There’s a difficult question that I think we have to ask ourselves today: how low will American decline go? Where does it all end? Does it end in a comedy of scandal? Puffed-up macho isolationism? Or something darker still, like humanity’s darkest moments? For example, if I was to ask you: “do you think all this will implode into genocide and atrocity?”, you would probably think it was pretty far-fetched. Perhaps you are right. Perhaps I am wrong. Let us suspend right and wrong for a minute — and ask, instead, and only, whether it is reasonable to even ask such a question, and whether we should be asking it.

Here is why I ask. We have been fatally wrong about the speed, scale, and scope of decline. Not just less right — but dead wrong. It seemed impossible, just a few short years, that democracy would implode into authoritarianism, that life expectancy would begin to fall, that sane political parties wouldn’t topple aspiring tyrants. But here we are. Breakdown has proceeded faster, harder, and more viciously than we — and by this “we” I mean the generally accepted expectations of public discourse, not you or I — assumed, expected, or anticipated, if we anticipated it at all.

Now. Why is that? Isn’t it fair to say that is a big mistake to have made? Shouldn’t we think about it? We must be, then, operating under a perpetual and dangerous assumption: that the worst that can happen isn’t very bad. The worst, we imagine, still lies within the bounds of sanity, reason, and normalcy: kleptocracy, oligarchy, plutocracy, populism, a difficult period of turmoil, sure enough — but a passing thing, that will soon enough be fixed and patched up. Hence, at every stage, our answer to a single, vital question — “what is the worst that might happen?” — has been so abjectly wrong.

So let us ask instead: what is the worst that might happen? And why does “might” mean, anyways — something like “improbably could”, or more like “probably will”?

There are a few iron laws of history. Stagnating economies cause fascism to rise, inflaming old tribal sentiments. Such a society, if it does not rewrite a broken social contract, enters something like a death spiral — fascism is a way to ration a stagnant economy’s dwindling fruits to those of pure blood, but for precisely this reason, the harvest never grows. So fascism hardens. Society screams with rage and despair. And at the end lie all the atrocities of history — genocide, mass violence. Death laughs at human folly, barbarism stalks the ruins, and neighbour slaughters neighbour.

Now. What would you say the odds of a society — one in the middle stages — of this spiral reaching the final points into genocide, atrocity, and violence are? Are they fair odds? Ah, but why then don’t we believe this about our very own societies? Because myths of exceptionalism and perfection prevent us from thinking — they blind us from truth. But that is besides the point.

Let us examine exactly why, once this death spiral of stagnation and fascism begins, it spins out of control — faster and harder and fiercer than we had ever imagined — and worse still, almost inevitably, almost without exception, ends in ruin, atrocity, mass violence, and unspeakable horror. We are not asking: “will it surely come to be?” We are only asking the question: “is such a scenario beyond the realm of reasonable possibility?”

Fascism operates by transgressing norms. Why? Because in a declining society, that is how one demonstrates absolute strength and power — and flaunts impunity. If one get away with what everyone else cannot, one must be the strongest. And it is safety and security that people look for above all. Thus, by transgressing norms, the strongman demonstrates his potency, which attracts the weak-willed and broken-spirited, the shattered and the forgotten. The strongman can only become the strongest one if he is the exception to all of society’s norms, values, and rules. And in a society with a broken social contract, what are those worth, anyways?

Any sane person can see exactly these dynamics at work every day in America. What was outrageous last week is forgotten this week. The number of scandals, disgraces, and ignominies is so overwhelming no one can keep pace. But these are all transgressions — breaches of now-distant norms. I don’t need to give you examples, do I? Porn-star spankings, demonizing immigrants, etcetera.

What is the result of the transgression of norms? Well, what is acceptable for a figurehead, a strongman to say and do — abusing power, abusing people, abusing position — is soon enough quite alright for his followers to do, too. The strongman’s followers, who have the regressed minds of wounded children, more or less, mimic his model of strength. And in this way, worse and worse predations soon enough have no social, moral, or cultural prohibitions placed upon them.

But that sets off something like a competition of transgression — higher and higher heights must be reached, if a fascist movement’s power is to flaunted, advertised, demonstrated. For who can the fascist intimidate, control, and subordinate without the raw, aggressive display of power?

So fascism operates by transgressing norms, drawing attention to itself, demonstrating its power, showing off its immunity from restraint, which it must do ever harder — thus, yesterday’s transgression must soon enough be followed by a more spectacular, abominable one. That is why in America we see a daily degeneration. The fascist can no more resist higher and higher heights of transgression than a moth can resist a flame — his power growing into dominance depends on it entirely and absolutely.

Now, where does this death spiral end? Well, it ends in precisely the same place it always has. What was once the mere transgression of a norm reaches higher heights until becomes the new law. What was once a social infraction, frowned upon, becomes illegal not to participate in. That is what we saw in Nazi Germany, Soviet Russia, or in the numerous genocides in Africa and Latin America. Transgression becomes instititutionalized into subjugation.

Soon enough, the ultimate lines are crossed. Once scapegoating, harm, and exclusion are made legal — that is to say, punishable for not being complicit in them — then what line is there really left to cross? The principle has already been written, the precedent set. All that is left now to apply it to the whole of the human body — to use whips and camps where once one used words and speeches.

And so genocide, atrocity, and horror erupt. The good people cheer, as camps are built and ghettoes fenced off. Not just here and there, as the improbable exception. But as the rule, the norm, the most probable outcome. It is the tendency of periods of decline, whose economics produce fascist movements, for transgression to become annihilation.

Now. I have told you this grim story for a reason. If history tells us anything, it is that in periods of implosion, like this one, the worst is precisely what carries in it a kind of gravity. It is written into the great socio-economic and political-cultural trends — and we are little things, standing against a great tide, surging thanks to their terrible gravity. And there is only real way to suspend that gravity. To acknowledge it. And work harder to lift one another up.

It is a great mistake for us to happily assume that the worst cannot come to be — when history’s rule is that transgression becomes extermination, elimination, and extinction. This comforting belief shields from history’s unforgiving truths, and lets us carry on as though life will return, one day, if not to normalcy, at least to something like resigned acceptability. But there is no reason for us to force a reckoning then, either. And so through this belief that the worst cannot happen, we disempower ourselves as citizens, cousins, and human beings.

At times like this, we must assume the worst — understanding that the bottomless depths are precisely where decline tends to head. Not so that we grow paralyzed in despair. But for precisely the opposite reason. So that we regain our power and passion to change the world falling apart around us. And in that way, perhaps, we begin to think, act, and behave like citizens, human beings, and brothers and sisters again.