by Mike McDaniel
I begin by presenting three trends. One might even call them inevitabilities, and one might argue they’re not trends at all, but present realities that are intertwined and will tend to collapse in on each other, inevitably leading to the third inevitability.
The first trend is a Congress of feckless fools:
I’ll get to Lippencott’s final question momentarily, but our Congress does seem unable to accomplish anything of consequence, such as the SAVE America Act, which will make election fraud not necessarily impossible, but more inconvenient for the Democrat party, which arguably cannot win an election without massive fraud. A paralyzed Congress can’t even pay the Department of Homeland Security at a time when the danger of a massive terrorist attack within our shaky borders is at an all-time high. Democrats don’t care. If thousands of Americans die, they’ll blame it on Trump, with the help of their media propaganda arm.
While Congress does little to benefit America or Americans, its members excel at giving their power to unelected bureaucrats who, through rulemaking and nonsensical interpretation of congressional language and intent, run the bureaucratic state, which rules by ever-increasing rules and regulations.
The ATF was recently caught prosecuting Americans for possessing braced pistols, even though the prior ATF decision criminalizing them was rescinded. Congress could, by doing what it supposedly exists to do—legislating—resolve that once and for all, but it can’t even pass the SAVE America Act, which has as much as 90% public approval. Circa April 2026, apparently, 100% approval is required to pass anything, and it’s doubtful Congress could be roused to act even then.
Congress has become feckless to the point of immobility, unable, even unwilling, to act in the public interest. A Republican majority cannot govern unless it has a 60-vote majority in the Senate, and even then, there are always three or more “Republicans” ready to thwart pretty much every Republican policy and law.
Democrats previously argued that only the popular vote was legitimate. They said that until Trump won not only the Electoral College by a wide margin, but also the popular vote. Now, it turns out that they believe that they have a secular mandate to rule regardless of what the people say. Therefore, Democrats have the right and duty to thwart any attempt at Republican governance, or to outright rule, until they can rig the next election and seize power.
The second trend is multiple blue states rocketing toward bankruptcy, with the expectation that the American people will empty their wallets to bail them out. This comes from a combination of profligate deficit spending, massive fraud funneled through Democrat NGOs and other fraudsters, and unfunded pension obligations that could bankrupt some nations.
In New York, both New York City and the state are in deep financial trouble. The NYC retiree health care fund alone has only 5 cents of every dollar promised, amounting to at least $100 billion in unfunded retiree health care liabilities. Unfunded health care costs and pensions amount to around $260 billion.
What about the state’s debt? The best estimate for the entire state—local and state—is $798 billion. That’s the highest per capita in the nation.
How is Islamist/Socialist Mayor Zhoran Mamdani planning to address this looming fiscal train wreck? He plans to dramatically raise taxes and raid the city’s Rainy Day fund and retiree health care trust fund. That’s the 5 cents set aside to pay those obligations. This in a city where the cost of living, cost of doing business, regulations, and sky-high taxes are already chasing out a substantial portion of its tax base.
What’s that you’re saying? That’s insane? Of course it is, but Mamdani was elected on the promise of all manner of free stuff, financed by other people’s money. Free stuff like free day care for municipal workers. All 330,000 of them? Nope. Forty.
He’s remodeling a 4,000-square-foot site for $10 million. Sure, that could buy a great many new, very nice, 2,000-square-foot homes in most red states, but this is NYC, among the most expensive real estate anywhere. The estimated annual operating cost for just 40 kids is $2.3 million. It will surely be much higher, but that comes to about $57,500 per kid per year. Private day care in NYC costs half that.
Even better, the fiscal year begins July 1 with a projected $5.4 billion budget deficit. Mamdani, a guy who has never had a real job or made payroll, is the one New Yorkers elected, and he’s giving it to them good and hard.
That’s awful; California is worse—much worse.
In a recent Loyola Marymount University poll, nearly 48% want an unspecified socialist as Los Angeles mayor. That, given a choice between a “moderate, business-oriented Democrat” and a “conservative political outsider.”
Considering that California’s likely imposition of a “billionaire tax” has already chased many billionaires out of the state, with others on their heels, and added to the tens of thousands of productive, tax-paying Californians already fleeing, California’s tax base is rapidly depleting.
And Los Angelenos want Zohran Mamdani’s twin?
I won’t bother to get into the fine details of unfunded pension liabilities and the hundreds of billions lost to fraud and waste of all kinds. I’ll merely report that of all the wasteful, insane blue states in America, California is number one, with more than $1.5 trillion in unfunded liabilities.
As of 2020, there were 82 separate public pension systems in California. More than 4.4 million people were members of those systems. Imagine what’s going to happen when that $1.5 trillion comes due, and 4.4 million Californians and their families are stiffed. Oh, it’s worse.
Not a single state, red or blue, has a fully funded pension plan. Wisconsin’s is best at 56% funded, while New Jersey’s—surprise!—is worst at less than 18%.
Are you beginning to see trends falling in on each other, leading to a crisis that’s becoming easier to imagine? What crisis? A second civil war.
When California and New York—let’s ignore the rest for the moment—come begging the Congress of the brokest country in history to bail them out, there will be hard choices. The residents of red states that aren’t bankrupt aren’t going to want to be taxed into universal poverty to bail out the arrogant, socialist snots that hate them and want them dead. Blue states, and not a few Republicans, will argue we’re all Americans, one big salad-bowl family, so fork over for Uncle Abdul the Islamist, Aunt Sally the drug addict, and little Jamal the five-time felon, and all our homeless, insane, deviant cousins, all the people used to others bankrolling them, and all the honest blue-state people dragged down by them.
Sane Americans—people who have always worked, paid their taxes, and supported their families and communities—are going to point out this was no surprise. Those blue-state politicians have seen it coming for decades, and they spent themselves into oblivion anyway. Their constituents serially voted for them and fed at the government free-stuff teat. They got what they wanted, good and hard, and they’re going to want to give it to sane, responsible Americans.
As Hemingway said, there are two ways to go bankrupt: gradually, then suddenly. But it was no surprise; they had plenty of warning and chose fiscal disaster.
When blue-state America learns its citizens’ standard of living is going to crater to pay for the preventable stupidity of people who hate them—people who will keep spending other people’s money—red states are going to secede. Even rumors of secession will be enough to drive blue states—and Congress—to mobilize against red states. It won’t be for a noble cause like abolishing slavery. It will be to seize the money and property of fiscally responsible Americans. They, like all socialists, will want to make everybody poor and miserable.
Red-state Americans aren’t going to go for that, and our military, our police, federal agents—the works—will have to choose sides. It won’t work out the way Democrats think.
It’s probably—possibly?—not too late. But who will force blue states to live within their means? Is that legally, constitutionally possible? Our do-nothing Congress might admit there’s a problem. They’re great at talking, awful at useful action. Don’t get me started on forcing Congress to live within our means. That’s another article—a book, really.
I’m old enough that I likely won’t be around when the trends collapse. But people I care about will. We’re in the “gradually” phase. Now we get to see whether “suddenly” is inevitable.
