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Kelly Turnbull #1
People's Republic
America’s growing political and cultural divisions have finally split the United States apart. Now, as the former blue states begin to collapse under the dead weight of their politically correct tyranny, a lethal operative haunted by his violent past undertakes one last mission to infiltrate and take out his target in the nightmarish city of Los Angeles, deep in the heart of the People’s Republic of North America.
213 pages, Paperback
First published September 16, 2016
858 people are currently reading
1102 people want to read
About the author
Kurt Schlichter
24 books307 followersKurt Schlichter is a trial lawyer, and a retired Army infantry colonel with a degree from the Army War College who writes twice a week as a Senior Columnist for Townhall.com. His new novel "People's Republic" is now available!
Kurt was personally recruited by Andrew Breitbart in 2009 to write for Big Hollywood. He is often on the air as a news source, an on-screen commentator, and as a guest on nationally syndicated radio programs discussing political, military and legal issues, including Fox News, HLN, CNN (Well, maybe not anymore), the Hugh Hewitt Show, the Dennis Miller Show, Geraldo, the Greg Garrison Show, the John Phillips Show, the Tony Katz Radio Spectacular, PJTV's The Conversation, The Delivery with Jimmie Bise, Jr., the Snark Factor, and WMAL's Mornings on the Mall with Larry O'Connor, among others.
He appears weekly on the Cam and Company Show with his own brand of caring conservative cultural commentary.
His previous book "Conservative Insurgency: The Struggle to Take America Back 2009-2041" was released in 2014 from Post Tree Press
As a stand-up comic for several years, he has gathered a large and devoted following in the world of social media for his amusing and often biting conservative commentary. He is an active user of Twitter (@KurtSchlichter) with over 71,000 followers, which led to his #1 selling Amazon "Political Humor" ebooks "I Am a Conservative: Uncensored, Undiluted and Absolutely Un-PC," "I Am a Liberal: A Conservative's Guide to Dealing With Nature's Most Irritating Mistake," "Fetch My Latte: Sharing Feelings With Stupid People," and "50 Shades of Liberal."
Kurt is also a successful trial lawyer based in the Los Angeles area representing companies and individuals in matters ranging from routine business cases to confidential Hollywood and entertainment industry disputes and transactions. A member of the Million Dollar Advocates Forum, which recognizes attorneys who have won verdicts in excess of $1 million, his litigation strategy and legal analysis articles regularly run in such legal publications such as the Los Angeles Daily Journal and California Lawyer.
Kurt is a 1994 graduate of Loyola Law School, where he was a law review editor. He majored in Communications and Political Science as an undergraduate at the University of California, San Diego, where he also edited the conservative student paper California Review while writing a regular column in the student humor paper the Koala. He also drank a lot of Coors.
Kurt rose to the rank of Army infantry colonel on active duty and in the California Army National Guard. He wears the silver "jump wings" of a qualified paratrooper and commanded the elite 1st Squadron, 18th Cavalry Regiment. A veteran of both the Persian Gulf War and Operation Enduring Freedom (Kosovo), as well as the Los Angeles riots, the Northridge earthquake and the 2007 San Diego fires mobilizations, he is a graduate of the Army's Combined Arms Staff Service School, the Command and General Staff College, and the United States Army War College, where he received a master of Strategic Studies degree.
He loves military history, red meat and the Second Amendment. His favorite caliber is .45.
Kurt was personally recruited by Andrew Breitbart in 2009 to write for Big Hollywood. He is often on the air as a news source, an on-screen commentator, and as a guest on nationally syndicated radio programs discussing political, military and legal issues, including Fox News, HLN, CNN (Well, maybe not anymore), the Hugh Hewitt Show, the Dennis Miller Show, Geraldo, the Greg Garrison Show, the John Phillips Show, the Tony Katz Radio Spectacular, PJTV's The Conversation, The Delivery with Jimmie Bise, Jr., the Snark Factor, and WMAL's Mornings on the Mall with Larry O'Connor, among others.
He appears weekly on the Cam and Company Show with his own brand of caring conservative cultural commentary.
His previous book "Conservative Insurgency: The Struggle to Take America Back 2009-2041" was released in 2014 from Post Tree Press
As a stand-up comic for several years, he has gathered a large and devoted following in the world of social media for his amusing and often biting conservative commentary. He is an active user of Twitter (@KurtSchlichter) with over 71,000 followers, which led to his #1 selling Amazon "Political Humor" ebooks "I Am a Conservative: Uncensored, Undiluted and Absolutely Un-PC," "I Am a Liberal: A Conservative's Guide to Dealing With Nature's Most Irritating Mistake," "Fetch My Latte: Sharing Feelings With Stupid People," and "50 Shades of Liberal."
Kurt is also a successful trial lawyer based in the Los Angeles area representing companies and individuals in matters ranging from routine business cases to confidential Hollywood and entertainment industry disputes and transactions. A member of the Million Dollar Advocates Forum, which recognizes attorneys who have won verdicts in excess of $1 million, his litigation strategy and legal analysis articles regularly run in such legal publications such as the Los Angeles Daily Journal and California Lawyer.
Kurt is a 1994 graduate of Loyola Law School, where he was a law review editor. He majored in Communications and Political Science as an undergraduate at the University of California, San Diego, where he also edited the conservative student paper California Review while writing a regular column in the student humor paper the Koala. He also drank a lot of Coors.
Kurt rose to the rank of Army infantry colonel on active duty and in the California Army National Guard. He wears the silver "jump wings" of a qualified paratrooper and commanded the elite 1st Squadron, 18th Cavalry Regiment. A veteran of both the Persian Gulf War and Operation Enduring Freedom (Kosovo), as well as the Los Angeles riots, the Northridge earthquake and the 2007 San Diego fires mobilizations, he is a graduate of the Army's Combined Arms Staff Service School, the Command and General Staff College, and the United States Army War College, where he received a master of Strategic Studies degree.
He loves military history, red meat and the Second Amendment. His favorite caliber is .45.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 215 reviews
September 28, 2016
“People’s Republic” is part satire, part warning and part what I would call “conservative military revenge fantasy.” It’s a well-written, gripping read (like everything Schlichter writes). And the combination is successful, if the goal is to hold the reader’s interest and offer a frisson of conservative thrills.
