Category Archives: Politics

Do Goblins Go To Hell?

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After years of false promises, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg has finally made the world a better place by exited from it. Her near-death experiences had reached a number where it was starting to look as if she was immortal. She was in the hospital more than the typical nurse, but somehow always managed to recover. It turns out that her deal with Old Scratch did have an expiry date and the world rejoices. They announced her death Friday night, but who knows when she really died.

As is custom when a Progressive goblin dies, the liberal media will carry on as if she was the most important person in history. They had already made movies about her that no one watched, so they will all be wearing black armbands this week. Whatever funeral services they have for her will be turned into another circus. Maybe in honor of George Floyd, peace be upon him, they will drop her corpse next to his. Then pilgrims can pay respects to both on the same trip.

Ginsberg was the example of everything that has gone wrong with America. Her tenure as a justice was defined by her doctrinaire screeds against ordered liberty. The only reason she was on the court was due to the unwritten rule that at least four justices must be Progressive fanatics, preferably Jewish ones. Her career on the lower court made clear that she would always follow orders from the Left. She did not write a single opinion that was not known in advance.

Of course, the issue in her final days was the fact that she was nothing more than an animated corpse, but she refused to retire. There was no way she was lucid enough and competent enough to perform her duty, but the system allows a justice to stay on until they take their last breath. In theory, Congress can remove them, but that never happens, so the judges can stick around until death. With Ginsberg, it did not matter as all of her opinions were written in advance for her.

If one were hoping to reform America in order to prevent what appears to be a bloody breakup, the first place to start is the court. A new rule of Zeleucus should be imposed, where any judge proposing to overturn a statute or ancient custom must appear before a citizen’s council with a noose around his neck. If the council votes against the proposal the judge is immediately strangled. This would eliminate subversives like Ginsberg from the legal system in a generation.

After that, no judge should be allowed to serve past 75. There are plenty of people with supple minds well into their 80’s, but people near the end of their days should not be defining the future. Allowing a grand council of geezers to bind future courts and future legislatures is judicial entrenchment. There are no perfect solutions to this, but preventing people like Ginsberg from loitering on the court is first step. It gives each generation a chance to have their own court.

Of course, the dominant role of the court in our political life is something that would have to be addressed. Rule by robed masters with lifetime appointments is not only un-American, it is anti-Western. Rule by wise man or holy man is an oriental import that no occidental people should embrace. Judges and courts are for administering the laws that are written by the people’s rulers. Whether it is a representative body or a monarch, the laws are written by the sovereign, not the courts.

Because the Left subverted the court in the last century, we are condemned to have increasingly deranged nominating processes. The circus around replacing the last left-wing justice lasted months, so you can be sure the people operating death squads in our cities will put on a grand show this time. The planned colored revolution against Trump now has the perfect vehicle. Whoever Trump nominates will be the center of a manufactured revolt in the streets of Washington.

Despite what Mitch McConnell is saying now, there is a good chance that this gets kicked down the road. Both parties are pulling out all the stops to help Biden, so making the election about who picks the replacement for Ginsberg is the smart play. This will get the woke women out to replace the BLM and Antifa rioters, who appear to have run out of steam. The election can now be about female empowerment, rather than the right of non-whites to loot and pillage.

On the other hand, holding off the nomination could drive up enthusiasm for Trump, as even so-called conservative understands what is at stake. Gun rights people are already highly motivated to vote in November. Now that there is a chance to tilt the court their way for a generation, they will be hyper-enthusiastic. The social conservatives will also be activated by this news. Trump has signaled he intends to appoint an anti-abortion advocate if he has the chance.

In the long run, none of this matters. As we have seen with so many justices, once they get on the court their skin suit falls away to reveal their reptilian nature. Whoever Trump nominates will go native and do the bidding of the Inner Party. Like all of the other institutions, the court is only a weapon against the people now, never a weapon on behalf of the people. This is the result of being ruled by an alien elite. Still, Ginsberg is dead and Lucifer has another soul to torment.

Note: 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 like a tea, but it has a milder flavor. It’s hot here in Lagos, so I’ve been drinking it cold. It is a great summer beverage.

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 at Starbucks. Thank you for your support!

The Unconservatives

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The defining feature of Conservatism over the last quarter century or more is that it steadfastly refuses to consider the consequences of its dogma. In fact, part of its dogma is to reject any consideration of consequences. Conservatives proudly state that the means justifies the ends. If policy fits conservative ideology, then the results are by definition acceptable. You see that myopia at work in their latest fetish over zoning regulations in the suburbs and exurbs.

The American Conservative has been running posts like this one that claim the suburbs need to be exposed to predatory developers. The marketplace should decide if a chemical plant is built next to the school or a federally subsidized tenement is constructed in your town. After all, every conservative knows that the will of the marketplace is supreme. The only way for anything to be legitimate is if it is the result of the invisible hand of the marketplace.

Of course, National Review has also jumped onto this fetish. This post from last month in response to the Trump administration trashing some Obama era housing regulations demands the suburbs be deregulated. He also makes the conservative case for exposing local communities to the whim of developers. The irony here is the author lives in one of the most regulated suburbs on the planet. In fact, Northern Virginia would not exist as it does if not for the federal government.

Like the fetish for legalizing drugs or hardcore pornography, conservatives first start their case by rejecting the obvious consequences. Any consideration of the knock-on effects of public policy violate conservative dogma. The only thing that can matter is if these proposed polices square with what passes for conservative theory. In this case it means zero government involvement in the regulation of development. Property owners can do whatever they like with their property.

Of course, at this stage, conservative theory is barely distinguishable from libertarian theory, which is nothing more than a pose. It is a way to stand on the sidelines and pretend to hold the moral high ground. In this case it means avoiding the real issue at play in this story. That is the systematic blockbusting of white suburbs by the Left through the use of federal housing regulations. They are trying to dump non-white populations into white suburbs in the name of retributive justice.

Rather than think about that, because that is scary and icky, the modern conservative focuses on the theoretical aspects of the issue. Like the reformer in Chesterton’s fence, they refuse to wonder why this is an issue. They refuse to ponder why the Obama people were doing what they were doing or why local communities have been fighting these efforts over the years. None of that matters. As is true with all ideologues, all that matters is the ideological conformity.

