Is America Becoming Rome Versus Byzantium?
This article was originally published in American Greatness, October 13, 2021. To read Michael Vlahos' reply, click here:...
Vlahos Blog
Michael Vlahos
- Oct 31, 2021
- 6 min
In the Footsteps of Rome... to the Bitter End
Americans, sadly, often know little of their own history. Yet it is far worse to lack historical imagination altogether. Hence trying,...
578 views
Michael Vlahos
- Oct 21, 2021
- 8 min
Elites “By Any Other Name Would Smell as Sweet”
In a time and place where reality itself has nowhere to put down roots, how many of the “serious” words we use now have no definition?...
333 views
Michael Vlahos
- Sep 29, 2021
- 5 min
A Ruling Caste on the Edge of Forever?
Have you heard the news? America’s elite (according to The Atlantic Monthly), the entrenched aristocracy of 9.9%, have created--like all...
408 views
Michael Vlahos
- Sep 11, 2021
- 5 min
Are We Rome?
As if a gathering literary trope in the Forever War, American commentators have come to ask: Are We Rome? You see, this nation has not...
281 views
Michael Vlahos
- Aug 23, 2021
- 3 min
Imperial Succession as Imperial Damnation
A republic ensures the transfer of power through constitutional rules. How does an executive-ruled state transfer power? What is its...
228 views
Michael Vlahos
- Aug 21, 2021
- 4 min
Empire — Eternal Suspension of Disbelief
The essence of empire is self-deception. Imperial metamorphosis imposes a prolonged cognitive dissonance in political consciousness: The...
308 views
Michael Vlahos
- Jul 30, 2021
- 4 min
What Does Transitioning From Republic to Empire Tell Us About America's Future?
[This short post is intended to set up a discussion series on the long-term consequences of a transition from an American republican...
527 views
Michael Vlahos
- Jul 11, 2021
- 7 min
Can Fireworks Make Defeat Sweet?The Art of Selling Victory
On April 27, 1749, in Green Park, London, 12,000 Britons were party to an historic happening: A celebration of the peace of...
293 views
Michael Vlahos
- Jun 18, 2021
- 4 min
Against the Prospect of Thermidorian Relief: A Less-hopeful counterpoint
Three core questions — each existential and unanswerable — in the Church of Woke are these: Why is the New American Religion so invested...
472 views
Michael Vlahos
- Jun 9, 2021
- 5 min
Will A Woke Cicada Spring Make Way For Thermidorian Relief?— A hopeful point —
Originally published at The American Conservative Thermidor was the 11th month of the French revolutionary calendar, falling between the...
427 views
Michael Vlahos
- May 10, 2021
- 4 min
The Church of Woke: Heresy or Sect? The distinction will decide our future
Our American crisis can only be understood within the framework of a religious struggle. It is a war for ownership of the True Faith, and...
545 views
Michael Vlahos
- Apr 29, 2021
- 1 min
The Doom of the Elite feat Michael Vlahos
Michael Vlahos is interviewed by Around The Empire on his latest piece, "The Doom of the Elite: The Rise and Fall of Elites Shapes Our...
448 views
Michael Vlahos
- Apr 20, 2021
- 4 min
Old Civil Wars Never Die: Like Zombies They Are Raised By History to Devour Us
For those who worry over civil war, Spain hovers on the edge of memory: history’s blood-red incandescence now sold as essence of...
492 views
Michael Vlahos
- Apr 7, 2021
- 8 min
The Doom Of The Elite
The rise and fall of elites shapes our history and can be predicted.
722 views
Michael Vlahos
- Mar 15, 2021
- 5 min
There Will Be Blood: Beware the Ides of March!
His immortal cry of betrayal echoes today from 2065 years ago: "And you, too, Brutus!" The long knives that felled Caesar finally...
678 views
Michael Vlahos
- Mar 7, 2021
- 4 min
RV Nomads Today, Red Guard Tomorrow
It is exactly when disparate groups share an oppressor and feel truly threatened, that they mobilize. This is when real insurgency begins.