But is it realistic? Does it accurately predict the possibility and depict the likely result of a negotiated split of the United States, and the subsequent trajectories of the two successor countries? (That’s two countries in three parts, since Schlichter has the West and part of the East Coast forming one country—not dissimilar to East and West Pakistan, which is not a promising precedent.)
My conclusion is that “People’s Republic” is fairly realistic, with caveats I outline below. If the book has an overriding flaw, it is that it posits a completely Manichean view of the United States, where virtue and vice is clear in each citizen. Reality is more complicated, and even to the extent virtue and vice are binary within a person, each state has many of each type of citizen. But Schlichter is surely correct that in the main, among our political, ruling class, divisions between virtue and vice ARE clear today. Projected forward, this ruling class virtue/vice split could easily lead to a world of the type Schlichter envisions.
Of course, “realistic” is all relative, since, as Yogi Berra supposedly said, “It's tough to make predictions, especially about the future.” But implicit in “People’s Republic” are certain premises which it’s worth examining. That said, much of the book is really satire—not so much in its description of the economic policies of the successor countries, which is pretty much historically derived, but in its scathing description of the further development of the cultural Marxism of identity politics which is largely unfettered today, but if truly unfettered, would be (and at the rate we’re going, will be) an evil of the first order. Nonetheless, you have to ignore the satire to examine the realism, as amusing as the satire is at times.
On to examining realism. One very basic premise of the book, about which few would disagree, is that America is today very politically divided. Schlichter posits that these divisions lead to a negotiated split of Red and Blue states, during the Hillary Clinton administration, pursuant to the Treaty of St. Louis. The Red states call themselves the United States, with their capital in Dallas, and thrive. The Blue states call themselves the “People’s Republic,” and proceed for the next fifteen years to run themselves economically and socially into the ground in the manner of every leftist state ever, from the Soviet Union to Venezuela. Low-level violence results and the two countries are basically at violent odds, though not in open warfare.
Is it realistic to suppose our current divisions could lead to such a negotiated split of states? At first glance, it seems to anybody with knowledge of history that our current divisions are not historically abnormal—rather, the era of internal comity everyone looks to, from roughly 1950 through 1970, was the abnormal era. Leaving aside the obvious example of the run-up to the Civil War, the actual default mode among American political participants since colonial times has been vitriol without violence, so perhaps today is nothing new and there is no reason to believe it will lead to anything new.
Three things make today’s division unique, though. First, the enormous size, and even more importantly reach and power, of today’s government effectively require that everyone be involved in politics. Prior to the modern era, a citizen who simply wanted to live his life, not be involved in politics and not interact with the government would find that quite easy. Not today. Whether you are interested in the government or not, the government is interested in you. It is interested in aggressively taxing you, regulating you, surveilling you, and making sure you jump to it, or be ruined and branded a thought criminal, when members of Approved Grievance Groups demand you bake them a wedding cake. This dominance of the government of everyday personal life is totally unprecedented in American history, and it multiplies the impact of any political division.
Second, extreme ignorance and irrationality characterize the vast majority of political discourse today. In any prior American era, an uneducated person who offered neither reasoning nor evidence would not have dared to offer his opinion in the public square, for he would have been laughed at and humiliated by all other participants. “Delete your account,” or its 19th Century equivalent, was not considered a suitable riposte in the days when thousands came to see, follow, and discuss the hours-long Lincoln-Douglas debates. Nobody thought the opinions of ignorant and unintelligent entertainers were of any importance or consequence. Nobody would have thought, much less put forward, the idea that traits such as skin color or activity in the bedroom were qualifications for societal acclaim and reward, while accomplishments by those with the wrong skin color or wrong social views were the mere happenstance of their supposed “privilege.” If you did voice such ideas, you would have been punched in the face to general applause, or sent for psychiatric evaluation (by a doctor who recognized gender dysphoria not as a sign of virtue, but rather as a severe mental illness). Failure to follow basic logic was a one-way ticket to ignominy and obscurity in any national political actor—or it would have been, had any such mental defectives aspired to national office. Today, all these gross defects are the norm, further reducing any common ground.
Third, America’s political participants (those that can reason, that is) no longer share in any way a common vision of the human good and of human nature. In past generations, the idea that human nature was infinitely malleable, and that remaking humanity was desirable in the pursuit both of extreme individualism and of allowing the State to mold correct thought and action, would have been regarded by all as the pernicious fruit of unclean nihilist philosophers. Not today. And in past generations, that human good could be accomplished by everybody being wholly dominated by the State was regarded by all as antithetical to the bedrock of America. Not today. That so few core beliefs are held in common further exacerbates division.
So, it’s plausible that today’s divisions are extreme by historical standards—perhaps as extreme as, say, those of 1855, though for different reasons. Today we have less violence (so far), and more irrationality, but the degree of the divisions may be comparable, and may be insurmountable and irresolvable. And it’s plausible that to the extent this reality is recognized by those in power, probably as the result of key flashpoints (Schlichter mentions in “People’s Republic” Clinton’s attempt to seize guns in Red states, an entirely plausible scenario), a negotiated settlement might be attractive to those not interested in Civil War Two. Whether any of this is likely, I don’t know. But it’s realistic enough, unfortunately.
Somewhat less realistic is Schlichter’s vision of a relatively clean division among Red and Blue states. The common idea of monolithic blue and red states is pretty clearly incorrect. Within any state are many people, and at least some geographic concentrations, of both Red and Blue. And no geographic unit, even small ones, is homogenous. You can find Trump supporters in San Francisco, no doubt (although given the casual low-level violence that characterizes today’s “progressives,” doubtless they mostly keep their support to themselves.) You can find Clinton supporters all over Red states. And so forth. This reality would immeasurably complicate any split.
Schlichter nods to this mixture of Red and Blue by mentioning how, after the split, many people moved from one area to another. He also nods to it by positing separation not strictly along state borders. He views movement as mostly voluntary—essentially, parasites leaving the red states since their parasitism is no longer tolerated, and producers leaving the blue states, since those states are now totally free to engage in classic leftist/fascist appropriation of property and suppression of opinion.
