Jack of Harts

Many people called it the Second American Republic at the time. The result of the Civil War. Most historians call it the Third Republic. The result of Roosevelt’s New Deal. America’s been through a lot of changes over the centuries, echoed or begun by both the culture and the government. Southerners rebelled in the 1860s. Civilization hung by a thread in the 1930s. Hippies checked out in the 1970s. Everybody was checking out by the 2010s. The Culture Wars were hitting their stride and America was on its way to becoming at least two entirely different peoples who really didn’t like each other. There were actually three, or more major cultures at the time, but the noisiest two were the ones that got the news and the network ratings. And most of the history books. It was flash points like the 2010s that serve as warnings that the cultural differences between two or more groups are becoming critical. We saw them in the 1760s, the 1850s, the 1920s, and the 2190s as well. I really wish more people had listened before things got worse. Worse like the Second Great Depression.

The Second Great Depression started when the American government defaulted on its foreign loans. That’s the standard lesson taught in history. It’s more accurate to say that a newly elected Congress stopped paying the interest on certain foreign loans to geopolitical foes in an effort to balance the yearly budget. When China reacted by demanding immediate repayment of all outstanding loans, the government could not have done so if they’d wanted to. They did not. What started as a budget battle turned into a geopolitical crisis. China soon nationalized all American-owned property in their sphere of influence, and then began impounding American cargos traveling through their waters. I will remind you that they had already laid claimed to the entirety of the South Chinese Sea at the time. The economic impact on America was…bad.