Reading Reentry

As I mentioned a couple weeks ago, I'm taking some much-needed time off from politics. I posted before the election that immersing myself in the news was like drinking poison every day. I needed a bit of time to rebuild my immunity system to keep this political environment from dragging me down.

Never in my life did I think I would see something like the Jan. 6 riot, not to mention reelecting the man who inspired it through his heated rhetoric and lies about the 2020 election. And we reelected a man who talked about Arold Palmer’s penis size, threatened to use the US military against “enemies within,” and all manner of other bizarre ramblings. We reelected a man whose own generals warned us was “fascist to the core” and is “the most dangerous man in America.”

This is not the country I grew up in.

From time to time, I’ve checked in on the news, but once I got past the headlines, I just reflexively put my phone down. I just didn’t have the stomach for it.

But I know I need to reengage. So rather than dive right back into current events, I’m easing back in by reading Peter Zeihan’s book, The End of the World is Just the Beginning: Mapping the Collapse of Globalization. I listened to it once already on Audible in 2022 while on a cross-country road trip. I was reminded of it again because I think Trump’s reelection is at least partly symptomatic of what Zeihan has predicted: that with the fall of the Soviet Union, the United States is pulling back from its post-WWII role as enforcer of global security guarantees that made globalization possible, or “the Order,” as Zeihan calls it.

This is not the country I grew up in, and if Zeihan is even half right, those idyllic days are done. And there’s no going back.

Instead of listening to it, I’m reading it this time. I tend to internalize information better when I read it, and it’s a fascinating read. Zeihan chronicles history through the lens of geography, politics, technology and demographics. He has some very dire predictions about the inevitable collapse of some societies due to demographic time bombs (China) combined with the U.S. withdrawal from its role as global policeman.

I think Zeihan’s predictions are too dire. For instance, he believes that the U.S. will soon stop providing security for global shipping lanes. Since we have, by far, the world’s most powerful navy, no other country will be able to fill that void.

Zeihan’s thesis is that, as Mexico replaces China as America's manufacturing base, and as we are growing more energy independent, we will withdraw further into our own hemisphere and stop providing security for world trade. The logic of NATO and other security arrangements dissolved along with the Soviet Union, and inertia is the only reason they have survived this long.

It would be catastrophic for many countries that lack food security, energy security and resource security if the worlds’ oceans became unpoliced playgrounds for pirates. But I am dubious that America would let this happen. It’s possible, but unlikely. Even if Americans stopped caring about what happens in other countries, we still benefit from world trade and I doubt we will completely recede from the world stageHowever, it’s still a very interesting, thought-provoking read and some of his predictions will certainly come true (at least to some degree), such as the demographic time-bombs unfolding in many countries. And I think it helps give context to the rise of Trumpism and its “America First” philosophy, and understand the appeal of its isolationist, nativist underbelly.

And it’s helping me ease back into my daily reading habit.