The Great Disconfirmation

In one of his recent communications with the resistance, John Derbyshire mentioned this Joel Pollak column about the demise of the Obama cult. Pollak does not come right out and say it, but Obama was essentially a totem for the Left. His election was not about him or his polices, but instead it was about returning the Ark to the Temple, so to speak. The long war with the bad whites over racial justice was finally won and the blessings of the void where God used to exist would now descend upon the righteous.

As Derbyshire points out, Pollak is not the first guy to notice this as readers of this site certainly know. The only way to properly understand the American Left is to look at it as a civic religion. Because the American Left adopted European anti-Christianity in the 20th century, it is easy to think they are anti-religious. That’s a mistake the Right has made for half a century. The New Religion, what Progressivism is today, evolved out of the Social Gospel Movement, so it carries with it many of the same habits.

The most obvious of those habits is the obsession with public morality. Public Protestantism starts from the assumption that society is judged as a whole. The righteous, like the virtuous in revolutionary France, have a moral duty to raise up the fallen into the righteous life. This is what gives them license to nose around in your business and order you around.  It’s not about fitting the economic pieces together as with European socialists. The American Left is consumed with building the City upon a hill.

Derbyshire makes the point that when a prophecy fails, it is does not mean the end of the religion.

In fact all the hysteria on the left this past few weeks yields to a religious, or pseudo-religious explanation. Clearly some of the same kinds of passions are involved that you find in committed religious believers.

Consider, however, the fact that religions very rarely fail. They just adapt.

Recall the Millerite sect that flourished in the 1840s. William Miller, who founded the sect, predicted the Second Coming of Christ at a certain date. Thousands of followers sold all their belongings and waited joyfully for the day. When nothing happened, Miller just reworked his calculations and set another day … then another.

You’d think a disappointment like that — it was actually called the Great Disappointment — you’d think it would kill a religion stone dead. Not at all. Here’s a historian writing about the Millerites, quote:

Following such a catastrophic failure, one might expect that the Millerite movement would fade away entirely. But that is not what happened. Although the fragmented Millerites languished for some time, and though many did abandon the movement, several of the competing splinter groups would ultimately gain new life. Hiram Edson’s [Millerite] sect … developed into a denomination that still exists — the Seventh-Day Adventists, who today number as many as 15 million members worldwide.

End quote. For truly committed believers, a religious or pseudo-religious passion like that can’t be put aside. It doesn’t fail, it only needs adjusting.

Again, readers of this site know where this is going. The thing that holds together these sorts of movements is an internal psychology that allows them to internalize disconfirmation. There is a famous study in psychology by three guys named Leon Festinger, Henry Riecken and Stanley Schachter. They studied a UFO cult based in Chicago that claimed space aliens were due to arrive on a certain date. When that failed to happen, the cult did not dissolve. It transformed into something else.

That’s an important lesson to keep in mind when watching the antics of the Left of late. Their lunacy is not directed at the rest of us. They don’t care what you or anyone else thinks about what’s happening. Their public acts are about signalling to the rest of the believers. By holding protests and making fools of themselves in a public way, they are providing support for one another as they work through the disconfirmation. Like herd animals, they are huddling together in the face if danger. It is pure instinct.

If they were left to sit alone at home, they would have no one around to help them through their doubts. These are people whose entire sense of self is dependent on the identity of the group, so getting out and “making their voices heard” lets them focus on something other than the disconfirmation. Trump as Hitler provides a short term bridge between the failed prophesy and whatever comes next for the New Religion. They can tell themselves that their faith was not wrong, it was just subverted by mysterious forces, or Hitler.

In the past, Progressive Awakenings were followed by period of hibernation as new missions and causes were conjured by the next generation of believers. The trouble for them this time is there is no obvious replacement for identity politics and social justice. When you’re reduced to championing the rights of mentally ill men in sundresses, you have run out of victims. The nation’s changing demographics also means that identity politics will play against this sort of utopianism.

In the mean time, the rage of the true believers will result in more public displays of incoherent misery. The reason they have no point is they cannot face the cause of their pain. It has nothing to with Trump or his policies. It is an unspeakable rage at having failed to reach the promised land. The rage is a distraction and a source of comfort to the believers as the Cult of Modern Liberalism comes to terms with the great disconfirmation of the last decade. Let’s hope they to make their way through it.

99 thoughts on “The Great Disconfirmation

  1. Well, Z. Trump is smoking out the Cloud people. The H1-B mills (tech companies) seem to be at the fore of the opposition to the travel ban. You really got to love this stuff.

    • Who evolved over the centuries to the Congregationalists (UCC). Reverend Wright’s (Obama’s buddy) denomination. Major home of the SJW crowd. What a long, strange trip it’s been.

  2. “there is no obvious replacement for identity politics and social justice.” This is why I keep saying that today’s blue haired bicurious vegan slam poet is tomorrow’s obergruppenfuhrer — if you can’t beat ’em, join ’em. As you’ve often noted, the rabidly pro-immigration Left was vehemently anti-immigration into the 1990s. As I’ve often noted, the same people who insist that gay “marriage” is a fundamental constitutional right were, up until the late 1990s, insisting that monogamy is the worst form of fascism the breeders could devise. All it’ll take is a little economic pressure — say, the last remaining Starbucks forced out of a ghettoizing neighborhood, putting all the hipster baristas out of their last possible job — and boom, Displaced Urban Caucasians or whatever are the victim group du jour….

