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Hope? Thoughts Before Entering the Bunker.
Is there any reason to hope? Many conservatives openly feared that Trump would be merely a blessed delay, a brief reprieve from the inevitable rise of the brain-washed totalitarians among us. Après Trump, le deluge. The destructive leftist fantasies that have been a staple of intellectuals since Rousseau invented the role of the parasitical, selfish, self-promoting but verbally adroit intellectual selling political fantasy are now in full flower. (Rousseau, Voltaire, and Diderot would have set records for numbers of followers if Twitter were around then.)
It is never rational argument that defeats the fantasists. With the conspicuous exception of Ronald Reagan, conservatives generally don’t seem to know that if listeners think the choice is between the drab reality they know versus a glowing possible future, they will trade the cow for a handful of magic beans every time. The fantasists are often only stopped cold by reality when people are dumb enough to give a fantasy regime a try–often at horrific cost.
The fantasists will likely get their turn in our nation. Maybe now. Almost everybody under 50 has been subjected to intense anti-American and anti-western propagandizing at every level of education. All of our major news organizations are either expressly captive to an inimical ideology or (as in the case of Fox News) muzzled by increasingly woke corporate sponsors. We can no longer watch sports events without propaganda. We are gaslighted daily about race, sex, economics, and our physical environment.
Maybe even scarier, the COVID policy disaster demonstrated that a hell of a lot of Americans seem to like the idea of obedience to strictures provided by nominal experts. And the willingness to find new ways to enforce the new order is also chilling. Gauführer, come quick! My neighbors are harboring an unvaccinated family in their attic.
The legacies of the Founding Fathers, Ronald Reagan, and even Martin Luther King are being systematically erased in schools, entertainment, and governance. The mindless mobs in our city streets are evidence of that rot.
Can we hope?
Recall H.G. Wells’ sci-fi classic War of the Worlds, in which the invading Martians defeated us at every level. It was the earth’s bacterial and viral life forms that finally stopped them. The clever Martians were unable to function in our real world. Similarly, the Russian Communist Party controlled every aspect of life for several generations. It was not possible to openly express or easily find opinions contrary to the party line. What brought it down was the unconcealable fact that its dogma and methods don’t work. Reality cannot be denied indefinitely.
What is noteworthy about the unfolding Biden Administration is its complete lack of originality in any way, shape, or form. Democrats invariably market themselves as the party of novelty, progress, and a bright (government-led) march into the future. In contrast, the Biden vision is to reheat leftover policies that did not work when they were implemented before. In addition, they will likely smuggle in a few of the worst ideas of the Leninist Youth wing of the party just to make sure failure is guaranteed.
If mediocrity can be said to have heights, a Biden Administration will indeed reach new ones. For the moment at least, Biden is excluding the hard left in favor of a set of retreads who did a lousy job the last time they were in power combined with alumni of the tech companies that delivered his electoral “victory.” Soon, Jimmy Carter will seem like a combination of Pericles and Bismark by comparison.
I think my biggest regret of the coming Biden economic and diplomatic failure may be that the hard left will not get the blame so the requisite periodic cure of the fantasy diseases will be incomplete.
Meanwhile, the Republican Party has quietly become vastly more diverse than it was a generation ago when Lee Atwater was crafting a southern strategy. The hopes and successes of new Americans brushing aside the ashes of identity politics is likely going to be at the core of the party in its emerging incarnation. Let’s hope so. Making reality great again is never a bad way to go.
Be sure to use the secret knock when you visit the bunker. I hate to waste ammo and lose friends.
Published in General
OldB,
We see the same extreme danger from the left-wing fantasy party coming to power again. Reagan said it best.
They know all about science or they “believe in science”. These false fantasy beliefs alone will destroy the economy and severely damage the quality & freedom of life. They know all about social justice. These false fantasy beliefs will destroy what’s left of our merit-based institutions and cripple the next generations. They know all about America’s role in the world. These false fantasy beliefs will lead to a foreign policy of appeasement that will subject the world to the worst tyrannical blackmail and may end in war.
“It isn’t that they are ignorant, it’s just that they know so much that isn’t so.”
Gd help us.
Regards,
Jim
Can we not?
(But remind me which knock we’re using.)
OldB,
One of my favorites. When all hope is lost there is still hope.
Regards,
Jim
I think all you can do at this stage is invest in real skills, control your microenvironment by eliminating all parasites (physical and emotional) from your life, sit back, take a sip and enjoy the decline.
