What happens to a society when the pernicious ideas of an elite filter down to the masses, and the proverbial people sense the foundations of their own citizenship crumbling? When crime spikes, infrastructure erodes, airliners lack fuel to reach their destinations, borders become irrelevant, tribalism returns, and Americans lose confidence in their own elections and the wisdom of their Constitution, the most likely ultimate cause of such apparent systems collapse can be traced to an erosion of citizenship.
The assault on American citizenship
The current American national malaise and dread of collective decline display a variety of symptoms. One is a sense that the middle class is weakening. Another is that America’s southern border is becoming meaningless. Citizens also fear that woke identity politics are fueling a recrudescent precivilizational tribalism that threatens to endanger their lives and unwind the nation.
More formally, a vast and growing body of unelected functionaries now exercises more power over citizens than do elected officials. Credentialed elites across the professions are actively seeking to enfeeble or discard significant elements of the Constitution and the accompanying customs and traditions of nearly two and a half centuries. Self-described overseers wish to subordinate national interests and sovereignty to a higher globalist cultural allegiance and authority. All these diverse challenges still share a common denominator in the systematic destruction of what used to be called American citizenship.
Take the middle class, the traditional linchpin of consensual government. Until recently, middle-class