    (“See, we all know that the legal system, being nothing more than a justification of the economic system, encodes privilege. And who are the most privileged under the current economic / legal system? Why, recent “immigrants” and dindus who subsist on state handouts, of course. Appeals to “social justice” and whatnot are just cleverly concealed strategems; this unmasking of the underlying economic base — this “false consciousness,” if you will — allows us *real* radicals to maintain our status as the vanguard of the proletariat…” [insert however much more polysyllabic tomfoolery you feel you need])

    • these are exactly the same people who were for hitler, before stalin and adolph went splitssies. they are mindless cretins.

  3. I don’t fully understand why so many of you continue to degrade “Progressives” and their ideas. Would you include famous Americans such as Upton Sinclaire, Lincoln Steffens, John Muir, Theodore Rosevelt and Martin Luther King Jr. as a “Progressives” and therefore consider their ideas evil, harmful and detrimental to the American way of life?

    I find it difficult to see how fair labor acts, anti-corruption legislature, civil rights and protecting the American landscape by the institution of National Parks are bad “Progressive” ideas. I would argue those who fight to defend the rights of private citizens, common workers, and the protection of the environment against the State and/or corporations are not bad people nor are their ideas evil. Otherwise you must include your Founding Fathers as “Progressives” since their ideas fostered and promoted a Revolution that made your country possible in the first place.

    Given the ruthlessness of global corporations (who we all know control governments on both sides of the Atlantic) with regards to the open abuse of workers, private citizens rights and the environment, someone has to come to their defense. I don’t see how anyone can argue against 30-days of paid vacation, workers health benefits, a guaranteed retirement pension plan, clean air and water as bad things. So please explain to me how these progressive ideas are bad for anyone.

    If the Bush-family legacy is any indication of what conservative Republicans are capable of doing to destroy the livelihoods of the American worker, compounded by a so-called “anti-American, liberal agenda” under 8-years of ex-president Obama, perhaps Progressives can offer a third option that might be worth listening to.

    • I grew up with 1% bikers. Many were great people. I don’t want to live in a country run by 1% bikers.

      Calling Bush a conservative is a category error. Being just to the right of the Progressives does not make one a conservative anymore than being to the right of a German makes you Polish.

      • Can you help me understand the American definition of “Progressive vs. Conservative vs. Liberal. Perhaps I simply misunderstand your terms and definitions.

        And actually, many who live to the right (east) of Germany are actually German, even though they live Poland. Borders simply define geography, not demographics. Just saying. 🙂

        • progressives were early collectivists; they went in big on eugenics. i believe in this area, the chancellor of germany at the time, took his cue from this group.

          but the short answer is progressivism is in direct conflict with the constitution. and human morality.

          teddy roosevelt did some good things.

          conservatives here are not worth discussing (i.e. they are too inconsequential for words). liberals are just collectivists, and that word is a synonym for progressive.

          so it boils down to Americans vs collectivists.

        • @ Karl Horst, Gilded Age (c.1870-1920) American “Progressives” believed in what we now call “social engineering.” However, they took for granted things like Christian morality — they felt they could tinker with the “bourgeois family” (more a European term, but for the sake of argument) etc. because the underlying culture of hard work, thrift, respect for elders, etc. would remain. Think of Geroge Orwell — he called himself a socialist, but all he really seemed to want in the end was for Wigan Pier coal miners to have a middle class standard of living.

          Modern American “Progressives” are just Cultural Marxists, disciples of Gramsci (in theory) and Stalin (in practice). They don’t know their own intellectual history, because their movement — such as it is — is just a miscellany of hate and petty grudges.

          Modern American “conservatives,” when they still existed, were much closer to classical European liberals – law and order within the Enlightenment tradition. They died out in 1988, with the election of George HW Bush.

          There are no modern American “liberals” for the same reason there are no more “conservatives” — you need a basic agreement on an Enlightenment tradition of free speech, reasoned discourse, and representative government. No person of consequence in either American party believes in this anymore.

        • Progressive started out with ideas that were at least arguably valid. But they don’t stop piling on the government. Their answer to every last problem, real or imagined, is “more government”. And always more federal government, they are never satisfied to just screw up their own town or state.

          The Z-Man described them perfectly a few days ago – people without any limits, Jacobites.
          http://thezman.com/wordpress/?p=9471

          They never declare victory and end their crusades. Or, as Eric Hoffer said, “Every great cause begins as a movement, becomes a business, and eventually degenerates into a racket.” Mothers against drunk driving, the modern civil rights movement, feminism, etc… All just progressive rackets now.

    • Karl, you brought up progressive stuff that’s 50-100 years old. Progressives were a different breed of cat back then. Bring up some of the stuff today’s Progressives tout, like open borders, the gender stuff (e.g. skirt wearing men in girls bathrooms), family dissolution (“Heather has Two Mommies”) and such, and see how wholesome it all sounds.

      • Just because a progressive idea is old, does it not still stand just as reasonable today if the logic behind it is solid? Please don’t think I confuse progressive ideas for those of imbeciles and perverts. I do understand the difference.

        Perhaps the terms conservative, liberal and progressive have lost their actual meaning. It would seem these modern “progressives” are neither modern or are they progressive, any more than conservatives are actually conservative or liberals, liberal.