While such movement might occur, it has never occurred in modern history without the incentive provided by violence. People simply don’t want to pick up and leave their homes and lives; they will only leave en masse if they are threatened with violence, and that begets actual violence, which begets more actual violence, usually ending in mass death. See, e.g., East Prussia in 1945; India in 1947; Yugoslavia in 1991; Syria now. It’s very, very optimistic to posit, as Schlichter does, a negotiated separation, followed by peaceful migration, only then followed by deteriorating relations. This is particularly true since parasites rarely see themselves as parasites and producers are not prone to abandon fixed means of production—in both cases, they are optimistic things will work out OK for them, though of course they rarely do. Yes, Schlichter does posit violence—for example, Southern Indiana as the site of extensive guerrilla warfare as the sides contend over whether it will be Red or Blue. But his posited orderly separation seems very unrealistic.
Finally, the most unrealistic part of the book is that Schlichter thinks that Red states are generally virtuous and Blue states not virtuous. That’s certainly true of the political class in clearly Red and Blue states. California, if left to govern itself, would quickly collapse under the weight of leftism, no different than Venezuela, and would immediately begin a totalitarian campaign of suppressing illegal thought, such as orthodox Christianity. (That California today continues to do as well as it does economically is not to the contrary—that’s purely a result of eating the seed corn stored up by generations of Red state policies that made California what it is today, and that the leftists who govern California are still somewhat constrained by the US Constitution.)
However, the actual people in clearly Red and Blue states are not as clearly virtuous or not virtuous. Sure, the virtue quotient is high in Amish country, or in the rural areas of the Upper Midwest, and the virtue quotient is low in large areas of the wealthy urban East Coast. But the same sharp divisions don’t hold across the board: urban areas of any Red state are not virtuous, in the main, and more importantly, most rural areas of most Red states are very much not virtuous. They’re not philosophically leftist, either, but you only have to read J.D. Vance’s recent “Hillbilly Elegy” to realize that the moral fiber and cultural beliefs of very many Red state Americans are not only not virtuous, but indistinguishable in practice from the parasitism that Schlichter ascribes only to Blue state residents. The world is not clearly divided into parasites and producers, and vice and virtue exist in many other contexts than those two groups.
So perhaps “People’s Republic” isn’t wholly realistic. But it’s not wholly unrealistic, either. And, it is important to remember, that massive political changes always seem impossible. Until they don’t.
But is it realistic? Does it accurately predict the possibility and depict the likely result of a negotiated split of the United States, and the subsequent trajectories of the two successor countries? (That’s two countries in three parts, since Schlichter has the West and part of the East Coast forming one country—not dissimilar to East and West Pakistan, which is not a promising precedent.)
My conclusion is that “People’s Republic” is fairly realistic, with caveats I outline below. If the book has an overriding flaw, it is that it posits a completely Manichean view of the United States, where virtue and vice is clear in each citizen. Reality is more complicated, and even to the extent virtue and vice are binary within a person, each state has many of each type of citizen. But Schlichter is surely correct that in the main, among our political, ruling class, divisions between virtue and vice ARE clear today. Projected forward, this ruling class virtue/vice split could easily lead to a world of the type Schlichter envisions.
Of course, “realistic” is all relative, since, as Yogi Berra supposedly said, “It's tough to make predictions, especially about the future.” But implicit in “People’s Republic” are certain premises which it’s worth examining. That said, much of the book is really satire—not so much in its description of the economic policies of the successor countries, which is pretty much historically derived, but in its scathing description of the further development of the cultural Marxism of identity politics which is largely unfettered today, but if truly unfettered, would be (and at the rate we’re going, will be) an evil of the first order. Nonetheless, you have to ignore the satire to examine the realism, as amusing as the satire is at times.
On to examining realism. One very basic premise of the book, about which few would disagree, is that America is today very politically divided. Schlichter posits that these divisions lead to a negotiated split of Red and Blue states, during the Hillary Clinton administration, pursuant to the Treaty of St. Louis. The Red states call themselves the United States, with their capital in Dallas, and thrive. The Blue states call themselves the “People’s Republic,” and proceed for the next fifteen years to run themselves economically and socially into the ground in the manner of every leftist state ever, from the Soviet Union to Venezuela. Low-level violence results and the two countries are basically at violent odds, though not in open warfare.
Is it realistic to suppose our current divisions could lead to such a negotiated split of states? At first glance, it seems to anybody with knowledge of history that our current divisions are not historically abnormal—rather, the era of internal comity everyone looks to, from roughly 1950 through 1970, was the abnormal era. Leaving aside the obvious example of the run-up to the Civil War, the actual default mode among American political participants since colonial times has been vitriol without violence, so perhaps today is nothing new and there is no reason to believe it will lead to anything new.
Three things make today’s division unique, though. First, the enormous size, and even more importantly reach and power, of today’s government effectively require that everyone be involved in politics. Prior to the modern era, a citizen who simply wanted to live his life, not be involved in politics and not interact with the government would find that quite easy. Not today. Whether you are interested in the government or not, the government is interested in you. It is interested in aggressively taxing you, regulating you, surveilling you, and making sure you jump to it, or be ruined and branded a thought criminal, when members of Approved Grievance Groups demand you bake them a wedding cake. This dominance of the government of everyday personal life is totally unprecedented in American history, and it multiplies the impact of any political division.
Second, extreme ignorance and irrationality characterize the vast majority of political discourse today. In any prior American era, an uneducated person who offered neither reasoning nor evidence would not have dared to offer his opinion in the public square, for he would have been laughed at and humiliated by all other participants. “Delete your account,” or its 19th Century equivalent, was not considered a suitable riposte in the days when thousands came to see, follow, and discuss the hours-long Lincoln-Douglas debates. Nobody thought the opinions of ignorant and unintelligent entertainers were of any importance or consequence. Nobody would have thought, much less put forward, the idea that traits such as skin color or activity in the bedroom were qualifications for societal acclaim and reward, while accomplishments by those with the wrong skin color or wrong social views were the mere happenstance of their supposed “privilege.” If you did voice such ideas, you would have been punched in the face to general applause, or sent for psychiatric evaluation (by a doctor who recognized gender dysphoria not as a sign of virtue, but rather as a severe mental illness). Failure to follow basic logic was a one-way ticket to ignominy and obscurity in any national political actor—or it would have been, had any such mental defectives aspired to national office. Today, all these gross defects are the norm, further reducing any common ground.