The irony here is that what passes for conservatism today is pretty much the opposite of what conservatism has meant historically. Conservatism has always prized continuity, as that is the result of generations of trial and error. Change must come slowly and deliberately with proper consideration for local customs and concerns. Modern conservatism is the embrace of constant change, the whirlwind of the marketplace, in total disregard for community and custom.

Another part of that embrace of continuity is the point of Chesterton’s fence. The conservative not only knows there are consequences to every reform, but those consequences will have consequences as well. It’s not that the Right is adept at seeing the downstream consequences of the proposed reform, but that they know we cannot always see far enough downstream to truly know the second order effects of the proposed reform. Prudence is chief among virtues.

Getting back to housing policy, what we do know is the Left is not acting from republican virtue when they propose changes to the law. They are animated by anti-white hatred and the quest for retributive justice. That is the starting assumption when examining any proposed reform from the Left. Therefore, the conservative must look at how best to prevent the consequences the Left imagines. In this case, how best to prevent the Left from devastating the white suburbs.

As to the issue of property rights, this is another example of how modern conservatism is an inversion of what conservatism has meant historically. Conservatives have always understood that rights are the product of human society. Citizens have rights and one cannot be a citizen unless they are part of a society. Therefore, the good of the community comes before the individual. This is why no right is absolute. There are always situations in which rights give way to the public good.

This is the case of local control of development. The people in the community live in the community, which means they live with the consequences of how members dispose of their property. They get a say in that. Ideally, this is a light touch that relies on the moral scruples of the community members, but when that fails, the collective good of the community must prevail. Further, the rights of the outsider, the developer, do not exist, because the developer lives outside the community.

It is popular to call the modern conservative controlled opposition. There is some truth to it for sure, as many are paid by left-wing media organizations. For most of them, they are just part of another tentacle of the managerial octopus. Some tentacles lash at the body of society, while others, like this one, try to cut off oxygen to the brains of otherwise conservative people. The hope is they will sacrifice themselves and their community in the name of abstract principles.

Note: 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 like a tea, but it has a milder flavor. It’s hot here in Lagos, so I’ve been drinking it cold. It is a great summer beverage.

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 at Starbucks. Thank you for your support!

Lenin’s Ghost

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Probably the only thing that everyone in modern America can agree upon is that we now live in a hyper-partisan age. The modifier is needed, as we used to lived in a mildly partisan age. Before that, American politics was about coalitions. The parties represented factions willing to compromise to some degree. Either this hyper-partisanship is a natural end point of liberal democracy, perhaps a prelude to civil war, or something happened in the last quarter century to get us here.

The first place to start is with Lenin, as he is the man credited with introducing both the term and concept into the West. The term was coined to counter objectivity in political economic analysis. Lenin rejected the idea that there is some objective good for all of society, because true objectivity is impossible when the interests of one class of society conflict with the interests of other classes. Therefore, the only rational politics is one in which you expressly advocate for the interests of your side.

In America, where the Marxist sense of class identity has never taken hold, party affiliation was the closest we had to partisanship through the Cold War. One would support a party out of family tradition or maybe regional affiliation, even when the platform of the party did not directly appeal to your interests. Loyal Democrats, for example, would argue that the party was best for the country as a whole. It was the blend of tradition, objectivity and republican virtue.

This is no longer the case in America, Partisanship is now much closer to the concept Lenin had in mind. The anti-Trump people, for example, hate Trump for entirely partisan reasons. Not only is republican virtue no longer a consideration, but policy itself is no longer a factor. Under Obama, for example, his partisans championed public works projects. They now reject those same projects, the very notion of them, because Trump now supports them. All politics is person and partisan.

Oddly, in a country that is decidedly middle-class, bourgeois objectivity with regards to public policy is now alien. A candidate talking about the general welfare would sound strange and unnatural. Similarly, the party factionalism has faded away. What are the interests of the Democrats and Republicans? The only thing that is true is global enterprise underwrites both parties. Otherwise their squabbling represents no practical interests of any definable interest group.

Has there been a Lenin in the American story who can be blamed or credited with introducing hyper-partisanship to our politics? The place to start, of course, is the founding. That is, the second founding. Was Lincoln a partisan and did he make explicitly partisan appeals? There’s no evidence for it. Lincoln’s public utterances were appeals to republican virtue and objectivity. The sadism of the abolitionists could be interpreted as partisanship, but they were just fanatics.

Even if Lincoln could be called the first partisan, it did not stick. The erecting of confederate statues, the ones now being demolished, was an effort to end the animosity between the two sides. Partisans have no sympathy for their enemies, even when they are thoroughly defeated. FDR is another good option, but again, he saturated his rhetoric in bourgeois objectivity. In fact, FDR and the ruling elite were quite fearful of the sort of partisanship introduced by the Marxists.

If we are to find an American Lenin, it is much closer to our time. The best candidate would have to be Bill Clinton. It was in his administration that objectivity was dispatched from public discourse. He and his people shamelessly lied, and their media partners greedily repeated the lies. A man willing to debate the definition of the word “is” in a deposition is not a man who accepts the concept of truth. The only thing that mattered to the Clintons was what was good for them.

That is an important fact about American partisanship. The Clinton machine was not representing a class or even a coalition. The only thing that mattered to the Clinton machine was what was good for the Clinton machine. They were willing to say and do anything that furthered their interests. The interests of others, even the interests of the country, were not a consideration. In fact, harming others was also their fallback position, if they could not gain a direct benefit.

This hyper-personal, hyper-partisanship was not a natural element in the Bush machine, but it was imposed on them. The whole Bush as Hitler thing was a direct effort by the Left to make their political differences with the Bush administration about the personality of Bush and his people. The Left still hates Dick Cheney, even though he has been out of politics for a dozen years. Of course, Obama is the David Koresh of the cult of anti-racism and anti-whiteness.

Now, the problem with the Lenin analogy, and any parallels drawn between this age and the Bolsheviks, is that this form of partisanship evolved within popular government, rather than in opposition to authoritarianism. An “us against them” mentality is a necessary component to revolution. American hyper-partisanship did not evolve to topple power or even to promote an alternative to power. It evolved among the power elite as a way to solidify their power.