        For todays progressives, they come across as nothing more than misguided imbeciles who wrap themselves in “feelings” rather than logic or reason. Can we just call them what they are, “imbeciles” rather than what they perceive themselves to be? As much as I enjoy American history, and can appreciate so many of your great countrymen, I see these imbeciles only as insult to true, right-thinking American progressives of your past.

        • At the risk of being thumped by someone with deep knowledge of U.S. political history, I’ll go out on a limb and observe that U.S. political forces have been in a long-term state of flux since the revolution. They’ve morphed, re-morphed, changed their beliefs, and altered their names several times.What you call misguided imbeciles today began calling themselves Progressives only a very few years ago. Before that they had called themselves Liberals for several years, riding on the reputations of the New Deal politicos and such. But, they fell into such disrepute they stopped calling themselves Liberal and started using Progressive. If their current pandemonium campaign fails, and if Soros should be taken down a notch and some of the money dries up, they’ll probably adopt some new term and start over. Hope that helps, bearing in mind I’m anything but an expert in the field.

        • Karl;
          You are on track when you say those who today call themselves Progressives in America are ruled by feelings rather than logic. It is just for that reason that they adopted the name Progressive in the first place after their actions and policies discredited the name they had had just before, namely Liberals. It likewise sounded good and was equally false to the actual views of the originators of that label.

          In the the US of 120 years ago the original Progressives were utopian secular social reformers who explicitly modeled many of their programs of those of Das zwieten Reich of Bismarck et. al. (sorry if I screwed up the adjective ending – it’s been 50 years since I studied German). For example, the US research university was founded in the 1880’s and ’90’s by progressives such as Woodrow Wilson at Princeton U and Robert Hitchens at the U of Chicago explicitly on the model of the great German research Universities of that period.

          Our esteemed proprietor has posited that they were the theological descendants of the New England Puritans lead astray religiously by Unitarianism (and German pioneered Higher Criticism) such that they rejected the parts of Christianity that didn’t comport with their high view of themselves as superior moral beings and their fellow Americans a perfectible so long as they were in charge.

          • That was good, Al. You have a solid grasp of the role Unitarianism and Higher Criticism had in apostatizing vast swathes of the church and turning the gullible into social gospel warriors. Itching ears and all that, warned about in Scripture.

        • Imbeciles appear to be adept at appropriating the names of the past and trading off of the achievements of the past. W. Wilson appropriated the “Progressivism” of T. Roosevelt and twisted it out of all proportion, to the point where Progressivism lost all positive meaning. Lefties moved back to “Liberal”, trashed that one, and then returned to “Progressive” again. Who knows what they will label themselves with next?

          “Conservatives” have similarly trashed their heritage as well, and the “Libertarians” and “Greens” appear to have taken their own paths to ridiculous irrelevance. “Populism” appears ascendant at the moment, but that movement is trying to outrun its past, rather than exploit it. However, the Andrew Jackson example does have some appeal.

        • White men are the fathers of progressivism and the progeny they have spawned include the likes of the federal reserve, the income tax, the IRS, the deep state, compulsory public education, the pledge of allegiance, state licensing of occupations, the FDA, the FBI, the NLRB, and The Travel Control Act, a totalitarian creature of the Wilson administration.

          Yes, white men gave us all of the above. Neither negroes nor Navahos forced progressivism down our throats. They had little, if any ability, to do so.

          Take the income tax. Who supported the 16th amendment? It was not the aspiring entrepreneur. It was not the small business man. It was not the person who embraced rugged individualism and the supremacy of free markets to central planning.

          It was not the likes of Joseph Lochner who challenged New York’s Bakeshop Act, which limited the number of hours per day (10) and per week (60) a baker could toil. Lochner owned a bakery in Utica and contended that the law interfered with the freedom of contract between himself and his employees. Lochner was fined and he appealed the matter all the way to the US Supreme Court.

          Although Lochner won, 198 US 45 (1905), it was a pyrrhic victory as the forces of progressivism soon persuaded the courts that the state’s interest in protecting the health and safety of its citizens trumped (pun intended) freedom of contract. For over a century, both conservatives and progressives have denounced Lochner while favorably citing the dissent of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., Mr. Progressive. Indeed, Holmes is a hero to today’s progressives for authoring his incoherent dissent in the case.

          But, lots of white dirt people who were envious of the entrepreneur favored the imposition of the income tax, particularly the forebears of today’s fly-over whites. Lots of union members and farmers in the midwest and south supported an income tax. They wanted to soak the rich. To deny this is to deny not only history but human nature. The white dirt people thought that an activist government would be their best friend.

          To be sure, lots of well educated, ambitious, power hungry whites favored the income tax as well. People like Teddy Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson favored the income tax because they wanted a steady source of revenue to realize their imperialist designs. They knew that in order to make the world safe for democracy, the income tax was necessary.

          Progressivism is poison. It is also a drug to which the White Man has become addicted – particularly the white dirt people with their unions, their collective bargaining agreements, their public schools to which they handed over their children, their affinity for the warfare state, their affinity for a strongman, their whining for the state to protect them from foreign competition, and their inability to dismantle the police state.

    • Nevada is 81% owned by the Federal government. Utah is 65%. The West Coast is majority owned by the Feds.

      https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/govbeat/wp/2013/10/15/almost-half-the-west-is-federally-owned-now-some-states-want-their-land-back/

      These are sovereign states. And this is what happens when you start down this road. The initial laws make sense. (Oh and we do not have guaranteed retirement plans. We have 401Ks, that the employers may help fund). The Left never stops.

