One of the many failings of conservatism was the insistence that with just the right argument using just the right data points, the people they called the left would throw down their weapons and embrace them as brothers. At the core of what later became known as civic nationalism was the assertion that all political actors are looking for objective truth and therefore would respond to it. The reason for political disputes was the failure to flesh out the facts.
Politic is about morality, not facts. It is also about power, specifically the power to impose your moral vision on the rest. Facts have little to do with politics and are often seen by ideologues as a threat. The diversity cult looks at the FBI crime stats as a direct threat to their project, so they worked to suppress them. The flat earth people insist that intelligence testing is a conspiracy of some sort. They label it “race-science” because adding the words “race” to anything anathematizes it.
Another thing that the conservative view of politics got wrong is that it left people with only two choices when evaluating left-wing rhetoric. Either the people chanting about white power structures were lying or they were deeply confused. In both cases, it was assumed that they had to know the truth and that the truth would either set them straight or force them to stop lying. Untold man hours were wasted trying to explain the truth to crazy relatives because of this.
Even now, with all that is happening, it is hard for people to accept that the crazies are in fact crazy enough to believe the nutty things they are saying. This post in the New York Times feels like parody, but it is written to soothe the nerves of the believers while they huddle together plotting how to respond. The writer genuinely believes Washington is being taken over by a Stalin-like figure and he and his coreligionists are the beginnings of a great resistance to it.
This is the precursor to the forming of a narrative. The cult we call the left operates like all cults in that it has a story to explain itself and its destination. Within the story are stories to address the bumps along the way as well as the victories. Soon, others will take this framework in which the good guys are being oppressed by the bad guys and create a narrative that fills in the details, especially the part where they finally vanquish the monster and everyone cheers.
It is hard for normal people to accept that the writer is as crazy as it seems. After all, he had to have sat in meetings at the New York Times where people boasted of ruining critics of the Biden regime. He must be aware of the doxing campaigns and the hooded terrorist gangs sent to harass dissidents. It is inconceivable to a normal person that this guy does not see the irony in what he is writing. The truth is he is that crazy and the audience is right there with him.
Part of how cults respond to disconfirmation and setbacks is they create new pleasing narratives for why things have not gone as predicted. A month into the Trump presidency and the crazies have settled on an economic collapse as the most probable end to the Trump tyranny. According to the Times, the economy is already reeling from policies that have yet to be implemented. The Telegraph reports that the really smart people foresee disaster for the Trump economy.
This gets to another thing that people struggle to accept. These people lie. They will make up whatever whoppers they think they need for their narrative. Extreme partisanship rewards sociopathy, so over time the movement will be overrun by people who see no moral distinction between the truth and a lie. All that matters is whether it serves the cause, by which they mean does it strengthen their side or does it cause harm to their opponents?
Despite all that has been revealed so far, as well as the massive media gaslighting campaign last year, people still think there is truth in the media. There is little doubt that the Harris campaign turned many people from civic nationalist into something else, but for many, the whole thing was forgotten after the election. It is called the Gell-Mann amnesia effect, which is when you see something in the media that is an obvious lie but then forget that story and trust the next story in the same media site.
What all this tells us is that even though normal defeated crazy in November and the Trump admin has a plan to defeat the Blob in order to restore sobriety back to politics, the road back to normal will be long and full of trouble. Scan the fever swamps and it is clear that events have had no impact on the crazies. If anything, they have become crazier now that they have shuffled off mainstream platforms into places like Bluesky and Reddit where they are free to fly their freak flags.
Similarly, the media has learned nothing from the last decade. They put everything they had into dragging Harris over the finish line but failed because not enough people trust them anymore. Despite the massive rejection that was the November election, they are now leaning into the same tactics that brought them to this point. The employees of Jeff Bezos at the Washington Post still think they get to tell the owner of the company to buzz off and leave the running of it to them.
While it does appear that we have reached the end of a cycle of madness, perhaps several historical cycles that culminated in the last decade, it is going to be a long road back to normal. The crazies will not simply go away. They must be defeated, caged, and only released when the conditions that created them are eradicated. The normals will have to be trained in the new way of engaging in politics. Much like Russia after communism, America is on the road to recovery, but it is a long road.
