Category Archives: Trump

The Clash Of Visions

Posted on by

The New Hampshire primary turned out about how most sober minded people expected, with Trump cruising to victory. As expected, regime media and those in the anti-Trump cult have quickly moved onto other things. Even though the narrative on this election has been wrong so far, these people were sure the gods would deliver them from the terrible Orange Man in New Hampshire. Now they will update the script for the South Carolina primary in a few weeks.

Even though the New Hampshire primary was not a surprise to normal people, it does have a few things worth noting. One is the turnout. In 2016 when all of this was new and exciting, about two hundred and sixty thousand people voted on the Republican side, with Trump getting one hundred thousand votes. This time, with the results known in advance, three hundred thousand voted on the Republican side and Trump got one hundred and sixty thousand votes or fifty-four percent.

Further, exit polling says that only about a third of the people voting would call themselves “MAGA”, by which they mean part of the Trump movement. We do not have similar polling from 2016, but it is reasonable to say that most of Trump’s vote during those crazy days would declare themselves part of the movement. You also have to consider the fact that even Trump’s most loyal fans would find it weird to ask them if they were part of the MAGA movement, as if it is a club.

Even so, it says that people were voting for different reasons this time. Various anti-Trump groups poured money into the state to boost other candidates. Mikki Haley spent over twenty million on ads. The DNC spent millions last year getting their voters to switch to undeclared so they could vote in the GOP primary. About half of the Republican primary voters were undeclared, so it is reasonable to assume many will vote Democrat in the general.

What the regime tried to do with a fair bit of success is turn the Republican primary into a general election by flooding the voting booth with Democrats. It explains why Haley dropped her “tough conservative gal from the South” routine and morphed into “I want to speak to the manager” feminist hero. Her people had her go out and praise Hillary Clinton because they knew that half the voters probably voted for Hillary over Trump and would like to do it again.

It also tells us something about the dynamics of this election. This is not the 2016 election where people voted for Trump for the same reason the drunk guy in the crowd mooned the king or shouted derogatory things at him. In 2016, Trump was for many voters a harmless protest vote. In 2024 it means something different because things have gotten much worse since then. Note that for the first time primary voters put immigration at the top of their concerns.

There is something else here that may be driving a new dynamic in this election and that is the open shenanigans in this process. Think about the sort of person who schemes up a plan to get Democrats to vote in the other party’s primary a year in advance in order to subvert the will of the voters. This is a level of sociopathy that few people think is possible. Serial killers are not this devious. The people claiming to defend democracy are now out front with these schemes.

Of course, such a scheme only works if there are people willing to do it. Years of interacting with people who put up signs on their lawn promoting the latest thing is slowly changing how normal people see things. Thirty years ago, the typical suburban peasant thought they just needed find the right person to say the truth the right way and these people would see the light. Today, the typical suburban peasant thinks the woman with the BLM sign might be better off in another country.

What the typical suburban peasant is waking up to, even though he cannot articulate it, is that we are living in a clash of visions. The people on the other side of that sign explaining all the things that go on in that house have a view of the world that is completely different from most people. That vision often assumes that the people without such signs are what stands between them and the future. The vision of the self-anointed says the benighted are the problem.

This is because when they talk about “democracy” they are not talking about the mechanics of picking office holders. They imagine a society in which all of the moral questions have been solved. The only thing left is figuring out how to quickly attain diversity, inclusion and equality. Further, they assume that everyone must want this, unless they are evil, so the only reason we have not “made progress” is that these evil people are using shenanigans to confuse the masses.

In contrast, the typical suburban peasant imagines a world where he has a job he enjoys, friends to grill with and watch ball games and a chance give his kids a better life than he got from his parents. For him, democracy is about picking the best office holders who will take turns buggering through the problems. In most cases, the typical suburban peasant prefers the guy who will do very little, as things could always get worse so best not to rock the boat too hard.

It is not just that one vision is radical and utopian and the other conservative and pragmatic, but that the former sees the destruction of the latter as a proper and necessary part of their program. What we are seeing in this election could be a sign that the typical suburban peasant is waking up to this reality. It is not just that the middle-aged white woman with the BLM sign is wrong, but that she represents a danger to the life and welfare of the typical suburban peasant.

Whether or not this awakening among the typical suburban peasant is happening can be debated, but we can be sure he has yet to arrive at the solution. There can be no compromise in this clash of visions. When the ends of one side are the destruction of the other, the only plausible response for the other side is to seek the same. As more suburban peasants wake up to the reality of sign lady, more will inevitably arrive at the only solution that guarantees their survival.

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: Good Svffer is an online retailer partnering with several prolific content creators on the Dissident Right, both designing and producing a variety of merchandise including shirts, posters, and books. If you are looking for a way to let the world know you are one of us without letting the world know you are one one is us, then you should but a shirt with the Lagos Trading Company logo.

The Pepper Cave produces exotic peppers, pepper seeds and plants, hot sauce and seasonings. Their spice infused salts are a great add to the chili head spice armory, so if you are a griller, take you spice business to one of our guys.

Above Time Coffee Roasters are a small, dissident friendly company that roasts its own coffee and ships all over the country. They actually roast the beans themselves based on their own secret coffee magic. If you like coffee, buy it from these folks as they are great people who deserve your support.

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.

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 sa***@mi*********************.com.

TV Time In Tiny Town

Posted on by

Whether anyone likes it or not, the 2024 election kicks off officially tonight with a debate in Tiny Town between eight midgets vying for the Republican nomination. According to the strict standards for selecting the performers for this show, the cast will be Doug Burgum, Chris Christie, Ron DeSantis, Nikki Haley, Asa Hutchinson, Mike Pence, Vivek Ramaswamy and Tim Scott. These eight campaigns claim to have met the requirements set forth by the producers of the show.