    • Karl, the Progressives of the early 20th century were reformers concerned that the pervasive power of private capital was such that constitutional liberties were under threat. At the time, the federal government was unimaginably small and Standard Oil huge.

      Today’s Progressives have little in common with TR (to them he’s a white, colonialist proto-fascist.) They have managed to merge the noxious Marxist ideology of the Frankfurt School with a demented post-Protestant apocalyptic cult. They are the managers of the managerial state, and operate the megaphone of the establishment media, yet persist in painting themselves as victims of oppression. They are, in other words, dangerous and demented lunatics.

    • To try to relate the early 1900s Progressivism to something German, I would point you to Bismarck’s reforms. Progressivism was kind of an “aw shit” moment here. As in aw shit, we gave all these proles and farmers a little bit of math, literacy, and logic, and now they’re asking for things like universal manhood suffrage, retirement insurance, and the chance to make a living wage. While I think that the reformers were sincere in their beliefs, no doubt many of the era’s elites went along merely out of fear of the various Second International affiliated movements, anarchists, and other nihilists. The Bismarckian reforms had similar motivations behind them, if I remember correctly.

      The other regulars have done a better job than I ever could of explaining the disconnect between the original Progressives and the current bunch.

    • “… perhaps Progressives can offer a third option that might be worth listening to.” But they never do. It is the same old rehash of failed ideas throughout history. We have a saying here about Liberals/Progressives/Socialists: “Ideas so good, they have to be forced on everyone.” The truth in that should be self-evident.

  4. I keep hoping that the Cult will go the People’s Temple route instead of the Millerite way. And not the slow grinding demographic suicide they are committing either. I was thinking something a little more along the lines of the movie, The Invitation. Oh, and please leave a six-foot hole, a shovel and a couple of bags of quicklime in the backyard so the neighbors can tidy up the next day.

    • they just need a little push to get them over that “edge”. i am thinking more along the lines of the Heaven’s Gate group, than Jonestown. but either works for me.

    • A couple of years ago a professor at Shimer College made some news when he called for white people to collectively commit mass suicide to atone for slavery. I know white feminists who didn’t attend the women’s march because they felt that it wasn’t inclusive enough for women of color, even though the march was pro-BLM, pro-immigrant, etc. The degree to which these people hate themselves and white people in general should not be underestimated. Mass suicide seems unlikely, but one can hope. I’ll bet Trump could get a few of them to self-deliver with an EO that institutes a preemptive Ebola related travel ban.

  5. As a hopeless utilitarian, my only contribution to this post is to note that the economic mechanism that has enabled the Cult to expand to a meaningful segment of the population is the pervasive welfare state driven by a fiat dollar and unlimited debt.

    Back in the good old days the size of fanatic cults was strictly limited by the number of idiots a snake charmer could fool into devoting their limited financial resources to the cause of the cult. Not so with the Cult of Modern Liberalism. The debt-driven welfare state provides both direct and indirect financing for their operations.

    End the welfare state. End the Cult.

    • One of my worries — and I’ve blabbed about this at Belmont Club before — is that the Cult has the potential to turn into something truly pharaonic… something that controls every aspect of life… a real history ending event without any barbarians left to bring history back. That’s why I tend to see the Cult as an existential threat right up there with nukes and biohackers screwing around with DNA in their garages.

    • As a follow up to my previous post, here’s an article in the Denver Pravda about more women running for office after the election of Donald Trump:

      http://www.denverpost.com/2017/01/30/more-women-run-for-office/

      The object of the article, identified as Lucy Sedgwick, is a 28 year old woman who has been “working in political advocacy and organizing since she finished college. She’s passionate about the environment, public education and reducing student debt. In September, she started an application for a program that trains women who want to run for office.”

      It’s not remotely obvious that Ms. Sedgwick has ever held a steady job, much less had any accomplishments. What on God’s green Earth would possess a 28 year old with no job or accomplishments to believe that she is qualified to hold public office? And what could possibly possess the Denver Post to write an article treating Ms. Sedgwick as a serious candidate for office? This is utterly farcical.

      David Goldman, writing as Spengler, used to write extensively about how the Russians were shocked by the stupidity of America’s political class. Just imagine if the Ms. Sedgwick’s of the world become ascendant.

      • “What would inspire her to believe …”, well just maybe the election of a dindu nuffin Barack Hussein Obama a.k.a Barry Soetero.

    • I agree it gives a secure base to this sort of behaviour, however, I am not sure that is completely correct. Look at the first crusades. Approximately 300,000 peasants were swept up in a religious frenzy, abandoned their homes in Germany/France and went on foot through Hungary and Greece, looting as they went. Despite the fact about 150,000 were killed on the way due to battles with the forces of the areas they passed through, they still had enough belief at the end to engage the Moslem forces in Palestine and were wiped. This had little effect on the subsequent crazy behaviours, like the mass apocalyptic cults in the same areas a few hundred years later.

      There appears to be some section of the population, consistent over history, that is prone to waves of suicidal hysteria that results in mass bloodshed. We are seeing one of those waves now and they have just started to get going. Everyone thinks they are silly kids that will burn themselves out (as this is what normal people do). This is not going to be the case, this form of religious fever does not wane. We are going to see real violence on at a level equivalent to the civil war.

