A popular concept in right wing politics is the gatekeeper or sometimes called the controlled opposition. This is the person or group that appears to be in opposition to the Left, but is an insulation layer between the Left and genuine critics. The function of the gatekeeper is to prevent people from abandoning the political morality of the Left, while at the same time making sure to lose every fight with the Left. They channel opposition into positions that can never succeed.
Ben Shapiro is the most obvious example. His primary role is to funnel all opposition into a dead end. His answer to the tech monopolies, for example, is to tell people to build their own new internet. After all, only a communist would demand the government prevent private actors from trampling your rights. Of course, he always tone policing the language of the people he claims to represent. The point is also to cleanse the language of rhetoric that could be effective against the Left.
What gets little discussion is just how this happens. There is an assumption that the people playing the role of gatekeeper know what they are doing. This is that bourgeois objectivism that is the bane of right-wing politics. It is the assumption that all political actors are motivated by self-interest. They are keenly aware of those interests and their actions reflect it. Therefore, people on the Right assume the gatekeepers are acting with purpose and are probably in league with the Left.
A good example of this is the CRT business. Parents around the country suddenly learned that the schools are teaching their kids that white people are born evil and their only way to salvation is to hate their ancestors. The gatekeepers immediately leapt into action to lecture them that saying CRT is antiwhite is wrong. Suddenly, the purpose of conservatism is to prevent anyone from noticing that the cultural revolution is explicitly and overtly antiwhite. It almost seems coordinated.
There is a familiar pattern to how the system has responded to opposition to the antiwhite pogroms launched by the party. The defunct social media platform Parler was not about creating an alternative to Twitter, so much as creating a regime-acceptable alternative to the genuinely open platform Gab. When that failed, the usual suspects were ready with another version called Retalk. Many of the people promoting this effort were anti-Trump cranks now trying to lure his audience.
An underappreciated aspect of the gatekeeper production system is just how quickly it spits out hollow clones of legitimate opposition. Once Nick Fuentes started getting national attention, the clone machine started making copies. Here is a fake America First clone produced soon after the election. Fuentes has been promoting the term “America First” for a while. He sells branded products and his supporters wave big flags at rallies with that slogan, so the system just cloned it.
The system also appears to be trying to clone Fuentes himself and his imitators among the young generation. Here is a group called American Moment, formed by four young gay men to be an acceptable version of the groypers. The system men were out flogging it as if it were coordinated. Here is National Review promoting it. Here is American Mind, promoting itself by promoting the fake groypers. As if by magic a group of nobodies was suddenly a topic of conversation.
In the effort to co-opt Fuentes and his youth movement, we see a pattern emerge in how gatekeepers are created. First, we get the fake version of the genuine alternative mentioned in conservative media. Then what quickly follows is a halfhearted negation of the fake version of the alternative. This pseudo-dialectic is supposed to draw in those unhappy with the system. They have to pick a side in this fake debate. The point is to exclude the genuine opposition from the process.
The sandwich technique is a staple of liberal democratic politics. Since few arguments in favor of the status quo can withstand scrutiny, they create a set of false choices to contain all discussion. In economics the choice is “free enterprise” versus “communism” with regards to corporate corruption of society. In other issues, like the race debate, one choice is an absurdly immoral position and defeatism. You either buckle under or you are a Nazi, and you deserve the assault from the Left.
Of course, the main project of so-called conservatives is to figure out a way to create a fake Trump in order to sideline the populist and nationalist opposition to the corporatist uniparty monopoly. Trump did not get anything done in office, but the system still fears him, because of the bad thoughts he arouses in the people. Trump running in 2024 would both reveal the ridiculousness of conservatism (again) and generate the sorts of conversations that the regime considers dangerous.
The first version of fake Trump is J.D. Vance. He is a more successful version of the character Keven Williams has played at National Review. That is, a guy from flyover country who abandoned the people and culture that produced him in order to confirm the biases of the managerial elite. He provides them with authenticity, by displaying a sympathy for and a knowledge of the Dirt People, the great dispossessed, but he confirms the Cloud People patronizing view of them.
