[Lnc-business] The Rise and Fall of the American Empire, Chapter 27

[Joshua Katz]

*The Rise and Fall of the American Empire*
*Chapter 27*

As discussed in previous chapters, the Republican and Democratic parties
retained, between themselves, solid control over the American Empire until
approximately 2008.  The Democratic Party had been the product of a merger
between the Bourbon Democrats and the Southern Democrats, while the
Republican Party was formed by a coalition of Whigs and the various small
parties in existence at the time of the Civil War.  While those two parties
consistently opposed one another, with control of the empire switching in a
roughly symmetric fashion from one to the other, they did not maintain
consistency in their policy positions, leading many historians to conclude
that, by 1950, their opposition to each other had become largely cosmetic
rather than reflecting any serious disagreements about the management of
the imperial territories.

These large conglomerations, though, began to suffer from precisely the
same ills as afflicted the empire itself.  The Republican Party began to
splinter as three identifiable groups formed within the party.  The first,
known as the "Tea Party," is variously identified by historians as a
terrorist organization, and as an offshoot of a historical event by the
same name in the 1700s.  The second, a nationalist group, formed following
the failed Presidential bid of an eccentric billionaire - while he had won
the most delegates in the primaries, the convention of 2016 was brokered,
and party bosses were able to prevent his nomination, producing tension
between this nationalist group and the third element: the Northeastern
"establishment" wing of the party.  Simultaneously, elements within the
Democratic Party began to vie over the question of which group was more
historically aggrieved.  These tensions were exacerbated by the events of
the primary election of 2016, in which a Senator from a minor party
challenged the Imperial choice, Hillary Clinton, for the party's
nomination.  After winning a majority of the delegates, Senator Sanders was
declared invalid to appear on the ballot due to theft of campaign data from
Clinton's non-secure email servers, leading his supporters to believe the
Empire had unjustly interfered to ensure Clinton's selection.

It was against this background that a formerly obscure minor party, the
Libertarian Party, rose to prominence.  After electing its first
Congressman in 2020, the party was poised in the election of 2026 to gain a
majority of the Congress, the first time a majority would be held in that
body by a party other than the Republicans or Democrats in more than 150
years.  The candidates expected to enter Congress that year were an
eclectic group - in addition to politicians with the expected resumes,
there was a pizza delivery man, a former Governor, an Economics Professor
from New Orleans, a Professional Registered Parliamentarian from Nevada, a
tech mogul turned basketball team owner, and several sex workers.

While this party was itself splintered heavily in terms of philosophy, with
some candidates calling for the dissolution of the Empire into smaller
units, some calling for a lack of government altogether, and others arguing
for maintaining the Empire's core areas but putting an end to Imperial
designs, they were united on a few key points.  They unanimously called for
the restoration of the Republic, making reference to an ancient manuscript
(largely considered legendary by historians) known as the "Consfifutfon."
 This document was rumored to contain strictures against arbitrary taking
of property (a core function of Imperial government), to limit war-making
power (the Empire had eliminated the distinction between war and peace,
living in a continuous state of low-level violence), and to guarantee
rights to privacy and freedom from arbitrary search and seizure (a distinct
contrast to the behavior of the Imperial Police Force, which had the power
to detain and search citizens at will.  The Force, though, was limited in
its power to kill citizens of certain races, while non-citizens and those
of less-favored races, while also illegal to kill, could be killed without,
in practice, response from the government).  [Ed Note:  There is
disagreement among historians about the nature of the Imperial Police
Force.  While most historians view it as a unified group, receiving its
orders from an Attorney General, and carrying out such diverse tasks as
selling weapons to drug cartels, ordinary law enforcement, and event
security, a new school has recently emerged, which views the Force as a
fragmented group, cobbled together from a coalition of more than 1000
smaller security agencies, 50 private corporations, and a small number of
agencies directly run from the Capital.]

The rise of the Libertarian Party was, therefore, the most serious threat
faced by the Empire since its formation.  The coming Libertarian majority
threatened to strip the Empire of much of its power, particularly its
ability to manipulate the economy through its control of the currency and
its presumed-eternal warfare powers.  The Republicans and the Democrats, as
a result, while formally remaining two parties, formed a strong coalition
to oppose this new power source.

As it turned out, though, their efforts would not be needed.  Despite the
unrest of the citizenry, the chaos within the established parties, and the
hunger of citizens for a restoration of the Republic, the Libertarian Party
managed to implode and, in a spectacular display of weakness, lose every
Congressional seat it possessed, rather than claiming the predicted sweep
of the Congress.

