Category Archives: Politics

You Can Never Hate Them Enough

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To great fanfare Julian Assange struck a deal with the American government whereby he would be allowed to leave a British jail and return home to Australia. Reportedly, the deal he accepted was to plead guilty to some charges in exchange for a sentence of time served in the British jail. The full details of the deal have not been released, but most likely he gave the government information they wanted or sufficiently demonstrated that he was not in possession of it.

This was always the primary issue. Secret documents and information leak out of the government all the time, but the government knows who leaked it. Most of the time the leaks are official leaks. Someone with authorized access to something hands it over to someone in regime media to publish. Once in a while the people at the top of the regime get mad about this habit and demand to know the source, and the regime reporter puts on a show of resisting but gives in at the end.

Generally speaking, what the regime cares most about in the case of these leaks is the source of the leak and the method they used. If regime information is getting into the public through unknown channels or by unknown figures, it can not only lead to things in the public the regime does not want made public, but it threatens the legitimacy of the regime for the people inside the regime. Blackmail, for example, only works when the victim is sure the blackmailer has control of the information.

A big part of what makes the managerial system of the Global American Empire work is the trust the people in the system have in the system. The yawning gap we see between the confidence of regime figures and their ability is due in large part to their trust in the system. For them, the system works, so they naturally assume their elevation inside the system is due to merit. A loss of control of the system could lead to a loss of trust and the whole thing spins apart.

Putting that aside, the only good thing about Assange getting released is that the worst people can no longer wave around that bloody shirt. For close to two decades, fringy irritants have been using the Assange case to demonstrate their moral purity and to defend the crackpot idea that journalism is a priesthood. Their defense of Assange always rested on the dubious claim that journalists have special rights and therefore must not be subject to the laws governing the rest of us.

You see, once you call yourself a journalist, you get to ignore the rules of decency, the laws governing private property and declare yourself a moral authority. You get to betray confidences and deceive people about your intentions. You also get to steal the property of others and use it for personal gain. All the while, you get to wrinkle up your nose as if you caught wind of a bad odor and lecture the rest of us about your moral goodness and our moral failings.

The game here was to hold Assange up as a paragon of virtue because he was upholding the highest standards of journalism. He was doing the same thing major media does all the time, namely revealing secrets about the regime. In reality, Assange was just trying to avoid an American prison. Like every other person calling himself a journalist, Assange was a dirtbag and a thief. He trafficked in stolen goods for personal benefit and when he got caught, he tried to avoid punishment.

If you are clear headed about this, the correct response to the Assange case is the opposite than that of the moralizers. Information is property and people who traffic in stolen information should be treated like any other thief. In fact, they should be treated more harshly. Stolen property can be replaced, but stolen information is often irreplaceable and the damage that ensues from its theft can last a lifetime. Information thieves should be killed on the spot.

In other words, the right response to the Assange case was not to treat him as a hero but to demand that all journalists get the same treatment. Imagine a world where doxers have to flee the country and hide out in embassies to avoid being sent to prison and you will immediately see the logic. Imagine if the people who stole Trump’s tax returns and gave them to the New York Times were sent to the gallows along with the people who agreed to publish them. Nice thought, isn’t it?

The defense of journalism has always been a moral perversion. The worst people a society can produce end up in journalism. The fact that they from time to time do harm to terrible people is not just used as a reason to elevate these garbage people, but a reason to sacralize their gutter morality. Journalists are good people, so the reasoning goes, because they are more degenerate than politicians. Assange was celebrated because he represented the ideal of this gutter morality.

Those calling themselves journalists, but lack a place in regime media, have noted that regime journalists have been silent on Assange. The main reason is regime journalists are moral nullities. They envy the attention Assange is getting, so they use the only power they have to smite him. The main power of regime media is the power to ignore, so they were happy to ignore Assange. There is no honor among thieves, so the thieving weasels of the media can never honor one of their own.

Despite his position at the bottom of the moral hierarchy, Assange was useful as a regime irritant, thus proving no life is entirely meaningless. Hopefully, his final contribution is to sink quietly into obscurity. The moralizers who have used his name to elevate the worst profession and the worst people will have to find a new bloody shirt to wave around in defense of the despicable trade. The rest of us can return to hating the worst people, because you can never hate them enough.

If you like my work and wish to donate, you can buy me a beer. You can sign up for a SubscribeStar or a Substack 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 through the postal service to: Z Media LLC P.O. Box 1047 Berkeley Springs, WV 25411-3047. 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.

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

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The Dangerous Game

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During the Cold War, planners concluded that nuclear war would most likely result from two closely related factors. One was the breakdown of communications between Washington and Moscow at all levels. It was not just the red phone between the Kremlin and the White House, but communications across both systems. The other factor that would lead to war was uncertainty about the other side’s intentions. This fear could result in runaway escalation ending in nuclear disaster.

The remedy for this was to maintain communications at all levels of government with the other side so that both sides knew the nuclear posture of the other. The American military had a range of contacts with the Russian military. The spy agencies had contacts with one another across a range of issues and regions. Members of Western media and the academy developed contacts with their analogs on an unofficial basis on behalf of the intel agencies.

The main reason the Cold War did not end in nuclear annihilation is that the two great managerial systems institutionalized communications in such a way that it became a specialty with career opportunities. In Russia, being an expert in some aspect of America meant a good life as a member of the new class. In America, having some expertise on Russia meant a comfortable life in the clouds. The Cold War standoff became a jobs program for both sides.

