If you are one of the tens of millions who voted for Trump in two elections, you are probably a bit puzzled by what is happening in “right-wing” media. If you have made the journey to this side of the great divide over the last decade, the distance between where you are now and those old voices on the Right seems much greater. It is one of those undiscussed aspects of the war in Europe. The great divide between the Cloud People and Dirt People has grown wider.
Right-wing talk radio which largely serves the over-sixty crowd now sounds a lot like it did in the 1990’s during the Balkan conflict. Back then they were demanding troops on the ground rather than the limited use of air power by Clinton. He was Neville Chamberlain and Slobodan Milošević was the new Hitler. Today the Sean Hannity types are demanding an invasion of Russia because this time Joe Biden is Chamberlain and Vladimir Putin is Hitler.
It is not just mainstream conservatism that has pulled out the old outfits from yesterday in order to indulge in nostalgia. Populist Inc., which formed up during the Trump presidency, suddenly sounds like every neocon nutter, demanding no-fly zones and full-scale economic war. In many cases, they are racing to out-crazy the neocon crazies on this issue. It turns out that the America first rhetoric was just a public relations campaign for the same old conservative grift.
What this reveals is that the people inside the political bubble never learned anything from the last decade. It brings to mind the famous quip misattributed to Talleyrand but written by a French naval officer. “Nobody has been corrected; no one has known to forget, nor yet to learn anything.” A little more than a year after the great danger was purged from their ranks, the Cloud People are carrying on as if the world is right back to where they left it in the fall of 2016.
One of the things forgotten is that people care about practical things like the condition of their roads, their living standards and the safety of their communities. They will respond to abstract concepts like patriotism, for sure, but only if the call to act is in defense of where they live and how they live. The reason a TV pitchman won the 2016 election was that he spoke about the things that mattered, while his opponents blathered on about “who we are.”
It seems that the disconnect between the Cloud People and the Dirt People has managed to grow during the last decade of troubles. This post by one of the zombies of Conservative Inc. is illustrative. Even though he uses a profile picture from thirty years ago, Kyle Smith is a middle-aged man. He should be aware that all around him is raging a weird 1980’s nostalgia. He should also be aware that there has always been a strong isolationist strain in American politics.
In fact, the default American position until the 20th century was to not go abroad in search of monsters to destroy. America was the well-wisher of those seeking their freedom, however they defined it, but otherwise, the American creed said that the goal of foreign policy was to avoid getting involved in the affairs of other nations. To go around trying to set the world right would mean the “fundamental maxims” of our policy would “insensibly change from liberty to force.”
Put another way, Kyle Smith does not seem to know much about the country or the American Right, of which he claims to be a part. He is not alone. The flagship site of Buckley-style conservatism is equally ridiculous. Jim Geraghty is their main guy now and he seems to get all of his information from far-left news sites. This post reads like some sort of weird Ukrainian fan fiction. For him and his fellow travelers, the whole “fake news” thing is long forgotten.
It is not just the right-side of the political class that has learned nothing from the last decade of populist tumult. Progressive Inc. is now willing to tolerate ten dollar gasoline and bread lines just so they can show their solidarity with Ukraine. They have suddenly got over their fear of fascism in order to support actual fascist like the Azov Battalion fighting in Ukraine. Maybe they will start offering amnesty to J6 prisoners if they agree to wear a Ukrainian lapel pin on TV.
Again, you see people who have learned nothing from the past. In 2016 the people voted for the ultimate protest candidate. Donald Trump was the anti-candidate who crudely mocked Cloud People values. That was when gas was under three dollars, the grocery shelves were stuffed with cheap food and no one had the sniffles. Will the people be more willing to go along with this lunacy when they now have to worry about paying their bills every month?
Again, from this side of the great divide, the madness now gripping the beautiful people with regards to the war seems so alien and strange. Many can remember getting emotionally drawn into the war fever of the Bush years only to learn that it was all a big lie perpetrated by people who were never on your side. To see the same people selling the same lies from media platforms is confirmation that there is no bridging the gap that lies between the two sides of the great divide.
The war in Europe and the reaction to it is revealing a truth about the great divide that is the final step for the dissident. There is no bridging the gap because there is no reforming the Cloud People. All that can be done is prepare for the point when reality finally comes calling for the ruling class. That moment may be upon as prices soar due to the gears of the New World Order grinding to a halt. Soon, rule by expert is not going to sound very appealing.
