Chris’ note: Chris
Reilly here, managing editor for Casey Daily Dispatch.
A
couple of weeks ago, I flew out to Aspen, Colorado to catch up with legendary
speculator and bestselling author Doug Casey.
It was a fantastic trip. I
asked Doug about everything from technology… to the economy… and the resurgence of gold.
Doug
also shared his thoughts on President Trump… and more importantly, what could
be in store for America.
Like
usual, Doug didn’t hold anything back. Today, I want to share our discussion
with you…
Read
on for this week’s special Conversations With Casey…
Chris: Doug,
you predicted that Trump would win the election long before most people even
thought he had a chance. Now, almost three years in, how would you rate his
presidency?
Doug: Well,
on the one hand Trump is a good thing simply because he’s not one of the
lunatic fringe Democrats. He’s a cultural traditionalist at heart; he wants to
see the US return to the “Leave It to Beaver” days of the 1950s. That’s
essentially why he was elected, and why he’s still so popular. Despite the fact
he’s culturally conservative, he has no core values. He runs strictly on gut
feeling. He has no central philosophy or intellectual beliefs. It’s just
whatever seems like a good idea at the time. He knows a lot about real estate
speculation on high leverage. But he knows absolutely nothing about economics.
Let’s
look at the good and the bad things about Trump.
Cultural
conservative. That’s good in a time when the US is in a state of cultural
turmoil, where the old order is being overthrown – which it is. Not so long
ago, the country that was composed of white Christian people of European
origin; it was quite homogeneous. And if you’re going to have a country, it’s good
to be homogeneous.
Since
the late ‘60s, however, the US has been inundated with migrants from all over
the world; it’s no longer homogeneous. It no longer has real cultural
traditions, and the remaining ones are being abolished, like Columbus Day
recently. Columbus is no longer the discoverer of America so much as the
oppressor of native peoples.
One
major change is that Americans no longer share a common religious tradition.
Say what you want about Christianity – and I’m not a religious person – but it was
something Americans could share, that they had in common. But it’s no longer a
major element; the US is becoming like Europe that way. That’s important
because Christianity provided a broad moral framework. Now there’s a vacuum. It
may be filled by Mohammedanism, especially since so many migrants take that
creed seriously. Churches will be replaced by mosques in many places.
There’s
no longer any kind of trust in the culture in general. And certainly not in the
government. The only thing that Americans still trust – the only institution
they still have any respect for – is the military. And that’s extremely
dangerous because as Edward Gibbon said, regarding the Roman Empire and their
military, “any order of men accustomed to slavery and violence make for very
poor guardians of a civil constitution.” Nonetheless, I don’t doubt one or both
parties will put up a general as the Greater Depression reaches a climax.
Of
course Trump loves the military, which is natural for a statist. But the good
news about Trump is that he also apparently sees all the pointless foreign wars
are just making lots of enemies while they bankrupt the country. He’s trying to
get the troops out of the Middle East quagmire; better late than never,
although he’s been very, very slow about this. If he finishes that, maybe he’ll
get them out of the new quagmires that are building up in Africa, and then
start closing the 800 bases around the world, which serve no useful purpose
besides feeding the Deep State. I don’t believe he’ll succeed, however.
Warmongers are in total control in Washington.
So
let’s put it this way. Trump has some real pluses, but no philosophical center.
Politically he’s a statist. Economically, he doesn’t have a clue. In fact, he’s
looking for more money creation, and lower or negative interest rates. Which is
going to add flames to an absolutely catastrophic depression.
I appreciate his trying to
stem mass migration, so what’s left of America can retain its cultural core.
But his efforts are like building a sand castle on the sea shore. The waves are
going to wash it away for all kinds of reasons. A pity, really. Minneapolis
will resemble Mogadishu, Miami might resemble Port au Prince more than even
Havana, El Paso will be like Juarez, and Cleveland like Karachi. But things
change. The colors of the map on the wall are running more than has been the
case since the barbarian invasions of the 5th century.
Chris: What
do you have to say about the political landscape right now as we head into the
2020 election season?
Doug: Trump’s
acting as a catalyst for something resembling an actual civil war in this
country. And I’ll draw your attention to the fact that the unpleasantness of
1861 to 1865 was not, in fact, a civil war. It was a war of secession, which is
very different from a civil war. In a war of secession, one group simply wants
to part company from another – not rule them. In a civil war, on the other
hand, you’ve got two or more groups that are fighting for control of one
government. That wasn’t the case in the War Between the States.
The American Revolution, of
1775-1783, by comparison, was both a war of secession and a civil war. About
1/3rd of Americans wanted to secede from the ruling British
political power, 1/3rd were loyal to the Crown and fighting against secessionists,
and 1/3rd really didn’t care. The Revolution was much more complex,
and nastier, than is generally understood.
Keeping
in mind the difference between a civil war and a war of secession, I think it’s
possible that the US could have both – like we did in the Revolution. Why?