The selection pressure on both sides was for second and third order thinking, as both sides had an investment in the status quo. Foreign policy advisors in America thought about the downstream consequences of their recommendations because it could have a direct impact on their employment prospects. Similarly, on the Russian side, the pressure was always there to think about how the Americans would react as getting that wrong could mean being posted to the Urals.

This is what makes the present so dangerous. Washington’s proxy war with Russia lacks both the incentives to prevent escalation and the sorts of people who see it as their purpose to prevent escalation. Washington has cut off communications with Moscow and works to prevent others from developing their own channels. Europe has little contact now with Russia. The primary goal of Washington is to isolate Moscow, which means isolating the West from the world.

We see how this works in the recent beach attack in Crimea. Washington provides Ukraine with long range guided missiles. Ukraine lacks the ability to use them, so the American military provides the targeting and guidance of them, while the Ukrainians operate the ground-based launchers. Over the weekend, one of the missiles, which was armed with cluster munitions, hit a busy beach, killing half a dozen civilians and wounding hundreds of others.

This was most likely an accident. Either the targeting was wrong, as there is a military base nearby, or the missile malfunctioned. It is possible the air defense system knocked the missile off course instead of destroying it. It is also possible that the Ukrainians, in league with their neocon handlers, did something to target the missiles at civilian infrastructure, which has happened in the past. There is the rumor that the real target was the big Orthodox cathedral nearby.

The point is no one knows and more importantly, no one in Moscow knows what the intent was behind this attack. The Russians have stated that they think it was deliberate and they blame Washington. Moscow summoned the American ambassador, presumably to deliver a warning about future reprisals. Putin made clear that Moscow will retaliate, and it may not be against Ukraine. Everyone is left to guess as to what they mean but the empire has targets all over the world.

What has developed is a game of chicken in which the Biden administration keeps escalating, daring the Russians to respond, while the Russians try to figure out what Washington is actually trying to achieve. There is no benefit to the Russians in escalation, so they seek to avoid it. Logically, there is no benefit to the West in escalation, but they keep escalating, so Russia is left to guess as to what is the real motivation behind these escalations.

Where this leaves us is a place that is the reverse of the Cold War. There is no communication between the two sides and neither side knows what the other side is thinking or planning. On the surface, the Russian position is clear, but Western propaganda has anathematized accepting it at face value. The coordinated attacks on Nigel Farage from the entire political class is a good example. Merely pointing out the obvious gets you called a traitor.

It is easy to see how this can end horrifically. If the Russians, for example, declare a no-fly zone over the Black Sea, it is likely that Washington will keep sending drones toward Crimea and the Russians will have to knock them down. Washington will then send manned aircraft or maybe a British ship to threaten the Russian fleet. Such a situation could easily spiral out of control because one side thinks it can do anything it likes, and the other side knows it has to draw the line somewhere.

That gets to the heart of the matter. Over the last thirty years in the absence of that old Cold War system, the neocons have taken control of the foreign policy establishment to the point where there is no dissent in Washington. The system is now controlled by fanatics who lack second order thinking. Like all fanatics, the neocons see only that which satisfies their fanaticism. As a result, they imagine every move is furtherance of their goal of destroying their ancient enemy.

There is also the fact that America is a fading empire that still assumes Francis Fukuyama was right and this is the end of history. Thirty years of selecting for people good at enjoying the fruits of victory has left the managerial class in the West stocked with obsequious, narrow-minded dullards. A Jake Sullivan is in his position because he never asks questions and never has an original thought. These people are easily manipulated by the psychopaths of the Kagan cult.

The ultimate question that is being answered at the moment is whether the Global American Empire will go out with a bang or a whimper. In the fullness of time that will be the real history of this age. The emerging great powers of the world are trying to manage the decline of the West and the transition to a multipolar world, while the people running the West play a game of chicken. The reckless management of the Ukraine war suggests it will not end well.

If you like my work and wish to donate, you can buy me a beer. You can sign up for a SubscribeStar or a Substack 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 through the postal service to: Z Media LLC P.O. Box 1047 Berkeley Springs, WV 25411-3047. 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.

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











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Gradually And Then Suddenly

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The Brits are set to have an election on July 4th, ironically enough, and everyone expects it to be a terrible result for the ruling party. The Tories have been in power for a long time and have managed to break every promise they made when they gained power and make everything worse that they promised to improve. On top of that they have gone through a series of ridiculous people as Prime Minister. The current person in the job is an Indian little person who has never run for office.

The reason the Conservatives called what the Brits call “snap elections”, is the people who actually run Britain are worried about new right-wing parties. Snap elections are those called on short notice in some parliamentary systems. The logic behind it is that the ruling party can more easily rig an election when they are out of favor by limiting the time for the opposition to mount a campaign. Democracy depends on institutional skullduggery to maintain its legitimacy.

According to current polling, which is as fraudulent as everything else in the West these days, the Conservatives are at 21%, which is their lowest rating ever. This is why there is a campaign called Zero Seats. The argument is that the only way to break the corrupt system is to eliminate one of the two main parties. Since the Tories are as popular as rectal cancer, they are the best target. While unlikely, it is possible to see a scenario in which they become a fringe party.