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Hate to say it, but nothing substantive will change until the boomers pass on. I’ve noticed among most, though not all, of my cohort are stuck in the ’80s. Hell, I’d love to be there myself. Great time and great time to be white.
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it’s gen-x that are stuck in the 80’s :). boomers dwell in the 70’s and 60’s.
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it’s not just the cloud people who haven’t learned a thing. look at all the barking seals in normie land, eager to receive a pat on the head for wearing a little pin, and making all the right sounds.
i wish zman would delve into the biological underpinnings of human behavior. particularly the role of epigenetics in the modern world. what kind of people have been produced over the last 50 years.
Q: how do you educate a scorpion?
A: you don’t even try.
why did some people who should know better, take the vaxx? it was in their nature. same phenomena is behind the rise of what zman refers to as the DR; people who came to see over time, the mass of lies that American politics was composed of – on both sides. yet many more people who could have, and should have, made the same cognitive “journey”, didn’t and won’t. would just like to hear other’s views on this topic.
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Can you imagine the levels of hypoxia if China invades Tiawan?
I
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The Chinese have bribed all the right people, so my guess is you will be reading about how glorious reunification will be for the Taiwanese.
It is so easy to hate our cloud rulers and wish for nothing but the worst to befall them. “Remember the Maine!, make the world safe for muh democracy!, stop the spread of communism!, weapons of mass destruction!”, (blank) is the new Hitler!!, we’ve got to kill more people so more people won’t get killed – cause that’s who we are!, covid will end the world as we know it!, the vax is safe and effective!”
If we can’t kill ’em all with bombs and bullets, well, we’ll just sanction the hell out them economically and screw up way more people’s lives (including our own) cause we’re always morally right.
No punishment ever invented by mankind should be off the table.
5
The sky high gas prices appear to be part of an insane strategy to push “green energy.” Psaki said if you think gas is too high you should buy an electric vehicle. You can also buy some made in China solar panels for your house that will end up in the landfill in 20-25 years. All to save the planet.
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Also, the coal burning plants that produce their electricity are not visible from their green little bubbles, so they don’t exist. Electricity is clean magic.
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“Maybe they will start offering amnesty to J6 prisoners if they agree to wear a Ukrainian lapel pin on TV.”
Nice turn of the phrase but this will not happen. For the Cloud People, the J6 political prisoners are the only enemy that matters.
The disconnect between the Cloud People and reality, let alone the Dirt People, is too great to reform. While a peaceful resolution always is desired and the best way to handle anything, it is hard to imagine one. We have been, and still are, on the brink of nuclear war. People who would put others in that position will do literally anything.
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There is no other way to put it, most people are stupid, willfully so maybe, but dense just the same.
Neocons are just blessed with these people who can be manipulated by their fears and passions. With the neocons it’s all strategic, they have reasons. Social media obviously isn’t helping and probably fueling the retard virus among normies. Yeah Derbyshire, we truly are doomed. The consequences of the coming events will determine where we all end up in the coming years, not by anything we tend to vote for or elect.
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I respectfully submit a fact I’m constantly reminding myself about, as well: The Cloud is TINY. We’re forever seeing studies done by people who love them some Social Media — who, indeed, routinely mistake Social Media for Real Life — that report things like “Twitter’s user base is only 30 million, of which 75% are confirmed to be bots.” With the official population of the US at something like 375 million (and I’m sure the real number is over 400), 30 million is a drop in the bucket… and 75% of that 30 million is known to be fake.
(even the marketing boys, who have been caught fudging numbers more often than Dominican baseball players, say only 23% of US adults use Twitter).
In other words, we’re looking at the most politically engaged segment of the population here… and they’re a tiny fraction within the tiny fraction that actually uses social media. All it’s going to take is one or two of those “people” waking up to just how isolated and outnumbered they are…
(this of course presumes that our Insect Overlords are physically capable of such a realization, which is up for debate — their brains are obviously broken — but let’s be optimistic).
3
As the days pass, and media barking continues, I’m expecting more American flags as I drive around my third-tier city in a state known to be full of libertarian and Christian right-wingers. I’m on the lookout for Uke flags as well. I see no such thing.
Maybe the Trumpians/GOPers who vowed never to trust the media again, are still tuning out the media? I dunno.
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