Third, America’s political participants (those that can reason, that is) no longer share in any way a common vision of the human good and of human nature. In past generations, the idea that human nature was infinitely malleable, and that remaking humanity was desirable in the pursuit both of extreme individualism and of allowing the State to mold correct thought and action, would have been regarded by all as the pernicious fruit of unclean nihilist philosophers. Not today. And in past generations, that human good could be accomplished by everybody being wholly dominated by the State was regarded by all as antithetical to the bedrock of America. Not today. That so few core beliefs are held in common further exacerbates division.
So, it’s plausible that today’s divisions are extreme by historical standards—perhaps as extreme as, say, those of 1855, though for different reasons. Today we have less violence (so far), and more irrationality, but the degree of the divisions may be comparable, and may be insurmountable and irresolvable. And it’s plausible that to the extent this reality is recognized by those in power, probably as the result of key flashpoints (Schlichter mentions in “People’s Republic” Clinton’s attempt to seize guns in Red states, an entirely plausible scenario), a negotiated settlement might be attractive to those not interested in Civil War Two. Whether any of this is likely, I don’t know. But it’s realistic enough, unfortunately.
Somewhat less realistic is Schlichter’s vision of a relatively clean division among Red and Blue states. The common idea of monolithic blue and red states is pretty clearly incorrect. Within any state are many people, and at least some geographic concentrations, of both Red and Blue. And no geographic unit, even small ones, is homogenous. You can find Trump supporters in San Francisco, no doubt (although given the casual low-level violence that characterizes today’s “progressives,” doubtless they mostly keep their support to themselves.) You can find Clinton supporters all over Red states. And so forth. This reality would immeasurably complicate any split.
Schlichter nods to this mixture of Red and Blue by mentioning how, after the split, many people moved from one area to another. He also nods to it by positing separation not strictly along state borders. He views movement as mostly voluntary—essentially, parasites leaving the red states since their parasitism is no longer tolerated, and producers leaving the blue states, since those states are now totally free to engage in classic leftist/fascist appropriation of property and suppression of opinion.
While such movement might occur, it has never occurred in modern history without the incentive provided by violence. People simply don’t want to pick up and leave their homes and lives; they will only leave en masse if they are threatened with violence, and that begets actual violence, which begets more actual violence, usually ending in mass death. See, e.g., East Prussia in 1945; India in 1947; Yugoslavia in 1991; Syria now. It’s very, very optimistic to posit, as Schlichter does, a negotiated separation, followed by peaceful migration, only then followed by deteriorating relations. This is particularly true since parasites rarely see themselves as parasites and producers are not prone to abandon fixed means of production—in both cases, they are optimistic things will work out OK for them, though of course they rarely do. Yes, Schlichter does posit violence—for example, Southern Indiana as the site of extensive guerrilla warfare as the sides contend over whether it will be Red or Blue. But his posited orderly separation seems very unrealistic.
Finally, the most unrealistic part of the book is that Schlichter thinks that Red states are generally virtuous and Blue states not virtuous. That’s certainly true of the political class in clearly Red and Blue states. California, if left to govern itself, would quickly collapse under the weight of leftism, no different than Venezuela, and would immediately begin a totalitarian campaign of suppressing illegal thought, such as orthodox Christianity. (That California today continues to do as well as it does economically is not to the contrary—that’s purely a result of eating the seed corn stored up by generations of Red state policies that made California what it is today, and that the leftists who govern California are still somewhat constrained by the US Constitution.)
However, the actual people in clearly Red and Blue states are not as clearly virtuous or not virtuous. Sure, the virtue quotient is high in Amish country, or in the rural areas of the Upper Midwest, and the virtue quotient is low in large areas of the wealthy urban East Coast. But the same sharp divisions don’t hold across the board: urban areas of any Red state are not virtuous, in the main, and more importantly, most rural areas of most Red states are very much not virtuous. They’re not philosophically leftist, either, but you only have to read J.D. Vance’s recent “Hillbilly Elegy” to realize that the moral fiber and cultural beliefs of very many Red state Americans are not only not virtuous, but indistinguishable in practice from the parasitism that Schlichter ascribes only to Blue state residents. The world is not clearly divided into parasites and producers, and vice and virtue exist in many other contexts than those two groups.
So perhaps “People’s Republic” isn’t wholly realistic. But it’s not wholly unrealistic, either. And, it is important to remember, that massive political changes always seem impossible. Until they don’t.
September 2, 2021
Kelly Turnbull has some skills. He is tapped to lead a rescue op in California which is part of the People's Republic. In Schlichter's dystopian world, the original U.S.A. designation has been retained by the "flyover states." I am awarding all the stars for creativity and prescience. The conflicts we see erupting in the streets and on social media are leading us to a similar destination. I would recommend this to readers who like Jack Reacher (Lee Child) and Scot Horvath (Brad Thor) For me, there was too much gun jargon and way too high a body count. Not sure if I will continue reading the series or not.
September 10, 2018
I'm a big fan of alternate history/near future books. The key to the genre is credulity: can I really see the outcome in the book from the realities at the time of the fiction split.
This book utterly fails in that. Although I myself am rather conservative, I found the caricature of the "Blues"--a clear stand in for Democrats, utterly unbelievable. It is what the most angry and terrified elements of the right have as a nightmare, not what the United States has as a reality. Another reviewer accurately describes it as a "conservative military revenge fantasy".
Recommended for: People with an ax to grind
This book utterly fails in that. Although I myself am rather conservative, I found the caricature of the "Blues"--a clear stand in for Democrats, utterly unbelievable. It is what the most angry and terrified elements of the right have as a nightmare, not what the United States has as a reality. Another reviewer accurately describes it as a "conservative military revenge fantasy".
Recommended for: People with an ax to grind
September 21, 2016
Great read and a quick one. Kurt Schlichter envisions a future where the US has broken up into two countries. The new USA composed of the "Red States" with Texas as the Capitol and the People's Republic composed of the East and West Coast along with the Northern Rust Belt states. One is a free market, pro-gun, pro-God nation and the other a socialist "utopia" where all hate speech is outlawed and the government controls everything. No spoilers but it is well worth the cost.