It is not all bad news for the Conservatives. Their historic dance partner, Labour, is polling at just 41%, which is terrible given the status of the Tories. Like America, the game of see-saw the parties play says that when one face of the ruling class is unpopular, the other face is popular. Right now, in the UK, both faces of the ruling class are unpopular, which is why they forced snap elections. No respectable person wants to see a new party rise up and challenge the system.

Just in case, the regime has brought Nigel Farage back from America where he was committed to stumping for Donald Trump. Farage is now the leader of the Reform Party, which is the heir to the Brexit Party. He created that after he successfully led the winning side in the Brexit referendum. The party was created to force the regime to follow through on the referendum, which they did not do. It is one of the reasons UK politics are such a mess now.

The only reason any of this matters is it is a good way to see how the system adjusts to defend itself from public discontent. The British regime is just the mini-me of the American regime, so it is a microcosm of what happens in America. The scale is smaller, and the system is slightly different, but we see all the same tricks used by the regime to make sure it is always heads they win and tails you lose. One of those tricks is to co-opt discontent into an acceptably pointless channel.

You can see how it works in the program the Reform Party posted on Twitter, now stupidly called X, the other day. They put immigration at the top because this is one of the top issues that is rustling the voters. To the untrained eye it all looks good, but to the trained eye the fraud is quite clear. The point of their program is to not question the moral claims behind immigration, but to put a fence around that morality so the question is how to best manage mass immigration.

Look at the first point. “Freeze non-essential Immigration.” The only reason to have the term “non-essential Immigration” is if you have “essential Immigration”, which is a moral claim held by the people Farage claims to oppose. Who decided that any immigration is essential and essential to whom? Was it the bankers who actually run the country or was it the managerial elite who adopted it as a luxury belief? Who decides what is and what is not essential about immigration?

Here is another example. “All asylum seekers that arrive illegally from safe countries will be processed rapidly, offshore if necessary.” Logically, the UK should never receive any asylum seekers as by law and logic, asylum seekers go to the nearest safe country for temporary refuge while the home country is in turmoil. The UK is a set of islands bordered by countries that are stable “democracies” so there can never be a case where anyone seeks asylum in the UK.

The point of this weaselly language is two-fold. One is it is the natural obsequiousness that infests all Western right-wing parties. They have the slave mentality, which means they are always bowing and scraping before the people they pretend to oppose with regards to the moral claims of the ruling elite. The other reason is it tend to work as people just see the headlines and never think about the qualifiers. Owning the libs is a universal concept in Western democracies.

Of course, putting an entertaining clown like Farage up as the front man is a great way to distract from this reality. People are mad and lack the sophistication to understand the issues in detail, so Farage provides a vent for their frustration by pretending to be on their side, when in reality he fully supports the moral framework that is the root cause of their frustration. Farage and his Reform Party are what James Carville once called “boob bit for the bubbas.”

The genius of the trick is it will work. Reform is now polling within a few points of the Tories at 16% in the government polls. In other polls they are in a statistical dead heat with the Tories. If they overtake them, then the people angry at the system will claim victory for having knocked out the Tories. Meanwhile, gangs of Muslims are chasing their daughters through the streets. If Reform flops, then they can focus their energy on being angry at Labour for a few years.

For Americans, this should sound familiar. The usual suspects co-opted the Tea Party to become a subsidiary of the Republican Party. What could have been a threat to the system was quickly neutralized. The current populist groundswell has been slowly co-opted by oleaginous grifters who run around wearing red caps and talking about Trump like he is Orange Jesus. Meanwhile, Trump’s platform is now no different from what Jeb Bush was offering in 2016.

This may sound black-pilling and depressing, but the white pill in what is happening with populist parties all around the West is they are gnawing away at the legitimacy of the system by forcing these reactions. The dullards in the UK fall for Farage, but there are lots of people who have gotten wise to this stuff by watching him work. In the U.S., the Trump phenomenon has opened the eyes of many to the reality of the system, simply by seeing the system react to Trump.

In other words, the process by which a system loses its legitimacy is through its various mutations to defend itself from challenges. The number of people wondering if the system should be saved is a measurable number now, thanks to the struggle the system has undergone to defend against even mild reform. The same is true all over as people increasingly notice the unwillingness of the system to give an inch on critical issues like immigration and culture.

The old line from Hemingway about bankruptcy being gradually then suddenly applies to all complex systems. Failed populist uprisings and Potemkin opposition movements are the gradually portion of the show. With every failure to get even a tiny concession from the system, the system loses legitimacy. At some point, and no one ever knows when it will happen, the suddenly part of the show begins. In order to get there, you have to work through the gradually part first.

If you like my work and wish to donate, you can buy me a beer. You can sign up for a SubscribeStar or a Substack 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 through the postal service to: Z Media LLC P.O. Box 1047 Berkeley Springs, WV 25411-3047. 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.

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











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Modern Youth Politics Inc.

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Note: Behind the green door is a post about my experiments with time travel and a series of daily travelogues about my time in Motown for AFPAC, which was much more interesting than I expected. Subscribe here or here.

Symbolism is one of the aspects of all politics, regardless of political system, which tends to get missed by political people. This is especially true of those we call the right, who are often deep in the weeds of ideology or theory. They are like experts on paint who are more concerned with the type of paint used by the great artist than the actual painting he created and its larger meaning. You see this with the reaction to the Nick Fuentes movement that just had its big party this past weekend.