Personal partisanship is the natural consequence of popular government. The Greeks did not have parties, they had personalities. Factions were labeled the “followers of” some notable politician. In the Roman Republic a similar system existed. Factions within the Senate were built around people. As America has slowly abandoned the republican political culture in favor of democratic culture, it is inevitable that factionalism would give way to personal partisanship.

On the other hand, this is akin to saying that the Bolshevik Revolution would have happened if Lenin never existed. By putting all of the emphasis on historical process, the people making events become spectators. History is the blend of people, events and ideas. In this case, the long Cold War and the natural evolution of liberal democracy was the perfect ground for a megalomaniac like Bill Clinton to introduce hyper-partisanship into American politics.

Note: 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 like a tea, but it has a milder flavor. It’s hot here in Lagos, so I’ve been drinking it cold. It is a great summer beverage.

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 at Starbucks. Thank you for your support!

American Pericles

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A popular topic among those less optimistic about the American Experiment is to compare America to Rome, either the republic or empire. The former camp looks for the Sulla in the past and the Caesar in the future. The latter camp looks for evidence that the American Empire is in its final days, like fifth century Rome. The trouble with comparing America to Rome is it is not a republic. It has not been since Gettysburg and is now something closer to a radical democracy.

The more accurate historical analogy for modern America is ancient Athens. While America is not quite yet a radical democracy, that is the current path. Soon the electoral college will be circumvented, so that presidents are elected directly. The Senate was democratized a century ago. The franchise is universal and will soon extend to anyone currently standing on American soil. The last ragged bits of republic will soon be gone and America will be a radical democracy.

Just as the wealthy and powerful in Athens assumed democracy worked best when they controlled it, the American oligarchs favor democracy because they believe it insulates them from the public. The factions at the top are prevented from open warfare because they have a common enemy, the general welfare. Thus, they are always willing to cooperate in order to maintain their position, even if it means one faction gains at some small expense to another faction.

Probably the most important man in the history of the Athenian democracy was Pericles, the first citizen of Athens, as Thucydides called him. He was a statesman and general of Athens during the time between the Persian and the Peloponnesian Wars, which is usually called the Athenian golden age. He turned the Delian League, which was a federation of city-states, into an Athenian empire and led the fight against Sparta during the first two years of the Peloponnesian War.

What is often overlooked about Pericles is that he is responsible for the structures we now associate with ancient Athens. He began the public works projects to beautify the city, including the building of the Parthenon. Most of the surviving structures on the Acropolis, in fact, were the work of Pericles. It is possible that ancient Greece would have no hold on the western mind if not for those old ruins. What we think of when we think of ancient Athens is mostly from the time of Pericles.

Is there an analog to Pericles in the American narrative? The place to start would be Lincoln, who should be called the founder of America or possibly the re-founder or second founder. Lincoln destroyed the old republic and set the country off on the path of becoming a democracy. In one sentence, thirty words, Lincoln re-positioned the country to rest upon the Declaration of Independence rather than the Constitution and the history and debates that surrounded its creation.

The trouble is, Lincoln was not much of a democrat and he was no voice of the people, as was the case with Pericles. Lincoln really was not all that fond of the black people he was freeing from bondage. It is not clear that Lincoln fully understood the ramifications of his project. He certainly could not foresee his creation becoming first a continental empire then a global empire in less than a century. He may not have fully grasped the radicalism and ramifications that was contained in his Gettysburg speech.

That’s another important aspect of Pericles that is relevant to this age. He knew exactly what he was doing and he understood the nature of Athenian democracy. He was often accused of being a populist and a potential tyrant by the rich and powerful, because he so carefully courted the approval of the masses. Much of what he accomplished was in the face of resistance from what we would call the ruling classes of Athens. Pericles fully understood his projects and its significance.

Pericles was also committed to the general welfare. His first building project was the walls guarding the city of Athens. This had two consequences, in addition to protecting the city from attack. One is it put people to work. Rather than depending upon the generosity of the wealthy for such endeavors, the people could now count on the state to provide work on these projects. The other is it protected the poor in the city, but left the landed estates outside the city exposed.

The most obvious example of such a politician in American history would be Franklin Roosevelt, as he ushered in the federal public works project. It is easy to forget just how radical the Roosevelt administration was in America. The mobilization of the public in the face of the depression was unprecedented. For close to a century now, it is assumed that the federal government is responsible for the welfare of the people, rather than the states or powerful local interests.

Another interesting parallel between FDR and Pericles is that while both men were high born, from powerful families, they were opposed by the ruling classes. One of the great political dramas in golden age of Athens was the struggle between Thucydides, the leader of the conservative faction, not the historian, and Pericles over spending on projects like the Parthenon. Pericles outmaneuvered and outwitted Thucydides and the conservatives to win public approval for his projects.

Similarly, FDR faced a great deal of resistance to his projects. Factions in his own coalition objected to part of his program, while conservatives tried to bottle up his plans in the courts. Like the opposition to Pericles, the opposition to FDR was also keenly aware that there was a foreign policy element to the debate. The support for FDR’s domestic program was tied to support for his policies toward Europe. In fact, his domestic program was essential to his foreign policy.

Another possible candidate as the American Pericles would be the combined administration of Kennedy and Johnson. The space program is probably the closest thing America has to the Acropolis. The reforms of Johnson, which were largely created by the Kennedy people, haunt us to this day. Given the current unrest and the demographics of the country, it is not unreasonable to think that America will never escape the shadow of the Johnson administration.

Donald Trump, of course, could be the modern Pericles. He is not a great orator, but Trump has an uncanny ability to resonate with the public, both good and bad. He’s also a high-born man who sees himself as the defender of the public. No president has shown a greater concern for the general welfare since FDR. Unlike FDR, but like Pericles, Trump is faced with a ruling class committed to stopping him. As with Pericles, their opposition is strongly linked to foreign policy.

One other way to look at this is that in a democracy of any sort, the Pericles role is an essential one, as is the role of the oligarchs. Lacking the legal structures to balance between the natural factions in society, particularly the rich versus the general public, democracy evolves these roles in the form of charismatic politicians. Whenever the relationship between the people and their rulers gets out of balance, men step forward on behalf of both sides to reestablish an equilibrium

Of course, the other significance of the life of Pericles is that after his death, Athens was plagued by inferior men, inciting the worst habits in the public and only concerned with personal popularity. The inability of Athenian democracy to produce statesmen close to the quality of Pericles marked the end of the Golden Age of Athens and led to defeat at the hands of the Spartans. The run of politicians since FDR, with the exception of Reagan, is another useful parallel to consider.