September 6, 2017
A lot of action in this one, bullet holes everywhere. The thing that makes the book worthwhile is that Schlichter inverts the normal dystopic pattern. Here the tyrants are tyrants, but they are also incompetent, and are economic imbeciles. The background of the novel is the break up of the United States into "red" and "blue" sections a few decades hence, and take it from there.
August 29, 2017
The anti-Constitutionalist blue states have broken away from the USA (labeled "The Split") and become a socialist dictatorship--very reminiscent of George Orwell's "1984," except unlike with Big Brother and the Thought Police, this novel has good guys who actually fight back, and effectively to boot!. Xe" for "non-binary genders." Highways and government buildings named for the likes of Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, Barbara Boxer, and Bernie Sanders. Fucla, er, UCLA and Westwood exposed for the cesspools of limousine liberalism that they are. Snooty elitist Fucla students getting killed in a race riot. Political correctness and jack-booted government thuggery run amok and then receiving its just desserts, as these PC Thought Police enemies of freedom are dealt richly-deserved deaths.
(Okay, but one gripe: what exactly is this "cis" suffix?? Either I missed something and need to re-read, or the author never actually defined it)
Soooooo many great passages. Sooooo much to love about this novel.
RANDOM STREAM OF CONSCIOUSNESS NOTES AND OBSERVATIONS (and noteworthy passages):
--"FREEDOM FROM HATE IS TRUE FREEDOM. REPORT HATEMONGERS, DENIERS, AND SPIES TO YOUR PEOPLE'S BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION!" Sooooo reminiscent of George Orwell's "1984": "WAR IS PEACE.....IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH....FREEDOM IS SLAVERY" and "BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING YOU."
--"'People's Republic,' choosing the same hoary old cliche every medal-bedecked Third World butcher had grafted onto his country's name in the 1960s and '70s." Haha, astute historical observation.
--"'Don't call it "Flyover." That's going to be your country soon. It's called the United States of America." 'Murica, F**K YEAH!!
--Dallas as the new capital of the USA, love it! And military service mandatory for new would-be citizens--a tad Heinlein-esque?
--"But there was one nice thing about driving in the impoverished Los Angeles of 2034--the near total absence of traffic." Haha, count yer blessings, eh Angelenos!
--"It was remarkable how a nation so focused on rooting out what it called bigotry under various labels always seemed to uncover and more of it lurking inside itself." Pot, meet kettle, or, in the words of CCR, "Before you accuse me, take a look at yourself."
--"Narcing out formerly lawful gun owners was a traditional profit center for lowlifes after the Split. They got a few bucks and the gun owners gio stuck in the prisons the new government had emptied of real criminals." Hey, shades of present-day New York City!!
June 23, 2019
This is an uninspired thriller weighted down by the author's political message. The plot is a retread of John Carpenter's movie "Escape from LA." The characters are cardboard; protagonist Kelly Turnbull is a flat and dull expy of someone like Vince Flynn's Mitch Rapp (not the most complex character himself). And Schlichter's political agenda makes his world-building unbelievable for anyone who does not already look at the world through the same, distorted lenses that he is using.
January 2, 2018
Schlichter's conservative bias is expressed without much creativity through corny characters and dead dialogue. This idea of the US splitting into red and blue states is brilliant, if only another fiction writer had come up with it first. This said, there is some witty humor, and the action isn't half bad.
February 13, 2020
This author is my favorite columnist. I bought this book for my son for Christmas the year it came out because he reads espionage kinds of books. I normally do not. With the fourth book out now I finally borrowed them all from him. It took me exactly one evening/night to read this book. I went to bed at 2 AM. It's gritty, bloody, and very very real. Lots of guns and shooting. Bad people die and some good ones too. Awesome characters, the good ones and the bad ones.
I also do not like/read dystopian books. This one is set in 2034 so that that far in the future. It is based on what "could happen" and although it is a work of fiction, all of the signs we are living now and concerned about have come to pass in this story. America has split . The United States of America still exists but on the East and West sides of it is the People's Republic.....the blue, the west coast and the east coast. The middle is the red. The capital of the USA is Dallas, Texas. There was a civil war to get to this point and then a negotiation where negotiations set boundaries. People had their choice to stay where they were or to move across the new borders. Then the choices were shut down. Borders closed.
In this book we have a high ranking American official whose college age daughter had defected to the blue. Information has come that she is in a lot of danger if she is even still alive. We meet Kelly Trumbull who is going to be the hero of these books. He is military..sort of or maybe ex military. We meet Junior who is the twin brother of the girl over in the blue. Kelly has been extracting people from the blue who are in danger or desperate to get out for some time. When he is assigned the job of getting the girl out, her father insists that his military trained son goes along.
During the action packed time that Kelly and Junior spend in the blue we discover all the things that have happened in the blue. It all makes scary sense since what is happening there is what I hear every day that politicians and people want. No one is safe, your neighbor or anyone can turn you in for saying the wrong thing of even thinking the wrong politically incorrect thing. Everything is rationed - gas, food...everything. Government controls everything. Being there is kind of like reading Soviet history or history of other evil times - Germany under Hitler comes to mind.
So it is not my usual kind of book. It's great because I too love my country and I too fear for it's future. This is fiction, but it's a warning. 1984 was fiction to and never going to happen. So was Atlas Shrugged. No one, when they were written, even imagined any of that could happen. It is very scary. On to the next book!
I also do not like/read dystopian books. This one is set in 2034 so that that far in the future. It is based on what "could happen" and although it is a work of fiction, all of the signs we are living now and concerned about have come to pass in this story. America has split . The United States of America still exists but on the East and West sides of it is the People's Republic.....the blue, the west coast and the east coast. The middle is the red. The capital of the USA is Dallas, Texas. There was a civil war to get to this point and then a negotiation where negotiations set boundaries. People had their choice to stay where they were or to move across the new borders. Then the choices were shut down. Borders closed.
In this book we have a high ranking American official whose college age daughter had defected to the blue. Information has come that she is in a lot of danger if she is even still alive. We meet Kelly Trumbull who is going to be the hero of these books. He is military..sort of or maybe ex military. We meet Junior who is the twin brother of the girl over in the blue. Kelly has been extracting people from the blue who are in danger or desperate to get out for some time. When he is assigned the job of getting the girl out, her father insists that his military trained son goes along.