Just avoid the nicks as you slide down the ole razor blade of life as Tom Lehr advised.
I know once all of this is over, a new kind of disruption will appear to frustrate us. Still, I hope that there will be a coming-together, at least among Conservatives and Republicans, to find a way forward. I simply can’t live indefinitely in this kind of confusion and disorder.
My biggest regret is that the GOP organization will not blame itself, but blame Trump or the voting. The GOP has been directionless since 2010 (quick name the top 3 GOP priorities). The GOP has done a poor job of protecting the vote and getting out the vote. It is a wonder that GOP candidates do as well as they do. Perhaps they are all riding on Trump’s coattails (he is the MOST popular Republican ever!)
Outstanding essay. Really well done.
Great line! And very true.
I received some criticism (fair criticism, I thought) for expressing similar sentiments in my Land of Confusion podcast interview (that discussion starts just before the 30 minute mark, and lasts about 9 minutes). Although I tried to emphasize that what comes next may be much better. The question is, what comes next, and when, and how smooth will the transition be?
So I think there is hope for a great outcome to all this. But I share your pessimistic view of our current situation.
1. Bankrupt the federal government.
2. The military occupation of as much of the Middle East as possible.
3. Open borders.
And that’s the upside. Brush up on your Mandarin.
I’m in sync with your post. What has really sealed this with me in recent weeks is the blackout imposed on the public dissemination of witness testimony of wrongdoing in the election. This has included blackouts of various state legislative meetings to hear many of these witnesses and finally a blackout of the President’s message that he characterized as the most important message of his tenure as POTUS. That blackout has been implemented here at Ricochet as well by not moving posts to the main feed.
If we get a 50/50 Senate, that will be a battleground, I expect. Let’s hope and pray that does not happen.
Your closing sentence is interesting. I hope it’s incorrect. I would be interested in seeing evidence to support it.
It’s possible I overstated since I don’t read every post. Here’s what @blueyeti had to say on another post:
“We have heard from many members in the past few weeks that these discussions have been very difficult to participate in if you are not Team Fraud. As someone who has participated, I have seen this myself as I have been called everything from a NeverTrumper (not an NT, more of a Trump Neutral), a Biden flak, a Socialist, an idiot, AOC hugger, and several things I cannot repeat here or I’d have to ban myself. That’s fine — I can take it, and in some respects it’s part of my job. But that’s not true of your fellow members. They’re paying for civil conversation too. And too many of the thread on these topics have turned into swamps.
I get asked a lot why we aren’t promoting more of these threads to the Main Feed. That’s why. We use the Main Feed as our primary marketing platform to sell memberships. If we promote a post full of name calling, vitriol, and wildly speculative theories, that’s bad for the business. Sorry, but that’s just the way it is.”
So, I’m guessing they would not promote posts that might later include comments as described and they could apply that to any post that would support Trump. I don’t know this as a fact somewhat like there are many things I surmise about this election that I don’t know to be fact.
I think he means selective promotion to main feed. We rarely see any filtering of member section content. Ricochet is marketed as mostly being about civil conversation. Things perceived to have too much edge often don’t go public. I get that. I once had a post with 49 likes that did not make it and I think I know why.
Got it. And thanks. That sounds plausible enough. I agree that things sometimes get out of hand, though I’ve rarely seen it turn really ugly. But I can imagine a certain reticence on the part of management to showcasing the worst of our squabbles.
I am currently listening to George Freidman’s book the Storm before the Calm. Its a fascinating piece.
He actually believes were in the early stages of the 70s, and that whoever comes after Biden/Harris, will like Reagan reform the USA and lead us into the next era.
I am going to be doing a full break down on the book when done for my own channel. But I am much more hopeful about things than I was a few weeks ago.
However it is going to get worse before it gets better.
I am looking forward to 2022, when the Proud Boys and other groups go to Detroit and Philadelphia and Atlanta as ‘poll watchers’. That will be intense.
I agree that the likelihood of a malignant buffoon like Joe Biden transforming American politics leftward is low. And I think people will sort themselves more reasonably after the Biden Administration mandates schools that receive federal funding break out students not just by race and ethnicity but by all 57.5 sexual identities. Similarly, climate change continues to be a nothing burger not worth costs the loonies will propose. The opportunity for a newer, better, freer vision has never been better.
All I have to say:
I think Florida, should make its new motto thank god for Georgia.