This will be the first time anyone has seen Doug Burgum, whose name is often pronounced “bugman” by less scrupulous commentators. He is the current governor of North Dakota, a place few Americans can find on a map. Similarly, Asa Hutchinson will be introducing himself to the world, despite having spent the last half century in politics, mostly in Washington. He is the former governor of Arkansas and the man who championed the mutilation of children.

There used to be a time when the pundits would handicap these things in terms of what each candidate must do to help themselves in the debate. The game was to pretend all of them had an equal chance, so if they took the advice of the pundits, then they could become more equal than the others. For political people, this used to be a fun part of the process, but now that we know our elections are like professional wrestling, normal people have no interest in pretending otherwise.

Then there is the orange elephant in the room. There should be a fifteen-foot orange elephant on the stage with Donald Trump’s face on it, so the performers keep looking over at it as they read their lines. That would be both wildly entertaining and an honest presentation of what is really happening. The eight dwarfs are auditioning for the role of not-Trump, because they have been told that the real Trump will soon be behind bars or disqualified from the party’s nomination.

Given that all of the performers know this, the first reason to watch is for any clues as to the timing and circumstances of Trump’s removal. With the exception of Ramaswamy, none of these guys are working math puzzles in their free time. One of them is bound to say the quiet part aloud in the heat of the moment. The betting favorite in this regard is Chris Christie, who is playing the jilted lover role. He is there to trash Trump and eat donuts and they will not be serving donuts onstage.

That brings up another good reason to watch. Team DeSantis let slip that their guy was going to attack Ramaswamy in the debate. DeSantis is a career politician and he has proven himself adept at handling hostile media. He no doubt thinks he can take this young whipper snapper down a few pegs. Ramaswamy is an unusually smooth operator on his feet. Maybe this is where DeSantis shows himself to be a skilled debater or maybe this is where his campaign ends.

Of course, none of this is ever on the level. Fox News is hosting this show and they were just busted stacking the audience. There is little chance that the general audience is a true sampling of the public. We will get of the post-debate narrative by the reaction of the actors placed in the audience. Their job will be to cheer the planned winner and jeer the planned loser. The betting window remains open for your bets on who will be declared the winner, regardless of the results.

Right now, the oddsmakers have Ramaswamy as the betting favorite to win the crowd, but the smart money is on Tim Scott, followed by Mike Pence. The reason is the narrative will be about gravitas, the abracadabra word the media uses to anoint someone without having to explain it. The narrative will be about how normal the debate was without Trump and how we got to see the gravitas of the guy they are trying to sell as the winner of the evening’s performance.

This brings up the side bets, which are always fun. Which of these idiots will be the most cringe tonight? Which one will get caught in a loop and repeat his/her catch phrase over and over to no effect? Which one will be programmed so poorly that you expect to see a question mark appear over his head? Amusingly, the betting favorites here are also Tim Scott and Mike Pence. These two would make for a fun episode of robot wars, so they are good bets.

Then we have the wildcard action. In a sign that maybe the narrative writers are struggling to pick a winner from the cast of Tiny Town, the story of tonight could be that none of them are fit for the role. Instead, the story will be a totally authentic call for a savior, someone like Glenn Youngkin, who is the governor of Virginia and pals with all the right people in Washington. You would have to be a very cynical person to think that the usual suspects are plotting such a thing.

In the end, the main reason to care about this ridiculous farce is that Tucker will be interviewing Trump at the same time this show is happening. Clearly, Tucker and Trump are doing this to spite Fox News. It will be interesting to see the numbers for the Tucker show on Twitter. Fox will lie about their rating because that is what they do, but we will get a sense of it from the Twitter numbers. If Twitter shows more than five million views, then it was a very bad night in Tiny Town.

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. The Pepper Cave produces exotic peppers, pepper seeds and plants, hot sauce and seasonings. Their spice infused salts are a great add to the chili head spice armory.

Above Time Coffee Roasters are a small, dissident friendly company that roasts its own coffee and ships all over the country. They actually roast the beans themselves based on their own secret coffee magic. If you like coffee, buy it from these folks as they are great people who deserve your support.

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.

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 sa***@mi*********************.com</a

A Surprise Ending

Posted on by

The latest indictments of Donald Trump are a good example of how narrative is a controlling feature of the managerial state. This is the fourth batch of indictments and arguably the most ridiculous. The players on the side of the regime are like characters from a racial satire. The fact that they accidentally posted the results before the grand jury vote is what we have come to expect in the crisis of competency. It is as if the regime is trying to prove the critics are right.

Putting aside the idiocy of it all, the interesting bit is how narrative drives the actions of the elites even when the narrative is false. They come up with a scenario for how things will unfold in their favor over some period of time. This gains circulation among the elites and their key servants in the managerial class. Those key servants then announce the narrative to the media, who then scurry about repeating it in various ways until it becomes the consensus.

We see this with the Trump indictments. Before the first indictment, there were rumors about the Department of Justice looking into Trump. Then we had some stories about pressure on Merrick Garland to appoint a special investigator to look into Trump’s role in the January 6 stuff. It was at this point the key servants arrived to deliver the narrative on the Trump indictment. They wrote op-eds and appeared on cable chat shows to explain to the media what will happen.

What would happen is this. Trump would be indicted for mean words and one of three things would follow. He would be disqualified under the 14th amendment. He would drop out of the race. The Republican Party would disqualify him. All of this assumed that once he was indicted, his support would collapse. The only people supporting him would be QAnon weirdos and election deniers. This could then be used to pressure him if pressure were needed.

Once the official narrative was announced, the race was on to be the star of the show that got the ball rolling. The affirmative action guy in New York pulled the lucky ticket and indicted Trump for the crime of paying his bills on time. The excitement among the media was as if they were waiting for the Great Pumpkin to arrive. They were about to see the fulfillment of the narrative. Trump showed up, got charged and then continued campaigning as his popularity spiked up.

