'Democratic Discipline', A Brief History Of America's Mid-21st Century Military Rule And Return To Civility

The President looked out the portico window of the White House and admired the military precision of the phalanx of tanks arrayed along Pennsylvania Avenue.  This parade was to be the jubilant celebration of ten years of military rule, a Pax Romana in America, a decade of civility, order, and justice. 

The President smiled, proud of this achievement, and happy to see the fulfillment of a dream - a strong, internationally respected nation, nationally secure, a unified, cohesive society. 

His predecessors had only sat by as the nation fumbled and foundered its way through years of neo-Socialism, 'woke' social reform, and fairytale utopianism, initiating senseless programs designed with this febrile idealism in mind - radical environmentalism, racial parity, neutering of private enterprise, the decommissioning of military offensive weaponry, and a faux compassionate foreign policy. 

The second Trump Administration rolled back most of these programs and set the tone for a more disciplined, muscular governance; but much damage had been done.  The country had been weakened from within, and the Machiavellian powers of the world had taken advantage of it.  Years of political uncertainty, internal chaos, and weakened institutions followed until now, decades later, the United States had regained control over both national and international interests. 

The former British Prime Minister, historian, and political seer Winston Churchill had once said that democracy was the worst form of government except for all the rest, and that notion was retained as gospel for decades by the United States. The fallacy began to show as first quarter of the Twenty-First Century was one of civil disobedience, permissiveness, a corrosive and innately self-destructive culture of 'identity', and the limitless, unaccountable government largess.

Many in Washington and beyond wondered if, despite Churchill, this was the death throe of democracy; whether it had run its course, whether Alexander Hamilton had been right after all, and that the governed were no more than a fevered mob. In those days, Machiavellian powers - Russia and China, profoundly and militantly anti-democratic and recalling the halcyon days of empire - were ascendant, and despite the best efforts of President Trump, took more convincing control of international affairs. 

It was not until successive conservative governments took power in the United States, that the political complexion of the country began to change.  The Trump years were only a foreshadowing of what was to become a militantly nationalistic party, formed as an inspiration of the legacy of Donald Trump and former presidents Putin and Xi, but far more overreaching, dominant, and aggressive. 

Whereas the Trump Administration had used federal military and paramilitary forces to secure America's borders and return the country to one of internal security, law, and conditional rights, successive administrations extended not only the presence of these forces but promoted an ethos of military justice.  So much so that the presence of military personnel in American cities became accepted, acceptable, and normal.  Gangs of illegal immigrants had been completely eliminated, the ghettos had been policed with limitless authority and crime had been reduced almost to zero. 

The days of pimps, ho's, drug deals, and gang violence were over.  The inner city was no longer the metaphor for incivility, crime, and violence.  While the populations of these communities did not mature as many hoped to be as productive and well-integrated as white and Asian ones - removing the endemic dysfunction of the ghetto, a product of both nature and nurture was impossible - they were at least assimilated into the mainstream and caused no trouble. 

It was only with the current administration, now in power for ten years, that final, complete, and universal military rule was confirmed, in place, and irreversible.  Finally, and at long last, American presidents and official Washington, realized how right former El Salvadoran President Bukele had been when he used extrajudicial means to round up, arrest, and incarcerate all MS-13 Mara Salvatrucha gang members and return the country to its people.  

The civil rights of murderers, rapists, drug dealers, and violently anti-social elements were non-existent, he said, while the right of the millions of proper, morally, respectful citizens to live without fear were. 

Deng Xiao Ping, former Chinese Premier and the first to introduce radical reforms to correct those of the preceding, destructive Maoist regime, had been no different. His goal was to raise hundreds of millions of Chinese out of poverty, and he would tolerate no debate, interference, or insurrection while doing so. Prosperity was a civil right, not disobedience. 

 

It was not easy for America to secure this Pax Romana.  In the early days of military rule before national terrorist groups realized that the federal government meant business and that the days of moral supposition were over, there were clashes on the streets of America's cities; but military forces, now with the authority to quell any and all disturbances with the full right and might with with which they were disposed, soon restored and maintained law and order. 

Americans soon got over the umbrage and perceived insults defined by the Left and found that living with unlocked doors in an atmosphere of civility and moral community was what they had always wanted. Democracy, or rather the governance that was supposed to pass for it, was a thing of the past, a piece of the historical record.  Camouflage, automatic rifles, and armored personnel carriers became part of the zeitgeist, unremarkable and almost unnoticed. 

At the same time, America projected this unbending principle of disciplined rule to the rest of the world, and finally there was parity among the superpowers, each respecting the others' territorial rights and need for self-interested foreign policies without confrontation and military threat.  The world was ruled by a powerful triumvirate - America, Russia, and China - and it prospered.  

Poor nations were subsumed within this all-encompassing arc, paid their dues and managed.  Given years of misrule, corruption, and tribal primitivism, Africa only stumbled along, but unarmed, poorly organized, and undisciplined, posed no threat. 

There were naysayers of course, small cabals which could never accept the conditions necessary for peace and harmony; but each time they ventured in the streets, they were summarily arrested, incarcerated, and forgotten. The days of inchoate rebellion, such as the anti- ICE (federal forces for immigration control) riots of 2025 had ceased years ago, and while public, peaceful expression was tolerated, it could never take physical form. 

The private sector was delighted at this new militant federal control.  Along with military rule came other traditionally conservative polices - low taxation, few regulations, no bothersome lawsuits over diversity and inclusivity issues, and a laissez-faire ethos which allowed for the most free competition since the days of Rockefeller, Carnegie, and Morgan.

 

The days of divisive, contentious, embittered, identity-obsessed society are over and have been for years.  Americans are now free to act according to the principles of the Founding Fathers of the Republic with innovation, ambition, respect, and faith. 

Democracy is still taught in schools, but as the short historical episode it was, not the trenchant political philosophy it had been touted to be.