year old American Revolution may seem somewhat stale and in need of a reboot, rest assured America has what it takes to reawaken, reinvent herself, and lead the world for another eighty years. America has her faults and continues to make huge mistakes (slavery; our shameful exits from Vietnam and Afghanistan; and a giant economic ball and chain represented by our national debt). Through it all America remains a free and resolute nation, once again reminding us that rebirth and renewal inevitably requires the death and destruction of the old.

In that vein, Jim Collins posits that the most important question we have to ask is “Who?” i.e. Who are we going to elect to lead us? The United States Constitution names the President the commander-in-chief of our Armed Forces. So how do we identify the next War President in the likes of Washington, Grant, or Eisenhower?

Personally, in 2024, I’d vote for a man or a woman with a PhD who can win an intellectual fight on the debate stage, and a bar fight out back. My ideal candidate is tough enough to stand up to thugs like Putin and Xi who seek to challenge and disrupt our world order.

— Sina.