    • Same dynamic as the haters over in the Middle East. I love that quote from Golda Meir: “Peace will come when the Arabs love their children more than they hate us.”

  6. I took a Sociology course taught by Stanley Schacter many years ago. He talked about this group, and how they merely adjusted their beliefs when the Sacred Day did not come. Very interesting guy.

    The Left and the MSM (I repeat myself) had convinced themselves that the election of HRC to BHO’s third term would complete their triumph, and they cannot believe that she lost to (inert favorite epithets here) DJT (PBUH).

    The words President Trump are music to my ears, especially when spoken by some lefty wanker.

  7. Climate change is their new, rapidly melting, iceberg. They thought by changing the name from something relatively specific – global warming – to some largely inarguable that this would give them a more stable platform. The climate does in fact change whereas global warming has been either debatable or intuitively obvious to the casual observer: NYC used to be covered by a mile-thick ice sheet. It no longer is. Therefore, the climate is warming…and has been for tens of thousands of years.

    They have learned a bit from their mistakes. All of the predictions of doom are for the year 2100 and beyond…long after we’re all dead…but all of the actions to forestall our doom must be taken today. That religion is a tough sell in a world where more than half the people are worried about EATING TOMORROW, and much of the other half is awash in consumer debt as they buy things today with money they won’t have tomorrow.

    That’s why jumping onto the rapidly-melting iceberg of climate change means they’ve got maybe 20 years left before their new sect runs out of time. You don’t have to watch a lot of Discovery Channel to quickly realize that “climate change” is also perfectly normal. We’ll adapt, as we have for the last 50,000 years. Also, it’s human nature to procrastinate.

    The question isn’t what comes after Race in their religion. It’s what comes after climate change.

    • It should be about what comes after national bankruptcy. Worried about the kids’ future my fat a**.

  8. Interesting, now the progressives are in the same position we were in the last eight years. Using their own time and money to fight against government decisions or actions they don’t like.
    While their taxes go towards paying their opponents fight against them.

    Interesting question. Anyone know if there are any radical-liberal bakeries that we could order a Trump Victory Cake from? The shoe is on the other foot.

    • If I walked into a bakery owned by two non-binary gender questioning Hillary supporters wearing my MAGA hat, I would assume they would poison my food. The reason is, they would poison my food or at least contaminate it. Like all bullies, the Left has operated under the assumption that the other side will not fight back. That’s what 30+ years of surrendering will do. The Left never quits, which is why they are out there punching Nazis, real or imagined. They just assume the Nazis will not punch back.

      When that changes, the game changes.

      • unless decent people are willing to physically fight the left (and i very much doubt they are) then the ultimate victory will go to one bad group or the other. in weimar, no one was on the streets fighting for…weimar.

        • There’s another dynamic here that they already have ignored at their own loss and future peril, it us dirt people and The Great Fuck You that voted Donald Trump into office against all odds, corruption, and political forecasts.
          We dirt people have played fair and square, we played by the rules, we did it nice, and we won. Inherent in that truth, is another, and it’s you don’t illegitimately, illegally, with malice and forethought, take away that last peaceful mature expression of will of the governed. It was not mob rule, it was not gerrymander, it was not out of hate or desperation The Great Fuck You happened, it was out of care, deep concern, and genuine belief in making the system as promised and guaranteed work.

          Anyone can argue or demean that truth of what took place, but the reality is, we all know it was the last shot as dirt people we had of peaceful civil redress.
          The. Last. Shot.

          Only fools, shit stirrers, and the hubris of the enemies of us dirt people ignore that. We all who have a care understand it was treading on a knives razor edge Trump usurped an array of corruption and treason that was a multiple decade coup in the making about to end our freedom and liberty.

          Now there is one more item here that bears in the telling.
          Whilst we where preparing in our separate and individual ways for the final stage of our Republic as we knew it, we all the many got many aspects, not all, but the bare essentials elements of SHTF preps squared away, and in the process began to mature and wise up to the full scope of what we really required and subsequently needed to figure out, we became a loose movement, a plurality of rather self determining and resourceful body of American’s. While I think we all will get better at it and better for it, we are in no uncertain terms a power unto ourselves. Yes it is nebulous, it is definitely grassroots, it is insurgent in nature, defensive in regards to being properly prepared for unknowns, but we crossed a threshold of sorts. We became a native motive source of inspiration and self improvement. The differences in us even from 4 years ago is profound. It is hard to see as we have been evolving slowly but steadily, but if you where to go back in time, then leapfrog forward, you would see great changes.
          And that happened bit by bit, little here, a little their, and we have done it by starting with each of ourselves.
          There is always room to get our kit in a little better shape, prepare ourselves mentally and physically to the next stage, but what I’m trying to say is we are a force of culture, we are quite well armed, both with weapons of the hand, and the best weapon, of the mind. But the best thing here, is we have become Legion.

          The deep PTB, they choose to ignore us, but they know we exist, they watch us like a hawk, they ain’t stupid, an existential enemy such as an aroused, armed, and angry dirt people is no joke.
          We all have watched what just a few select PTB orchestrated false flag crisis as a means events have to power to shape our society. In that is an example of understanding how effective and powerful disruptive events are to the fragile nature of the messed up society we live in. And they where carefully set up and controlled events.
          It isn’t rocket science or requires a PHD in political science to see the potential, and the danger a movement of pissed off dirt people, even in onesies and twosies, a small unit of dirt warrior people here, a band or tribe there, could accomplish. In short order just a few hundred individuals could bring this country to a veritable halt, the political class would be paralyzed because, and lets be frank, they ain’t got a clue what real SHTF is like.

