America's not just fraying at the edges, it's unravelling from the core, thread by ideological thread, despite Trump's efforts to halt the decay. Victor Davis Hanson's September 22, 2025, takedown in American Greatness nails it: When merit gets swapped for melanin, fires don't get fought, killers roam free, and "equity" turns into extinction events for entire neighbourhoods. The Pacific Palisades inferno that torched LA's elite enclave? Not "climate change," it's Karen Bass globe-trotting to Ghana while her city burns, DEI hires fumbling hydrants, and green dogma letting brush bombs accumulate. Charlotte's light-rail slaughter of Ukrainian immigrant Iryna Zarutska? Not a "tragedy," it's cashless bail for 14-time felon DeCarlos Brown, sprung by an unqualified magistrate with a side hustle in "treatment centres," on a train without tickets or guards. Hanson's right: These aren't anomalies; they're accelerants in a system primed to implode. Double down on the same woke poison, more DEI quotas, more "restorative justice" fairy tales, and watch the house of cards cascade into chaos. Meritocracy isn't optional; it's the glue. Without it, we're not building equity, we're engineering our own apocalypse.
Flash to January 2025: Santa Ana winds, those annual autumn howlers chronicled since the 1800s, whip embers into a maelstrom, devouring Pacific Palisades like tinder. Media? Blame CO2. Reality? A perfect storm of DEI delusion. Mayor Karen Bass, elected on "progressive" fumes, slashes the fire budget then jets to Ghana for "cultural exchange," leaving her city leaderless during peak peril. Deputy Mayor Brian Thompson? Holed up under house arrest for a bomb threat hoax. Enter Janisse Quiñones, LA DWP's DEI darling CEO, a PG&E alum with a track record thinner than her crisis prep. Reservoirs? Drained for "repairs" that never happened. Hydrants? Dozens dry as the hillsides she ignored. And a city burns.
And the hills? Unclearable thanks to eco-mandates, no brush removal for "biodiversity," even as warnings screamed fire fuel. Fire Chief Kristin Crowley? Bragged about "diverse hiring" but couldn't muster water when it counted. Hanson tallies the toll: An "ancient, coveted neighbourhood" reduced to ash, nine months later still a blackened scar. Why? Ideology over expertise. Bass blasts Trump for deporting "undocumented" arson risks, but her own house is a tinderbox. More of the same? Imagine nationwide: Underfunded departments, quota captains, green vetoes on commonsense. California's not a canary, it's the coal mine, and the canary's already croaked. From the smoke of wild fires.
Shift east: A quiet light-rail ride in Charlotte turns slaughterhouse when DeCarlos Brown – 14-time felon, homeless lifer from a crime dynasty – slits 23-year-old Iryna Zarutska's throat. "Got the white girl," he mutters, sauntering off. Bystanders? Four nearby souls – two Black, two more – step over her gurgling form, no aid, no alarm. Why? A system engineered for collapse.
DEI's gift: "Diverse" voices over due diligence. The train? "Honour system" ticketing, no fares, no checks, no guards after "defund the police" gutted patrols. Stop-and-frisk? Axed for "equity." Bystanders frozen? Blame the Penny precedent, that subway hero smeared as "vigilante" for choking out a threat. Who risks heroism when the mob cries "racist"? And, she was white and most observers were Black.
Mayor Vi Lyles? Urges skipping the video to "avoid animosities," calls arrests "not the solution." Governor Josh Stein? Mum on Stokes' scam, but quick to Floyd-fume. Media? Buries the racial edge, Brown's mutter, Zarutska's whiteness, lest it shatter the "systemic" narrative. Hanson exposes the thread: Critical race theory's "reparatory justice" – felons as "victims," cops as oppressors – turns trains into kill zones. More of the same? Crime "falls" via fudged stats (underreporting, reclassifications), but bodies stack. Inner cities? War zones for the law-abiding.
Hanson's thesis isn't anecdote; it's autopsy. DEI isn't uplift – it's undercut, swapping proven operators for ideological checkboxes. Fires rage because "diverse" chiefs prioritise pronouns over pumps. Killers prowl because "equitable" judges see sentences as "oppression." The backups? Shredded: Tradition (merit hires), science (brush clearance), protocols (bail bonds), common sense (train guards). Media masks, academia indoctrinates, bureaucracy enforces, until the mask slips, and the inferno (literal or lethal) exposes the rot.
Scale it up: National debt at 130% GDP, energy grids flickering under green fantasies. Add more DEI? Pilots by palette, surgeons by "lived experience," generals by gender studies. The "wages," as Hanson says, "came due" in Palisades and Charlotte. And next? A plane down from DEI dispatch, a blackout birthing riots. Economic? Trillions lost to inefficiency; LA's fire clean-up alone €500 million. Social? Bystander atrophy spreads: why intervene when the system's the villain? Moral: Victimhood vamps victimise, turning innocents into collateral.
It's the perfect storm: Nihilism (no consequences), ideology (equity über alles), and complexity (systems too intricate for amateurs). More of the same? Not evolution, but extinction. As Hanson warns, "landmines exist in the thousands" – from illegal truckers flipping rigs to "sanctuary" stabbings. The Left' so-called "progress"? A countdown to cascade.
Hanson's not doomsaying for kicks – he's diagnosing to demand detox. The system's not merely broken; it's rigged for ruin. Solution? The divorce we've talked about here: Ditch the dogma, build parallel societies. Merit mandates: Fire the fakers, fund the firefighters. Bail bonds back, borders sealed, bystanders bolstered with "good Samaritan" shields. Lame stream media? Bypass with citizen journals; academia? Starve the ivory tower, seed trade schools.
For us Right-leaning realists, it's liberation: Collapse clears the canvas. Palisades rebuilds tougher; Charlotte elects hardliners. The Left's entropy? Let it eat itself – from Bass's bunk beds for illegals to Lyles' light-rail lotteries. We've got the nationalist blueprint: Sovereignty, scrutiny, strength.
https://amgreatness.com/2025/09/22/why-our-systems-collapse/