Democracy doesn't work in America.

By democracy I mean the "liberal" and "electoral" kind we've come to expect in western nations, whether under a republic or constitutional monarchy. It's increasingly clear that this was a thing of the past.

Democracy only works when people are fundamentally on the same page with only slight disagreements. When we all agree on first principles, all share similar religious beliefs and a similar pattern of life, determining things through elections is possible. When you have nothing but strife and identitarian conflict, one side has to win and the other side has to lose, not in the sense of a "friendly competition" but as an actual battle between enemies in the strictest sense of the word. The United States is currently being crudely held together by a tapestry of old legal norms and performative acts that signal normalcy. Day by day these acts become less relevant and less legitimate in the eyes of most people. So what comes next?

Call me cynical but I don't see a return or revitalization of anything from our recent history. It won't be a return to 1950s morality or 80s consumerism or old school fire and brimstone preaching. It will be something analogous to the transformation of the Roman Republic into the Roman Empire. Here's the story I envision:

A charismatic, deeply perceptive leader takes power in a way that signals the end of constitutional norms. The people are at this point fed-up with the American experiment and desperately ready to accept anything that works. The leader, wanting to create something with more longevity than a mere dictatorship, establishes a wide array of social norms that impact every aspect of life. More than this, he establishes a new way of viewing the world. A new cosmos. Probably something analogous to a new religion or at the very least a new interpretation of one. The leader will shun the cult of personality in favor of a cult of impersonality, downplaying his own ego and presenting himself as a sort of inevitable phenomenon. From that a new period of coherence and cohesion comes into being. Within a generation or two the vast majority is on the same page, dutifully building a culture around the new set of ideas that are only bubbling beneath the surface in our time.

That's my prediction.