America’s population is northwards of 347 million people now. There are those who contend that approximately 30 million of those are illegal aliens — criminals.
This presents the question of “what unites us together as a cohesive nation?” The premise is that a nation, like a family, must have common ground in order to function coherently. Without common ground a nation, like a family, will disintegrate over time. So, given our ever increasing multicultural status as a nation what are the dynamics that make us, as a many peoples, one people?
It strikes me that there can only be three answers to that question for any nation. Those three options are;
1.) Force / Totalitarianism
2.) Economic Prosperity
3.) Shared Race & Religion
When we consider the force / totalitarian option were are presented with the idea of “Empire.” Empires are kept together by a strong centralized and authoritarian political structure. Here we could remember examples like the former USSR, or the US immediately after the war of Northern Aggression. These Empires (USSR externally among many countries and the USA internally in the one nation) were kept together by the bayonet. Nations which are kept together by Force / Totalitarianism need and have large control mechanisms (Secret police) in order to immediately squash any movement by any subversive groups that might unravel the whole. Again we are reminded of the work of the Cheka/KGB in the former USSR and the Freedman’s Bureau as it existed in the conquered Southern States, post “War Against the Constitution.”
People’s living in and sharing the same “nation” may hate one another but if enough force is applied from a centralized source they can be stitched together for a period of time. Eventually though, Empires cannot sustain the amount of resources they need in order to continue their top down existence and they either implode or explode.
The second source of uniting a nation is Economic prosperity. This falls under the old proverb that all boats rise with a rising tide. When there is abundance among a nation that nation can rise above the inherent disagreements that exist as a result of being so fractured in their population base. I believe this is the explanation for why the US has been able to sustain its multicultural existence for the last few decades now. As racial/ethnic and religious homogeneity has decreased in the last three decades or so it is the fact of comparative economic prosperity that has kept us from disintegrating. This has been combined with ever increasing totalitarianism from Washington DC with its ever burgeoning surveillance society so that currently the reality that is keeping the US from flying apart in secession movements or general various geographic anarchies is comparative economic prosperity combined with the aforementioned totalitarianism.
However, Economic prosperity cannot last forever and eventually totalitarianism fails and at that point unless a nation exists as a nation because of a shared race/ethnicity and a shared religion the nation will not continue to be able to cohere as a nation and political division will result. This is what happened with the fall of the USSR. Economically, the USSR could not continue and as their never was any shared religion/race among the various countries that comprised that Empire the USSR disintegrated. This is what happened when the British lost their Empire under the rule of Churchill. England lost its ability to project power across its previous Empire and in light of its Economic loss in light of its diminishment in WW II its Empire began to melt away. In both cases there was nothing else to hold the people together and now England faces internally what it faced externally at the close of WW II. Because England has allowed itself to be swamped with immigrants from third world origins England is in danger of decided civil unrest. It already is increasing its totalitarian muscle in order to keep its population “united.”
That brings us back to the US. The US in my lifetime was at one point 89% White and Christian. That provided a religious and racial/ethnic base in order to provide a cohesiveness that could rise above national stress and strain. It was this common thread that brought us through two World Wars and a great Depression. It was this common thread that found us continuing during the Draft riots and the Political upheaval of Watergate. Because we were a people with a majority religion and race / ethnicity there were common bonds that could compel us to stay together despite pressures to separate politically.
The fact that shared race / ethnicity alone can’t keep a people together is seen by referencing again our own War Between the States. Despite the fact that we were largely one people racially, the differences at that time in the religion that was animating North (Transcendentalism-Romanticism) and South (Christianity) were so great that the previous common ground could not survive. Shared race alone without a shared religion cannot keep a people together once pressures descend.
The same is true in the other direction. Shared religion alone can’t keep a people together where there isn’t a shared racial/ethnic reality. One has only to think of the division between blacks and whites in America who both boast of large “Christian” communities within their people groups and yet the divisions between black and white Christians over various issues in the US is well known. The conflict between Christian Serbs and Croats after the fall of Yugoslavia serves as another example of how a shared faith (Christianity) cannot by itself unite a people even when there is strong racial (Slavic) affinities.
All this brings us to the eventual breakup of the US and even of Europe. With the New World Order rearranging of the World via mass immigration the West is no longer the West. Europe and the US had been largely White and Christian until the latter part of the 20th century and beginning of the 21st century. However, both the Christian base (even nominally considered) and the racial/ethnic base has been deteriorated and the result is that we have nothing intrinsic that can hold us together as nations and this means that once totalitarian efforts are exhausted (and they always exhaust themselves eventually) the eventual course for the US will be the break-up of these once united States. Serious secession movements will arise in the next quarter of a century or so in the US unless something drastically changes in order to restore our religious and racial/ethnic homogeneity.
Before the breakup there may be efforts to pin together the country by force. Total control, with the advent of technology, is getting easier and easier but the centripetal forces are equally strong. Good economic times may also forestall the inevitable but good economic times do not last forever. Eventually, because of how the New World Order has been able to rearrange population centers the US will break apart as a nation.
I enjoyed the column and 3-point summary, thank you. The example of blacks and whites having a shared faith but are incompatible is a intriguing one. There are some black Christians we each have met and enjoy, but it’s true that those I’ve been in small groups with, were always democrats, and a couple were word-of-faith folks, so they do have incompatible views for the country. Lots of black churches are word of faith, prosperity, and pentecostal, so I think saying we are the same faith is similar to saying that of Catholics. I grew up with Polish Catholics and could form a peaceful country with them much easier than the black Christians I know whose parents fought in wars against commies, but yet help the commies out domestically in the culture war.
Hello Kurt,
Yes, that is what I was getting at. You put it much more succinctly than I did.