Chris Abraham

The mistake in “American empire collapse” narratives is assuming the empire is the thing that holds power. It isn’t. Capital does. Modern billionaires and oligarchs aren’t loyal to flags, voters, or even countries—they’re loyal to liquidity, legal arbitrage, and mobility. If U.S. hegemony weakens, they don’t suffer; they pivot. Assets move. Passports change. Headquarters relocate. Monaco, Dubai, Singapore, Hong Kong, Moscow—pick your jurisdiction.

What collapses isn’t global capitalism, or elite power, or greed. What collapses is the American middle class’s access to the leverage that once came with being inside the dominant system. The belief that “America” is the center of global capitalism is a 19th–20th century idea rooted in industrial empires and national elites. Today’s elites already operate in a post-national, meta-state economy. If the American empire falls, it won’t be the rich who pay the price—it’ll be the people who can’t leave.

Every generation of Star Trek has been denounced on arrival as woke propaganda, civil-rights sermonizing, or pinko nonsense. The original series was blasted for interracial crews and utopian politics. The movies gave us San Francisco, flower power, and literal “save the whales” messaging. The Next Generation was mocked as preachy, soft, and politically correct. None of this is new.

What is new is selective memory. People who now defend “classic” Trek don’t realize that their affection for it is proof they evolved alongside it. If they were 30, 40, or 50 in the late ’60s, they would’ve hated Kirk’s Enterprise. If they were that age in the ’90s, they would’ve called Picard’s Enterprise moralizing nonsense. Time softened the edges, not the ideas.

Starfleet Academy is just the next expression of the same trajectory: optimism, pluralism, competence, anti-authoritarian ethics, and a belief that cooperation beats domination. Trek has never been neutral, and it has never pretended to be. The franchise doesn’t shift left so much as it drags each generation—kicking and screaming—forward, then waits until they forget they ever resisted it.

I usually EDC a huge Goruck GR2 34L in Tropical Multicam but sometimes I want to go lighter and smaller and lower-profile and inconspicuous. This is about as minimalist as I go:

• Haley Strategic Flatpack, black
• Haley Strategic GP Panel, black
• 2011 X220 Lenovo Thinkpad with 16GB and Linux Mint
• OEM X220 power brick
• Bulk cheap Chinese Wayfarers
• Olive Lochby Pocket Journal
• BIC Cristal Re’new, aluminum with blue bold ink
• Staedtler Mars Technico 780 C Lead Holder
• RUIDUN 65W Flat GaN USB C Charger
• Lost Dutchman Leather Livingston 2
• NIU USB-C to USB-C Cable, 3.3ft, Type C Charging Cord
• Kindle Paperwhite Signature Edition 11th Generation
• ALVIN Flexible Stainless Ruler R590-6

I usually EDC a huge Goruck GR2 34L in Tropical Multicam but sometimes I want to go lighter and smaller and lower-profile and inconspicuous. This is about as minimalist as I go:

• Haley Strategic Flatpack, black
• Haley Strategic GP Panel, black
• 2011 X220 Lenovo Thinkpad with 16GB and Linux Mint
• OEM X220 power brick
• Bulk cheap Chinese Wayfarers
• Olive Lochby Pocket Journal
• BIC Cristal Re’new, aluminum with blue bold ink
• Staedtler Mars Technico 780 C Lead Holder
• RUIDUN 65W Flat GaN USB C Charger
• Lost Dutchman Leather Livingston 2
• NIU USB-C to USB-C Cable, 3.3ft, Type C Charging Cord
• Kindle Paperwhite Signature Edition 11th Generation
• ALVIN Flexible Stainless Ruler R590-6

For those of you who know me IRL, you’ll know that I have a million lip balms everywhere… except today. I am afraid I am going through something of a withdrawal. I just got refills for my iced green tea and coffee instead of going to get some. I am both extremely brave and extremely privileged with all the first world problems.

The left thinks the right is freaking out about leftists, anarchists, BLM activists, protesters, and even Black Panthers buying guns legally. I’m a gun owner, and I’m not bothered at all. The more people who legally own guns in America, the less likely broad gun restrictions ever become. Widespread ownership creates political resistance across the board. That’s not fear—that’s how the Second Amendment works in practice.

I don’t believe the United States in 2026 is on the brink of civil war, national collapse, or mass armed conflict. That framing misunderstands how revolutions historically develop. Based on my reading of Red Star Over China by Edgar Snow, a far more accurate model is a skirmish-based, vanguard-led revolutionary process—and even then, only in its early, non-violent phase.

Snow’s account of the Chinese Communist movement shows that revolution did not begin with open warfare or nationwide uprising. It began with scattered skirmishes, localized unrest, and small cadre actions in specific towns and regions. When Snow sought to meet Mao Zedong, he didn’t travel to a capital or a battlefield—he rode trains through contested areas to reach a remote town where Mao was holed up amid ongoing skirmishes. The revolution existed in fragments long before it became a “civil war.”

Crucially, Snow documents how discipline and moral positioning mattered. The revolutionary vanguard avoided drawing first blood. Initiating lethal violence too early would have destroyed legitimacy and reframed the movement as criminal or terrorist. Provocation, restraint, and narrative control were essential. The goal was to force the state to overreact—to be seen as the initiator of violence—because moral high ground was the prerequisite for any later escalation.

That historical pattern matters. Revolution is the objective, but it unfolds slowly. It does not begin with firefights or declarations. It begins with pressure, symbolism, selective confrontation, and carefully managed unrest. Open violence comes later, if at all, and only after legitimacy has been secured.

This is why modern unrest often appears “mostly peaceful,” why intent is denied, and why restraint is emphasized even amid confrontation. It is not chaos for its own sake. As Snow’s reporting makes clear, successful revolutions are patient, disciplined, and acutely aware that drawing first blood too soon ends the story before it begins.