Note: 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 like a tea, but it has a milder flavor. It’s hot here in Lagos, so I’ve been drinking it cold. It is a great summer beverage.

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 at Starbucks. Thank you for your support!

The Arc Of White

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One of the distinguishing features of politics in the American Empire is the phenomenon of white populism. This is something that emerged in the middle of the last century with the establishment of the American Empire after World War II. Every generation has experienced a wave of populist unrest, always in reaction to some reform movement initiated by the white elites. The elites act and the white working and middle classes react.

The first example of this was the white populist revolts in reaction to the Civil Rights Movement and the 1960’s Cultural Revolution. Whites in the South reacted to the destruction of segregation. This was followed by a revolt by northern whites over things like forced busing and the cultural upheaval. This set off the great political realignment where southern whites and northern ethnics migrated from the Democrat Party to the Republican Party in the 60’s and 70’s.

Another white populist revolt started with the de-industrialization of the country starting in the 70’s and accelerating into the 80’s. The rapid conversion of the economy from manufacturing to retail and services continued the political realignment that started in the 60’s. The so-called Reagan Democrats were mostly the people who had voted for Nixon, but this time they moved the GOP for good. This was also the start of the gap between the knowledge economy and the labor economy.

The current crisis is another wave of white populism. This time it is in reaction to the continued looting of the middle-class economy by the global elites, but also the betrayals of the Bush years and the Kulturkampf of the Obama years. Large numbers of whites in American have come to the conclusion that the political and economic elites are at war with them. The election of Trump in 2016 is one obvious result, but the hysterical and now violent reaction of the elites is another.

The thing about these waves of white populism is they follow the same pattern; despite the fact the triggering events are different and the times are different. There are some obvious parallels between what is happening now and what happened in the 1960’s and 1970’s, but modern America is nothing like the America of the 60’s. In fact, the people of that age would not recognize this age as America. Despite the enormous differences in culture and demographics, the pattern is the same.

One aspect of every white populist spasm has been that it gets funneled into a form of legitimate politics. The conservative movement of Bill Buckley, for example, tapped into white populism in order to get professional conservatives into office. Nixon’s so-called Southern Strategy was an explicit attempt to get disaffected white voters in the South to abandon their allegiance to the Democrat Party. Legitimate politics promised these voters a remedy to the assault on their culture.

The rise of Evangelical conservatism in the 70’s and 80’s was another effort to funnel white unrest into legitimate politics. Christians logically figured that if they organized politically, politicians would seek their vote. They would get the vote by addressing their concerns about things like abortion, family law and education. Of course, the Tea Party Movement and now the MAGA stuff are more efforts by whites to defend themselves through the legitimate political process.

Another thing all of these right-wing populist movements have in common is they failed to get anything for their efforts. Nixon did nothing to address the concerns of Southern whites over desegregation. He was happy to let them think he was on their side, but Nixon was more focused on gaining acceptance from official Washington. Reagan delivered for corporate interests and the military industrial complex, but never got around to doing anything for social conservatives.

Today we are seeing the same thing with Trump. His reelection depends entirely on whites coming out to vote for him for symbolic reasons. He will not deliver anything useful to white voters, but he will be a constant irritant to the elites. In fact, the only practical reason to vote for Trump in November is his reelection will send the elites into orbit and they could harm their own efforts. Otherwise, like Nixon and Reagan, Trump will deliver nothing for white populists.

The one new wrinkle to this process is that after the Cold War, many Republicans became hostile to white populists. The purging of the paleocons by the neocons in the 1990’s realigned the party away from populism. Most Republicans, for example, were openly hostile to the Tea Party movement. Trump’s biggest problem in Washington is his own party, which hates him as much as the Left hates him. So-called conservatives are fully onboard with multiculturalism now.

Of course, white populism has always had another outlet. That is the path of what can loosely be called white nationalism. In the 1960’s, people like George Lincoln Rockwell and William Pierce tried to tap into white populism to promote racial awareness among disaffected whites. Theirs was an anti-politics, in that it rejected the political system itself as illegitimate. Rather than try to mobilize people to elect better politicians, they wanted to organize people to create a new system.

In the case of Rockwell, it got nutty and then it got bloody. He tried selling Nazism to a country still proud of defeating the Nazis in WWII. The absurdity of his presentation got him plenty of attention, but that did more harm than good. He attracted a lot of weirdos and lunatics to his banner. He ended up taking two in the hat outside a laundromat, but even all these years later, the Left finds him to be a useful example to wave in front of bourgeois whites as a warning about white nationalism.

This is a pattern that has repeated in every spasm of white populism. The white nationalist lane is divided into one sober minded track and one eccentric and often dangerous track. William Pierce was a genuine intellect who understood the larger problems facing white people in America. He could never figure out how to break free of the eccentrics like Rockwell in order to attract a broader audience. The result was white nationalism became an insulated subculture.

This pattern repeated in the 1980’s. People like David Duke and Don Black came out of the Rockwell experience with the hope of breaking out of the white nationalism trap and addressing a general audience. Instead, Duke ended up being a less bizarre version of Rockwell and his movement was plagued by criminals and weirdos. After some national attention in the 1980’s, as well as some white nationalist violence, this phase of white nationalism faded into an insulated subculture.

In this current wave, the pattern has held. The alt-right started as a genuine populist revolt on-line among younger white males. The anonymity and irreverence of on-line culture gave them a way to express their unhappiness with modernity. The alt-right tapped into that, but like prior white nationalist spasms, this one was overrun by eccentrics and criminals. This time, the preppy airhead, Richard Spencer, was the clown prince used by the Left in their presentations.

As an aside, white nationalism in America has tracked the technological changes in the country over the last fifty years. The first iteration was banned from conventional media platforms, so it relied on things like newsletters and shortwave radio. The second iteration was the first to use the internet to build an on-line culture. Stormfront really was an innovation in political organizing. This last phase is confined to private internet channels, podcasts and live-streams.

Taken as a whole, the pattern is clear. These spasms of white populism in reaction to social experimentation by elites or changes in the economic order always end up going down two dead end paths. One is conventional politics, always through existing political channels, like the GOP. The other is white nationalism, which always ends up in a circus of attention seeking eccentrics, who are easily exploited by the Left. It is two roads that lead to the same dead end.

