Worry seems to be at an all-time high in America.
According to recent polls about 80 percent of Americans think the country is on the wrong track, 59 percent think the American dream is “unachievable” for their children, and 60 percent believe the United States is a nation in decline.
Last week, best-selling author Joel C. Rosenberg spoke at my home church. He laid out the moral and fiscal case for why America is headed for an implosion unless there is a Third Great Awakening, which would mirror the spiritual revivals early in our history that were vital for liberty to flourish here in the first place.
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But what if a Third Great Awakening doesn’t happen? What would America look like 25 years from now, when I’m nearing retirement age and my children are raising my grandchildren? Before looking ahead, we should look behind.
Beyond the obvious technological advancements that have mostly benefited our lives, many of the issues we are currently wrestling with as a people weren’t even conceivable in 1989. For example:
Obviously a lot has changed the past 25 years, and it’s hard to argue much of this change is for the better. Given that trend line, and the fact we are domestically debating unprecedented existential threats to individual liberty, the next 25 years could become American Exceptionalism’s tipping point moment barring revival.
Just how much “worse” could things get? On the pace we’re currently on, we are undoing all of our most cherished virtues and traditions. And it could get a lot worse - unless you’re a Marxist. Here’s five potential major and radical changes we could see happen by 2039:
The End of American Sovereignty
At some point it will be time to pay the piper for our extraordinary largesse. The end result could be a repeat of what we saw in Western Europe when their socialist democracies spent themselves into oblivion. They saw cancellations of their currencies and the installation of a new, regional currency to take their places. We are on pace to have to hit the control-alt-delete buttons as well, and restart our macro-economy on a regional level to avoid insolvency. “Amero” anyone?
The U.S.-Mexico border fence stretches into the countryside on March 8, 2013 near Nogales, Arizona. U.S. Border Patrol agents in Nogales say they have seen a spike in immigrants crossing into the United States from Mexico in the last week. Credit: Getty Images
The ruling class in both parties knows this, which is one of the reasons they’re each in favor of open borders. This is the first step to try and condition the American people to accept the loss of American sovereignty.
The End of America’s Two-Party System
From 1840-1916, only one presidential election had total voter turnout below 60 percent. Since 1920, the average voter turnout in presidential elections is only 55 percent. Americans are the most cynical about government we’ve ever been. Into this environment comes the current civil war within the Republican Party, largely driven by corporate America’s collective lurch to the left - politically and morally. To stay in the good graces of these mega-donors, the GOP elites are moving left as well, drawing the increasing ire of the Tea Party and social conservatives alike.
The former Reagan coalition of fiscal, cultural, and national defense conservatives has become a shaky alliance between constitutionalists and corporatists. That is not a recipe for a long-term relationship. Especially with the increasing presence of insurgent libertarians, who are far less likely to accept traditional partisan notions like “the lesser of two evils.” There are two dramatically different value systems each claiming the GOP mantle and at some point they will divorce over irreconcilable differences.
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Right now there is a grassroots effort to purify the GOP, but if you study history you find puritans almost always end up becoming separatists. Just ask the Whigs.
America Divides Geographically
With faith in the federal government plummeting, America essentially breaks down into “liberty states” and “government states.” The seeds of this migration have already been sown. For example, in the last 20 years, over four million people have left California for Texas, which is more than the total population of my home state of Iowa.
Once the “government states” are drained of their private workforce tax-bases and unable to pay their bills, they will appeal to the federal government to step in and impose a “shared burden” upon the “liberty states.” The governors and legislators of these “liberty states” will be pressured by their constituents to defy the feds’ immoral edicts, and defend the people’s freedom instead. This will take America down a dark path it last walked in the 1850s.
The Bill of Rights is Efectively Abolished
The First, Second, Fourth, and 10th Amendments are already under unprecedented assault as it is. Imagine: What happens when another generation of judges taught what our Founding Fathers would’ve considered pagan law will do when they have the chance? With few patriots in the political class remaining who still believe in the Constitution’s separation of powers to defy them, the social reconstructionists in the judiciary will all but erase any of the Constitution’s original intent.
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The United States Abandons Israel
Anti-Semitism is already on the rise in Western Europe, which has already completed the leftist evolution we are tragically undergoing. They just don’t recognize they’re guilty of anti-Semitism, because leftists think they’re immune to the prejudice and bigotry they frequently accuse their opponents of. What is really anti-Semitism they describe as opposition to Zionist expansion.
We’re already seeing the debate framed this way by some elites during this latest round of Hamas attacks against Israel. As we continue to abandon our Judeo-Christian foundation, we will reject our special relationship with Israel as well. Instead, seeing it as an impediment to coming to a peaceful understanding with the Islamists who hate us. The U.S. will make the case that our continued allegiance to Israel is what’s prompting the Islamists to target us, not the Islamists’ hatred of our traditions we no longer adhere to. Thus, Israel will stand alone.
Are any of these dire predictions far-fetched given what’s become of our country? For too long we have pretended there would be no price to pay for our collective magical thinking. That we could just go on living footloose and fancy free, abandoning the humility and sacrifices from those who came before us that built the greatest civilization in human history at no cost.
So did every other formerly great nation that’s now a historical footnote, too.
To quote Thomas Jefferson, “I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just and that His justice cannot sleep forever.”
Pray for a revival that needs to start in our homes.
Steve Deace is a nationally-syndicated talk show host, Washington Times columnist, and also the author of the new book “Rules for Patriots: How Conservatives Can Win Again.” You can like him on Facebook or follow him on Twitter @SteveDeaceShow
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