Charlie Angus, Lafayette, Joni Askola, and the Outsiders Who See Collapse Coming First
This essay was inspired by conversations with Charlie Angus and Joni Askola on the MUCK YOU! podcast, watching The American Revolution by Ken Burns, and by reading Rory Stewart’s book, How Not to Be a Politician.
“The American Revolution was not inevitable. It happened because a few people recognized early that power had lost legitimacy, and that silence was no longer neutral.” David Wheeler
What tied those conversations together was not nostalgia, but pattern recognition: how democracies fracture, how power loses legitimacy, and why outsiders often see collapse coming before insiders are willing to admit it.
One of the most misunderstood figures in the American Revolution is Gilbert du Motier, Marquis de Lafayette.
He wasn’t American.
He didn’t have to be there.
He wasn’t desperate, marginalized, or cornered.
And yet, when the stakes became clear, he chose the harder side.
That’s why the comparison to Charlie Angus matters, not because history repeats neatly, but because character does.