It took a little while for the media to figure out that the narrative was not playing out as they had been promised. CNN had a townhall hosted by their new you-go-girl that was supposed to be a roasting of Trump over his legal issues. To their horror, you-go-girl was not as good on stage as on the couch. Trump all but put her over his knee for a good spanking. Worse yet, the audience turned on the bimbo and laughed along with Trump at the idiocy of the whole thing.

Instead of backtracking on the narrative, we got two sets of Federal indictments of Trump, along with the same story lines from the prior indictment. The only thing missing was a Greek chorus chanting, “We got him this time. There is no way he escapes the narrative after this indictment.” Of course, in both cases Trump’s polling has gone up as people begin to see him as a victim of a malevolent system. At this point, the official Trump narrative should have collapsed.

Instead, we have a fresh batch of indictments. There is also word that other states with crackpot governors are looking to indict Trump. It is becoming something like the iPod craze back in the before times. All of the fashionable people in the provinces now want an indictment of Trump like the cool people have in the big cities. At this rate, the Europeans will be indicting Trump. Maybe they can drag him to the Hague for crimes against humanity for eating his steak well done.

Note that in each effort to push the narrative along the focus has been on humiliating Trump in the process. In this new show from Georgia, the first thing they did was announce that they will mugshot Trump and spread the pic online. The fact that they continue to think they can humiliate this man by making him more popular is a staggering indictment of these people. Trump will be selling shirts with his mugshot on them to raise millions for his campaign.

The Trump business is just a recent example. The war on Russia has been controlled by elite narrative framing. It is the same process. They created a narrative of Russian collapse and instead of updating the narrative in the face of disconfirmation, they reinvent the narrative with new features, like a counter-offensive or now the new spring of 2024 Ukrainian offensive. No matter what reality is doing, the narrative must be protected, even if it could bring disaster.

This is something to keep in mind as the economy falters this autumn. People in the dreaded private sector will tell you that things are not great in the economy, and it has all the signs of a recession. Inflation is not defeated, despite claims to the contrary, and oil prices are rising just in time for the heating season. The rise in the cost of money is starting to have its effect on the economy. Now China is admitting that it is headed to recession, due to slack demand from the West.

This is happening while the regime prepares to run the corpse of Joe Biden as the man who not only saved the world from Trump, but the man who singlehandedly saved the economy from disaster. The key servants have been out instructing the media on the new narrative about the economy. This means we will be flooded with stories about the economic miracle just as the economy is tipping into recession. Such a disconnect is the sort of thing that causes revolutions.

That is what may be the death of our regime. The people at the top of it live in a world of narratives that are independent of reality. They are so sure they can compel reality to fit their version of reality that they cannot imagine an alternative ending. The Tsar, no doubt, could not imagine an alternative ending to his narrative. The many people who met the national razor never were shocked by the end to their narrative. Our rulers may be in for a surprise ending too.

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. The Pepper Cave produces exotic peppers, pepper seeds and plants, hot sauce and seasonings. Their spice infused salts are a great add to the chili head spice armory.

Above Time Coffee Roasters are a small, dissident friendly company that roasts its own coffee and ships all over the country. They actually roast the beans themselves based on their own secret coffee magic. If you like coffee, buy it from these folks as they are great people who deserve your support.

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.

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 sa***@mi*********************.com.

Past And Present

Posted on by

This week we have seen two more contenders join the Republican primary field, promising to be happy warriors to save America. Tim Scott from South Carolina and Ron DeSantis of Florida bring the field to eight, as far as the candidates with any chance of getting on the debate stage. With the exception of Trump and Ramaswamy, the field is all doing some version of conservative nostalgia. That is a mix of the crucible, the covenant, and the creed.

That last bit comes from a short little book titled After Nationalism which describes the three main ways the American ruling class has unified the country. The crucible is the melting pot story of America. The covenant is the claim that America has a special purpose in the world. The creed is the old familiar civic nationalist argument that America is just a collection of ideas. Conservatism has relied on all three to market candidates and programs over the years.

The theme of the book is that those three unifying narratives are no longer working as the country devolves into warring tribes. You can see that in the presentation from the Republican candidates as they announce their campaigns. The Tim Scott show was like a 1990’s Conservative Inc. fantasy about the black vote. The DeSantis campaign teased his announcement with this ad on Twitter, which is Bush era patriotism without the promise of a crusade against Islam.

What the Republican primary is going to give us is another unhealthy dose of the old conservative formula. On the one hand, you are supposed to ignore the fact that you live around people who look nothing like you. On the other hand, you are supposed to focus on those nebulous ideals that allegedly define America. As long as everyone forgets about the long list of harms that have been inflicted on them over the last several decades, we can unite to save the country!

The one exception to all of this is Trump, who is a weird product of the two main forces colliding in the present moment. The one force is the old civic nationalism that held the white middle-class together and tightly bound it to both the Republican party and the political system itself. The other force is the radical changes unleashed by the ruling elites who no longer believe in the old civic nationalism. Trump and his fans exist in that incoherent vortex created by these colliding forces.

In fairness to Ron DeSantis, he seems to share the moral outrage of the average white person over the things we are seeing. His opposition to the sexualization of children is genuine, as well as his opposition to the tribal politics of the Left. Unlike the rest of the field opposing Trump, DeSantis is a normal person who is properly offended by the lunacy that has been unleashed on normal people. Like most normal people, he does not understand why this is happening.

The terms Left and Right have lost their meaning, but we still use them because we have nothing else at the moment. We can, however, see the vague outlines of a new scale developing when we look at the Republican field. Instead of the old 20th century poles of Hitler at one end and Stalin at the other, the new poles are the post-Marx culture warriors at one end and the biological realists at the other. The former is more fully developed, while the latter is still evolving.