          What I’m saying, in the crudest terms, is while we have been prepping and training for TEOTWAWKI, in our potential, we became The SHTF.

          • Example: the FedEx driver who stopped the burning of the American flags by a bunch of nitwits. Those guys and gals didn’t know what to do. They didn’t know what hit them. “How dare anyone interrupt their little party!”

            Another example: The SAG Awards: The “actor?” who said he was going to hunt monsters and punch somebody. Did you notice he was “reading” his script while his hands were shaking and his friends were patting him on the back? If he met any of us on the street, I am sure he would shite his pants and probably faint for we dare to stand up to him.

      • I love the way the protesters, especially the Hollywood hypocrites now wrap themselves in the American flag, and call this “their” America. Hypocrites … all of them!

      • “the Left has operated under the assumption that the other side will not fight back”
        The Left operates under the assumption they are RIGHT! DAMMIT! And because they are RIGHT! they are justified completely. They can contradict themselves (support women and gay right and defend muslims) and they can do illegal things – like threatening the prez – because, they are RIGHT!!!!

    • Make the cake say, “Praise Jesus for Donald Trump”.
      Triggers them more and makes the case a religious persecution type of offense.

    • Yes, I’d like a two layer sheet cake with the image of a Colt M1911 in the middle of the American flag, please. Also, make the filling ‘bacon jam’ and the icing butter cream!

  9. “It is an unspeakable rage at having failed to reach the promised land.”

    Too right. For now, sign waving and incoherent demonstrations are the fallout from the rage. What will follow when it becomes obvious that the tantrums get them nothing? There is only one higher gear they can shift into, and we know what that is.

    Yesterday I was at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, and among other exhibits I saw the jewelry made for the last Czar and his family. Now the Russian system needed reforming, no question. But the Bolsheviks’ “unspeakable rage” began a reign of darkness that lasted in the Soviet Union and its satellites through most of the 20th century.

    Among the collection were astonishingly beautiful frames with pictures of Czar Nicholas II, his wife Alexandra, and their children. The family members were all shot in captivity by Bolsheviks. Two of the photos included portraits of Anastasia, who was claimed (very likely falsely) to have survived. A lovely child and teenager. Men of the Romanov dynasty had been assassinated now and then, but who could have imagined a few years before 1918 that the women and children along with the Czar would be torn by the bullets of revolutionary barbarians?

    I hope the president and his family are well guarded.

  10. I’ll check back later to see if anyone can fill me in, but the idea that Protestantism is built on the idea that society is judged as a whole is news to me. The branch I was raised in was very individualistic. It’s between you and God. I can certainly recall biblical references to judgements on cities and cultures, but if Luther or the Puritans made this a big part of their theology it would be good to know.
    Chiliasm can be found almost anywhere you look. Think about the idea of technological singularity, when humans are supposed to transcend biology. Some people have even tried to put a date to it. I’ve mentioned A.O. Lovejoy’s The Great Chain of Being before. It is the story of a faith, too. The whole idea of the rationality of the universe and how people have tried to build philosophies around this idea. If the universe is indeed rational you should be able to build a philosophy without any inconsistencies around this idea. No one has been able to do so. Does that mean that the universe is irrational? I don’t think we have proof of this. And the inability of anyone to build a philosophy around this idea is not proof of anything. Besides, carrying on in a misconception for a period of time has been shown to bear some real fruit scientifically, so some delusions are quite useful.
    In the end philosophers are prophets of a kind. As Christ said, you will know them by their fruits.

      • In that case quite a bit.
        The non-denominational churches don’t have a public face to speak of. When your hierarchy runs no higher than a few elders, deacons and a preacher who only speaks to his congregation and not for them you don’t get the major pronouncements like the Lambeth conference, etc. They might encourage people to go to a march for life but that’s about it .
        I’ve had a a lifetime prejudice against churches with a hierarchy partly because of my upbringing. When John Paul II was the pope I began reading a lot of Catholic doctrine going back to the church fathers. Bought some big collections. Just about got convinced of apostolic succession and then along comes the current fag pope. Que sera sera.

        • Some Catholics (check out Ann Barnhardt) have doubts as to whether Bergoglio is actually, validly pope. First of all, Benedict’s resignation may have been under duress, which would make it invalid.

          https://akacatholic.com/money-sex-and-modernism/

          Next, the conclave that elected Bergoglio may have been rigged by a cabal within the cardinalate (one of the cardinals seems to have admitted as much), and thus would be invalid.

          http://remnantnewspaper.com/web/index.php/articles/item/2610-the-gall-of-the-st-gallen-mafia

          Lots of questions. But regardless, there have been bad popes before, and the Church survived. I’m not giving up my Catholic faith just because of Bergoglio. My relationship with Jesus — and only the Catholic Church (and the Eastern Orthodox) have valid sacraments — is infinitely more important than this current pope (or antipope, as the case may be).

        • I’d humbly suggest that (eastern) Orthodoxy may be what you’re looking for. It’s generally not well understood as an option in the west, but answers most of the concerns that a lot of very serious but disenchanted protestants have.

