the five horsemen of america’s apocalypse

The Five Horsemen of America’s Apocalypse 

By Dr. Jim Castagnera, Esq., Partner, Portum Group International

The traditional Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse originated in the Bible’s Book of Revelations.  That source is a bit vague about just who these horsemen are.  But later artists and writers have tended to identify them as Death, Famine, War, and Conquest, as depicted in this 1887 painting by the Russian artist Viktor Vasnetsov.

Today, I want to argue that America faces five horsemen:  over-population; climate change; nuclear war; the rise of the radical right; and, last but far from least, Generative Artificial Intelligence.

OVER-POPULATION

The U.S. Census Bureau puts the country’s total population at about 335 million.  The website Worldometer.info pegs it closer to 340 million.  Neither figure reflects over-population.  In fact, drive across this country, as I have on several occasions, and it’s impossible to avoid the awe-inspiring sense of this nation’s vast open spaces.

No, our over-population is an indirect one.  Just as Europe has become the destination of choice for every dissatisfied soul south of the Mediterranean Sea, El Norte is the goal of every disaffected South and Central American.  Up until recently, it has been pretty easy for us Americans living in the North and Central sections of the country to ignore this problem, or worse yet, to adopt a naïve liberal view based on “bring us your tired and your hungry.”  Frustrated Republican governors in Florida and Texas succeeded in getting out attention this summer by shipping thousands of illegal immigrants by bus to New York City, Chicago and my hometown of Philadelphia.  The results?  Witness this story from this morning’s New York Times:

New York’s migrant crisis is growing, causing political strife

In a sharp escalation, Mayor Eric Adams declared that New York City was being destroyed by an influx of 110,000 migrants from the southern border. His comments, criticized by advocates for villainizing migrants for seeking a better life, underscored how the surge has become overwhelming.

New York City has struggled to provide adequate housing and services to the migrants, as has been required there by law for decades. Roughly 60,000 now occupy beds in traditional city shelters and in more than 200 emergency sites. And about 20,000 migrant children were expected to attend New York City schools when classes began today.

I don’t know what questions this story raises in your minds.  Some that come to mine include:

• Why is the federal government not doing a more effective job of guarding our southern borders?

• How did 110,000 illegal immigrants end up in New York City before the mayor got around to addressing the problem?

• How can we now reverse this wave and send it crashing back on the countries --- especially Mexico --- from whence it came?

CLIMATE CHANGE

Regarding this horseman, I give our federal government pretty high marks.  The bi-partisan infrastructure statute, championed by President Biden and passed with bi-partisan support in both houses is a great first step.

Just as we need to be honest with ourselves about illegal immigration and acknowledge that America can no longer play the role that it played 100 years ago, we should admit that the climate-change horse has left the barn.  The horseman is riding free and we’re not going to rein him in.

This means we need to build better and smarter to deal with more frequent and more extreme storms, heat waves, and other adverse weather conditions.  We need energy sources that ensure an unlimited, reliable supply of electricity… that, let me suggest, is the single most important component of a comprehensive infrastructure plan.

NUCLEAR WAR

I think we’ve become a bit blasé about nuclear war, given that we “won” the Cold War.  In case you haven’t noticed, a megalomaniac named Putin is intent on rebuilding the old Soviet Union, starting with Ukraine.  China, under another real doozy of a dictator, Xi Jinping, is becoming more belligerent year by year.  And then you have the biggest nutjob of them all, the man with the worst haircut in the world, who just launched a nuclear-armed submarine into the waters between North Korea and Japan.

You still think nuclear war is merely the threat of a bygone era?  You’d better think again.

THE RISE OF THE RADICAL RIGHT

Since the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing, the American radical right had maintained a relatively low profile… until the election of Donald Trump to the U.S. presidency in 2016.  Whether expressly intended by Trump or not, the radical right took his occupancy of the White House as a signal to become more brazen.  Witness, for example, the “Unite the Right” rally that descended into violence and death in Charlottesville, Virginia, in August 2017. [https://time.com/charlottesville-white-nationalist-rally-clashes/] 

This resurgence of the radical right came to its crescendo on January 6, 2021, when a mob stormed the U.S. Capitol building in an unsuccessful attempt to prevent the counting of the Electoral College ballots.  This riot, or insurrection, resulted in the arrest of approximately 1,000 individuals, charged with an assortment of federal  and District of Columbia crimes.  As of mid-2023, the totality of cases was as follows:

• Number of people charged, federal: 994

• Number of people charged, D.C.: 24

• Number of people who have pleaded guilty: 541

• Number of individuals who have had jury or bench trials: 67

• The number convicted on all charges: 42

• The number acquitted on all charges: 1

• The number with mixed verdicts: 24

• Number of people sentenced: 445

• The percentage of people sentenced who have received prison time: 58

• The median sentence for those who received prison time, in days: 60

• The prison sentence range: 7 days to 10 years

• The number of cases dismissed: 5 federal; 8 D.C. Superior Court

[https://www.npr.org/2023/03/25/1165022885/1000-defendants-january-6-capitol-riot]

This is absolutely unprecedented in U.S. history, the American Civil War notwithstanding.  Of these many defendants, a majority acknowledged allegiance to and/or sympathy for two right-wing organizations: the Oath Keepers and the Proud Boys.  

GENERATIVE ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE

As I have repeatedly warned in earlier iterations of this Blog, Generative AI, as exemplified by ChatGPT, poses a unique threat. Just ask the thousands of writers and actors, who have been on strike all summer in Hollywood.  They get it.  Not so very long ago, we professionals --- doctors, lawyers, writers, artists, actors, etc., etc. --- could (like we northerners with regard illegal immigration) stand aloof from the threat posed by automation… by AI.

Now that’s no longer the case.  For the first time in history, no profession is safe from redundancy.  The Singularity --- that moment in time when Generative AI is mankind’s intellectual equal --- is literally around the corner.  Major corporations and their billionaire owners are investing massive resources in order to get there first.  Some, like Elon Musk, present themselves as concerned about this unbridled race to human redundancy.  But do you really believe that the billionaires and the multi-national corporations --- who gleefully pay almost no federal income taxes, who presided over the gutting of the American middle class, and who continue to oppose closing the equity gap, e.g., by their relentless unionbusting --- really give a tinker’s damn about the revolutionary, disruptive impact that Generative AI will have on all the rest of us?

Well, they may belatedly care, when the great American workforce becomes the great American chronically-unemployed proletariat.  By then it will be too late to save our democracy.  This tragedy will play into the hands of the radical right.  We’ll get ourselves another Trump, but this time a competent one.

CONCLUSION

Well, friends, there’s my rant for this week.  Throw all the stones at it you wish.  I’m okay with criticism.  What I’m not okay with is our ignoring these five horsemen as they gallop willy-nilly around the country I love.