Missive #576 Published 11 October 2025
Domestic Enemies asks us to assume an America circa 2011 that has secret detention camps for ordinary citizens, an America with hyperinflation (gold $7000/ounce, gasoline $30/gallon), an America that has replaced the old paper currency with new blue bucks at a 1-for-10 exchange rate, an America where lawlessness in the big cities and political corruption everywhere exceeds anything seen in real third-world hellholes in 2006. Is this too much to swallow? You be the judge. The action in Domestic Enemies is exciting, and as plausible as you will find in works of fiction. The technical details, at least the ones where I have any expertise, are dead on. The question remains: Is the America of a few years hence portrayed in Domestic Enemies believable? This book addresses in fictional form a serious problem deserving of our attention: the problem of illegal immigration, anchor babies, and the long-term effects of a massive influx of people to our country who have no interest in adopting America s culture of individualism. My fear is that the nightmare conditions Bracken asks us to imagine for 2011 America are so far from what we have now, that mainstream readers (and reviewers) will dismiss his book as delusional ranting. That would be a grave error.
