The great lie. The thing they sell you. The thing they claim to be selling to the world. Democracy. A simple thing. Like a seed. You take the seed. You put it in the ground. And what do you get? A tree. A great big oak tree. A forest. A nation of oaks. And everyone’s happy and free. Right?

Wrong.

Because it’s not a seed. It’s an idea. A very specific idea. It comes from a very specific place. It needs a very specific type of dirt. The kind of dirt that’s been worked over, for centuries. The dirt of Christianity. The soil of common law. The fruits of argument, of compromise, of a hundred thousand little habits nobody ever writes down. The habits of waiting your turn. Of giving the other guy his say. Of understanding the rules, not because you read them, but because you live them.

So you go somewhere else. A different dirt. A place with different habits. The habit of the strong man. The habit of the tribe. The habit of the boot on the neck. And you arrive with your seed. You bring your democracy. You plant it. You water it. With money. With blood. You stand over it. You order it to grow. And what do you get? Nothing. Or something. A weed. A mimicry. A false front. Because the ground isn’t fertile. It can’t be. Not for that specific seed.

It’s the same thing here. At home. You open the door. The gate. You say “welcome.” And what do you expect? That they arrive, and they automatically understand the dirt. That they know the habits. The ten thousand little habits of argument. Of compromise. The quiet understandings that hold the thing together. The things that aren’t in the books. The things you absorb, like rain, over a lifetime.

And what do they get? The freedom. To vote. To speak their mind. And they can. They will. But what if they don’t value it? What if their old dirt, their old habits, whisper something else? The old allegiance. The old tribe. The old strong man. And now you have the words. The vocabulary of democracy. But the ground is barren. The roots can’t take. And you end up with a thing that looks like a democracy, but it isn’t. Not really. It’s just a front. A mimicry. Waiting for the wind to blow it down.

In the same way empire building doesn’t work, mass immigration won’t either. And for the same reason. What did we think we’d get when we brought tens of millions of people in from other parts of the worlds with different views on how the world works, how it should work, and how it will work. For the same reason that you can’t plant democracy elsewhere, it won’t survive here by importing millions who’ve already rejected the idea.

In the end, it’s be just a front, a mimicry. Waiting for the wind to blow it down.