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Bernie Sanders is currently being wheeled out to the hinterlands to sputter about oligarchy for $3 donations. Gray hairs are being mobilized by their teevee to harangue local pols about muh government cuts. Old leftists are doing interpretive dances as protests. People are painting swastikas on Cybertrucks and impotently picketing towers that say TRUMP on them.
Not only is the crazy not going away, but for many, it’s just gotten sad.
Forgot about the crying. Lots of crying on camera.
I like the crying.
It makes oi larf!
‘Old leftists are doing interpretive dances as protests’
And they dance like The Dude’s landlord.
The universal “truths” of the media, which were hammered ceaselessly into the forebrains of readers and viewers, was that the reporter was part of a special caste of truth diggers, that titanic forces thirsted to block the revelation of this truth and that the reporter did all this not for a paycheck but out of the goodness of his heart. 💓 Cynical interpretations of the media were forbidden. The media clearly loves itself. It has no self-esteem problem. High on the power of the medium, enamored of its own mind games, the spin doctor aka “reporter” conjures up crises to… Read more »
Speaking of crazy delusions, Reddit’s Fednews forum is a real eye-opener. These federal employees are thrashing around in the belief that they are being “illegally” fired, that their jobs are selfless public service, that Trump and Elon are evil, and that the elimination of their jobs will cause the country to fall apart. There’s also genuine shock that the public isn’t sympathetic to their plight. Don’t they get it? For decades, the private sector has been destroyed by policies coming from DC. First our manufacturing jobs were sent overseas, and then the country was flooded with tens of millions of… Read more »
In addition to “learn to code”, I’ll always remember a GWB 2004 campaign speech where he talked about retraining manufacturing workers as healthcare workers, using community colleges for the “retraining”.
So maybe these former federal “workers” can learn to change bedpans, if that market hasn’t been cornered by Haitians yet.
It has. We needed home care help for my mother-in-law last year, and discovered every agency is staffed with black foreigners. They send out a white manager to set everything up, but then send in the third world for the actual care. They were fine for basic tasks, and certainly better than American blacks, but still.
Honestly, a drunken monkey show is not a bad idea.
When the average fedgov salary reached close to double the average private sector salary, that should have perhaps sounded more of a warning claxon
True. But these idiots believe they are underpaid. They claim they could’ve made more in the private sector. Many are now distressed that they’ll have to get a job that’s “only about making money” compared to selfless public service. Never mind they couldn’t get fired (until now), that their retirement plans were well beyond the dreams of private citizens, that their health care was gold-plated, and that there was virtually no accountability. They have no idea what the real world is like…or maybe in some secret part of their brains, they do — which is why they’re crapping their pants… Read more »
Were I Benevolent Dictator, all those bureaucrats would be replacing all the illegals on the meatpacking lines.
Arbeit macht frei.
this sense of entitlement comes from decades of special treatment. It’s similar to how blacks are. After so much special treatment, when you are treated like everyone else it feels like persecution.
Getting away from this concept that we are fighting in the “marketplace of ideas” and accepting that (A) these people mean what they say, (B) they hate you and want you dead, and (C) they will always double down on their beliefs, is absolutely critical. It needs to happen. The media is shocked that Trump is treating them like the enemies they are, and not the dispassionate and objective people of reason that they want us to think they are. This also means their attacks won’t work. If you think the media is a purveyor of truth, then their attacks… Read more »
I read the headline and the first few paragraphs of that New York Times article comparing Trump’s administration with the early days of Vladimir Putin in Russia and thought that I certainly hope that the author is right and that it continues that way.
When Bernie says “oligarchs” I don’t think that’s what Putin had in mind…
This paragraph is key: It is hard for normal people to accept that the writer is as crazy as it seems. After all, he had to have sat in meetings at the New York Times where people boasted of ruining critics of the Biden regime. He must be aware of the doxing campaigns and the hooded terrorist gangs sent to harass dissidents. It is inconceivable to a normal person that this guy does not see the irony in what he is writing. The truth is he is that crazy and the audience is right there with him. I was guilt… Read more »
It can be confusing because the mental illness is somewhat siloed off from their normal daily functions. So they can support themselves and appear nice to others, until the door on the silo is opened and you see the crazy. I have some acquaintances who are like this, and I simply refuse to get baited into any kind of political discussion with them, because I would just be arguing with the TV. It’s like the old line about never trying to teach a pig to sing. It’s a waste of your time and it irritates the pig.