Most of the Republican field is left of center. They largely agree with the moral claims of the culture warriors. They disagree, mildly, with their tactics. Tim Scott has no real objection to the antiwhite pogroms run by the military, for example, he just worries that they make it more difficult to wage pointless wars of choice. Nikki Haley is fine with the woke capital media campaigns, but her consultants tell her that she has to pretend to be upset about these things when she is interviewed.

DeSantis is one guy right of center on this stuff. He does not agree with the culture warriors, but he thinks the old system remains intact and that these weirdos are just random lunatics that have slipped their leash. He thinks the system can deal with these people without making any changes to the system. All we have to do is go back to our American principles. In other words, he is a guy who sees the iceberg, but he does not appreciate the part under the water.

On this scale, Trump lies just to the right of DeSantis. In fact, the main difference is style, owing to the difference in temperament. DeSantis responds to the current madness by pulling out the rule book. Trump responds to the current madness by throwing a chair out the window. It is not that either man is more or less offended by what is happening. They have different personalities and different worldviews, based on vastly different lives, so they react differently.

Even so, Trump is still in the camp that thinks the system can solve this crisis, if the right people are running the system. Viscerally he senses that this may not be true which helps explain his vacillation. Since Trump came on the scene, he has been hearing the distant calls of right-wing nationalism, but he lacks the understanding to make out what is being said. He is a man being pulled in multiple directions because he senses that something is terribly wrong with the system.

This conflict between the past and the present is why the Republicans are about to replay their 2016 primary. They have a more diverse field than in 2016 and Trump is not viewed as a novelty act. DeSantis is a better version of Ted Cruz, but he is occupying the same place as Cruz occupied in the 2016 race. Trump, of course, is an improved version of himself, having suffered the full force of the regime. He is not just a rambunctious rebuke, but a legitimate victim of the regime.

Even so, this replay of the 2016 election is due to the fact that the party and the country are stuck in the past. Everything about our present politics is backward looking, as if no one really wants to face up to the present. The 2016 election should have broken both parties free of the past, but instead it made them cling tighter. This election will be a reboot of the old franchise, not because the original was so good, but because no one can think of anything new that better fits the times.

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. The Pepper Cave produces exotic peppers, pepper seeds and plants, hot sauce and seasonings. Their spice infused salts are a great add to the chili head spice armory.

Above Time Coffee Roasters are a small, dissident friendly company that roasts its own coffee and ships all over the country. They actually roast the beans themselves based on their own secret coffee magic. If you like coffee, buy it from these folks as they are great people who deserve your support.

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.

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 sa***@mi*********************.com.

The Conquest Of Paradise

Posted on by

Donald Trump faced his accusers yesterday and did so with a degree of seriousness that has been rare during his time in politics. He was somber and serious throughout the legal portion of the show. Presumably he had agreed in advance to not say anything to the public while in New York. When he returned to his villa in Florida he gave a very serious speech to the assembled supporters, which was a blend of sadness and a serious response to the day’s events.

The striking thing about the speech at his villa was that is actually captured the mood of the country at the moment, at least the mood of heritage America. There was a funerial vibe to the event. Opening with the old Lee Greenwood song was a reminder of how things used to be, but also of how they will never be again. That song was for a people who loved and respected their country, but that country no longer exists, so the song sounds increasingly ridiculous.

Yesterday, the door was finally closed on the America that created the people who signed onto the MAGA movement and voted for Donald Trump. In their America, you fight things out in the court of public opinion, shake hands and leave it to the voters to decide who won. In whatever the new rulers plan to call whatever it is they think they are creating, those with power crush those without power. There is no longer a place for the spirited civic nationalism of Donald Trump.

Another striking feature of the event was that most people looking on from their couch wanted to hear a beer hall speech, not a boardroom speech. In private conversations people are slowly shifting from talk about how to fix things to talk about how to get revenge on the people who smashed things. Maybe it is the usual suspects laughing about a tranny slaughtering innocents children. Maybe it is the persecution of Trump, but the mood if shifting among the Dirt People.

The trouble is there is no one capable of giving the beer hall speech. Even if such a person is around to do it, the people in charge are regularly warning that they will crush anyone who dares give such a speech. The crooked judge assigned to the Trump case promised to strip Trump of his right to speak in public if he incited violence, which in this age means speaking out against the regime. The regime is populated with stupid people, but they are also paranoid.

Of course, the question that lies at the heart of it all, the question that haunts the anger and sadness of heritage America, is how did it get to this? Honest people, willing to think clearly about things, understand that in the America they thought was real, there is no need for a Donald Trump. There is no need to fire a warning shot at the rulers, because there are no rulers, just politicians seeking approval. They do not need to be warned by the voters like this.

It is the age-old question. How is it that something that seems to work, something that everyone seems to support, go from what it is supposed to be to something that no one wanted or demanded? When Caesar prepared to march on Rome, he no doubt wondered how it reached that point. As Trump prepared to surrender himself, he posted on his site that he could not believe they were going through with it. He was no doubt wondering how it all went so wrong.

The demise of old America was written in the soul of it when the American empire was formed in the beginning of the last century. In “The Devil and Daniel Webster”, a short story written in the 1930’s, a farmer named Jabez Stone, from Cross Corners, New Hampshire, offers up his soul for seven years of prosperity. When the Devil arrives to collect his soul, Stone hires a lawyer named Webster to defend him. Webster is able to convince a jury picked by the Devil to rule for his client.

The story is primarily about patriotism, but a peculiar form of patriotism that was sold to Americans at the time. Unlike the nationalism of the Old World, American patriotism was devotion to a set of ideas. The reason Webster was able to out lawyer the Devil was he explained what it meant to be an American to the jury and they agreed that America would always have a greater claim to an American’s soul than even the Devil holding a properly executed contract.

For generations Americans have been taught to accept this naïve and foolish belief that trust in the rules is enough to keep even the Devil in line. As long as we believe the words on the paper, everything falls into place. The result is one devil after another taking up residence in the system. Look around the high ground of America and it is impossible to find anyone who abides by the rules. They exercise their power for their own advantage, regardless of the rules.

