Determining America’s National Myth Will Determine the Country’s Fate
The Ethno-Nationalist Vision of the United States Will Not Just ‘Slink Off Into the Night’
Alexander Hamilton had no illusions about what would happen to Americans if the United States collapsed.
If the newly drafted Constitution wasn’t ratified, he warned in Federalist No. 8, a “War between the States,” fought by irregular armies across unfortified borders, was imminent. Large states would overrun small ones. “Plunder and devastation” would march across the landscape, reducing the citizenry to “a state of continual danger” that would nourish authoritarian, militarized institutions.
“If we should be disunited, and the integral parts should either remain separated, or … thrown together into two …