Because people in the red counties and the blue counties really hate each
other. They should, therefore, be politically separate. And that could be
peaceable. But they’ll likely try to keep the union together, which means one group
has to suppress the other group. They can’t have a civil conversation. Members
of the same family can’t even talk politics or economics anymore. They’ve come
to disrespect, even despise each other on a visceral level.
Trump
is acting as a lightning rod for both groups.
Chris: I
agree. It seems like we’re going to reach a boiling point here soon.
Doug: Yeah,
that’s what happens before a civil war. They really want to kill each other.
Neither group thinks rationally, just emotionally. And it’s essentially a moral
divide, which doesn’t lend itself to calm intellectual resolution.
It’s
worse than during the ‘60s, which was the last cultural revolution that we had
here in the US. It’s much worse this time, even if so far it hasn’t been as
violent. Recall that during the late ‘60s and early ‘70s the US had several
thousand bombings. But things eventually calmed down.
Back then, however, we just
had three major TV networks and some newspapers. Today there are thousands of
channels of social media around to aggravate and abet discontent. With the old
mass media everybody heard more or less the same thing – the hoi polloi just heard what the mass media told
them. Today not nearly as many people watch or read mass media, and nobody
really trusts it. Today it’s all about Facebook, social media, and the
Internet. Much more unpredictable, and potentially explosive. They allow the
public to communicate across the country and form groups… That was very hard to
do in the 1850s. It makes a conflagration much more likely today.
But
on the other hand, people are very comfortable today. Most people don’t have
any guns today, and few know how to use them. You’ve got a whole generation
that are financially burdened with student debt, everlasting car loans, credit
card debt, no assets, and no marketable skills. A generation of people living
in their parents’ basements who’ve been indoctrinated with collectivist ideas.
Maybe they’re up for a revolution…
On
the other hand, the whole country is getting older. We’re closing in on 25% of
the country over 60 years old. When you’re over 60, you generally don’t want to
go out and be a street fighting man anymore.
It’s
hard to say if we’re even capable of a real civil war anymore.
Chris: Is
there another possible outcome?
Doug: In
my opinion the best option is for the US to break up into new countries, new
regions – as outlandish as that sounds. Young chicanos in LA have zero in
common with old white women in the Northeast. And they’ll have less than zero
desire to pay 20% of their income to finance the old ladies’ Social Security
and Medicare. The situation is similar across many groups and regions in the US
today. They have very little in common any more.
Many
are shocked when I say I’m against the constitution of 1789. We would likely
have been much better off economically and every other way if the original
colonies had just stayed in a somewhat improved confederation – which was all
that was supposed to have happened in Philadelphia in 1789. They all shared a
more or less common culture. They didn’t need to centralize all their power in
Washington DC.
Eventually
the US will break up. Nothing lasts forever, and that includes the US. People
who think this country is going to be even remotely the same in 50 years –
forget about 100 years – aren’t thinking clearly. They certainly don’t have a
grasp of the way history flows. The very fact that whites of European
extraction will soon be a minority – both in Europe and the US – tells you
something big is afoot. The new majority don’t share language, race, religion,
values, or traditions with the old culture, or among each other. In fact they
hold it in contempt – as do many whites.
The US could easily break up.
Speculator (High Groun...Doug
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People
say, “Well, what about our military, our defense?” The point I’d make is that
the military is the second biggest thing, after welfare, that’s bankrupting the
country. That’s number one.
Number
two, they’re not defending the country. They’re actually drawing in outside
attacks by going out and making enemies all over the world. The natives don’t
like our soldiers in their countries any more than we’d like their soldiers in
the US.
Number
three, all our expensive high-tech weapons – F35s, B2s, aircraft carriers, and
the rest of it… are basically junk. They’re going to be almost worthless in
what resembles World War III, whatever that might look like. New technologies
are going to totally obviate this crap, much more seriously than cavalry in
World War I, which turned out to be worthless, or battleships in World War II.
When
the military fails, it’s going to be a big disuniting influence for the US.
Only a teeny-weeny portion of the American population knows anything about the
military anymore. They’re isolated from it, even though they’ve been programmed
to love and respect it. The military have, at the same time, become like a
separate culture within the culture. Military guys hang out just with each
other, not with civilians. Just like cops hang out just with each other, not
with the people that they police. Most cops today, incidentally, are also
ex-military. Another bad trend.
There’s
a great deal more to be said about all this, but the purpose of this interview
was just to touch on a few high points.
Bottom
line? Trump has his hands full.
Chris: Good
talk, Doug. Appreciate the time.
Doug: You’re
welcome.
Reprinted with permission
from Casey
Research.
Doug
Casey (send
him mail) is a best-selling author and chairman of Casey Research,
LLC., publishers of Casey’s International Speculator.
Copyright
© 2019 Casey
Research
