Hello Reader,

While I'm "taking a break" this week, I wanted to share a few stories I'm tracking—and one quote that captures the defining challenge of our time.

What I'm Watching

Gen Z toppled Madagascar's government—the third youth-led uprising this year after Nepal and Peru.
Hegseth's Pentagon imposed strict new rules limiting journalists' access to military operations. HuffPost responded simply: “No way in hell”
Trump invited Qatar's military to establish a presence in Idaho, raising questions about foreign forces on American soil.
Hamas executed opposition members in Gaza following the peace deal, consolidating control through violence.
The WSJ exposed how Chinese scam operations stole $1 billion from Americans through those incredibly annoying fake toll collection texts.
ICE is using increasingly aggressive tactics in Chicago, LA, and beyond
Another round of "No Kings" protests are planned for October 18th

Gen Z Banner of Rebellion
3 Down. Many to Go.

Democracy's Existential Threat

But I'm especially tracking France, where Emanual Macron's surrendering his signature pension reform—raising retirement age from 62 to 64—to avoid his government's collapse, the fourth in under a year. He's capitulating to Socialist demands (never a good idea) after ramming the law through using constitutional override powers. France joins Italy and Spain in retreating from pension reforms under political pressure, exposing democracy's core failure: funding promises to current voters without bankrupting the next generation.

This brings me back to Lee Kuan Yew and Singapore—one of history's rare dictatorships that prospered.

Lee wrote the passage below in his 2000 memoir.

This is democracy's greatest test: to protect our most vulnerable, while proving Lee wrong. We're failing miserably.

American and European governments believed that they could always afford to support the poor and the needy: widows, orphans, the old and homeless, disadvantaged minorities, unwed mothers. Their sociologists expounded the theory that hardship and failure were due not to the individual person's character, but to flaws in the economic system. So charity became "entitlement," and the stigma of living on charity disappeared. Unfortunately, welfare costs grew faster than the government's ability to raise taxes to pay for it. The political cost of tax increases is high. Governments took the easy way out by borrowing to give higher benefits to the current generation of voters, instead of building up reserves for the next. Eventually, this led to budget deficits, high inflation, and unemployment.

In Singapore, we made the opposite choice. We insisted that we could only spend what we had earned. We had to maintain a hard-working, thrifty, and resilient people, and to do that, we made welfare a dirty word. Each generation had to build for the next, and we made sure our reserves were not squandered. The result was that when a crisis came, we had something to fall back on. We avoided the debilitating dependency culture that had sapped the vitality of many developed societies.

New Website!

I also wanted to announce the release of our new website for The Rebel Alliance. It describes what we stand for, lets you subscribe, and hosts recent Dispatches from the Rebellion. I'd love to hear what you think!

Refer a Friend:

If you've enjoyed this episode of Dispatches from the Rebellion, please consider referring a friend. Forward this email and ask them to click on the "Subscribe" button below to sign up.

Eric Erdman

The Dictator Who Exposed Democracy’s Fatal Flaw

What I'm Watching

Democracy's Existential Threat

New Website!

Refer a Friend:

2026: The Year the Ground Starts Moving

Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Out

Trump's Marie Antoinette Moment