Since he started to gain a following, critics have struggled to find a good way to attack him, as they often get tangled up in the symbolism. He became a national figure during the 2016 MAGA movement, but shot to the top with the 2020 election, where he toured the country holding rallies in the “stop the steal” days. He would gather up young fans and give speeches via bullhorn outside of state capitols. It was reminiscent of the radical protests of the 1960’s and 1970’s.

That was the point, more than the actual content of the protests. It is a form of guerilla marketing in which the counter to the well-financed and carefully choregraphed messaging from the regime is the apparently organic rejection of that message and the people behind the messaging. In other words, the point was not what they were saying at these events. The whole point of the event was to tell the world they exist, despite the mass propaganda from the regime.

This has always had another function for Fuentes. It tells the disaffected youth that there is a place they can go to be with other likeminded people. They see these things happening on their preferred platforms. They get talked up in the online spaces these young people frequent and most importantly, they get criticized by the sorts of people who make good foils for Fuentes. Like all good political animals, Fuentes tends to attract the sorts of critics he needs to make his points.

It is important to note that it has been a long time since someone has come along with the skill of Fuentes in terms of generating excitement. There is an electricity around his events that you never see at other political events. He understands his audience because in reality, Fuentes is his audience. He is trying to create the sort of excitement he and they learned about in history class. He is building a youth movement that mirrors what he thinks it was like in the Reagan or Kennedy years.

This is why the marketing of Nick Fuentes and American First looks like it is put together by profession marketing people. He and his entourage arrive at their impromptu rallies wearing the American First gear, which you can buy at the AF store and the crowd always has the same look at feel. He is always surrounded by guys holding up their mobile device who are surrounded by young men in blue blazers chanting the familiar chants that have become a defining feature of this thing.

While it looks like great marketing, it is genuinely organic. Much has been said about the fact that this generation is the first to be socialized online, but they are also the first generation to be saturated in and socialized by marketing. To old people, the thoroughly commercialized culture of today feels alien and weird. To the young people raised in it, it feels normal. It is simply a habit of mind. The people you see at a Fuentes rally are just falling into the role that fits them best.

In a way, it is as if life has become a video game. They play the character that they feel comfortable playing. Instead of being the barbarian character in the online game, they are the guy holding the cell phone up next to Nick. The archers fall into the role of standing in the back yelling the familiar slogans at Nick. Of course, there are the Leroy Jenkins characters at these things. That would be the black guy dressed as Playa Maga or the has-been grifters like David Duke.

This is what trips up his “right-wing” critics. They see the assorted kooks and weirdos that turn up at these events and then fashion an argument against Fuentes and his followers that often reduces to petty jealousy. Fuentes is doing what many of them said was impossible, mostly because they lacked the skill and courage to try and do the things that Fuentes is doing in terms of public demonstration. Calling Fuentes a grifter is a way to feel good about losing.

When you talk to the people at a Fuentes event, and in Detroit they were everywhere Saturday evening, they will tell you that people like Sneako are not really part of the movement but something like the court jester. They lack the sophistication to explain it, but they sense that the point of these colorful characters is to decorate the public face of the movement as something like an inside joke. The critics do not get it, which is why they are not in it.

Therein lies the genuine problem for this thing. It is like everything else in the modern mass media age in that it is just a thing you do until the next thing comes along. It is why Fuentes has had to keep shifting the focus and changing the characters in what is more like a long running reality television show than a political movement. Every season you get a new character and some new issues. It is not that it is a grift or he is not serious, but rather this is what this generation thinks is serious.

Another way to think of it is the films from twenty years ago where the walls between virtual reality and reality break down and you have a character from the digital world enter the real world or vice versa. This is what is happening for a generation raised on mass media, mass marketing within the context of virtual reality where the worst thing that can happen to you is your character dies. The politics of this generation are the politics of the internet, not the meat space.

Politics as professional wrestling is fun for the twenty-somethings who are naturally drawn to it, but in time they will have to have real lives. You see this transition in some of the older young people who are now working and on their own. Standing outside a Nick rally yelling those slogans feels foolish to them. That is the most likely way this thing unfolds over the next few years. The youthful excitement and superficiality will give way to more mature and serious politics.

This raises the question of the expiry date for Nick Fuentes. All pop stars who court the youth audience run into the same problem. There comes a point where their act goes from opportunistic to weird. They get too old for their market. Fuentes looks like he is a teenager, so he has time, but at some point, he will have to follow his older audience into a more mature form of politics. The question that remains unasked and unanswered is whether he will lead them or follow them.

If you like my work and wish to donate, you can buy me a beer. You can sign up for a SubscribeStar or a Substack 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 through the postal service to: Z Media LLC P.O. Box 1047 Berkeley Springs, WV 25411-3047. 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.

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











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The Euros And Ukraine

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During Covid, one of the questions that kicked around was how would the public react when they found out the government was lying? The answer is we do not know as the whole thing has been thrown down the memory hole for the most part. The truth about Covid has slowly seeped into the public consciousness, but no one asks them about it and no media outlet discusses it. The best anyone can tell is that the Covid lies have become a part of the general cynicism.

We will soon get another case to see how the public will respond when the truth is nothing like what they have been told by the media. In the case of Project Ukraine, this test will happen in Europe where the local media talks about the war in Ukraine in terms that have always been fanciful. It was European media that gave us the “Ghost of Kiev” and the babushkas knocking down fighter jets with canned goods. They continue to feed their public outlandish stories about the war.