The failure appears to have come from an unlikely source.  Leading up to
the election, the National Committee had tried desperately to hold meetings
at which to determine funding for the various campaigns, organize staff
efforts to assemble teams for get out the vote efforts, and do the other
necessary tasks to allow their candidates to win.  The Committee, though,
for poorly understood reasons, was simply  unable to meet.  What records
remain from this period indicate that, on several occasions, the committee
had used its internal processes and, of course, parliamentary law, to set
times and locations for meetings, puzzling historians as to why these
meetings never materialized.  Some historians have postulated that
disagreements over costs, perhaps as small as $10 (approximately 50 cents
today) per night, led to prolonged communication chains with no decision
reached.  Others postulate that the choice of location may have been
impacted by other factors, such as paralysis between wanting to visit
certain cities to inspect convention facilities and wanting to recognize
areas where ballot access had only recently been attained through much
effort.  Still others think that the major cause of this inability to meet
was simply the desire of each person to meet closest to their home.  In any
event, historians unanimously attribute the astoundingly poor showing in
the 2026 elections to this inability to hold a meeting.  Some report, in
fact, that the committee had, by that time, not met for 10 years due to
such discussions.

The verdict on this sad episode in the history of the American Empire is
clear.  While the public was ready for the message of the Libertarian
Party, and the rise of this party could, many believe, have led to a
peaceful restoration of the Republic, a period of peace, and the
restoration of many basic liberties, the Libertarian Party was ill-prepared
to manage this shift.  Sorting through what records remain, historians have
also found that the party expended tremendous sums of money on something
known as "ballot access."  This was a plan whereby the controlling
Republican and Democratic Parties constructed costly barriers to entry for
Libertarian candidates.  Historians puzzle over the relative ease with
which the Party was able to agree to these expenditures, even on behalf of
candidates who clearly could not win their races, in contrast to its
astonishing failure to successfully plan a meeting.  It is postulated by
some that donors and members declined to give as the Party jumped through
these hoops, fearful that their money would simply be bled out since the
coalition of controlling parties could continually increase these costs,
producing an endless cycle which would not yield results.  Indeed, records
show that memberships and donations fell steadily from 2015 onwards,
although this may also relate to the inability of the National Committee to
successfully hold meetings.

Others blame a lack of internal controls and issues with the audit process
for a loss of confidence by donors and, simultaneously, increased spending
with no clear goal, pointing to inexplicable expenditures on such items as
printers and copying machines (as well as the associated training to use
these devices), efforts to remove the chairman of the Audit Committee, and
a lack of time allocated to reviewing the Audit Committee report at the
last reported meeting of the party's National Committee.

Still others maintain that deeper problems existed.  The expected sweep of
Congress came about solely as a result of external events, outside the
Party's control.  During the preceeding 50 years, the Party had declined to
make serious efforts to elect candidates to local office, despite Imperial
policies leading to roughly 90% of citizen contact with government being
local.  Historians puzzle over the lack of interest this small party had
displayed in races it could win, and why it focused so much effort on races
firmly in the grasp of the Republican and Democratic Parties.  As John Q.
Smith explains,

"It appears that this party, despite only 4 times having elected a state
legislator, believed these offices to be beneath them and not worth the
effort, even though the much larger and more dominant parties believed
these municipal races to be crucial to their success.  It is mind-boggling
how the Libertarian Party failed to notice that these parties could
maintain control for so long, in part, because municipal races allowed them
to build a bench, identifying talented individuals to run for higher
office, and to build a support system for higher elections."

For this group of historians, known informally as the Katz School, even a
Libertarian majority in Congress would likely have failed to turn back the
Imperial policies, since the inexperienced and untested group would likely
have been unable to attain their stated goals, being unfamiliar and
uncomfortable with the formation of policy.  It is postulated that they
would have attempted to push through a radical agenda in one spectacular
session, panicking even those elements among the public who supported the
Party, and leaving the remaining Republicans and Democrats, despite their
minority status, to control the Congress through swifter and more cunning
action, followed by the Libertarian electees being tossed out of office.

Some go further and postulate that, even if the National Committee had
managed to hold meetings, the Libertarian candidates were unlikely to
actually win, despite their strong showings in the polls.  This group
believes that the public would have, en masse, changed their minds as
Election Day approached, being unwilling to turn the Imperial machinery
over to politicians with no experience in governing and no track record of
governing to demonstrate their plans for that machinery, or skills in
operating it. Additionally, this group suspects that a strong campaign
effort could have been waged by the dominant parties, making use of their
many elected municipal and state officials to run a "ground game" race (an
older campaign tactic, popular prior to the invention by an eccentric
billionaire with odd hair of the tactic known as "rally and Tweeter.")
 This ground game would have consisted of knocking on doors and talking to
voters, which statisticians show has historically been the single most
effective campaign technique in history.


In any event, historians are unanimous in their belief that the collapse of
the Libertarian Party following the elections of 2026 led to the 20 year
period of increasing loss of freedom and increased warfare, culminating in
the 2046 "Great Culling" to be detailed in later chapters.  As a result,
this collapse led indirectly to the collapse of the American Empire, the
process to be described in the remainder of this book, and the roughly 200
year period known to historians as the "Great Trump Dark Ages," to be
described in a future volume.

Joshua A. Katz
Westbrook CT Planning Commission (L in R seat)
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