When you invite the Devil into the garden, even a civic nationalist paradise like 20th century America will eventually succumb to temptation. Unlike the short story from the beginning of this tragedy, there is no talking our way out of it. The Devil always gets his due and for the civic nationalists, that means the conquest of their paradise by the people with whom they made the unholy bargain at the start. There will be no talking these devils out of their due.

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. The Pepper Cave produces exotic peppers, pepper seeds and plants, hot sauce and seasonings. Their spice infused salts are a great add to the chili head spice armory.

Above Time Coffee Roasters are a small, dissident friendly company that roasts its own coffee and ships all over the country. They actually roast the beans themselves based on their own secret coffee magic. If you like coffee, buy it from these folks as they are great people who deserve your support.

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.

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 sa***@mi*********************.com.

The Case Against Trump

Posted on by

Note: Is the man in your life a lifeless lump on the couch? Is the little lady acting more like an old lady? Need to add some spice to your life? Then head over to Minter & Richter for a jar or two of their hot sauce.

The January 6 committee has finally wrapped up its work with a series of criminal referrals for Donald Trump. Exactly no one is surprised by this result, as this was obviously the point of the charade from the start. The only people surprised by the ending are the cranks and crazies that still bang on about Trump. The one interesting thing about this is that it highlights the defining feature of the people who compose the core of the anti-Trump cult.

There are two big questions with this latest development. The first is whether the Department of Justice will go ahead and indict Trump. Merrick Garland has been under intense pressure from the crazies to throw Trump in jail, but he has so far found a way to avoid deciding. He just appointed one of their favorite goofballs to operate as a special prosecutor. It was a delaying tactic, much in the way that the appointment of John Durham was a way to run out the clock.

Garland is a bloodthirsty fanatic like the rest of his cult, but he understands the danger of bearing his fangs in public. If he makes it too obvious that his cult no longer has any respect for the people or institutions of the country, there could be trouble. These people believe deeply in the power of narrative, so the narrative builders are busy inventing new stories to provide the content creators in the media. These things take time, so the final call is probably months away.

The other big question is whether this is good for us. There are a few schools of thought on the whole throw Trump in jail business. The conventional school is that even though everyone knows this is Stalinist nonsense, it is another blow to his brand, which is dying from a thousand cuts right now. The cumulative effect of these assaults is slowly marginalizing Trump. At some point, Trump will have to agree to go out with a whimper and thus leave his supporters without a leader.

That seems to be the thinking of the anti-Trump cultists. They think they are the white hats with the support of the public. The counter is that Trump is once again blessed with the best enemies. Just when people get tired of his act, his opponents remind the world that Trump stirs the passions of the most loathsome, vulgar people at the center of the current crisis. No man has been blessed with the volume of free media as Trump and this is just more free attention.

There are other scenarios for how this plays out. Garland could formerly charge Trump and then the Republicans mount a “totally spontaneous and authentic” campaign to remove him from primary ballots. In the same way they engineered Congressman Steve King’s exit from politics, they would run the same scam on Trump. By coordinating with the other party, they would pretend they are simply protecting the party from this obviously bad man.

From a dissident perspective, this would be manna from heaven. No one would be fooled by this and it would bolster the case for boycotting the party. The only thing keeping many people engaged with Republican politics is the hope that the highly corrupt leadership could one day be replaced. Trump is their symbol of hope, so his engineered removal by party leaders would be the final straw. Millions of Trump voters would suddenly start thinking about boycotting the system.

Even if the Republican party sits this out, Trump getting hauled away in chains is good news for dissidents. Given what has been revealed about the FBI’s involvement in censuring speech on-line and the DOJ running a domestic spying operation on Congress, it is hard to not see the bananas in this republic. Biden having his political rival thrown in prison on manufactured charges would instantly vaporize support for the system as a whole.

George Washington famously said that the last act of any government is to loot the treasury, but he turns out to have been wrong. In pre-ideological societies, this was probably a fair observation. Like the rest of the Founders, Washington was deeply influenced by the English Civil War. He had ancestors who fought on the side of the king, so it was more than just historical. In the age before ideology, money was what eventually broke the legitimacy of government.

In the ideological age, the final acts of the government are about snuffing out the last flames of love the people have for the cause. The Soviets eventually made even the most loyal communists cynical. Mao had to murder a lot of people, but eventually the ChiComs lost faith in communism. Of course, the final acts of revolutionary France were to bring the Jacobins to meet Madame Guillotine. As with marriage, when the love for the cause fades, the relationship soon dies.

That is the way to look at this Trump business and all the other stuff that has been revealed over the last decade. The loathsome degenerates parading across the political stage rely on public faith in the system. Every outrage undermines that faith until a tipping point is reached. Maybe it is Trump being thrown in a dungeon or maybe it is something else, but the tipping point is always closer than we think. Godspeed anti-Trumpers, Godspeed.

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. Above Time Coffee Roasters are a small, dissident friendly company that makes coffee. They actually roast the beans themselves based on their own secret coffee magic. If you like coffee, buy it from these folks as they are great people who deserve your support.

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.

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 sa***@mi*********************.com.

Trump 2.0

Posted on by

In the before times, Bill Buckley would claim that he could know everything about a man’s politics based on his opinion of Israel and abortion. These were clarifying issues that did not easily allow for nuance or ambivalence. If you had any politics at all, you had an opinion on these issues. To some degree it is still true, but the clarifying issue of this age is Donald Trump. You cannot engage in politics at any level without having a position on the most famous pitch man in history.

All politicians, once they become famous, evoke strong opinions. This is due to the hive mindedness of the ruling class. For them, the friend-enemy distinction has come to dominate every aspect of their being. They have imposed this binary mindset on the culture so everyone, even the least informed, feels they must have a strong opinion on everyone and everything that is in the news. These opinions are moral signifiers that users wear like badges to indicate group affiliations.