Interestingly, these two tracks always end up convinced that the other track is a dead end populated by losers. Today, many of the MAGA people invest as much time in rejecting the bad whites as they do supporting their cause. The remnants of the alt-right, in the name of white people, invest much of their time attacking white people, their history and their customs. Many of them sound anti-American to most people. Their rhetoric is decidedly leftist and hostile to American traditions.

The logical way out of this trap is something William Pierce recognized, but was never able to implement. That is, white populism needs to be channeled into a bourgeois politics that attracts high quality people who understand the problem is the system itself, rather than the office holders. In other words, it borrows the central insights of white nationalism, but provides it with a cultural and historical framework that appeals to the mass of middle-class white people.

Whether such a movement can get going is open to debate. The history of white populism is now a nightmare from which we cannot awake. Any effort to speak of white interests brings all of the usual suspects from past failed efforts into the mix. It’s as if all the parties enjoy playing the roles that have been created for them. The arc of white politics in America is looking like an immutable law of nature. It may require whites reaching minority status for the pattern to break.

Note: 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 like a tea, but it has a milder flavor. It’s hot here in Lagos, so I’ve been drinking it cold. It is a great summer beverage.

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 at Starbucks. Thank you for your support!

The Echo Chamber

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For generations now, the mass media has referred to itself as the echo chamber or the media echo chamber, at least with regards to politics. A favorite politician or pundit says something pithy or useful and the media repeats it verbatim until everyone is sick of hearing it. After the 2010 midterms, Barak Obama used the word “shellacked” as in his team was “shellacked”, and the media repeated it every hour for days as if it was wisdom sent down from the heavens.

This was an incite the Clinton crime syndicate figured out how to use to their advantage back in the 1990’s. They would come up with some slogan they wanted to get the media repeating. They would then have their mouth pieces repeat the line over and over in their media appearances. The media would get the hint and then start repeating the slogan over and over. What they essentially did is weaponize the natural conformity of the mass media and use it as a propaganda organ.

The best example of this is the Russian conspiracy stuff from 2016. For weeks DNC e-mails had been leaked on various forums. The media had been instructed to ignore them, but people were reading them anyway. Eventually, Team Clinton came up with the idea of blaming it on Russian hackers. They sent out someone to brief the press on the campaign plane. It was like she had a strange form of Tourette’s. She just kept saying “Russian hacking” like a lunatic.

The fact that it works says a lot of about this age. There are people in the media and in charge of the media operations that understand this ploy. You would think someone would call shenanigans on this once in a while, but it never happens. That’s because the handful of people who control these big media operations think it benefits their long-term project. The people working as reporters are just carny-folk now, willing to say and do anything to keep their acting gig.

Another way the media echo chamber is used to attack the well-being of the public is through the use of manufactured evidence and phony experts. The “gun show loophole” is a perfect example. There is no such thing as a gun show loophole in our gun laws, but the media repeats the lie, anyway. The reason is the Left supplies so-called experts to repeat the lie and wave around fake data in support of it. As a result, we have a label for something that does not actually exist.

The fictional threat of this moment is white supremacy, which no one bothers to define, but the media is sure exists. The echo chamber is regularly fed nonsense stuff like this from so-called think tanks. In the first sentence we see several obvious lies, but they will be echoed by the media. The expectation is that the Biden campaign will program their candidate to repeat some of this stuff, so the media will then repeat it for a few weeks after, to drive home the message.

This is not an accident. This particular scheme is a highly coordinated effort orchestrated by the usual suspects. Not only do we have Daniel Byman at Brookings, but there is his old friend Joshua Geltzer from the Obama administration, now working for a “New America.” Mentioned by Brookings as an expert in support of their claim is Heidi Beirich of the SPLC. She claims to be an expert in extremism, but presumably not extreme fitness, some other kinds of extremism.

Putting aside the obvious fact that none of the people behind the white supremacy propaganda campaign were altar boys, they also all have that weird obsession with Russia that keeps turning up. In this case, they are making the claim that the imaginary white supremacists are in league with the invisible army of Russian agents called the Russian Imperialist Movement. The absurdity of calling them white supremacist is apparently lost on these people.

Stand back and look at this as a whole and we have paranoia over white supremacy, which is entirely fictional. Then you have all the Russian conspiracy stuff, which is mostly fictional. Russia, like every country on earth, has an active interest in the empire, so they try to lobby for their interests. They are not bribing American politicians or planting listening devices outside the White House, but they have their espionage services like every country.

While the media echo chamber is useful in promoting the narrow interests of groups like the Clinton crime syndicate, it is highly susceptible to subversion by people with agendas at odds with the usual suspects. That’s the real reason behind these spasmodic efforts to censure right-wing voices. It is not hard for clever right-wing groups to use social media to meme their ideas into the echo chamber and have them rocket around the internet.

That is the weakness of the media echo chamber. It works when it appears to be organic and natural. If it looks contrived, it actually works against the people trying to influence the public. Leaving it open makes it more effective for the people in charge, but it also makes it useful for their opponents. Closing it off makes the tool useless to the owner, as well as the opponents. There is no middle ground that works for the usual suspects, but not for their enemies.

What this means is the efforts to censure the public square will become less overt in the coming years. Banning people and manipulating search results is too ham-fisted to work in the modern age. Instead, contrived terror campaigns like the “white supremacy” stuff or the Russia paranoia will become the norm. The echo chamber will be flooded with this stuff, in an effort to drown out dissent. The echo chamber is about to be a bell rung by the same people all day every day.

Note: 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 like a tea, but it has a milder flavor. It’s hot here in Lagos, so I’ve been drinking it cold. It is a great summer beverage.

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 at Starbucks. Thank you for your support!

The Intersectional Intifada

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So, you have decided that you will lead a revolution and overthrow the government, but you don’t know the first thing about overthrowing the government. Lucky for you, Washington & Lee University is offering a three credit course titled, “How to Overthrow the State.” In that class you will learn how previous revolutionaries managed to overthrow the state, how they dealt with the aftermath and how they rewrote history in order to justify their rule.

