Thomas R. Whitney knew exactly how America would end.
It would not be conquered by a foreign army. It would not collapse beneath debt or corruption. It would not be destroyed by monarchs, socialists, anarchists, or invading hordes.
It would be destroyed by Catholics.
This sounds ridiculous now, which is one of the hazards of being Thomas R. Whitney.
In the middle of the nineteenth century, however, this was a serious political position held by a remarkable number of serious people. Whitney was one of the leading intellectuals of the Know-Nothing movement, a nativist political party that briefly became one of the largest political forces in the United States. He wrote books. He edited newspapers. He organized campaigns. He spent years warning Americans that the republic faced an existential threat.
The threat was Irish immigrants.
Also German immigrants.
Also Catholics.
Mostly Catholics.
Whitney feared that millions of newcomers would overwhelm American institutions, replace traditional values, and transform the country into something unrecognizable. Catholics, he argued, owed allegiance to the Pope. Their loyalty could never truly belong to the Constitution. If immigration continued unchecked, America would eventually cease to be America.
Now imagine his reaction when he arrives in 2026.
The man doesn't even make it out of the airport.
The first sign of trouble appears above baggage claim.
The sign is written in English.
Then Spanish.
Whitney stops walking.
A second sign appears.
Also bilingual.
A third follows.
By the time he reaches the rental car counter, he has convinced himself that the republic has fallen and nobody bothered to tell him.
A cheerful employee asks whether he needs assistance.
Whitney asks if America still exists.
The employee says yes.
Whitney finds this answer suspicious.
Things deteriorate rapidly from there.
Someone explains that approximately one-quarter of Americans identify as Catholic.
Whitney initially assumes this is a joke.
It is not.
He learns there are Catholic universities.
Catholic hospitals.
Catholic charities.
Catholic governors.
Catholic senators.
Catholic Supreme Court justices.
There have even been Catholic presidents.
Presidents.
Plural.
For several moments, Whitney simply stares at the person speaking.
Then he asks the obvious question.
"How?"
It is actually a reasonable question. After all, Whitney spent much of his life explaining why this outcome was impossible.
Catholics, he argued, could not fully participate in republican government because their loyalties were divided. The Pope sat in Rome. Therefore Catholics could never be fully American.
Modern America responded to this theory by electing Catholics, promoting Catholics, marrying Catholics, hiring Catholics, befriending Catholics, and eventually forgetting why any of this was supposed to be controversial.
History can be remarkably rude.
Seeking reassurance, Whitney decides to attend a Fourth of July celebration.
Surely this will restore order.
Surely somewhere in the red-white-and-blue spectacle of American patriotism he will find confirmation that the country remains what he believed it ought to be.
At first, things look promising.
There are flags everywhere.
Children carrying sparklers.
Veterans in uniform.
Marching bands.
Barbecue.
A man dressed as Benjamin Franklin who appears to be drinking something fluorescent out of a novelty cup.
Whitney doesn't understand what is happening.
But it feels American.
Then the parade begins.
This is where everything goes wrong.
The first group marching down Main Street is an Irish-American organization.
Whitney groans.
The second group is Italian-American.
The third is Polish-American.
The fourth is Hispanic veterans.
The fifth is a Vietnamese cultural association.
The sixth is something called a Lebanese-American Heritage Society.
At this point Whitney begins scanning the crowd desperately for the Americans.
Every group he encounters insists they are.
This is not how the script was supposed to work.
The entire intellectual foundation of nineteenth-century nativism rested on the assumption that immigrants remained permanently foreign. The newcomers might live in America, but they would never truly become Americans.
Instead Whitney finds generations of descendants waving flags, serving in the military, holding public office, and arguing passionately about baseball.
The argument itself is especially upsetting.
Nothing about it sounds foreign.
Things get even worse when somebody hands him a festival brochure.
The event sponsors include Catholic organizations.
Jewish organizations.
Protestant organizations.
Businesses owned by immigrants.
Businesses owned by descendants of immigrants.
Whitney reads the brochure twice.
Then a third time.
He appears to be searching for evidence of national collapse hidden somewhere in the fine print.
He finds a coupon for funnel cake instead.
The funnel cake proves surprisingly good.
This irritates him further.
One of the great challenges facing Thomas Whitney is that modern America keeps refusing to cooperate.
Everywhere he goes, he discovers things he dislikes.
People speak different languages.
Religious diversity is everywhere.
The culture is changing constantly.
Large numbers of Americans trace their ancestry to places he once regarded with deep suspicion.
Yet the catastrophe never arrives.
The economy still functions.
The government still functions, more or less.
People still pledge allegiance to the flag.
The military still recruits volunteers.
The republic continues stumbling forward.
Whitney keeps searching for the collapse.
The collapse keeps failing to appear.
Then somebody takes him to a baseball game.
This turns out to be a mistake.
Whitney had assumed baseball would remain safely American.
Instead he discovers players from the Dominican Republic, Venezuela, Japan, South Korea, Cuba, Mexico, and half a dozen other countries.
The crowd loves them.
The stadium erupts whenever they succeed.
Children wear their jerseys.
Adults argue over statistics.
Nobody seems concerned that the national pastime has become suspiciously international.
Whitney begins rubbing his temples.
By late afternoon he has developed a theory.
The country, he concludes, must have been captured.
There is simply no other explanation.
Millions of immigrants arrived.
Millions more followed.
Catholics spread throughout society.
Religious diversity exploded.
The population became vastly more diverse than anything he considered sustainable.
Yet America not only survived but emerged as one of the most powerful nations in human history.
Clearly, something has gone wrong.
The evidence is overwhelming.
The conclusions are impossible.
Whitney therefore rejects the conclusions.
This is the most Thomas Whitney thing imaginable.
The truth is that Whitney represents one of the oldest recurring traditions in American history.
Long before modern debates over immigration, he was already asking a familiar question:
Can these people become Americans?
Generation after generation has answered the same way.
The Irish couldn't.
Until they did.
The Italians couldn't.
Until they did.
The Jews couldn't.
Until they did.
The Chinese couldn't.
Until they did.
The pattern repeated so many times that one begins to suspect the problem was never the immigrants.
It was the prediction.
As night falls, Whitney settles into a folding chair to watch the fireworks.
He is exhausted.
The republic he expected to find no longer exists.
The republic he feared has existed for generations.
Children run through the crowd carrying glow sticks and miniature flags. Families spread blankets across the grass. Conversations drift between English and Spanish. Someone nearby is discussing football. Someone else is arguing about taxes.
The entire scene feels intensely American.
That is precisely the problem.
Whitney spent his life insisting these things could not coexist.
Yet here they are.
A little boy runs past carrying a hot dog in one hand and an American flag in the other. He shouts something in Spanish to his parents, who laugh and wave him back toward their seats.
Whitney watches quietly.
For once, he says nothing.
The fireworks begin.
Red.
White.
Blue.
The crowd cheers.
History, it seems, has made its decision.
Someone leans over and asks what he thinks.
Whitney watches another explosion illuminate the sky.
He considers the crowd.
He considers the evidence.
He considers 170 years of being spectacularly wrong.
Then he sighs.
"I still think the Pope is behind this."
And there it is.
The last refuge of every failed prophet.
If reality refuses to cooperate, invent a conspiracy.