America Is at a Dangerous Moment…
Today… a word we don’t hear bandied about much around the water cooler, at cocktail parties, or out on the golf course. You don’t hear it much in the mainstream media either. Probably a reason for that.
Our word of the day: Ochlocracy.
Raise your hand if that’s a word you’ve ever used in your life?
Ochlos is the Greek word for “mob,” while kratos means “power.”
Smash ‘em together and you get “mob rule.”
Is there a quiz, El Jefe? Why are we studying Greek?
Because I’ve been talking about revolution of late—the changes that are coming and that are preordained for America. For several years now, I’ve been warning that I see a crisis on the horizon—financial, monetary, or social. Most likely, all three. Most likely in the 2027/28 timeframe.
Ochlocracy is very likely our most immediate destination
To explain that further, I need to introduce you to another Greek word: Anakyklosis, or “recycling.”
In this case, it’s not returning your empty Red Bull can to the appropriate container to be refashioned into an aluminum hubcap. No—it’s the constant and continual recycling of the various types of governments that have defined humanity since humanity coalesced into tribes.
According to Polybius, a Greek historian from the second century BC, constitutional power swings over long periods through three positive and three negative cycles.
The three positive cycles:
- Monarchy: The rule of one.
- Aristocracy: The rule of the virtuous.
- Democracy: The rule of the people.
Each of those has its negative doppelgänger.
- Tyranny: The rule of the master or tyrant.
- Oligarchy: The rule of the few (generally those with the money to buy or steal power).
- Ochlocracy: The rule of the mob.
Monarchy can become tyranny… Aristocracy, oligarchy… and democracy can descend into mob rule.
Here’s a chart I whipped up in PowerPoint to help you visualize the progression (red to black) and the decay (black to red):
I’ve read lots of media coverage in the last many months claiming that America is in the oligarchy phase, because of the closeness of billionaires like Elon Musk to the levers of power.
History—and I—would disagree with that.
For one thing, as Polybius says, oligarchies emerge from an aristocracy, not a democracy.
I’d argue the purest form of American democracy (not pure, but as pure as it would ever get) existed post-war, in the 1940s through about 1970, when the economy was strong, the middle class was strong, labor unions kept a cap on the oligarchic tendencies of the moneyed class, and the American Dream was actually a thing.
Which leads to the question: Where are we today?
As you might suspect based on today’s topic, my inclination is to say that we are in the early days of an ochlocracy—mob rule.
All you need do is consider the politics of the last several years…
Democracy was clearly not the winner by any stretch. Minority views/the squeaky wheels often won because of their threats of violence. Look at how members of Congress on both sides in recent years have abdicated their governing responsibilities to blindly prostrate themselves to a particularly narrow political agenda—whether “wokeism” or MAGA.
Or consider a newly proposed law in Tennessee: Government officials can be charged with a Class E felony if they vote their conscience, and that conscience contradicts a particular way of seeing the world.
When laws prevent lawmakers from accurately representing the wants of their constituents because those wants clash with the wants of a minority group in power… that’s mob rule.
When a president can sign executive orders that circumvent the Constitution… when government officials operate without oversight, aiming to keep the public ill-informed… that’s mob rule.
This is how revolution starts.
People on one side of the political spectrum begin to push society toward minority wants, and they do so like a mob that uses threats of force and violence to get their way… Then, the other side reaches a point where they respond with their own threats of violence, because they realize they risk losing what they hold dear… and civil wars begin.
I tell you all of this because America continues to move in the wrong direction. And that will continue until a necessary correction hits the country. A reckoning that (painfully) resets society, the economy, and government…
This is one of the primary reasons that crisis stalks America.
And it’s a very good reason to open your mind to the idea of relocating abroad… or at least moving some of your money outside the US (which you can do without ever setting foot on a plane)…