Trump is something different. His biggest fans can and often do talk about his many faults as a politician. They can list all of the failures of his administration, while also praising him as a man and president. Many have fallen into a cult-like trance, but most of his fans are clear-eyed about the reality of the man. Despite his many faults and failures, they remain loyal to him because of what he represents. He is the ultimate protest candidate for people not allowed to protest.

For dissidents he has mostly been an amusing bull in the China shop, creating havoc among the beautiful people. Lots of people on this side foolishly thought he was going to be a something other than Donald Trump once he got into office, so they are still a bit salty about Trump, but they did enjoy the show. Others saw Trump as a chaos agent who created havoc in the enemy camp. The demise of conservatism was underway, but Trump swung a wrecking ball through it.

Last night Trump made it official. He will be running for president in 2024 and he is the prohibitive favorite to be the Republican nominee. The usual suspects are now rushing out to play their role in the drama. Here is state media making sure the drones in their cult know that Donald Trump hates democracy. The yesterday men of conservatism are doing their same old act. Then you have the moral panic crowd promising to be as ridiculous as ever.

Many on this side of the great divide are not thrilled by this. Again, some are still salty over falling for the god-empower stuff. Others, like RamZPaul, think Trump is too old and want someone younger. Ron DeSantis is half Trump’s age and seems to hold most of the same views as Trump. Having a young and more predictable version of Trump has obvious appeal. DeSantis has also shown that he understands government and could possibly get something done as president.

The other issue with the reboot of the Trump franchise is that his act feels dated now, like a now out of clothing style. When Trump bulldozed his way through the primaries and then the Clinton campaign, it was hilarious because it was refreshing to see someone give these people the business. His name calling and snide comments are not as funny now. His targets are just as loathsome, maybe more so, but Trump’s attacks just lack the same punch as 2016.

American politics is not kind to second acts. Pat Buchanan had a great run in 1992 but was largely ignored in 1996. Ron Paul had a similar run in 2008, but his 2012 reboot was a flop. Ross Perot is another example. Trump stands out because he won the primary and the general election, but like his populist predecessors, he will face strong headwinds from an audience not fond of reboots and sequels. That and the GOP will call in their vote counters this time around.

That is the critical question for dissidents. Is it better that they steal the 2024 election from Trump or is it better that they steal it from someone else? What happens if the GOP assembles their dream ticket of Nikki Hailey and Tim Scott only to see the magic of mail in votes hand the election to Biden? That is the other piece of the puzzle that has been ignored. It now appears likely that Joe Biden will be the first zombie to top the ballot for a major party.

On the other hand, what if the GOP rigs their primary this time and they assemble their dream ticket despite strong opposition from the voters? Pulling shenanigans on DeSantis or someone else would not get much attention. If they do this to Trump, it will be a disaster for the party. Given the corruption and incompetence of party leadership, this is a very possibility. Keep in mind that Democrats did this to install Joe Biden as their nominee in 2020, so it a strong possibility.

There is plenty to chew on for dissidents with regards to Trump 2.0, but now the debate must shift from whether he should run to how best to take advantage of it. Trump made the call and he will no doubt spend 2023 barnstorming the country doing rallies and media events to keep himself in the news. As with 2016, this has to be viewed as nothing more than an opportunity to change some minds. Who knows? Maybe Kanye West will join him on the campaign trail.

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. Above Time Coffee Roasters are a small, dissident friendly company that makes coffee. They actually roast the beans themselves based on their own secret coffee magic. If you like coffee, buy it from these folks as they are great people who deserve your support.

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 sa***@mi*********************.com.

Lesson Of Trump #3

Posted on by

Note: I have a post up behind the green door on the 1997 movie The Devil’s Own, starting Brad Pitt and Harrison Ford.

Perhaps in the future, this day will be called day zero of year zero, signifying the official closing of one era and the start of a new one. The installation of Joe Biden as president marks the end of the old civic nationalist America and the beginning of the new managerial state. Competitive elections and open debate of the old era have been swept away in favor of ceremonial elections and speech codes. The managerial class has formally seized control of the country.

No one can look at what is going on in the country and think any of it is normal or that returning to normal is possible. Even if Washington wanted to return to normalcy, the last few months cannot be unseen. Joe Biden will take the oath of office behind layers of razor wire, guarded more than a full army division. The imperial capital looks like it is under occupation and it very well may remain this way. The new regime is extremely paranoid, convulsed by increasingly bizarre conspiracy theories.

This is the big lesson of the Trump years. The nature and psychology of the managerial class began to transform after the end of the Cold War. Little by little it was becoming a closed and insulated culture sitting atop of the general culture. The system looked the same from the outside, two parties competing for votes and the right to dispense the benefits of power, but inside it was changing. It was becoming a distinct culture and the people in that culture were becoming class aware.

Viewed in this context, the 2016 election of Donald Trump was the catalyst for the final phase of this process, the end of which is unfolding now.  The political system in America is now a closed shop, like a sports league. Just as you cannot buy a sports team without first being approved by the other owners, you can no longer win a federal election without first being vetted by the managerial class. The razor wire barriers are the manifestation of this closing of the managerial elite.

It is not just the political marketplace that has been closed off. America is no longer a market economy. This is another thing that has accelerated into plain sight during the Trump years. The shuttering of the social media site Parler is a great example of how the marketplace no longer exists in a conventional sense. All of its vendors gave up their business with the company, because the people running those firms are loyal to their class, not the abstract principles of the marketplace.

This will become increasingly clear as the new regime takes control. The big economic players like the banks or the tech giants are no longer subject to the marketplace in any meaningful way. For example, if angry consumers swore off Amazon, not much would change for Amazon as they control the logistics for the companies those angry consumers would use in place of Amazon. Mastercard can black list anyone because they are a part of a cartel that has no competition.