You will notice that the system defends itself with rhetoric. Democracy is all about winning arguments, not establishing, or accepting truth. It is why democracy produces so many sophists. It is also why Twitter is so popular with regime lackeys. People with the natural instinct to defend their masters and a gift for doing so in a few sentences can become heroes on the platform. A system built on clever rhetoric and logical fallacies is naturally good at defending itself with the same tools.
This natural defense does have its limits. A decade ago, the Tea Party movement was easily coopted by corporate flunkies. This time it is struggling to do the same thing with the populism Trump rode to office and the growing dissident movement. The fake groypers, for example, cannot draw flies. Their YouTube shows should have crickets as the background noise. This is despite the hype and protection. Fuentes and his merry band draw tens of thousands to obscure platforms.
It could very well be that this natural defense mechanism only works if the system itself is viewed as fundamentally legitimate. Once people begin to think the system is rigged or inherently corrupt, the defense mechanisms not only fail, but they also become proof of the corruption. National Review outsourced their management to Bangalore recently because the site no longer has an audience. In other words, the failure of gatekeeping is a sign of systemic failure.
The crackdown by the oligarchs on dissidents has had the happy result of a proliferation of new ways to support your favorite creator. If you like my work and wish to kick in a few bucks, you can buy me a beer. You can sign up for a SubscribeStar subscription and get some extra content. You can donate via PayPal. My crypto addresses are here for those who prefer that option. You can send gold bars to: Z Media LLC P.O. Box 432 Cockeysville, MD 21030-0432. Thank you for your support!
Promotions: We have a new addition to the list. Havamal Soap Works is the maker of natural, handmade soap and bath products. If you are looking to reduce the volume of man-made chemicals in your life, all-natural personal products are a good start. If you use this link you get 15% off of your purchase.
The good folks at Alaska Chaga are offering a ten percent discount to readers of this site. You just click on the this link and they take care of the rest. About a year ago they sent me some of their stuff. Up until that point, I had never heard of chaga, but I gave a try and it is very good. It is a tea, but it has a mild flavor. It’s autumn here in Lagos, so it is my daily beverage now.
Minter & Richter Designs makes high-quality, hand-made by one guy in Boston, titanium wedding rings for men and women and they are now offering readers a fifteen percent discount on purchases if you use this link. If you are headed to Boston, they are also offering my readers 20% off their 5-star rated Airbnb. Just email them directly to book at sales@minterandrichterdesigns.com.
If they are a politician at all and especially already in office , I don’t trust them.
Of course no political action will save us anyways. Look at Gov. DeSantis. Seems like one of ours with many of the right actions and beliefs. Priming himself for the future he has scheduled a visit to Israel presumably for a blessing from the Sanhedrin.
2
The pilgrimage to
MeccaIsrael thing is a good example of unconscious behavior. Baked into the Republican orthodoxy is the belief that they have to be super-duper pro-Israel. They don’t think about it. It is just assumed that this gets them Jewish money and Evangelical support. At the fringes this is true, but in the main no one cares about this.4
Maybe that’s true of simpletons like MTG but I think DeSantis and even Trump are more cynical and understand Jewish Power perfectly well. Trump dealt with powerful Jews his entire career and intentionally married his daughter into a major Jewish crime family. DeSantis seems to actually keep his obeisance on the relative down low while Abbott, another moron, poses in front of an Israeli flag while he promotes censorship against anti semitism.
This is that bourgeois objectivism I mentioned. People often act unconsciously. More often, in fact. I doubt Trump or DeSantis thinks much about this at all. They just do it because that’s what you do. Everyone believes you have to be super pro-Israel. They don’t think about it.
Every normie conservative I know reflexively thinks “Israel good, Muslims bad.” It’s part of their conditioning.
Today’s article confused me. You called out this “bourgeois objectivism” but then the article went on to validate the claims made from that perspective. Are we meant to think these people are acting intentionally or no?
Trump seems utterly obsessed with Jews. He can’t stop talking about them and he also talks about the distinctions between religious and secular Jews. There is plenty of evidence that the Kushner marriage was a cynical move to bolster the Trump dynasty. I don’t see how you can claim Trump has done all this without being aware of it.
No, quite the opposite. I made the point that the system naturally, not deterministically, creates gatekeepers.
1
Say what you will of Israelis, they fought for and got their very own ethnostate and fight to keep it.
