Will America Fall With A Bang Or A Whimper?

There are three hurdles for a reader to clear in order to enjoy Kurt Schlichter’s new book “We’ll Be Back: The Fall and Rise of America.” First, he must ignore the cover. Yes, one can’t judge a book by its cover, but a picture of an angry middle-aged guy pointing at the viewer, presumably ready to open a can of whoop ass on him, might provoke some eye-rolling among people that fancy themselves intellectuals. Fortunately, the reader can take off the book sleeve and this problem is solved.

Second, he must make it past the generic “angry conservative” title. “We’ll Be Back” doesn’t really say anything. Rather, like the cover, it just gives the wrong impression of the book, which is not a partisan rant. It’s a thoughtful analysis of today’s political situation.

Third, the reader must simply accept Schlichter’s penchant to crack a joke in every other sentence of this book. Altogether, this is a serious book, but it’s told in a humorous way. For anyone with a background in history or politics, the jokes are actually quite funny. For example, when discussing the decline of religious practice in the West, he remarks, “The churches themselves, outside of places like Poland, where they believe in something beyond soccer, are broken.” Of course, every so often the jokes don’t always land: “It’s like the Beatles when Yoko showed up. It is unsustainable.” OK, Boomer.

With these Disclaimers, “We’ll Be Back” is an otherwise excellent book that speaks to the current moment. Schlichter’s subject matter affects everyone, not just political junkies and doomsday preppers. He is a savvy commentator and entertaining writer who is able to make complex ideas palatable and imaginable. His predictions aren’t the abstruse reflections of a professor insulated from reality, but an actual veteran who has lived in the world, experienced life, and interacted with many different people. As such, his predictions of what will befall the U.S. merit attention, and his arguments are surprisingly sound, if sometimes grim.

Post Pax Americana

Of course, before Schlichter can discuss the future, he must discuss the past. He sets up two reference points with which to view today’s current decline, the Roman Empire and the U.S. in the early 1990s. In his view, American power peaked soon after the fall of the Soviet Union, as it was settling various conflicts around the world as its sole superpower, establishing a kind of Pax Americana. Such was the also case of first-century Rome, the ancient world’s cosmopolitan superpower.

Although entertaining on its own, Schlichter’s crash course in classical history has a deeper point that applies to today. Like Rome, America will fall, but this fall won’t be anything sudden or even perceptible to most people. He explains that America’s fall will probably “be a transformational change. … The old ways can simply stop meeting the needs of the present, and something different replaces them.” For the past three decades, Schlichter charts the mounting corruption of the American government, the departure from