This will be the hardest lesson for people to accept. Every generation of Americans walking the earth right now has been conditioned to believe the marketplace is the final arbiter of all disputes. Despite all that has gone on, most people cannot accept that there is no marketplace in large swaths of the economy. They still respond to the bogeyman of socialism, despite the fact America has been a socialist country for close to a century now. We are now a command-and-control economy.

Of course, all of this is coming with something even more ominous. For example, the tech giants volunteered to work with the FBI to get the protestors they have now labeled insurrectionists, which is an important change in tone. This public-private partnership comes naturally, as the people involved see one another as members of the same class, at war with the same enemy. Silicon Valley is officially the signal intelligence arm of the surveillance state.

This year the regime will roll out the Covid passports, which will be required to get on public transport. Soon, they will be required to do anything. This is the beginning of the social credit system, where your internal passport is essentially a report card that is constantly updated based on your behavior. It starts with public health but will quickly moves to public safety. Surveillance capitalism will come into full bloom tarted up with the language of public safety and defending democracy.

In total, what the Trump phenomenon has revealed is the America most people thought was their country is gone. Politically, economically, demographically, and culturally, the old American has been replaced with this new society. The great reset, as the new regime bills it, is a dictatorship of the managerial class. That class is now largely closed off to the rest of us. Just as the nomenklatura had the house on the embankment, the managerial class has the walled institutions.

This is why the new regime is willing to bust up many of the institutions that had been instrumental in creating. Public distrust of the media is no longer important, as the new class is no longer subject to the voters. The media companies no longer worry about the audience, because what are you going to do, start your own Amazon? Create your own Hollywood? Mitch McConnell supports another impeachment, because he knows the party system is a farce. His loyalty to his class is what matters.

Michael Anton was right that Donald Trump was the Flight 93 president. Like that flight, the story was motivated by hope, but it was doomed from the start. Like that flight, it crashed and now can only serve as a warning and a rally point. For the new regime, it is a warning that their subjects will fight back if given the chance. For the rest of us, it is reminder that we can fight back, but success is not guaranteed. Resistance only works when no one has any illusions about what is being resisted.

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 sa***@mi*********************.com.

For sites like this to exist, it requires people like you chipping in a few bucks a month to keep the lights on and the people fed. It turns out that you can’t live on clicks and compliments. Five bucks a month is not a lot to ask. If you don’t want to commit to a subscription, make a one time donation. Or, you can send money to: Z Media LLC P.O. Box 432 Cockeysville, MD 21030-0432. You can also use PayPal to send a few bucks, rather than have that latte.

Lesson Of Trump #2

Posted on by

One of the ironies of the Trump phenomenon is that his most ardent supporters and his many opponents focused on the man, when it was never about the man. Ten years ago, no rational person would have picked Donald Trump as the face of populist discontent, much less the most consequential political figure in generations. When he ran, it was assumed it was a publicity stunt, as he had spent his life as an entertainment gadfly, finding ways to draw public attention to his real estate schemes.

Yet, as the Trump era draws to a close, both his supporters and his enemies have developed a political cult around the man. His supporters are sure he has some last trick up his sleeve to do something to save the country. His opponents are sure he has some trick up his sleeve to steal their democracy from them. So much so, in fact, they have turned the tiny internet fad called QAnon into a subversive conspiracy. There are more anti-Q fanatics now than genuine followers of it.

The thing is, Trump was always an opportunist. In fact, he is the extreme expression of the opportunist, which is how he went from Queens landlord to one of the most famous and successful real estate developers in the world. Real estate, especially the business of high-profile resort properties, is about opportunity. You find a deal before everyone else and cash in before the next big thing. Trump got rich finding the next big thing before everyone else realized that it was the next big thing.

Trump got into politics for all the same reasons everyone else runs for office in a modern liberal democracy. He wanted affirmation. Unlike the narcissistic robots that fill up both parties, Trump saw an opportunity outside the system. The swelling ranks of disaffected whites, unhappy with both parties, looked a lot like a neglected property with tremendous promise, if the right investor came along. Most important from Trump’s perspective, they were a motivated seller.

The first eager seller was Ann Coulter, who was one of the most prominent celebrities to get on the Trump train. Well before anyone thought Trump was a serious threat to the Republican nomination, she was saying he would not only win the nomination but win the general election. Queen Ann completely bought into Trump being the daddy she had been waiting for her whole political life. She went to war for Trump the man, believing he was the answer.

She was not alone in thinking Trump was the savior. The alt-right that had been forming up on-line in the Obama years also went all in on Trump. They convinced themselves he was the American Pinochet. Mike Enoch of The Right Stuff jumped on the Trump train with the same enthusiasm as Ann Coulter. Richard Spencer was a full-blown MAGA man. The alt-right went to war for Trump in the 2016 election, so much so that even Hillary Clinton felt the need to notice them.

The trouble is, Trump was never that man. He could never be that man. He could never have won the nomination and the general election if he was that man. Only an opportunist with no regard for what he was saying could have gamed the system the way he did in 2016. Unlike Pat Buchanan and Ross Perot who came before him, Donald Trump won because he was not constrained by the truth. Like every opportunist, he was only focused on exploiting the opportunity.

Of course, when this reality became too obvious to ignore, many people jumped off the Trump train and became droning critics. Like jilted lovers they could not stop talking about how the mean old orange man did them wrong. They were not wrong to point out Trump’s faults. Their error was in thinking he was their savior or that any man can be the savior in this political system. They were sure and remain sure that you can vote your way out of the defects of liberal democracy.

There are three lessons here. One is that Trump could never have existed without the realty of the masses that supported him. He was just a front runner, a guy who jumped to the head of a wave of people coming to terms with the fact that we are entering a new era of politics. With or without Trump, those people exist and will continue to exist with the same grievances and concerns. Just because the dull knight vanquished their champion, does not mean they cease to exist.