          Look into the “The Orthodox Church” by Timothy Ware as one starting place

    • My mother in law married into a Congregationist family: much pain and a lot of bad mojo on all sides.

    • Just a suggestion TuNeCede, from what I have observed of your posts … a link, it would be helpful if you could provide a little “teaser” about what you are providing. Otherwise, it seems like one of Google’s “I’m feeling lucky” searches. A shot in the dark.

  11. This is why the Cult loves radical Islam. They see it as kith and kin and secretly admire the terrorism by which they seek to enforce their “religion” on others. They wish down in their bones that they had the nerve to do the same. Both of these religions are filled with lunatics.The difference between them is that the Cult are physical and moral cowards and not quite as insane at the real terrorists. They are western after all and have good lives. They will march, cry in public and wear vaginas on their heads, but they will never do anything that puts their extremely comfortable lives at risk.

    • There’s not much fundamental difference between the two cults. They both certainly employ crisis as a means and creating false narratives, they both lie through their teeth, because to both, the ends justify the means. Ones is dressed up in the gig leaf of religion, the other morality superiority, being both disguises are false fronts, there is little difference.
      Looks like they have a ripe meme with the murders in Canada last night. And it’s White Supremacists! Who could have imagined. Works out somebody trolled the Daily Beast and they took the bait. Some reports speculates it was Sunni against Shia shooting. One thing about musloids, they aren’t reluctant to use deadly violence in pursuit of their ideology.

        • Lets watch how they spin this one. Musloids with guns shooting other musloids in a dis-armed socialist state. Somehow they will figure how to twist into the cause of white racism.

          • I agree, they’ll try but deep down they’re freaked out as this is a whole new ball game, I.e. which Muslim is the bad guy?

    • the ayatollahs initially partnered with the communists, during the takeover of Iran. within a year all the commies were dead.

  12. Zman your title could be The Great Discomfiture. The leftist mob was denied it’s promised land. The great cargo cult of Obama has ended in a fizzle, the exalted Vag in a Mao pantsuit has been deposed, there was no great cultural revolution, no rainbow harmony of diversity has come to pass, and the enemy dirt people arose out of their scummy trailer parks and their White cult of bitter clinging denied them the station as glorious busybodies they so well earned because they are indeed the penultimate disciples that where granted exalted status in the new world order. They are madder than a nest of hornets. Butt hurt doesn’t come close to defining the disappointment and disenchantment with the new world construct they believe in.

  13. Looks to me if these crazies can not fulfill their madness with prophesies that come true, they are going to find an enemy to justify their madness, because of late they sure are working themselves into a rage. In no doubt there are cunning few behind them who are fanning the flames, and a core support group of the media which is basically a signaling system for the herd, which makes the whole affair that much more insane.
    The question is how far are they willing to go to keep the prophesy alive. They sure behave like nut jobs who are working up a fervor the next stage of which is violence against the world outside their derangement. And if anything goes to deny the reality of the failure of the cults promised land, they are thinking the destruction of the world of sanity they rail against is a righteous way to go.

  14. I just don’t know about “an internal psychology that allows them to internalize disconfirmation.” These people are doing anything to NOT have to internalize the fact that they lost in the court of public opinion, this time. How quickly they forget they just had eight years of nirvana with their smooth talking, clean, black American President. They ignore reality that the pendulum always swings back with the force of gravity. They think they are superior to nature in that regard.

    All they are is “useful tools.” Do you really think that all these protests, worldwide, are spontaneous? As Trump says about military actions, you do not show your hand to the enemy about what you have planned. Well, in the campaign just completed, he told the world what he was going to do. He tipped his hand because that was important for his election. And now that the Left is learning that he is keeping his word, they know what he will be doing. So, like the adapting chameleon, the Left has prepared in advance, all the talking points and crowds and lawyers and media to attack the immigration moves … because they knew what was coming. Trump had signaled as much.

    Sure there are some who are devastated by the election results but the Left will do what they love to do … create chaos and attempt to disrupt the “progress” that Trump is making. The fight is on. And he is doing it with only a fraction of his staff in place. Thank you McLame and Graham-cracker, The Beavis and Butthead of the Senate, for supporting OUR President. It isn’t bad enough that the long knives are out for Trump, you have to help sharpen them for the enemy. Stop doing us any favors. Get out of the Left’s way while they keep screwing up.

  15. The human mind can tolerate only so many conflicting thoughts before descending into madness. An excellent example are the conflicting ideas that police are racist murderers combined with the fervent belief that only police should have guns.

    While self-styled Progressives may decry Trump, they cannot deny that they themselves nominated Trump. The thought was that Trump would be the easiest candidate for Hillary to beat. So, the Democrats crossed over in open primary states to vote for Trump, the candidate. If Progressives were into self-flagellation, they would be beating themselves bloody for that brilliant move but then, Progressives can never admit any lapse in judgment however trivial. Love him or hate him, Trump used Alinksky’s rules to defeat them.

    • I learned my lesson about crossing over in primaries in 2008. I thought Obama would be easier to beat than Hillary. Silly me.

      • The vote isn’t in on that decision yet, but consider that “The Light Bringer” couldn’t be bothered by working changes through the Congress. (Besides he really wasn’t very good at it) So the “Czars” (remember them?) and Executive Orders.
        Hillary with Bill’s help (In my opinion) would have done a much better job of cementing their socialist agenda in law, and that would be much more difficult for the next Republican president to overturn.

