{"id":45562,"date":"2026-08-24T08:04:11","date_gmt":"2026-08-24T13:04:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/?p=45562"},"modified":"2026-08-24T08:04:11","modified_gmt":"2026-08-24T13:04:11","slug":"the-exhaustion-is-setting-in","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/2026\/08\/24\/the-exhaustion-is-setting-in\/","title":{"rendered":"The Exhaustion Is Setting In"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sometimes, you wake up from a nap, read something, and something really seems clear. That’s what happened with Erick Erickson with his latest<\/a> this afternoon, a justifiable tale of woe concerning our country’s finances. His conclusion?<\/p>\n

Someone needs to chart a new course. In the 1970\u2019s, both sides had decided the nation was in decline and Ronald Reagan chose to chart a different path and refuse to accept the idea of decline or detente. We are back again with both sides presuming our decline and China\u2019s rise. The present leadership of both parties is failing us, and their vision for tomorrow involves giving them more power, insisting we can trust them to make right what they have made wrong.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\"\"<\/a>What popped into my mind?<\/p>\n

Exhaustion<\/em>.<\/p>\n

We’re exhausted from the Cold War, a conflict which inflicted relatively few casualties, but consumed resources for military affairs at, I think, an unprecedented rate. The Soviets and their allies collapsed first, ridden into the ground by ambition, arrogance, debt, and hatred of previous governments, such as the tsars.<\/p>\n

Now we’re following them into the ground, ridden by ambition, arrogance, debt, hyperindividualism, and love of previous governments, Christian theocracies such as the monarchy of James I, while detesting the current inclination towards secular governments.<\/p>\n

Can we recover from our current crisis? Can we elect new office holders who aren’t going to spray more wealth from metaphorical fire hoses in their crazed attempts to make the world what they think it should be? Who agree compromise is a necessity, not an evil?<\/p>\n

My guess is No<\/strong>. We’ve lost our existential enemy, the Soviets, and do not recognize a new such enemy. That, as Turchin observes<\/a> with old Rome and Gaul, leads to the spinning entity they called an empire to succumbing to centrifugal forces, and its ultimate doom.<\/p>\n

I hope I’m wrong.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sometimes, you wake up from a nap, read something, and something really seems clear. That’s what happened with Erick Erickson with his latest this afternoon, a justifiable tale of woe concerning our country’s finances. His conclusion? Someone needs to chart a new course. In the 1970\u2019s, both sides had decided \u2026 Continue reading → <\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-45562","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45562","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=45562"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45562\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":45566,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45562\/revisions\/45566"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=45562"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=45562"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=45562"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}