Now, Washington & Lee is like every other liberal arts college these days, in that it has been overrun by the Left. It is staffed with the same dreary mediocrities you find at every other liberal arts colleges. The only interesting thing about this node on the Progressive Borg is that it retains its white supremacist name. At this late date it should have changed the name to something more fitting, perhaps a collection of pronouns or unpronounceable symbols.

The topic and structure of the course are revealing. These are people who think they are leading a revolution against the system, when in fact, they are the living embodiment of the system. This college and all the drones inside it exist because the system created them. The system created them to perpetuate itself. Liberal arts colleges are indoctrination centers. If the nation’s academic elite really want to overthrow the system, they would start by committing suicide.

Another revealing fact about this course is they just assume they will be the heroes, the good guys in the revolution to come. They are not studying the many monsters who slaughtered in the name of the people. They are not looking at the failed revolutionaries for examples to avoid. What drives people into Progressive politics is self-loathing and self-doubt. What the Left offers them is reassurance. They are on the right side of history, the heroes of the future to come.

This is something that does not get enough attention. The people out in the streets think they are overthrowing the system. Whenever the media bothers to interview one of these people, they make noises associated with left-wing revolution. The academics and college students participating in this stuff mouth the words and phrases of 20th century left-wing revolution. None of them notices that they are the creation of the system and dependent upon it.

Not to put too fine a point on it, but what if the protesters got their wish and the cops were not only pulled off the streets, but they were disbanded? Let’s just take Portland as an easy example. Starting this week, there are no more cops. The most likely result is heavily armed Patriot Prayer people enter the city and it is open season on the Left with no bag limit. Most likely, a lot of cops would join in. That would be their path back to full employment as a cop.

In the case of the academic revolutionaries, they may get to see what happens when the system breaks down. The economic foundation of higher education is crumbling and it has been made much worse by recent events. Private liberal arts colleges are starting to fold and state systems are laying off workers. In the not too distant future, the gal asking you for your drink order will be a former assistant professor with a PhD in intersectional studies.

The irony, of course, is that if outsiders really wanted to overthrow the system, they would look for ways to get the system to attack itself. In all cases, a unified enemy with a clear sense of purpose is a challenge. On the other hand, a disorganized enemy hobbled by internal dispute is always beatable, even when they have numerical or institutional advantage. If you can sow discord in the enemy ranks, you have a chance to use their strength to your advantage.

One approach is to get their young people taking college classes with provocative titles like “How to Overthrow the State.” Maybe convince the opponent’s young people that their ancestors were monsters. Throw in some wacky ideas about their penis being a figment of their imagination and you have the makings of unsustainable turmoil in the enemy ranks. This intersectional intifada in the ruling class is exactly what the real revolutionary would want.

On the other hand, if you are the ruler and you have a lot of restless youth in your ranks, pushing for aggressive action on behalf of the cause, getting them to fight one another is always a good plan. If you know you don’t really have to worry about some outsider trying to topple your rule, keeping the people busy fighting with one another is a good tactic. This is what Yassir Arafat did in the late 1980’s. He got his street fighters out wasting their energy throwing rocks at Israelis.

This may be why the Inner Party leadership is being patient with the rioters, even though it is helping Trump in the election. They know they can handle Trump, but they would like their radicals to exhaust themselves a bit more. The truth is, the people in charge think this intersectionality stuff is insane too. They would not mind if the people behind it discredited themselves. That would simply mean no more talk about pronouns and photo-ops with men in sundresses.

The Palestinian Intifada was cast as an organic revolt by Arabs in the occupied territories against Israel. That’s how it was sold to the kids throwing rocks at tanks and the cell leaders organizing actions. In reality, it was about power relations at the top of Palestinian society. Yassir Arafat and the PLO were in a power struggle with Hamas and other Islamic groups. The Intifada was about who would enjoy the spoils of being Israel’s puppet in the occupied territories.

That is probably what is happening now. The Inner Party is run by old people nearing their expiry date. The question on the Left is who fills those roles. One camp is the rainbow coalition of intersectional warriors, raised on multiculturalism. They think it is their turn to rule. The other side is the Judeo-Puritan elite that have been in charge for generations now. They are rolling the dice on this intersectional intifada in the hope that the other side weakens themselves.

Note: 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 like a tea, but it has a milder flavor. It’s hot here in Lagos, so I’ve been drinking it cold. It is a great summer beverage.

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 at Starbucks. Thank you for your support!

The Positive Alternative

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One of the predictable things about left-wing political theater is they will always heroically go to war with the problem they created. After liberally applying the front lash, they then predict a backlash and begin to make war on it. They are like the arsonist-fireman, heroically battling the fires he set. The latest example is over the “colored revolution” sponsored by the usual suspects around the Occident. In the UK, they worry this may have given a boost to Right.

Apparently, the extreme Left in the UK has noticed that the native population not only opposes mass immigration, but now they oppose those ungrateful immigrants rioting in the streets and attacking their hosts. The daily lectures on white privilege and the crimes and the English people have not had the intended effect. Instead of committing suicide to make way for more foreigners, many Brits are starting to think of their ethnic and national interests, like everyone else.

Familiar to Americans is the way the Left manufacturers its own evidence to wave around in support of its claims. Hope Not Hate is the British version of the ADL, backed by the same sorts of people. Their main job is to make up wild tales about secret invisible Hitler clubs that the media can then use in their scare stories. These claims are also used to raise money from the gullible and cynical. It’s how the blood libel against white people is done in liberal democracy.

That said, Patriotic Alternative is experiencing a surge in interest, but not for the reasons claimed by the anti-whites. Instead of “becoming more extreme” they have moderated their tone. Like the US, the UK scene has been plagued by the weirdo problem, which in their case is more like a hooligan problem. Nationalist politics was more like a rowdy working-class pub than a political movement. As a result, it was always plagued by ugly images the Left could exploit.

To remedy this, Patriotic Alternative has imposed strict rules of conduct on its members and has been very clear about it. Mark Collett, the head of PA, has even booted a longtime friend from his group, when that friend could not behave himself. Their events are family friendly, designed to build community among members. Instead of meeting in a pub, they have a gathering at a park. They organize camping trips and paintball tournaments that are intended to build friendships.