During the action packed time that Kelly and Junior spend in the blue we discover all the things that have happened in the blue. It all makes scary sense since what is happening there is what I hear every day that politicians and people want. No one is safe, your neighbor or anyone can turn you in for saying the wrong thing of even thinking the wrong politically incorrect thing. Everything is rationed - gas, food...everything. Government controls everything. Being there is kind of like reading Soviet history or history of other evil times - Germany under Hitler comes to mind.
So it is not my usual kind of book. It's great because I too love my country and I too fear for it's future. This is fiction, but it's a warning. 1984 was fiction to and never going to happen. So was Atlas Shrugged. No one, when they were written, even imagined any of that could happen. It is very scary. On to the next book!
December 18, 2020
There's a weird genre called Right Wing Dystopia. Despite there being so many of them they're all alike: "socialism" has come to America. No one is precisely able to define "socialism," but from what I can gather it's because of "big government," producing "shortages," for some reason and all the while no one can call black people the n-word. Despite relatively silly, and...well...nonexistent explanations it's an allegedly "serious" genre. Kurt Schlichter tries to have things both ways and announces that this is purely a satire probably so as to not have to answer for why he fantasizes about killing fellow citizens and by God is there a lot of that here. Compared to genre staples of Right Wing Dystopia: The Turner Diaries, Atlas Shrugged, and Last Man Standing there's a lot more personalized killing here. People aren't just extinguished by the thousands (although don't ya know Stalin personally killed like a bajilloty people by personally drowning them one at a time in his dacha something something Venezuela), but there is a pretty high body count.
I'm assuming that the intended effect is that if this book should be read by left-wingers that we're supposed to be afraid of the kill ratios herein, and for right wingers to be reinvigorated even though the right wing gets everything they want in this country as is regardless of political party in control.
I'm assuming that the intended effect is that if this book should be read by left-wingers that we're supposed to be afraid of the kill ratios herein, and for right wingers to be reinvigorated even though the right wing gets everything they want in this country as is regardless of political party in control.
February 8, 2017
Non-PC Entertainment..., & Education
I enjoyed this book, since having a twisted sense of humor is required for a former paratrooper, Top Team sniper, drill sergeant, and currently a Registered Nurse with 24 years in an Emergency Department. Read, absorb, and know that this book might present the best possible outcome for freedom loving Americans. I hope not, because almost any other outcome for liberals will likely be worse.
I enjoyed this book, since having a twisted sense of humor is required for a former paratrooper, Top Team sniper, drill sergeant, and currently a Registered Nurse with 24 years in an Emergency Department. Read, absorb, and know that this book might present the best possible outcome for freedom loving Americans. I hope not, because almost any other outcome for liberals will likely be worse.
October 5, 2016
Not a bad little story for agitprop
At first I thought the story was a fantasy intended as a warning but by the end of the book I decided the author sees it as more of a hoped for dream than a harbinger the apocalypse. Still, a good enough dystopian "after the fall" story that should give folks in both sides of the red/blue divide pause.
At first I thought the story was a fantasy intended as a warning but by the end of the book I decided the author sees it as more of a hoped for dream than a harbinger the apocalypse. Still, a good enough dystopian "after the fall" story that should give folks in both sides of the red/blue divide pause.
February 2, 2019
Readers new to this series just read the prequel, Indian Country, and leave it at that. This novel, the first written, really isn't all that different from any other thriller. The author draws on tales of post WW II Russia and the shortages after Stalin's purges. He also draws on the tales of the Warsaw Ghetto and the Jewish people hiding from the Nazis.
Although there isn't a cliff hanger ending, it is set up to continue the series. I'm going to pass on that, however.
Although there isn't a cliff hanger ending, it is set up to continue the series. I'm going to pass on that, however.
September 1, 2019
While it contains more than a few cliches (perhaps meant tongue in cheek), the story poses an interesting “What if...?” The west coast and the northeast have separated from Middle America to form a People’s Republic (Blue State) where liberal idealism is played out to its logical conclusion - a failed state. The story is set amid the animosity between the two states. A plausible state of affairs that could be a potential future if the current political and social divisions continue to deepen.
January 10, 2021
Prophecy
This book was written well before the conflict around the 2020 presidential election. Nonetheless it anticipates the the Division of the US into totalitarian socialist and constitutionalist factions.
This book was written well before the conflict around the 2020 presidential election. Nonetheless it anticipates the the Division of the US into totalitarian socialist and constitutionalist factions.
November 29, 2016
Oh man, so good it's probably illegal
Loved the story. Interesting characters and great world set up. It looks like I need ten more words. 'Nuff said.
Loved the story. Interesting characters and great world set up. It looks like I need ten more words. 'Nuff said.
December 10, 2016
I appreciate Kurt's clarity and wit.
January 30, 2018
The action was always there. Unfortunately, zero character development, minimal redemption, and at several times, the inability to suspend disbelief.
August 1, 2021
Kurt Schlicter has taken the cold war paradigm and created a spy novel where American is split like East and West Germany. If I had read this in 2015, I would have thought this a wild fantasy. In 2021, it no longer seems impossible. After spending several election cycles pretending that some presidential candidate can bring the whole country together, we know that isn’t possible anymore. We can’t agree on the results of elections or find a news outlet that plays it down the middle so the citizen receives all information through an ideological filter. We’re culturally two separate countries and this book just assumes we make it official.
Our hero is from the United States (Red States). He is sent into the People’s Republic (Blue States) to rescue the daughter of a Texas Billionaire. The daughter left to find her inner hippy, but dad is sure she’s had enough. Along for the ride is the daughter’s brother to help convince her. There is a lot of gunplay and if the Death count doesn’t exceed Vince Flynn’s series, it’s only because the explosions are fewer.
This book has elements of Escape from New York and Man in the High Castle. It’s written like a movie and it would be a movie if a different political party ran Hollywood.
Our hero is from the United States (Red States). He is sent into the People’s Republic (Blue States) to rescue the daughter of a Texas Billionaire. The daughter left to find her inner hippy, but dad is sure she’s had enough. Along for the ride is the daughter’s brother to help convince her. There is a lot of gunplay and if the Death count doesn’t exceed Vince Flynn’s series, it’s only because the explosions are fewer.