Those with an interest in the war and access to the internet can find out what is actually happening on the battlefield. The facts are often blurred by the fog of war and the bias of the people doing the reporting, but with some patience you can get a good picture of what is happening in Ukraine. It is even possible to get a sense of what is happening outside the war zone as there are still plenty of Ukrainians posting stuff to popular apps like Telegram and Instagram.

Very little of this reality gets into Europeans media. Instead, they produce content like this from the UK Telegraph, which is supposed to be a serious media platform, not the typical British tabloid. Not only are they “reporting” that Ukrainian “wonder weapons are decimating the Russians”, but they also have a special section with high production quality explanations of those wonder weapons. In other words, this is a highly choregraphed bit of propaganda designed to deceive the public.

The wonder weapon stuff is mild compared to some of the other posts you will find about Ukraine in the Telegraph. This one claims the Ukrainians are about to seize Crimea because their squadrons of unicorns are showering the place with magical fairy dust they shoot from their ass. That is not an exaggeration, as magical farting unicorns would be more plausible than the contents of the actual post. The whole thing is a fantasy with no basis in reality.

It is not just the UK media that is gaslighting the public. The German media is full of similarly nonsensical stories. Here is the Ukraine page for Bild, which you can use Google to translate into English. Die Zeit is probably the most respected news site in Germany, and it just copies and pastes whatever Kiev, or the neocons send them about what is happening in the war. While not as ridiculous as the UK media, the continental media is gaslighting its public just as hard.

The problem is the war is going horribly for Ukraine. The Russian army is slowly and methodically grinding the Ukraine army into bits. Every month the Ukrainians are forced to fall back at some point along the line of contact. The Russians have knocked out the power grid of the country, which means there is no electric for up to twenty hours per day in some areas. The Ukrainian army is literally snatching men off the streets and sending them to the front due to a lack of manpower.

What Ukraine war watchers have known for a long time is that at some point, the Ukraine army will not be able to keep fighting. At some point, the Russians will decide it is time to end the war on its terms. Given that this is a proxy war between Washington and Moscow, the assumption is the fall is when things come to a head, just in time for the presidential election. Maybe it will happen sooner or maybe later, but at some point, reality will burst through those European headlines.

From a distance, it is hard to know if the firehose of nonsense about the war is fooling the European public. The recent elections suggest that at the minimum the public is tired of the ruling parties putting the welfare of Ukraine ahead of the welfare of the European people. It is possible that the Euros have been wise to the media nonsense about Ukraine, but simply care more about other things. Like Covid, it is hard to know as no one bothers to find out what the public thinks.

Unlike Covid, the collapse of Project Ukraine is not going to be easy to sweep under the rug by ignoring it. With Covid, the liars scurried off with their bags of cash and the pols declared victory as they let their foot off the neck of the public. The general public was simply happy to get back to normal. That is probably not going to work with Ukraine as there is no benefit to putting the topic in the past. There will simply be what the media claimed to be true and the truth, which is the opposite.

Compounding the problem in Europe is the fact that the leading politicians have made Ukraine their signature issue. In the U.S., the pols have been giving it a good leaving alone for a year now, other than the big funding push in February. Note that as soon as that bill passed, they changed the subject. In Europe, the political class has made Ukraine a test of their legitimacy. Therefore, when the Ukraine army surrenders, they cannot shrug and move on to other issues.

One of the lessons of the Soviet era was that the accumulation of lies eventually saps even the most repressive regime of legitimacy. The Soviet system fell apart when no one could think of a reason to support it, not even the people at the top of the system who benefitted from it the most. In this way, Ukraine and Covid may be analogous to Afghanistan and Chernobyl. These are events that delegitimize the system by making clear that nothing it says or does is on the level.

If you like my work and wish to donate, you can buy me a beer. You can sign up for a SubscribeStar or a Substack 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 through the postal service to: Z Media LLC P.O. Box 1047 Berkeley Springs, WV 25411-3047. 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.

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











.

America Inc.

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Note: Behind the green door is a post about grammar robots, a post the general weirdness of dissident politics and the Sunday podcast, which thankfully had nothing to do about Trump or the anti-Trump kooks. Subscribe here or here.

One of the criticisms of the paleoconservatives is that they never got around to formulating an explanation for why the managerial state emerged. They did a good job describing it and how it differed from the straightforward administrative bureaucracies that have been a part of society since Diocletian. How the bureaucracy transitioned from instrument of the ruling elite into a ruling elite itself has remained a bit of mystery, with only some stabs here and there at an explanation.

The fault probably lies with Burnham, who was the first guy to create a political theory from observing the emergence of the managerial system. He wrote his most famous book, The Managerial Revolution, during the Second World War when the Nazis were at the peak of their power. Therefore, his understanding of managerialism was shaped by the militant authoritarianism of it. Burnham was still a communist, so this no doubt played a role in his understanding of managerialism.

The emergence of managerialism in interwar Europe is easy to explain simply by pointing to the conditions that prevailed after the Great War. Fascism emerged on the losing side of the war because of the chaos that emerged as a result of the collapse of the old order and the general lunacy of liberalism and communism as they fought to fill the void left by the old order. Fascism rode the popular demand for a return of order to power in places like German and Italy.

Once in power, the fascists had to actually govern. The existing institutions they inherited were either badly damaged by the war and the post-war chaos or antiquated holdovers from the prior era. Managerialism provided both a blueprint for governing but also a source of authority. Gather up the best people and set them to work rebuilding infrastructure, the economy, and the state. Once they began to make progress, public support for the system provided the necessary legitimacy.