One result of this approach is it is attracting a better class of person. The street brawlers are not interested in camping trips. The middle-class person worried about the future of their children is interested in that sort of activity. Initially they may not agree with everything they are hearing, but they are willing to listen, because the people they see are like their neighbors and coworkers. In fact, they may be moving into this type of politics because of their neighbors and coworkers.

It is a good example of how effective politics starts with engaging people where they are rather than where you want them to be. Like the US, UK activists have often positioned themselves way outside the main, making it impossible for them to engage with the typical Brit on their own terms. Bad optics also makes it easy for the Left to exaggerate the distance between the typical Brit and the activists. By closing that gap, PA is able to reach a much broader audience.

This is why left-wing terrorist groups like Hope Not Hate are in a panic. It is really hard for them to demonize someone like Laura Towler. When the person behind the “Migrants Not Welcome” projection on the cliffs of Dover is a woman who likes to talk about tea and her wedding plans, it is impossible to portray the movement as a bunch of beer swilling street brawlers. The Left fears Patriotic Alternative because their old tricks are not going to work on these guys.

Even Mark Collett, to be candid, has transformed himself into a good example of how to conduct pro-white politics in the modern age. He has a colorful past, where he went down the same old lonely road that many nationalist activists have gone down both in the US and the UK. Having learned from that, now a middle-aged father, he is a good redemption story, as well as a spokesman for the cause. Normal people can relate to a man who has grown into his role.

Probably the best thing that PA has done is shift from a negative message to a more positive one based in the interests of native Brits. Instead of railing against Muslims like a Tommy Robinson, or spending endless hours talking about the wood used at German prison camps in WWII, PA talks about what is best from native Brits. All of those other groups are going to do what they do. What matters, what will determine the future, is what the native Brits do to preserve themselves.

Patriotic Alternative is a good example for American activists. The US has different challenges and a different history. Southern activists will have different concerns and different cultural issues than activists in the Northwest. You really cannot speak on behalf of “Native Americans” in the way you speak of “Native Brits.” Even so, the positive message is always the better approach, because it always draws a better crowd, which in turn makes the message more appealing.

Note: 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 like a tea, but it has a milder flavor. It’s hot here in Lagos, so I’ve been drinking it cold. It is a great summer beverage.

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 at Starbucks. Thank you for your support!

Irreconcilable Differences

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The great concern of the American Founders was that factionalism would result in irreconcilable differences. In Federalist 10, Madison argued against direct democracy, because it inevitably leads to factionalism. People have different interests due to differences in opinion, wealth and status. Naturally, the like-minded join together in factions to advance their interests, even at the expense of the community. The remedy was the representative structure in the proposed constitution.

In a big diverse country like America, there are very few things a large majority of the people will agree upon. There are the big things like individual rights and equality before the law, but most issues will only be supported by a plurality. If most people don’t care, then the plurality gets their way. If not, then the plurality is out of luck. The important thing is that there is general agreement on the big stuff and a willingness to ignore the small items or leave people to sort them on their own.

That was the point of the representative structure they devised. On the one hand, it prevented the fifty percent plus one from imposing its will on the rest. Tyranny of the majority is still tyranny. The system was designed to compel compromise among the factions that would inevitably form up. On the other hand, it delegated much of what mattered to people in their politics down to the states. This was to prevent one region from imposing its will on the rest.

The system did not last very long. Lincoln obliterated that old structure and created a new country dominated by the North, which explicitly wished to impose its morality on the rest of the country. Starting in the early 20th century, the ruling faction has been growing the power of the national government, at the expense of state government, in order to impose its will on the rest of the country. The full flowering of liberal democracy is minority rule, where a tiny group control everything.

This is exactly the sort of problem the Founders wished to avoid. By sharply limiting the power of the national government, it could never be a weapon used by one faction against the rest of the country. It would also prevent the formation of partisan schisms, where the two sides are defined by their opposition to the other. The new system would make it “more difficult for unworthy candidates to practice the vicious arts by which elections are too often carried.”

By “vicious arts” Madison meant the playing of one faction against another, in order to generate enthusiasm from one versus the other. The Founders understood that democracy always led to tyranny or anarchy. The antidote was republicanism, where individual or group interests were sublimated to the good of the whole, even when the individuals involved lacked the natural republican virtue. If Madison were alive today, he would recognize the pit into which we have fallen.

There are libraries full of books on how and why we quickly abandoned the system the Founders created. First it was the Civil War when the North conquered the rest of the country by force of arms. Then it was the slow dismantling of the federal system to create the system we today call liberal democracy. There will be libraries of books written on whatever comes next, assuming that what comes next is not a dark age. We are a long way from the original vision and we shall never return.

What is not discussed very often is how this evolution has arrived at a point where a significant portion of the people no longer accept reality. The partisanship and factionalism have reached a point where one faction is no longer able to agree with the other on basic points of reality. You see this in this post by a far-left activist working for the New York Times. The point of the post is to demonstrate that he will reject anything his enemy says, even when it is obvious fact.

Here we have the CDC posting updated information on the coronavirus that people with knowledge of how these things work suspected all along. The death counts were overblown, because the system was designed to do it. At some point the numbers get adjusted back to something closer to reality. In this case, the adjustment is newsworthy because it is so extreme. Still, it is a real thing, but the partisans cannot accept it, because they think it is supporting their enemies.

The same is true about the rioting this summer. You can go on-line and see people looting, fighting, burning and destroying things. Despite the thousands of hours of video on-line, the partisans demand we pretend they are peaceful outbursts over something they insist is true, despite the lack of evidence. When people they assume support Trump, their most supreme enemy, point out that these rioters are being underwritten and supported, they call it a conspiracy theory.

What makes this even more insane is the person who wrote that post, like the others in his ideological faction, spent years telling us invisible men with Slavic accents used mind control to alter the last election. They insisted that while the Biden family regularly takes bribes from foreign governments, noticing this is part of a conspiracy to undermine the democracy. These people not only oppose everything their enemies say, they create wild fantasies to justify their opposition.

Even though they did not use the word partisan in the modern sense, the Founders understood that groups of like-minded people could disagree with one another to the point where they could find no comprise. Their system was designed to force compromise, by preventing any one group from having complete power over the rest and thus imposing their will. That is the whole point of federalism and the separation of powers in the national government.