This book has elements of Escape from New York and Man in the High Castle. It’s written like a movie and it would be a movie if a different political party ran Hollywood.
November 13, 2019
Now, I'm not the target audience here--my sympathies are decidedly left-wing. But still I thought it would be valuable to take a look at the other side, to see things through a more conservative lens, and what I found was altogether decent. Kurt Schlichter is a competent writer, capable of writing an entertaining if not extremely polished novel. The characters are likable--even the ultra-violent, macho protagonist--and Schlichter's satire of progressivism run amok has at least a little merit, with the most radical strands of campus activism echoed in the heavy-handed policies of the People's Republic. If the Greens or the CPUSA ever took power, I could see them presiding over an impoverished dictatorship like the one described here. It's a real stretch to imagine Hillary Clinton doing it, though, which is what People's Republic states without subtlety, and of course the commies' counterpart state, the god-fearing, all-American US heartland, is portrayed as having few problems of its own.
That felt pretty facile to me, honestly. The author clearly went for a conservative fantasy of unequivocal progressive failure and right-wing triumph, when a more sober, realistic take could have illuminated the dangers of radical politics, and perhaps won some (non-ironic) readers from the left. I've been looking for a great Second Civil War novel for some time now, and People's Republic isn't it. Ham-fisted politics, plus issues with style and dialogue that show it wasn't quite revised enough, keep this book from reaching its full potential.
That felt pretty facile to me, honestly. The author clearly went for a conservative fantasy of unequivocal progressive failure and right-wing triumph, when a more sober, realistic take could have illuminated the dangers of radical politics, and perhaps won some (non-ironic) readers from the left. I've been looking for a great Second Civil War novel for some time now, and People's Republic isn't it. Ham-fisted politics, plus issues with style and dialogue that show it wasn't quite revised enough, keep this book from reaching its full potential.
September 15, 2020
You’re either going to find this book hilarious or frightening, depending on where you are politically.
Kurt creates situations and imagery that could happen these days with our political climate. The story is a good, action packed drama where you find yourself wanting to know what happens next. He gets in some real zingers describing the US after a second civil war, if your politics lean right. He issues some real warnings to those who lean left. It is a very creative thought to split the country the way he did, and it’s plausible.
There’s a lot of gun use and gun descriptions, which was distracting to me, but made the action authentic.
One technique used which was also distracting, was where you first see an end result or situation and then the following sections or chapters describe how we arrived there. That can also be illustrated in that this is the first book in the series, but the second book is labeled a prequel. I like this sort of technique but would rather see it used sparingly.
Overall, a quick read that leaves you imagining what it would be like if the world Kurt created here really happened.
I intend to read the next book in the series.
Kurt creates situations and imagery that could happen these days with our political climate. The story is a good, action packed drama where you find yourself wanting to know what happens next. He gets in some real zingers describing the US after a second civil war, if your politics lean right. He issues some real warnings to those who lean left. It is a very creative thought to split the country the way he did, and it’s plausible.
There’s a lot of gun use and gun descriptions, which was distracting to me, but made the action authentic.
One technique used which was also distracting, was where you first see an end result or situation and then the following sections or chapters describe how we arrived there. That can also be illustrated in that this is the first book in the series, but the second book is labeled a prequel. I like this sort of technique but would rather see it used sparingly.
Overall, a quick read that leaves you imagining what it would be like if the world Kurt created here really happened.
I intend to read the next book in the series.
September 29, 2024
Right-wing propaganda, some of which is so outlandish it almost seems like satire from The Colbert Report. I get the sense that the author wants to shoot a lot of liberals. The characters were two dimensional and just there to serve the story. Still, it was a fast and amusing read.
March 31, 2019
Written first, chronologically second.
If you are interested in this story line I strongly recommend you read the prequel 'Indian Country' first even though it was written second. I read both, in publication order. This novel is set several years later after attitudes have hardened to the point of desperation on the part of many participants. Coming into this novel first seems very shocking and over the top. If you read Indian Country first then the transition from current politics to the extremes of this novel are much more understandable. Well written, action packed and non stop terror that such attitudes and actions are possible. Unfortunately I have had my hopes for reconciliation dashed by losing people I thought were friends over the results of the 2016 election cycle, which makes this dystopian future seem at least slightly plausible.
If you are interested in this story line I strongly recommend you read the prequel 'Indian Country' first even though it was written second. I read both, in publication order. This novel is set several years later after attitudes have hardened to the point of desperation on the part of many participants. Coming into this novel first seems very shocking and over the top. If you read Indian Country first then the transition from current politics to the extremes of this novel are much more understandable. Well written, action packed and non stop terror that such attitudes and actions are possible. Unfortunately I have had my hopes for reconciliation dashed by losing people I thought were friends over the results of the 2016 election cycle, which makes this dystopian future seem at least slightly plausible.
January 8, 2024
Шлихтър е мой човек в отношението си по политкоректността и освен това има крайно язвително чувство за хумор, с което безжалостно гаври крайните й проявления, като безкрайните кампании срещу сексизма, расизма и хомофобията, причудливите местоимения на хора от третия пол, ограничаването на храни и право на превоз заради борбата с климатичните промени. В книгата му те са довели някога процъфтяващи места до мизерия, която обаче не засяга живеещите в лукс управници. Търнбъл обаче идва за тях с дъжд от куршуми и още по-парещи лафове, а героите около него, като Джуниър и сестра му са също симпатични, което прави четенето на книгата лесно и приятно, въпреки тегавата обстановка, която описва.
Цялото ми ревю прочетете в Цитаделата:
https://citadelata.com/peoples-republ...
Цялото ми ревю прочетете в Цитаделата:
https://citadelata.com/peoples-republ...
April 30, 2022
The politics, by virtue of the plot, are crazy thick. Red vs. Blue. It was amusing, but if you're blue, you will need to sit through hundreds of pages that are a poke in the eye. If you're a-political (or Red), the plot is creative and amusing.
September 27, 2025
A quick fun read. A bit over the top, but entertaining
September 5, 2021
Leftists can probably skip this one. The formerly blue-states "People's Republic" split off from the constitutional/freedom-focused red states and the producers of society flee to the reds. The reality is, this isn't all that far-fetched, I hear many people openly talking about the US would be better off if we peacefully divorced.