This model for managerialism being a modern, industrial response to both the collapse of the old order and the chaos of the present works pretty well for the emergence of it in communist Russia. The collapse of the tsarist system and the Russian civil war left Russia as a chaotic mess. Into that void flowed Stalin first inside the party and then as something of an industrial age tsar. He gathered up and developed an army of people to manage, govern and control the new Soviet society.

That same process does not work for America, where managerialism emerged at the same time as it did in Europe. Many have noted the parallels between FDR’s New Deal revolution and the emergence of fascism in Europe. Until the war, many New Deal progressives were fans of Mussolini. They never liked Hitler, due to his crudeness and antisemitism, but they liked Mussolini. There was in the 1930’s a great deal of cross pollination between the two systems.

America, however, was not emerging from a failed war and its political order was not destroyed as a result of it. On the contrary, America was remarkably stable in the aftermath of the economic collapse in the 1930’s and the political system seemed to be working very well. There is no doubt that FDR revolutionized the relationship between the citizen and the state during this period, but he did not do so in response to the loss of legitimacy of the old arrangements.

It should also be noted that the managerialism that emerged in America was different from the militaristic version that emerged in the fascist countries, which built upon trench socialism. Similarly, Stalin’s managerialism was a way to recapture the collective spirit of the revolutionary years in which the Bolsheviks finally seized power and won the civil war. The managerial revolution of FDR was softer and an outgrowth of volunteerism of early America.

Therein lies a clue as to why managerialism emerged in America. Through the 19th century, Americans were largely governed by local association. Other than the post office and military service, the typical American had little reason to think about the federal government. It was an abstraction. Even state government played a limited role in his life compared to local government and the community associations that defined the life of most Americans.

The industrial revolution changed America by urbanizing large chunks of the population, thus destroying rule by association for large numbers of people. The shift from industrial work also changed the relationship between the man and his work by making it individualistic rather than communal. The failure of a farmer impacts many more people than the farmer and his family. The failure of a factory worker is a burden only on the worker and his family. Work became a solitary pursuit.

Like the rise of managerialism, the rise of individualism is one of those things that many recognize as a problem, but no can explain. Why all of a sudden did Europeans stop thinking collectively and start thinking individually? Racial solidarity among Europeans was so natural it did not require a vocabulary to describe. Today we have a vast array of labels to describe white ethnic and racial solidarity, despite the fact that it barely exists and only in the virtual reality of the internet.

As work isolated men from one another, the natural response was to think individually and see the man next you as competition. This was obviously good for the factory owner, so work in many cases became a competitive arena, a Hobbesian existence where the owner harnessed this war of all against all to increase productivity, reduce costs and maximize profits. The result was a class of citizen who was no longer defined by community but by alienation from community.

This alienation inevitably led to unhappiness as man is a social animal and evolved to be so within small groups. The emergence of masses of Americans living in big cities fighting one another for wages lead to a disenchantment of the world. The rise of urban political machines was one consequence. Another consequence was a looking inward for spiritual happiness. When community can no longer provide a larger purpose to life, the only option is to seek it individually.

The shift from community man to individual man naturally leads to the individual abandoning his duties to the community. Self-government rests on the assumption that the bulk of the citizens have a moral duty to the whole. Who they are is not just what they have or even what they contribute to the whole. A big part of what defines the community man’s sense of self is the success of his community. Individual man lacks this entirely, so he has no reason to participate.

This is the same void of order into which managerialism flowed in interwar Europe and post-tsarist Russia. The tutelary state that emerged in America in the 20th century was not imposed on an unwilling populace, but simply filled the void left by a growing population of people uninterested in anything outside their window. Urban and now suburban peasants needed the protection of the state because as atomized individuals, they were no longer willing to participate in their own protection.

This is why the state has also become a church of sorts. Much of what the managerial state does is moral guidance. Painting rainbows on crosswalks and then daring anyone to defile them is intended to create sinners so the priests of the system can punish those sinners thus providing the needed moral instruction. What used to be done by community pressure and the local minister is now done by credentialled members of a faceless and remorseless managerial class.

Managerialism is the natural form of government for an industrial people as it mimics the life of the industrial worker. Republican government and aristocratic government reflected the reality of the people, who were primarily organized around communal activities like farming and trade. Twentieth century America turned into a continent-sized business park occupied by one business, American Inc. Like every business, America Inc. needed a management class, so it  got one.

The question is can this model survive the post-industrial age? America began to deindustrialize fifty years ago. The old industrial model of governance has tried to adapt to the transition to the information economy, but managing information is vastly more difficult than managing capital and labor. In fact, it may not even be possible to manage information without poisoning the minds of the managers. The current crisis may simply be due to this problem.

On the other hand, it may be that you cannot have a society organized around marshaling data and data frameworks. Perhaps America Inc. is simply a legacy business parasiting off the societies that continue to make things, fix things, dig things from the ground and invent things. Perhaps the end point of managerialism is the same for all antiquated business models. The current crisis is the struggle to avoid the inevitable bankruptcy of the managerial system.

If you like my work and wish to donate, you can buy me a beer. You can sign up for a SubscribeStar or a Substack 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 through the postal service to: Z Media LLC P.O. Box 1047 Berkeley Springs, WV 25411-3047. 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.