You bring up a great point about unconscious behavior. Unconscious behavior is natures way of conserving resources for the mind and body. It’s natural in everyone. That is why it is so hard to get people to see the truth, it takes energy., even in our so-called elites. Nature will always prevail in the end.
“This time it is struggling to do the same thing with the populism Trump rode to office and the growing dissident movement.”
“It could very well be that this natural defense mechanism only works if the system itself is viewed as fundamentally legitimate. Once people begin to think the system is rigged or inherently corrupt, the defense mechanisms not only fail, but they also become proof of the corruption.”
We are moving from Preference falsification to Preference cascade.
“n short, average people behave the way they think they ought to, even
though that behavior might not reflect their own personal feelings.
Given a sufficient “A-HA!” moment when they discover that their personal
feelings are shared by a large portion of the population their behavior
may change dramatically.”
Trump and “The Covid Panic” exposed the rottenness at the heart of the system. Now, what is to be done?
2
For a long time I have said the revolution begins on the day a Republican stands in front of a crowd and rants about racism. One person laughs and jeers and then all of a sudden the room erupts in laughter as everyone realizes that no one else cares bout this either.
5
Might be time to re-link Ceausescu’s final speech…
1
Best thing to do is prepare for a broken state and wait for it to break. The general historical record has been that regime destruction happens when foreign actors or foreign problems cause an unadressable but unavoidable problem the regime can’t solve (like, for example, the Continental wheat famine at the end of Louis XVI’s reign). Toppling a regime from within is like cracking a pillar from underneath: it’s technically possible but very unlikely. It usually takes anterior forces to destroy it.
“Of course, he always tone policing the language of the people he claims to represent. ”
Forgive me, but what ‘tone policing’? Is this where A lectures B because B used politically incorrect words? Or is it actually related to the concept of tone; in this case A chastises B because xzhir’s tone seems to be edging toward suggesting something A does not like, regardless of the words used?
The first one. Shapiro will lecture people about using the word “antiwhite” to describe anti-white policies. Instead, he will demand they use the word “racist” as that supports left-liberal morality on race.
4
Drop the word “antiwhite”, eh? No thanks Benny, it’s a great tool. That said, I passed through the ‘Halls of Shapiro’ on my way here, and at one point thought the world could be made better by ‘Shapiro totally OWNS transgender activist’ YouTube videos. A lot of people I know seem to be in the phase of moving past Shapiro, but still can’t quite wean themselves of him and his 6’2″ Aryan frame.
Heh. Reminds me of the joke they used to tell about Mustache Guy and his crew. To be a true Aryan, you must be tall, like Goebbels; athletic, like Himmler; lean, like Goering; and blonde, like Hitler.
Who says Germans have no sense of humor?
1
It’s about the words themselves, not the literal tone or intonation. An example is Ben Shapiro warning us about “whataboutism” and thus encouraging us not to point out hypocrisy when we see it.
1
Thanks for the answer. It’s good to know, as I thought there was a new world of communications policing afoot. But it’s the same old tricks. Yes, I’d seen the example of “whataboutism” some years ago, when many articles appeared telling me it was very bad.
This is yet another reason that the Left is getting more and more hysterical – it would be going too far to say that the old tricks aren’t working, but they are not working nearly as well as they used to, and the trend is obvious. In addition to this, the science concerning HBD is becoming undeniable, at least not without throwing Darwin, and a whole lot of other things that Leftists used to love, overboard, and as we discussed yesterday, key parts of the Left mythos, such as the Good War and Civil Rights, are coming under attack, not only by fringe figures like Victor Suvarov and Ron Unz, but by respected centerist historians.
In many ways, the American Left reminds me of the USSR in the 1970’s. Superficially it is stronger than ever, and getting stronger. But its foundations are being undermined, and the whole structure is far weaker than anyone thinks. It isn’t JUST delusional thinking when frantic Leftists post on twitter that the Right is winning…
1
“at least not without throwing Darwin, and a whole lot of other things that Leftists used to love, overboard,”
Heh. That has never stopped them before, and it shan’t now. When ol’ Charles is no longer useful perhaps he’ll be Watson-style un-personed.
“In addition to this, the science concerning HBD is becoming undeniable”
Yes. Yes. Yes. In my family circles, even previously devout do-gooders no longer shoot their mouths off about ‘racism’ when I mention these truths. To be honest, they might have made it slightly more watertight by not swamping major western cities with dirt/sand/mud/clay/tree/river/swamp peoples – but they had to do it.