Once the "doers" in society leave - the people that fix the power stations, power lines, car repair, manufacturing, military, veterans, police officers, gun owners, etc., the remaining academics, entertainers, and thugs that are not fond of law and order remain. Lacking productive capacity or ability to understand the business-end of a wrench or hammer, the People's Republic rapidly decays -borrowing from other nations and printing new money to pay its bills with. The end result is the same as every other socialist/communist utopia - Venezuela or North Korea. Walls and secret police to keep people in, not to keep them out.
The characters are unsophisticated and predictable, but I liked the dystopian world imagined. I live in California - 600,000 or so are leaving every year, including me after my wife retires next year. If you haven't taken a drive through skid row in LA or San Francisco (the parts away from the tourist zones) or watched on YouTube.. do so before criticizing the writer's imagined future... this is already happening.
Leftist/liberal ideas survive in the US because the excess productivity of capitalism can afford the "overhead." Take away that productive capacity, and how many of the liberals college professors will learn to fix an elevator?
Once the "doers" in society leave - the people that fix the power stations, power lines, car repair, manufacturing, military, veterans, police officers, gun owners, etc., the remaining academics, entertainers, and thugs that are not fond of law and order remain. Lacking productive capacity or ability to understand the business-end of a wrench or hammer, the People's Republic rapidly decays -borrowing from other nations and printing new money to pay its bills with. The end result is the same as every other socialist/communist utopia - Venezuela or North Korea. Walls and secret police to keep people in, not to keep them out.
The characters are unsophisticated and predictable, but I liked the dystopian world imagined. I live in California - 600,000 or so are leaving every year, including me after my wife retires next year. If you haven't taken a drive through skid row in LA or San Francisco (the parts away from the tourist zones) or watched on YouTube.. do so before criticizing the writer's imagined future... this is already happening.
Leftist/liberal ideas survive in the US because the excess productivity of capitalism can afford the "overhead." Take away that productive capacity, and how many of the liberals college professors will learn to fix an elevator?
October 13, 2021
Heard Schlichter on Michael Malice’s podcast and enjoyed his interview. At one point he mentioned how his books were like Brad Thor’s but don’t suck. Or something along those lines. I actually generally enjoy the Scot Harvath series by Thor, but they definitely are formulaic and some are borderline not good… So I figured I’d pick this book up and see if this smack talking lawyer can write.
This was essentially an anti-leftist, and at times far too pro-conservative, version of a Scot Harvath, Mitch Rapp, or Orphan X novel. Story wise it is far more interesting than anything besides the first Orphan X novel (but that’s easily the best spy/thriller novel of the hundred or so I’ve read).
Execution was definitely a little up and down. I really liked the writing style. There was at least twice where moving around the timeline straight up failed. Most notably chapter 14 to 15… so poorly done it seems like an editor or something made a mistake. Same goes for the battle that serves as the story’s climax, but to a much lesser extent. Knocking off a star for that.
This series is a perfect intersection of politics I tend towards agreeing with, anti-leftism, and the fiction I enjoy most. Really looking forward to Kelly Turnbull #2 that serves as a prequel.
You most definitely will not like this book if you think people can change their sex or if you think racism is a major issue in the US today.
This was essentially an anti-leftist, and at times far too pro-conservative, version of a Scot Harvath, Mitch Rapp, or Orphan X novel. Story wise it is far more interesting than anything besides the first Orphan X novel (but that’s easily the best spy/thriller novel of the hundred or so I’ve read).
Execution was definitely a little up and down. I really liked the writing style. There was at least twice where moving around the timeline straight up failed. Most notably chapter 14 to 15… so poorly done it seems like an editor or something made a mistake. Same goes for the battle that serves as the story’s climax, but to a much lesser extent. Knocking off a star for that.
This series is a perfect intersection of politics I tend towards agreeing with, anti-leftism, and the fiction I enjoy most. Really looking forward to Kelly Turnbull #2 that serves as a prequel.
You most definitely will not like this book if you think people can change their sex or if you think racism is a major issue in the US today.
May 10, 2018
While primarily an action story, the background of People's Republic can serve as a modern day 1984. Before the story begins, the United States has split into two countries along the so-called Red and Blue political lines. The blue states become the People's Republic, and turns into Chicago writ large. The privileged class lives safely behind walls, insulated from the consequences of their political and economic decisions, while the other areas become a violent landscape dominated by poverty and gangs. To keep people from leaving their left-wing paradise, the People's Republic builds walls around the country to keep people in.
The story begins with the protagonist, Turnbull, who makes a living smuggling people out of the People's Republic. Turnbull is offered the job of a lifetime to smuggle the daughter of a wealthy person out, and at the same time obtain a hidden hard drive stolen from the directory of the People's Republic secret police. The story then is turnbull's adventures in attempting the rescue of the girl and obtaining the drive.
It is a great, fast-moving action story, and a cautionary tale about the oft-repeated degeneration of leftist states.
The story begins with the protagonist, Turnbull, who makes a living smuggling people out of the People's Republic. Turnbull is offered the job of a lifetime to smuggle the daughter of a wealthy person out, and at the same time obtain a hidden hard drive stolen from the directory of the People's Republic secret police. The story then is turnbull's adventures in attempting the rescue of the girl and obtaining the drive.
It is a great, fast-moving action story, and a cautionary tale about the oft-repeated degeneration of leftist states.
December 19, 2020
Very entertaining, quick read. You may want to read some Kurt Schlichter commentary prior to this to get a sense of the author's humor and background. To say he is red state (as in red/blue America) would be an understatement.
If you are easily offended by anything prepare to be triggered. The author's military background comes through pretty strong which definitely lends an air of credibility to some of the scenes.
I found myself thinking that "this could happen" quite a bit although it probably would not be in such an over-the-top manner as the author presents. Definitely written as a dystopian warning rather than a prediction or desire.
If you are easily offended by anything prepare to be triggered. The author's military background comes through pretty strong which definitely lends an air of credibility to some of the scenes.
I found myself thinking that "this could happen" quite a bit although it probably would not be in such an over-the-top manner as the author presents. Definitely written as a dystopian warning rather than a prediction or desire.
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