Another lesson is there is no way to reform this system. The sort of person who can win an election is either a careerist sellout like every member of the GOP or an outlandish outsider with no ability to govern. The only way forward for dissidents is to focus on building outside the system. A third of all adults and close to half of white people no longer think the system is legitimate. Every day the people in charge convert more people to this view with their authoritarian actions.

The final lesson here is that the old political labels are no longer relevant. That is what the Trump era demonstrated. It is no longer about conservative versus liberal or red team versus blue team. It is not socialism versus capitalism. It is about those who live in the lie of liberal democracy and those who live in the truth. If you live in the truth, you not only oppose the people running the system, but you also oppose the system that allows these criminal aliens to rule over us.

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 sa***@mi*********************.com.

For sites like this to exist, it requires people like you chipping in a few bucks a month to keep the lights on and the people fed. It turns out that you can’t live on clicks and compliments. Five bucks a month is not a lot to ask. If you don’t want to commit to a subscription, make a one time donation. Or, you can send money to: Z Media LLC P.O. Box 432 Cockeysville, MD 21030-0432. You can also use PayPal to send a few bucks, rather than have that latte.

Lesson Of Trump #1

Posted on by

Note: The Monday post is up on Taki. The general theme this week will naturally be about the installation of The Pretender onto the throne. I also have a movie post up behind the green door. If you are not a subscriber, you need to be.

As the military begins the process of installing The Pretender as the figurative leader of the American Empire, it is a good time to take stock of what has happened over the last five years. From the perspective of political psychology, the world all of us inhabit today is a vastly different one from the world of 2015. This includes the dissident right, which has been transformed by the Trump experience. In the before times, politics was all shades of gray, while today it is in black and white.

An obvious example is Conservative Inc. The Obama years were tough for those rackets, as it became clear to many conservative people that these guys cared more about how the Left thought of them than in advancing their issues. Compounding it was the refusal to address the failures of the Bush years. Even so, they really thought they could keep peddling hyper-violent Progressivism to conservatives, as long as they decorated it with pictures of Reagan.

That racket smashed onto the rocks of the Trump experience. Traffic for the old school neocon sites collapsed. The Weekly Standard folded. These people revealed themselves to be a blend of old school confidence men and petulant, nasty liars who hate the people they claim to represent. They still have an audience of chumps unable to smarten up, but otherwise Conservative Inc. has no audience. They exist because the Left thinks they are useful for now.

Further to that point, Libertarian Inc., a subsidiary of Conservative Inc., has also been exposed as a long con. The stripping of our ancient liberties by global enterprise should have been a great cause for libertarians. After all, systematically stripping people of their ability to exist is pretty much what libertarians claim to oppose, but the major organs were silent. A combination of graft and perfidy kept them focused on echoing Progressive talking points about the evil Donald Trump.

This has revealed something else. The dissident right is not ready to be the Dissident Right, despite the growing numbers. This is a problem that dates to the 1980’s when Conservative Inc. started to purge dissenters from their ranks. Instead of working to build new structures outside of and opposed to official structures, dissidents kept trying to get back inside the official tent. The result has been a ragtag army living on the land outside the walls of the city. It remains so.

Probably the biggest change, one we see evolving in front of our eyes as the military is called in to install The Pretender, is that the parties are a fiction. Until very recent, most dissidents thought the way forward was to work through the two-party system and get “our guys” into office. Again, this dates to the 1980’s. Buchanan tried and failed to unseat the neocon Bush. Perot tried and failed with his third-party to cleanse the land of the neocons. Trump tried and failed to reform the Republican Party.

The reason all these efforts failed is the party system is a fiction. The core of each party holds the same opinions on the important issues. They are bankrolled by the same collection of billionaires and international interests. The parties have tentacles that reach into various camps, but the main body of the system serves the people who bankroll American politics. A politician with close ties to the CCP can maintain his seat because the Chinese are a major backer of both parties.

This is the big change for dissidents. Trump was the last opportunity to keep dissidents engaged in the fiction of democracy. His own perfidy and his treatment by the political class has disabused dissidents of their faith in the system. The people in the streets at the Epiphany Uprising were not there because they still believe in the Republican Party, Donald Trump, or the system itself. They were there, being cheered by tens of millions from home, because dissidents lost their faith in the system.

Further to that, it is finally dawning on dissidents that what motivates the Cloud People is not what motivates the Dirt People. For generations, the Right insisted that the Left is driven by the same logic as everyone else. This was always false, and part of the long con played on the public. This is, in part, why conservatives lost every battle in the culture war. The people on the other side of the barricades, celebrating their victory over us, are not us and they do not think like us.

This is probably the most important lesson of the last five years that is finally sinking into the thick skulls of the dissident right. The Cloud People are not motivated by greed or a lust for power. They have those things. They are motivated by a sense of identity that starts with a hatred of the Dirt People. Their sense of self begins with not being anything like the people over whom they rule. This is why they hated Trump. He was an intruder from the other side injected into their world.

While many are disappointed with the Trump years and Donald Trump the man, the last five years have been a clarifying experience. The anger, emotion, disappointment, frustration, even the violence, are the result of a fog lifting. Five years ago, most people were sure about politics. Now that the fog has lifted, people are looking around and seeing it was always a big lie. The people who perpetrated these lies are on the other side of those barricades, giving the rest of us the finger.

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 sa***@mi*********************.com.

For sites like this to exist, it requires people like you chipping in a few bucks a month to keep the lights on and the people fed. It turns out that you can’t live on clicks and compliments. Five bucks a month is not a lot to ask. If you don’t want to commit to a subscription, make a one time donation. Or, you can send money to: Z Media LLC P.O. Box 432 Cockeysville, MD 21030-0432. You can also use PayPal to send a few bucks, rather than have that latte.