570 views
Michael Vlahos
- Mar 2, 2021
- 6 min
Our Civil War Moves to a New Stage
In military strategy it is important not to confuse silence with stability. Below the surface, new and very unstable dynamics may be brewing
1,268 views
Michael Vlahos
- Feb 16, 2021
- 6 min
Show Trial: Bellows of Civil War
Show trials are convened as a form of religious ceremony to secure the sacred symbols of power and legitimacy in politics.
395 views
Michael Vlahos
- Feb 5, 2021
- 9 min
Civil War Histories’ Direct Message to Us
Last week’s post — Civil War History Shows Us What We Don’t Want to Know — described a topology: Can many different civil wars through...
767 views
Michael Vlahos
- Jan 28, 2021
- 6 min
Civil War History Shows Us What We Don’t Want to Know
History dangles so many internecine conflicts in front of us, yet each is different... How can we tell what is relevant to us today?
641 views
Michael Vlahos
- Jan 20, 2021
- 1 min
“America: Imagined Community, Imagined Kinship”
Kinship drives culture, and imagined kinship is the foundation of national community. Why imagined? “It is imagined because the members...
434 views
Michael Vlahos
- Jan 6, 2021
- 4 min
Civil War: Death Match between Continuity and Change
That compressed tension between continuity and change is the mainspring of History. Societies characteristically work to balance...
4,845 views
Michael Vlahos
- Dec 22, 2020
- 4 min
Civil War Has Yet to Go Critical
We are “skirmishing our way to civil war.” A house divided may not stand. Yet it may still go down a winding, rocky road before the fall.
899 views
Michael Vlahos
- Dec 2, 2020
- 5 min
Our Way Ahead: Insurgency, Revolution, and Civil War
Societies sinking into an era of civil strife will experience different and sometimes very distinct conflict phases and dynamics.
875 views
Michael Vlahos
- Nov 18, 2020
- 6 min
Heresy and Hate: Why Woke Needs “Truth and Reconciliation”
Where Church claims State, however, heresy quickly rises to first choice. No longer must the non-believer be persuaded — he can be compelled
1,332 views
Michael Vlahos
- Nov 9, 2020
- 5 min
Liberty to Therapy: Don’t Worry Over Civil War, Worry over the Transformation of American Life
The still-yet-to-be-legally-proclaimed President Elect, while claiming the title of “moderate,” has also promised "Transformation."
1,058 views
Michael Vlahos
- Nov 2, 2020
- 4 min
The Impending Election. Third Question: Can We Fight a Decades’ Long Slide Into Empire?
American is transforming from a republic into an empire. Talking about civil war is so urgent now because there is still enough of the...
1,116 views
Michael Vlahos
- Nov 1, 2020
- 3 min
The Impending Election. Second Question: Does A Cynical Ruling Class Always Win?
This is a path, which I would expect in the wake of a Biden victory, that would potentially push Red into very active rebellion.
481 views
Michael Vlahos
- Oct 31, 2020
- 3 min
Three Questions to Consider In the Impending Election. First Question: Are We Rome?
The question we have been pursuing: Are we now in civil war? 2,000 years ago the Romans invented it, then spent the next century reflecting.
3,188 views
Michael Vlahos
- Oct 18, 2020
- 4 min
Some Informal Fieldwork on Trump Derangement Syndrome
Trump Derangement Syndrome (TDS) should in fact be spelled-out with capital letters, as a clinical diagnosis, on medical merits...
313 views
Michael Vlahos
- Oct 5, 2020
- 4 min
Our Hysterical Blindness Will Be Our Epitaph
Hence the really interesting question is not about civil war at all. It is about why, on its very cusp, we still cannot have an informed con
473 views
Michael Vlahos
- Oct 1, 2020
- 4 min
The Stahlhelm Under the Stairs
the anger and rancor in the country — and the stress it puts on the nation as a whole — is arguably at late-Weimar levels.
206 views
Michael Vlahos
- Sep 24, 2020
- 2 min
Announcing a new paper — Church of Woke: Next American Religion?
The heart of crisis in history lies in collective shifts in consciousness. Physical dynamics act as triggers, but big change in history...
406 views
Michael Vlahos
- Sep 20, 2020
- 3 min
Has the Court Too Been Sucked Into Civil War? (Et Tu Tribunus?)
The pacifier of strife has now become the agitator of strife.
221 views