Most SF/F plots are a hell of a lot thinner than that and survive audience scrutiny simply by being far, far away from current events. OSC's usually pretty good at writing believable stories nearer-at-hand and if you consider his various works - Especially his Shadows series or Empire - Card likes to do one or two sinister changes to world geopolitics even more than world technology. That the story lines work at all is actually pretty impressive, considering their proximity to the here and now.

What he's kicking around here is a lot more plausible than a lot of books... and FYI he does stuff likes this in his columns fairly regularly so yes it is a political rant but its not a sham under 'oh I'm just speculating', it is what he says it is. Now I say 'more plausible' not because it is plausible, it is absurd, but more that most SF/F books 'politics' are frankly fucking mind-boggling and the setups for the story's conflict usually involve degrees of absurdity that pass muster only because the audience willfully suspends disbelief where the setup is concerned for the general character interactions. You look at Star Wars, Star Trek, Asimov's Foundation, Dune, Game of Thrones, etc and you realize the setup and/or resolution is just plain ridiculous and revolve around protagonist-centered morality and over-the-top villains, and those are the good examples.

I'm not going to get into any of the political points he raised, other than to comment that nothing he said was outside the realm of what a significant minority believes true, whether or not an individual bit is true is kind of irrelevant.