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











.

Escalatory Delusions

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Most men can remember back to a time on the schoolyard when two kids got into a confrontation and one of them kept promising to do something bad to the other if the other did not stop whatever it was he was doing. The threat of consequences was supposed to deter the other, but the other kid was undeterred, and the result was a fight, with the kid making the threats getting the worst of it. Bullies often come to a bad end like this as their bullying is based on threats.

If you are a member of the managerial elite, it is unlikely that you have such a memory as you were raised by women, so no school yard fights. As a result, the logic of the bully, issuing escalatory threats, makes perfect sense. After all, if you can conjure something worse than the other guy is conjuring, then you win! Therefore, success is determined by who has the greatest mastery of escalatory dominance, the alleged ability to escalate a conflict beyond that of an opponent.

This is the engine that has been driving the war in Ukraine. For close to a decade the Russians have objected to what Washington has been doing on its border in Ukraine, but Washington has responded with the promise of more of what the Russians found objectionable, rather than search for a compromise. Once the Russians crossed into Ukraine, Washington unleashed the sanctions war and promised even more punishments, including the promise of regime change.

Throughout the war, the approach from Washington has been to create some artificial red line for themselves or Russia, and then cross it in such a way as to suggest all future red lines will be crossed. Currently NATO is having a debate about launching long range missile attacks on Russia, from NATO countries or with NATO personnel, while pretending it is being done by Ukraine. This is the bully threatening the kid who refuses to back down with something worse than backing down.

Unreported in the West, Ukraine has been using Western supplied drones to attack early warning radar stations in southern Russia. These are part of Russia’s nuclear defense system. They play no role in the Ukraine war, but Ukraine’s handlers are having them do this as a form of escalatory dominance. The point is to signal to the Russians that the West is not afraid of nuclear war. The madness of this is obvious, but to a great degree that is the point, to seem mad.

We see a similar thing shaping up with China. Washington is going out of its way to provoke China over the issue of Taiwan. Various officials have been sent to the island for no other reason than to antagonize the Chinese. A big package of weapons has been shipped to Taiwan and Washington has increased the number of military personnel on the island. Washington regularly talks about how it is actively preparing for a war with the Chinese over the issue of Taiwan.

A great example of how the concept of escalatory dominance controls how American ruling elites deal with the world is the last trip by Anthony Blinken to China in which he went out of his way to insult the Chinese. The State Department insisted on Blinken visiting China, where he held meetings with Chinese leaders. He then went out of those meetings and threatened them with sanctions. This was done to let the Chinese know that there is no red line Washington will not cross.

This is not just a foreign policy strategy. The reason Trump is waiting to hear a guilty verdict is the regime has always assumed that if they cross enough red lines with regards to the rule of law, Trump or his supporters will fold. For going on four years, it has been ever increasing violence against both the rule of law and the customs that have controlled our politics. The point of each new escalation is to warn that there is no limit to what they will do unless you obey.

It is the unquestioned assumption in Washington that there is always some threat they can issue that is so terrifying that the other side will back down that has led them into a crisis for the regime. Half the country now thinks the courts are corrupt beyond reform thanks to the lawfare unleashed by the regime. We are remarkably close to the point where a majority of Americans think we are ruled by lawless gangsters, which even in easy times is an impossible state of affairs.

The crisis gripping the West is due, in large part, to the fact that the system now selects boys and girls with no practical knowledge. Never having had their bluff called and walking away with a bloody nose or a black eye, they just assume such a thing is impossible, so they are free to escalate their threats. It is not so much that their threats work, but that they ought to work. In the artificial reality in which these people live, the ought is the same as the is.

The Trump trial is a good bit of foreshadowing for how this widely held delusion about escalatory dominance will end. At some point, the bluff is called, and the bluffer has to either follow through or their raison d’etre evaporates. This is the story of the bully who finally has to fight and gets beaten. It is not the beating that ends his reign as a bully, but the fact that someone stood up to him. This is what is happening with the lawfare against Trump, who has called their bluff.

Unlike the schoolyard, the end of a regime that relies on escalatory dominance is not so simple and tidy. The regime now has to hope the Trump trial ends in a hung jury so they can maintain their stance. An acquittal has them looking like fools and a guilty verdict has them in a crisis far worse than Trump winning the election. Soon, the bluff will be called over Ukraine and Taiwan. Once this happens, the regime has no answer other than the unthinkable.

If you like my work and wish to donate, you can buy me a beer. You can sign up for a SubscribeStar or a Substack 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 through the postal service to: Z Media LLC P.O. Box 1047 Berkeley Springs, WV 25411-3047. 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.

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











.

Trump The Elephant

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Mary was a five-ton Asian elephant that performed at a circus, until she went berserk and killed one of her handlers. For some reason, the otherwise gentle beast attacked the handler on his second day of work. She picked him up with her trunk, hurled him against a wall and then stepped on his head. The circus owner decided that the right thing to do was to hold a public execution of the elephant for the crime of having murdered the elephant handler. The elephant was then hanged.

This strange story happened in 1916 in rural Tennessee, and it is a good way to think about what is about to happen in a New York City courtroom. This week the jury will get the Trump case with instructions by the judge to convict. This trial and the behavior of the people running it is like the execution of a circus elephant. It is about vengeance, rather than justice. The circus owner hanged Mary the elephant to satisfy the lust for vengeance and the conviction of Trump is for the same purpose.