Whether you’re a Devonian scaffolder who, whilst on a job in London got jacked by a black gang – clothes pinched too; whether you’re an 18 year me and my mates being accosted by Bangladeshis with cricket bats; whether you’re a hip, young, female yoga instructor having a young jogger on a bike ride past you and swipe your phone; whether you’re a business owner in an increasingly black or asian area; Whether you have experienced the awkwardness of multi-racial friendship groups… you can’t help but see it. We’re different. They’re different.
2
“To be honest, they might have made it slightly more watertight by not swamping major western cities with dirt/sand/mud/clay/tree/river/swamp peoples – but they had to do it”
Yres, the Left hates whites so much, they sometimes shoot themselves in the foot. A good example is the wokification of sports. I mean, channelling the energise of young white men into team spectator sports was one of the great triumphs of the liberal managerial state in the late 20th Century. It channelled their natural patriotism into a harmless and meaningless area, it divided them and pitted them against each other (“Eagles suck!”) and it caused them to pay attention to one of the few areas where racial integration sort of, kinda, worked. All the while distracting them from the decline of their country, while becoming less and less physically fit! Genius, sheer genius, as Wile E. Coyote would say. But damn it all, those flyover rednecks were actually enjoying themselves, and that was just too much. So sports had to be ruined with politics, and gays, and trannies, just to show ’em. Which of course caused more red-pilling than BLM and CRT put together.
At its highest levels, the regime out would-be overlords have cobbled together is built on falsified history, but at its lower levels, its built on sportsball, opioids and pron – and sportsball is possibly the most important.
Does a guy like Tucker know his role in the gate keeping business? If he does know his role, can he be useful in briefly opening the gate at times? In looking back, I’m not sure gate keepers got me here, a friend and my own research did.
1
Yes and yes. Tucker does crack the door open at times. Recently he’s using the term “antiwhite” in describing critical race theory. Several weeks ago he talked about the replacement of White voters, although of course he added that “it’s not about race.” Here and there Tucker moves the ball in our direction.
3
The big difference between J.D. Vance and Kevin Williamson is that Vance is smart enough not to openly hate the people in flyover country. Another is that he genuinely grew up in Appalachia and understands what the place is like. Williamson grew up in Lubbock, which isn’t some dysfunctional place with generational problems, he just had a bad upbringing there. He spent three days in Kentucky to write a story slamming the people there for National Review. In his mind, this makes him an expert on all of flyover country, from the Florida panhandle to northern Idaho and everyplace in between. Both are phonies, but Vance has the act down much better.
3
I thought Vance grew up outside of Cincinnati? Point taken though. Williamson was always faking it, while Vance seems to be more genuine. I recall when Williamson did his piece on Appalachia. My hunch was he just spent the weekend binge watching the TV series Justified. It was that superficial.
2
Just looked it up and you are right, Middleton, Ohio is north of Cincinnati. From the way he talked, I thought Vance was from a smaller town down by the Ohio-Kentucky border.
Ha. I just did the same thing. Maybe there are hills in Ohio.
The strangest thing of all is that I’m not seeing my normie con friends stick solely to their tired arguments, or come entirely over to our side of the divide. They make both arguments within the same rant, as if they had listened to Hannity for an hour and then read Jared Taylor for an hour. “We should be judging people by the content of their character and not the color of their skin, and if they don’t want to do that, maybe we should just secede and start our own country.” It reminds me a bit of when I gave up smoking. I didn’t just stop smoking. I cut it down to a few cigarettes a day, then maybe one or two supplemented with some Nicorette, and then finally I didn’t even need the gum.
3
The phrase “antiwhite” is the first rhetorical tool these people have been given that actually works. I think it is sending many of them into a tailspin. They are so conditioned to losing with leftist language they are gobsmacked by the experience.
5
When I’ve trotted out “antiwhite” to normie conservative friends, you can tell they’ve never heard it before. It’s a little bit jarring to them. They either give me a look like an inquisitive dog, tilting their head to the side a bit, or are visibly squeamish about it. Either way, it plants the seed and changes the game by making our enemies the villains.
JD Vance, you nailed his act perfectly.