I suspect this is just a brief lull in the cycle of world stupidity. The left won’t quit despite the incredible setbacks thanks to Trump and his team. Of course you can eliminate DEI in the workplace and stop the alphabet teachings in school. But just like immigration and demographic changes in Europe, we are way past the tipping point in declining morality and mental health. Brain washed millennials are now raising the same left-leaning imbeciles and this isn’t going to stop anytime soon. The past two generations have been drugged and dumbed down to the point they can no… Read more »
Gen Z is voting farther right than any generation did at that same age since at least WW2. Maybe since ever. That’s a positive sign that what will remain of the white race has some hope.
‘The crazies will not simply go away.’
Nupe.
‘They must be defeated, caged, and only released when the conditions that created them are eradicated.’
Yoop.
‘The normals will have to be trained in the new way of engaging in politics’
They’ll need to be de-programmed and introduced — gradually — to reality and the truth. Burn down their inner strongholds.
It’d take a full spiritual and cultural transformation, and I’d expect an unprecedented time of trouble, for the spirit of that trouble long has been ensconced and enthroned in the land.
Yeah I don’t think gradual de-programming is going to work. That would require the entire media/academic axis controlled by the left to be shifted right. That’s not happening anytime soon. A blitzkrieg-style destruction of all they hold dear is really the only possible solution with a mop up operation on the back side.
The crazies are indeed everywhere – in my golf league, in my wife’s exercise class, hell, in our families – you name it. Right thinkers like most of us around here are still a substantial minority, or at least that’s my observation. I rarely air my true thoughts, even around people I know well, let alone those I don’t. I hope I live to see the day when the whackos are on the run and truth can truly be spoken w/o fear of retribution.
Down at the very bottom of the NYT piece, there is a short bio on Peter Baker. Says he is covering his sixth presidency. That takes us back to 1992, or perhaps 1988. It is good that Trump stands out to him in contrast. His “sin” is not so much in seeing Trump is radical as it is in seeing the way things were done in that era as normal or desirable. The “solution” to “dealing” with such people is not to reason with them, or try to negotiate with them (like the civnat right), but to ignore them, to… Read more »
I like the comparison to post-Soviet Russia and our road to recovery. It would seem however, that we face a much tougher challenge just on the human capital side. Your average Soviet citizen understood their government was always lying, as the old saw “they pretended to pay us and we pretended to work” illustrates. In the GAE, we are dealing with a significant portion (30%? 40%?) of our population that is- what is the medical term?- bat shit crazy. Plus all the hostile foreigners we’ve imported. The Soviets had and maintained their Russian pride and connections to their history and… Read more »
Zman has commented extensively on the Cloud-Dirt dialectic. The media Narrative is just another dimension of this dialectic. The crazies don’t realize that their Narrative got so ridiculously detached from reality that it lost credibility. You could BS people about foreign aid, a few cholos in their neighborhood, Obamacare and “fairness/access” blah blah for a long time. But eventually the levies broke under the pressure of the floodwaters of reality – 50%+ price increases for everything, neighborhoods overrun by illegals, the DOGE revelations etc. This is the history of all corrupt regime propaganda – it’s hard to “spin” the presence… Read more »
“The crazies will not simply go away. They must be defeated, caged, and only released when the conditions that created them are eradicated.” Call me crazy but I think the communists, national socialists & hardline dictators throughout history had the right idea in removing these people for good. The methodology doesn’t have to be as extreme, we have a past precedent of lobotomizing & sterilizing retards, nutcases, freaks & degenerates & keeping them locked up in asylums. That was considered completely normal before the small hats & bleeding hearts convinced everyone psychiatric drugs transformed maladaptive degenerates into civilized people. We… Read more »
Speaking of psychiatric drugs, no doubt the majority of the crazies we’re presently lamenting are so prescribed.
Good point, with that we already know exactly who needs proper treatment.
The civnats have their “universal truth” beliefs that go back to the “all men are created equal” nonsense. I don’t know how in the world they can believe that peoples from vastly different cultures want the same things from life, but they do.
It’s called “projection”. They assume all others must want the same things as them, hence beaners becoming “natural conservatives”.
Kind of like how Hebrews project that Germany must have holocausted them, because that’s what they would do if they had dominion over other tribes, as evidenced by their behavior towards Gaza or the Book of Joshua.