The Risk Republic

How America Went from Self-Reliance to State Reliance and the Cost to Democracy

America still calls itself a republic.

But we’ve quietly built something else.

Every shock in ordinary life — a rent spike, a medical bill, slashed hours, an offshored job, a broken body at 57 — is now treated as a federal emergency. Washington steps in, again and again, not just for national catastrophe, but to hold up daily life.

That feels compassionate. It’s actually dangerous.When the federal government is expected to stabilize everyone, permanently, certain things follow. “Temporary rescue” hardens into unquestionable entitlement, and politics turns into “don’t cut mine.” We borrow constantly just to keep normal life calm, and the cost of that borrowing starts eating our future. And over time, we quietly lose sovereignty, because if our basic stability depends on rolling debt, the people financing that debt — including foreign powers — gain leverage over what our government can and cannot do.

The Risk Republic is about that drift.

It argues that America is sliding from a nation of citizens into a managed population — calm on the surface, dependent underneath — and that if we keep pushing every form of risk to Washington, we will wake up with the symbols of self-government but not the reality.

It also argues there is still a way out: by pulling responsibility and resilience back down into the layers below Washington instead of asking the federal government to be everyone’s permanent safety net.

The choice is blunt: remain a country that can act for itself — or become a country that keeps the flag and the anthem, and quietly trades self-rule for managed stability.