In 2025, the wind blew through and knocked down anything without the backbone to stand up to it. And in on that tempest flew hot embers, which fell amongst the rubble. Like so many seeming contradictions, fire is both a blessing and a curse. Life itself depends on heat to make enzymes and proteins fold and unfold. Cooking food freed energy which our early ancestors bodies’ directed to our brains and muscles. Heat catalyzed our very existence. In the wrong circumstances, we regard fire as so dangerous we need entire teams of people to fight it. But we have tamed the flame. It forged the tools that build our cities. It is good that some looked into the flame and thought “Why not? Why shouldn’t we use it?”
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But there are those who stare too deeply into the flames. Those who are drawn in by the erratic dance of oxygen, heat and fuel. And in the clutches of the wrong men, fire is a weapon. A rapid expansion of heat generates the pressure that fires a bullet from a gun, or explodes a bomb, lays waste to your enemies lands. And those men have spread that flame far and wide, burning the land in search of any threat they can find to justify adding to the blaze. These men speak of building a new world, but their actions betray them, as the only tool they know. They twist the flame from giver of life and illumination, to one of terror and desolation.
The fire ignited by the regime burns brightest in communities it feels will put up the least resistance. Masked government thugs move from daylight raids in workplaces and sites where immigrants gather, to nighttime raids on homes full of sleeping people. Yes, some of those raids end badly, with citizens defending themselves and their families with whatever tools they have available. And every time, the regime uses the injuries or deaths of federal agents as proof and justification for continued crackdowns. The irony of all this, is that the stated goal of driving immigrants out of the labor force does not lead to an influx of native-born people seeking to fill those jobs. While instances of native (ie white) job seekers filing into empty meat-packing plants are loudly reported, the majority of job openings go unfilled. Some employers raise wages in hopes of filing those positions, which only encourages people to cross back over the borders to try to fill them.
But government crackdowns aren’t limited to rounding up undocumented immigrants. The continued sew-sawing of trade deals and tariff rates continues, as the regime in Washington tries to use US trade policy to punish enemies and allies abroad. The administration pushes up tariff rates on Canada for harboring political dissidents, and on Mexico for harboring drug cartels. It uses the threat of higher rates to try to push the Europeans to increase their military budgets, which is ironic considering the US military budget for 2026 is a whopping $ 1 trillion. It uses trade deals to push East Asian allies like Japan and South Korea to take more hawkish stances against China. Most of all, the regime cracks down on imports from Vietnam, as Chinese companies use the southeast Asian nation as a trans-shipment point for selling goods to the US under lower tariff penalties. All these actions both drive away foreign allies, and drive up prices on consumer goods in the US. By summer, the regime declares it is fed up with ungrateful allies, and formally pulls the United States out of NATO. In response, the EU walks away from a set of tentative trade deals, covering about 30% of global trade, with the US, which further drives up prices.
The Art of the Deal when the other side
doesn't care for your 'deal'
Baseline inflation skyrockets past the 7-9% rates posted in the wake of the Covid pandemic. And the baseline number conceals the 15-20% increases for food prices. Higher prices lead to less spending, which by the summer of 2026 leads to layoffs in the retail sector. While some of those laid off do filter over into sectors like food processing that are hiring, these meager gains are wiped out by the end of the year, as US manufacturing firms lay off hundreds of thousands of workers. The value of the dollar both internally and in foreign trade continues to plummet, making imports even more costly than the increases driven by the tariffs alone. The problem with picking trade wars with the whole world, while wrecking the labor markets inside the country, tip the country into full-blown stagflation. While official numbers won’t show it, the number of job-listings and the number of actual hirings continues to dwindle.
All this happens as federal spending on debt service crowds out both private-sector lending AND causes the federal government to spend more on debt service than it does on the principal of the nation’s debt. By late fall, the federal government cannot pay its bills as set out by the 2025 budget, and cuts have to be made. Federal Medicaid spending, which was already slated to drop the following year, must be slashed in the current year. Doctors don’t get paid, and patients don’t get care. Nursing home managers sweat about whether they will have to close their doors and turn residents out at Christmas. By the beginning of November, flash mobs rob grocery stores for food, while hospitals and clinics have to cut staff pay and hours, leading to labor unrest in rural and urban areas.
Wait 'til you see the 2026 wait times!
And we get to the moment no doubt some of you have been waiting for. What happens with the midterm elections? The answer, at first, is anti-climactic. The elections go ahead as usual, though with ever-increasing voter suppression in the form of closures of polling places, throwing hundreds of thousands of voters off the rolls, gerrymandering, and that old favorite of politicians afraid of the wrong results, ‘ballot irregularities.’ The exit polls indicate a crushing defeat for the ruling party and a sweeping landslide for the opposition. But that result only holds for a few days. The regime immediately sets about invalidating election results, claiming widespread voter and ballot fraud. Precincts with high tallies for opposition candidates see their results invalidated due to alleged security breaches. As the weeks drag on, it becomes increasingly clear that the will of the electorate will have little-to-no impact on the balance of power in Congress.
But backlash from the state doesn’t end there. While almost every other branch of government sees its funding stripped to the bone to make payments on the debt, the regime’s enforcement arm suffers no spending cuts. In the wake of such an obvious rebuke to the regime’s policies, the President orders ICE to round up and deport domestic political opponents, and anyone who might lift a finger to support them. Governors, state representatives, city councilors, dog catchers, no one is safe. Many are deported to the gulags of El Salvador, while others simply disappear into the ether. ICE doesn’t keep much paperwork, and their planes that set out across the Gulf of Mexico often turn around halfway there, returning with only the ICE agents and pilots still on board.
This may be jumping ahead a bit, but by the 10th anniversary of the Second Revolution, a rough estimate puts the number of deported undocumented immigrants at 3.2 million, about 125,000 political prisoners arrested, and nearly 500,000 homeless people forced into labor camps between 2025 and 2028. Of this number, at least 10% die either in transit or in detention. In retrospect, 2026 marks the high point of the regime’s power and the period of maximum repression.
But even as the fires of authoritarianism burn bright, methods of resistance multiply at all levels of American society. For some, this takes the form of open revolt, though it is mostly small groups, and often targeting goods and materials used by the regime. Rolling stock mysteriously breaks down only days after being taken in for service. Construction materials ordered for the building concentration camps get diverted or stolen, often sold on the black market to anyone with cash. Immigrants, both legal and not, find shelter in spare rooms, basements and attics of friends or family to avoid ICE raids. Boycotts spread, as do labor strikes. Protests and crackdowns become normal, and anyone who ends up being anyone in the political economy of the post-Revolution can point to a scar or story from one. Even as many people try to go about their lives and try to avoid the bubbling cauldron. The country fears what 2027 will bring.
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