A Harris victory looks less likely each day, and thank God for that. While Roger Kimball foresees the final destruction of the old American Constitution at the hands of a totalitarian state led by Harris, I see something more chaotic and potentially worse: a hubristic Harris administration that—mistakenly assuming itself to have the mandate of heaven—tries to be authoritarian and fails, thereby unleashing political chaos.

Just as there have been no adults in the room in the Harris campaign, so too we should expect none in her government. A Harris administration would probably be blissfully unaware of several seismic trends in American political life over the last ten years:

First, federal authority has peaked and is actually in decline as there is a secular trend toward reinvigorated federalism. Severe polarization has caused legislative gridlock. In the absence of true legislation, federal administrations can only rule by executive fiat—actions that are inherently less politically legitimate. In contrast, governors enjoy increased political consensus and acclaim as the Big Sort continues to transform battleground states into right-wing (or left-wing) juggernauts. Hordes of right-wing Californians moving to states like Texas, Idaho, and Tennessee bring with them a certain fire in the belly, a determination not to let it happen here. Red state governors who enjoy increased consensus are under increasing pressure from their constituencies to oppose illegitimate federal policy. Governor Greg Abbott enjoyed acclaim from his perennially disappointed rightward flank when he started to goad the feds at the Texas border. Governor Ron DeSantis has elevated sovereignty contests with the feds into an art form, as Florida’s disaster relief prowess shames FEMA, its surgeon general shames federal public health officials, and its higher education policy delegitimizes the Department of Education. But, as I said, the trend is secular; Gavin Newsom has his own ways of acting the sovereign. Broadly, governors have gotten what you might call a taste of blood; in the absence of legitimate federal action, governors aggrandize their power over and against formerly federal functions, and their citizens love them for it.

Second, for the first time in at least ten years, meaningful elite competition has emerged. Elon Musk, in running X as a free speech haven and spending the last month campaigning for Donald Trump, has all but staked his life’s work on a Trump win. Behind Elon is a coterie of Silicon Valley dissidents. Even Jeff Bezos has hedged his bets. Meanwhile Bill Ackman and other New York-based financiers have endorsed Trump as well, as the Left suffers from coalitional pressures between its campus radicals and its classical liberals. For a growing faction of elite business interests, extreme progressivism has outlived its usefulness. A Harris victory will ensure that these newfound dissident elites—seeking protection from a vindictive Harris administration—align with the rank-and-file citizens of red states, exerting real pressure and bringing real resources to bear on red state governors.

Third, the American Right’s acquiescence is wearing thin. The American Left has long depended on the fact that the Right is forgiving. The Right—being generally the party of families, of productive workers, of religious folks—is composed of people who have much to lose in the case of unrest and strife. Accordingly, the Right will suffer a great deal before it begins to truly act as if ordinary politics have ended. This acquiescence has been a great pressure relief valve in American politics. When things don’t go our way, we generally do not burn down cities, imprison mass numbers of leftist protestors, or run politicized prosecutions on political rivals. Put differently, if the Right behaved like the Left, we would have had a second civil war decades ago. But the Right’s long suffering is reaching a breaking point, and a Harris administration may well tip it over.

Blind to these realities, a Harris administration will almost certainly accelerate the destruction of federal legitimacy. It’s not hard to imagine the potential flashpoints. Censorship of political speech on the internet; executive action limiting firearms access; continued forced demographic change of the American citizenry, and shutting down governors who try to stand in the gap; political persecution of right-wing politicians or thought leaders; extreme procedural maneuvers like court packing and ending the filibuster. Examples are myriad. In each case, an increasingly emboldened Right—one that has been consolidating political, economic, and cultural power at local and state levels—will be standing by, feeling its oats, spoiling for sovereignty contestations big or small.

Those parts of America that still cling to their ancient civic rights as sacred patrimony are increasingly well organized and consolidated, and will not go quietly into the night. While the federal regime looks to be a crumbling oligarchy, inept, incompetent, and of questionable legitimacy, republican self-governance retains its vigorous founding spirit in many parts of this nation. Thus, the Right is primed to make market changing moves if given an opportune casus belli, which a Kamala administration would almost certainly provide. Let me be clear: this sort of chaos could cause serious suffering. While perhaps a tail risk, it is not a possibility that should be lightly dismissed. And it is certainly not an outcome for which we should hope. But we need to have clear eyes.

Whether you expect the specter of totalitarian progressivism on the one hand (as Kimball foresees) or chaos on the other (which I foresee), what choice do any right-wingers have but to continue to invest in acquiring and expanding owned space and exerting more effective control over the institutions and governments that rightly should be ours? If we cannot protect the citizens of Tennessee or Texas from the ravages of totalitarian wokeness, how can we expect one day to save California from the same fate?

Regardless of expected outcome, the Right’s basic mandate remains the same: Our task is to consolidate power and perpetuate republican self-governance where conditions still allow it, while accepting the reality that federal politics—slouching as they are into a state of nature—calls for a more Machiavellian approach.