The Founders could not imagine partisanship in the modern Marxist sense, where the factions are defined in opposition to one another. Peter Baker, the writer of the New York Times post, is not able to think on his own. His partisan fervor now leads him to take the opposite of whatever he imagines his enemies are saying. If Trump says it is raining, then Mr. Baker will claim that his enemies have created a conspiracy theory where water falls from the sky.

If Mr. Baker were a lone lunatic, he could be dismissed, but he is representative of the ruling class. He is one of their paid spokesmen. How is it possible for normal people to reach a compromise with people who are defined by their unwillingness to reach any compromise with us? Who they are is defined by not agreeing with us on even the basic bits of observable reality. When a reporter is stationed in front of burning building and told to call it a peaceful protest, where’s the middle ground there?

We have reached a point where the ruling class is at war with reality. Part of that reality is they are a ruling class with certain duties and responsibilities. They reject that solely on the grounds that the people they rule over define a ruling class as having certain duties and responsibilities. This is why they celebrate the anarchists burning cities and murdering citizens. They oppose Trump, because he rhetorically represents the rest of us and they are the forever enemy of us.

There appears to be only two options at this stage. Either the ruling class abandons its war on the rest of us or the rest of us accept that we are at war. The former requires the ruling class to break free of the partisan madness that now grips them. This is something without precedent, but we live in an unprecedented time. The other option simply reacquires time. At some point, necessity will require people to accept reality and act accordingly. The rest is predictable.

Either way, we have reached a point that the Founders anticipated. They could not imagine men in sundresses shrieking like lunatics about white privilege, but they knew that unrestrained factionalism led to conflict. They knew that irreconcilable differences could only lead to one thing. That is where we find ourselves. Normal society is now at odds with the people that rule over it. Either the people in charge come to their senses or the people will have no choice but to remove them.

Note: 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 like a tea, but it has a milder flavor. It’s hot here in Lagos, so I’ve been drinking it cold. It is a great summer beverage.

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 at Starbucks. Thank you for your support!

Optics Matter

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One of the timeless lessons of this year has been that the future is always going to be full of surprises. To start the year, no one could have predicted the Covid panic and the rise of local tyrants using the panic to push people around. A month ago, no one would have predicted the recent events in Kenosha. It just seemed like these ruling class riots would continue in the same manner until the election. Then suddenly we have video of a young white kid fighting for his life in the streets.

It is way too soon to know how the story of Kyle Rittenhouse ends, but there is no doubt that this event stands out from all others this year. It does not fit the standard narrative the Left likes to jam all events. Public reaction to it has thus far been much different than we have seen with recent events. There is a good chance that this event may be the inflection point in the coming election. Even though we are still early in the story, there are several good lessons to be drawn from this event.

The obvious lesson right away is that appearances matter. Kyle Rittenhouse is a sweet looking kid who looks like a typical white teenager. Even without the closeups, just looking at the video, it is clear he is not a villain on the prowl. If he was an inked-up gym rat, he would not have gained instant sympathy. People would have assumed he was looking for trouble and found it. If he had Nazi neck art, then the initial response would have been entirely negative.

The fact is, looks matter. More precisely, presentation matters. It is the starting people for everyone trying to assess new information. Humans are pattern matching creatures, so we quickly try to match new events to known events. As soon as one is found, then that becomes the starting point. As Oscar Wilde joked, “It is only shallow people who do not judge by appearances.” In this case, the starting point is one that elicits sympathy and compassion from most people.

This is the lesson the alt-right never learned. They not only convinced themselves that appearances don’t matter, they went out of their way to strike a bad pose. The fact is, the facts almost always take a back seat to people’s impressions. The handsome, well dressed salesman will move more product than the slovenly salesman, even when the latter has a superior product to the former. Politics is about persuasion and in the persuasion game, looks count for a lot.

Another lesson of this event is that you have to engage people where they are, not where you wish them to be. Everyone on this side of the great divide understands that these riots are part of the larger demographic issue. People on the other side of the divide, the normal whites, do not understand the demographic angle. In fact, they have been conditioned to avoid the topic altogether. Like dogs trained with a shock collar, they flinch whenever the race issue arises.

This story resonates with normal white people because it is a gun story, a self-defense story and a civic nationalism story. The race angle is still there, but instead of being the face of it, it is background noise. The heart of this story is stuff normal white people can understand and they are comfortable discussing. If this is Nazi-guy shooting black people, no lawyer is taking the case and no prominent people are speaking out in favor of the shooter. Instead, it is trophy for the Left.

Engaging people where they are opens doors. The oldest truth of sales is people buy from people. In politics, people buy from people with whom they can relate and who care about their issues. The people passionate about race, ethnicity and demographics are already on this side of the great divide. The people on the other side are passionate about other things. The path for them over to this side is through those issues, so mocking those issues, as so many do, is counter-productive.

Another useful lesson here is that the enemy is not a collection of super-intelligent super-villains. They often get high off their own supply. The crazies in the Antifa media are running this story as if the shooter is an evil white Hitler guy. They can’t see past their own ideological blinders. Their hatred for white people is so all consuming, they are trying to sell this as a racist attack. A headline like this over a picture of Rittenhouse is so incongruous that is suggests mental illness is at play.

We see another side of this with the Wisconsin prosecutor. A left-wing fanatic, immersed in that subculture, he immediately assumed Rittenhouse is an evil Nazi guy from one of their campfire stories. Charging this kid with capital murder is so outrageous and evil, it makes the kid into a symbol of everything that is wrong. Someone in control of his faculties would have gone for the lowest charge and worked from there. These people win because they have power, not because they are smart.

There will be a lot more to come as this story unfolds, but one final lesson is that winning the optics war counts for a lot. The so-called conservatives have avoided this story entirely thus far. The reason is they were destroyed by the Nick Sandman debacle and they are still hurting from it. They lost that optics battle. Public relations are a big business because optics matter. The winner is often the side that simply makes the best first impression on the public.

That is why those involved in dissident politics have always got to remember to be the friendly face to the skeptical public. If you meet the expectations people have for the good guys, you get treated as the good guys. If you insist on playing the role of the bad guy, then you will lose every fight, even when you are right. The person who seizes the moral high ground is almost always the person people initially trust. It is always better to be fighting from the top than from the bottom.

Note: 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 like a tea, but it has a milder flavor. It’s hot here in Lagos, so I’ve been drinking it cold. It is a great summer beverage.

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