        So a Hillary Presidency might not have left America in as bad a shape, probably would have been a single term but it’s ‘accomplishments’ would have been cast in cement, not the smoke and mirrors of Obama. We were going to lose in 2008 (McCain, what were we thinking?) and Hillary might have done more lasting damage.

        Don’t kick yourself.

        • Agreed, I’ve said that in ’08 that 0bama was actually the less worse alternative to McInsane. In many things, they were equal such as open borders and bailouts.
          But McInsane was even more bellicose than Bush. Bush didn’t want to touch the Georgia/Russia conflict with a ten-foot pole, McInsane wanted us to go in guns blazing. Not to mention all of SoS Hillary’s wars were enthusiastically supported by McInsane – down to direct involvement in Syria. Romney thought that simply being a Republican was enough to beat 0bama.

          • If McCain had won, fly-over Republicans would have been told to sit down, shut up, and don’t rock the boat, misapplying Reagan’s dictum about not speaking ill of one’s fellow Repubs. But yes, JM would have done his own evil work on our country, and us without a patriot around whom we could rally.
            No. We had to endure the Obama years in order to wake up a sleepy citizenry about the hot-pot we were sitting in, about to boil over.

      • Oh buggars. Silly me, I thought Obummer’s inexperience would slow things down and Hitlery would hit the ground running. My bad.

  16. I hope they don’t make their way through it any time soon. Idiocy like the women’s march with the obscenities and genital sculptures make it plain to anyone these people are crazy. I think these women should take their signs and sculptures to their next job interview. I ‘d like to know how that goes.

  17. “The New Religion, what Progressivism is today, evolved out of the Social Gospel Movement, so it carries with it many of the same habits.”

    Joseph Bottom has an excellent discussion of the evolution of those he calls “Post-Protestants” in his 2014 book “An Anxious Age: The Post-Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of America”. Today’s “Post-Protestants” – our progressive Left – have a worldview that looks in some ways a lot like the social gospel preached by its early 20th century proponents, but minus the Christianity. The key figure in that early Social Gospel movement was the (Northern) Baptist minister Walter Rauschenbusch.

  18. Good post Z. Thanks for the two links. The further demise will be in education. It was all part of the better society… make it mandatory,.. the state knows best… professionalize the teachers; indoctrinate. Then Universities.. they didn’t know what to do once they’d rigged the system to their liking.. ascendant women and minority participation and then control of speech. All for the greater good. If the push to legitimize other avenues for work/career blossom (instead of colleges), the worm will have really turned. This it the signal I’m watching for.

    Some of these pillars of the movement are in danger of failing and then we’ll know. I do think we’ve crossed a line with Trump, as important as electing Wilson was in it’s day. They didn’t fully know it, but Wilson marked a turn that the rest of the country took with him. It’s going to be interesting to see how the next few years play out, but the left has very little to bank on, and the scales are falling daily on the under-educated.. the college folks are properly indoctrinated, but the others…. well… it appears the nomies are ascendant and ti’s gonna be great.

  19. Progressives have conjured their own nightmare. They convinced themselves not only that Donald Trump was The Worst, Most Stupid, and Most Disreputable Person in the World, but also that beating him would be so easy as to be trivial, a matter of jest, a mere novelty showing how feckless and silly any opposition to The Cult would be. Instead, all the smartest and most sophisticated people have proved wrong. Not just a little mistaken, but wholly out of touch with the frightening, unexamined wasteland that Dirt People call America, a wasteland that wallows in blasphemy… and now has power.

    Manichaeans at heart, to be on the losing side *must* mean that they indeed now dwell in Treblinka or perhaps an inner circle of Dis. They must believe this is actual Hell on earth, otherwise their creed is false. The progressive gospel demands orthodoxy, and no world could be more fallen and hellishly vile than one in which Donald Trump is president. Daily, they will demand everyone about them send virtue-signals that they are not sinners, that is to say, in any way tolerant of Trump. Some are already tweeting about impeachment and assassination.

    Meanwhile, the Dirt People will have to witness the dominant pop culture, the progressive culture, go on an unprecedented temper tantrum. This will include large numbers of “Responsible Republicans.” Let us hope the Dirt People have the stomach and sense of humor to endure this and refuse to relent in the face of vast numbers the Cloud Elites, petulantly wailing from four to eight years.

    • The more the left yells, insults, and acts batshit crazy, the more us Dirt folks dismiss them as unserious crackpots. It’s like we have started a reinforcing loop which the leftists are now trapped in. They only know how to get crazier and more detached from reality.

    • I’m treating them the way I treated my kids when pre-shoolers. Just ignore the tantrums, and try to keep them from hurting themselves or someone else as they battle their demons. Worked with the kids, all six being elderly, responsible, self sufficient adults now.

    • A tagline I use on several websites is: ‘What all the wise men promised has not happened, and what all the damned fools said would happen has come to pass.’
      — Lord Melbourne —

    • That it’s a temper tantrum there is no doubt, but it’s very much deliberate and calculated. Remember that video of the protestor in a green jacket shouting that long drawn out “Noooo,” when Trump took the oath? It was preceded by a bit of a tell as the protestor opened his (her?) eyes and glanced sideways to make the camera was focused on himherself. This is all wonderful theatre and they actually think it’s going to have an effect. Tim

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