Book & movie deal, thirty pieces of silver.
He gets invites to all the best parties.
3
If Parler was supposed to be the gatekeeper platform, how come it was 8chan’d after January 6th?
Did the lefties not realize it was controlled op, or something?
As the antiwhite agenda accelerates, the gatekeepers’ margin shrinks. The effort to diffuse the term “antiwhite” is a futile one. It’s here, it’s obvious, and the term isn’t going away. It’s only going to become increasingly ubiquitous.
The sudden rise of CRT from the racist far right wing extremist corners to the mainstream media is some kind of mass distraction along the same lines as the “divide and conquer” tag that seems to be incredibly durable as a gatekeeping tagline appealing to civnat ‘decency’.
Every time obvious anti-white policy, poc on white violence, and actual systemic institutional anti-white racism leaks into the media there are patriots like Bongino reminding us to not succumb to this age old trap of TPTB.
This reframe is dangerous because it is true. The presumption that divide and conquer is somehow mutually exclusive of actual anti-white direct action is of course false, but it is effective crimestop for white men of the right who are not prepared to break their deracinated conditioning.
They will then go to great lengths to show their solidarity, (we all bleed red, we are all Americans, etc) while missing the point that somehow whites and white men in particular are the only identity actively abdicating their interests and rights in order to uphold this magical group of “Americans”. IOW, why is cooperation against TPTB, the “elites”, the “globalists”, predicated upon the complete absence of white identity? So yeah until “its okay to be white” is not some bloody mary three times in the mirror that conjures up ghosts of racisms past I will see “divide and conquer” as nothing but an exit ramp from our right to exist as a people.
Back to CRT. All these concerned parents, who have apparently not read anything their kids have read in school, or consumed any media over the past 10 years in particular, is of grave concern. But the tell is this: are these people saying “we need to burn the ivy league to the ground” or are they saying “my daughter is applying to Penn and Yale in the fall”.
3
I’m trying to think of a situation in which I’d trust ANY of the major institutions again. The hypotheticals I keep returning to all involve Truth and Reconciliation Commissions, with mortal verdicts being carried out in public sqaures.
I don’t think I’m the Lone Ranger on this. It’s NOT going to end well. If the Left realizes this before it hits critical mass in the streets, it’s hello Cambodia. If not…
5
This is where I am now. I’ll never bother voting again. I consume mass media solely for content creation. I just assume it is all a lie. Ben Shapiro could read me my social security number and I’d assume it is a lie.
5
> That is, a guy from flyover country who abandoned the people and culture that produced him in order to confirm the biases of the managerial elite. He provides them with authenticity, by displaying a sympathy for and a knowledge of the Dirt People, the great dispossessed, but he confirms the Cloud People patronizing view of them.
For some elites and elite wanna-bes such as Vance and Dreher, rural people are ignorant but wholesome hicks whose primitive ways we can learn a lot from, sort of like spending your time with an African tribe.
For others, they’re just ignorant backwards racists.
Honestly, the Vances of the world are probably more insulting. Instead of just saying they didn’t fit in with rural life, a perfectly understandable thing to admit, they create a patronizing superiority complex around their decisions while pretending to be their advocate.
Trump understands rural people better than Vance, and he’s a lifelong city man.
5
Yeah it’s patronizing as hell.
The way the libs treat the Amish / Mennonites reminds me of how they treat Muslims. Amish are “ignorant but wholesome hicks whose primitive ways we can learn a lot from”, exactly as you say, who bake nice pies and make nice furniture. Muslims are misunderstood peace lovers who cook spicy food. In reality, neither the Amish nor Muslim beliefs are anywhere near what ShitLibs believe or understand.
The media rats treat Christians this way too. They come around and say “oh, they’re not *bad* people, they’re just a little different and backwards”, then slander us in the actual article. Luckily people are wising up and just refusing to talk to them.
I always liked farmers because they cut through the bullshit. I suppose it’s easy to be honest about life when your day involves making animals f*ck, and then killing them for food. Mankind is not too much different except for having a bigger brain.
Regarding Gatekeepers:
Vance has an Asian wife.
Rufo has an Asian wife
Ahmari has an Asian wife.
Murray has an Asian wife.
7
They’ve all got Fang Fang’s of their own, have they? Interesting.
1