The blackouts covering any news about election fraud and anything actually newsworthy resulting from Giuliani’s efforts is pretty universal in public and social media. The social media is locked to the tech giants and the public media is locked to the Democrats and the swamp. I can see a major reason the public media does not want to touch anything relating to election fraud. The biggest fraud opportunity comes with the mail in balloting. The weakness is in identifying who is casting a vote. Republicans support only legal votes by registered American citizen residents of a state and Democrats support mail in voting and maintain opposition to that is voter suppression and racist. Media will be racist if they support enforcing the law. We have a big task ahead to get this right.
Unfortunately, the horrific costs will be shared out among us all, not just paid by the foolish who opted for the magic beans.
What’s worse, the magic bean salesmen have been identifying capitalism and white racism as the source of all evil. When the magic beans fail to work…and make things worse…how long before the disappointed buyers lash out at those they’ve been told are at fault?
Sure you can. And you will.
Take a breath. Sing a Psalm. In the Hebrew, if that suits you. This, too, shall pass.
Bingo. There is hope because there is an unyielding reality. Also, as a lifelong pessimist, I know that, tempting as catastrophism may be, it rarely comes to pass.
I wish I could be as sanguine. He is a malignant buffoon. But as such he’ll be easily led… assuming that he lasts long in office. It wouldn’t surprise me at all if by Autumn 2021 his lack of mental acuity is suddenly discovered by the Leftists in the party and he’s found to be unfit to serve. (You really think the intersectionalists can stand to have the first black female be THAT close to the Presidency and not achieve it?). Say hello to President Harris. But that’s a separate post,
Biden has no natural base. The centrist part of the Democrat party he thinks he represents no longer exists. They have moved left and farther left and left again. To get where he is, Biden owes everybody. And in Dem-world that means the Progressives. And they will collect.
Even if the Georgia Senate runoff’s go our way, Biden isn’t the only malignant buffoon. We have ours too. We have to worry about Mitt and Collins and Murkowski in general. And on immigration issues Mike Lee and Rubio and some others. Obama sent the message yesterday or the day before – stop talking about Defund the Police. You are scaring the tourists. Not stop pushing for it mind you … just stop talking about it. Biden will keep making conciliatory centrist noises all the while his administration moves steadily leftward.
Even RINOs will balk at SC packing, open borders, and DC and PR statehood. Kinda letting liberals do what they want but slowly and without the extreme buis is where RINOs live.
Two losses in GA Next month and who the hell knows. The looonie left will reasonably conclude that this is the best chance ever of Sovietizing the system and reach for it.
I’m going to be more pessimistic.
We didn’t get Reagan until we went hard into Carter.
The problem isn’t just that leftists dominate culture, they dominate what is truth and what isn’t. the problem is far more difficult than “making a good case for conservatism”
The Left has used the culture to boil down politics to its simplest essence: White hats and Black hats, Smart and Stupid. They’ve expanded the argument from just the people to the institutions the people they formerly vilified are trying to conserve.
The whole point of Deconstruction, from which Critical Theory of all types come, was to illustrate weaknesses through which to attack.
-The Constitution, the Electoral College, The Senate, are all de facto racist institutions.
-The Church, which is declining in membership, is an establishment of judgment, homophobia and non-inclusion. As a result many churches have gone from teaching Christianity to serving the self-esteem of its members.
-Opposing taxes is racist. Opposing open borders is racist.
-Plenty of pundits who were said to represent us have shifted towards being liked than being unpopular people of principle, even going further to undermine people who persist in wanting to maintain conservatism.
If feels in a way those of us who are non-elites are now non-people. Be happy with what you’re given and that we’re allowed to exist in “decent” society as they have judged us to be indecent.
Top three GOP priorities: Life (as in pro), Liberty (rejection of “ideas so good they must be mandatory”), Pursuit of “happiness” (our founders greatest mistake, it ought to be MEANING … “the thing” that Nietzsche got right: “He who has a why can bear almost any how”.
I add a 4th … following the Constitution is the greatest “how” in history.
Love the post @old bathos.
My biggest concern is Fascism, where I see us already … massive bureaucracy, increasingly oppressive Deep State (see Russiagate / last 4 years), global corporations closely aligned with government, media, education, and single “party/ideology” rule,
https://beingbeliefbehavior.blogspot.com/2020/10/modern-fascism-liquidating-judeo.html