The trial of Trump has nothing to do with the law. He paid a lawyer to make a problem go away, which happens all the time in America. The claim here is that it was booked incorrectly by his accounting department. The trial was never about the alleged accounting error. It was an excuse to humiliate a man that the judge, the prosecutors, the media and most likely the jury think deserves to be punished just as the locals thought Mary the elephant needed to be punished.

There have always been two sides to punishment. The one we like to think is our motivation is side that seeks to discourage future bad behavior. We want the criminal punished so he and others will not commit future crimes. That is a pleasant thought, but in reality, most of the time punishment is about vengeance. The person who harmed us and is causing harm is what the masses detest the most. Low morality revolves around those things that harm people, society, and our beliefs.

Ironically, this is why the “best” people have relished the seedy details of this trial and now prepare to celebrate the guilty verdict. Joe Biden is set to give an Oval Office speech once the verdict is read. The reason for this is the managerial class has the morality of a servant, despite their control of the institutions of power. They look at Trump as someone who harmed them, their system of rule and their beliefs, so as far as they are concerned, he is evil and must be punished.

The Trump phenomenon has provided an interesting insight into the psychology of the managerial elite. Despite their pretensions and their control of the institutions, they are still motivated by a low form of morality. That starts with what the weak always fear, which is harm done to them by those with power. Theirs is the slave morality which is rooted in paranoia, distrust, and fear. Being a good person, therefore, means not causing those reactions among the servant class.

It makes sense as the managerial elite are not powerful in the convention way in which we think of power in a society. They are the product of a system that empowers the servant of the owner, rather than their own accomplishments. You rise in this system by pleasing those above you and managing your horizontal relations. No can ever reach a place of independence within the system as the system is built upon interlocking relationships within the institutions.

This is the difference between an owner and a manager. The CEO of a company is not truly powerful because he must answer to the owners. The power he wields is on behalf of the people who granted him that power. Those people have power due to their own deeds, so their source of power is internal rather than external. Further, that CEO must always fear being replaced by someone below him. The manager must always be paranoid and fearful of everyone around him.

Trump, of course, is not a product of the managerial system. He is in many respects the abnegation of that system. Rather than getting rich and famous through a system of interlocking dependencies, he got rich building big, complicated buildings and famous by being good on television. Trump, for all his faults, is his own man and this is the not just the opposite of managerial man, it is the nullification of him. It is the existence of Trump that terrifies the managerial class, not his ideas.

This is the other cause for managerial rage over Trump. He has choices because his power is internal. He did not have to run in 2016 and he does not have to run in 2024, but he chose to for his own reasons. Everyone involved in the case against Trump depends to a great degree on the decisions of others. They have bosses or they have a career that comes with normative demands. The judge has to act in a certain way in order to remain in good standing.

That is a key difference between the owner and the manager. The owner can separate himself from the manager, but the manager can never separate from the owner without losing all of his status. The owner makes choices based on what he thinks is best, while the manager makes choices based on that fear of losing his position. The reason the slave resents the master is the same reason the manager resents the owner. It is why the managerial class despises Trump.

There is a related motivation here. The managerial class does not just see themselves as functionaries managing the system. They see themselves as something like a priestly class that dictates the happiness of the people. This is especially true in the media which has the greatest loathing for Trump and his fans. These are people whose power rests solely on dictating what is morally right and wrong. They sit in the judgment of everyone, even the truly powerful.

The reason for this is the power of priestly class rests on their framing of good and evil, which always places them on the side of the good. They prove this by pretending to live the purest of lives according to the morality they impose. Note how our managerial elite is always preaching about things like the climate, race, our democracy, and other parts of the progressive catechism. Our managerial class is the clergy, and the elites see themselves as the high priests.

There is no one who enjoys vengeance more than the priest. The suffering of the wicked is the greatest joy to the truly righteous. For the managerial class, punishing those who transgress and seeing them suffer is their reward. It is why the media love ruining people. It makes them feel like Aquinas relishing the image of the damned writhing in the pits of hell. This is why this case matters so much. The managerial priests will get to see a wicked man suffer.

This returns us to Mary the elephant. The people who wanted to see the elephant hanged were not demanding it for practical reasons. They were weak people who lived in fear and the elephant came to represent that fear. Killing the animal by public hanging was an act of piety. It represented the triumph of their sense of justice, which is always expressed as vengeance by those who see themselves as weak. They killed the elephant as an act of revenge.

That is the point of this trial. The managerial class wants revenge on Trump for violating their taboos and holding a mirror up to their system. Vengeance is the product of revenge and revenge is the result of resentment. The managerial class resents men like Trump as a part of their organizing ethos. By running for president, he became the slave owner who came down to party with the slaves in the slave quarters. His actions remind them of their status as slaves.

In the end, that is the point of the Trump phenomenon. Despite his populist rhetoric, Trump is an aristocrat of the old sort. He is a self-made man. The question he poses is will we and can we be ruled by the servants of aristocrats or will they fail and be replaced by the natural aristocracy. Can you have a society ruled by people controlled by resentment for the natural elite? That is the question Trump poses. Whether they hang him or not, the question must be answered.

If you like my work and wish to donate, you can buy me a beer. You can sign up for a SubscribeStar or a Substack 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 through the postal service to: Z Media LLC P.O. Box 1047 Berkeley Springs, WV 25411-3047. 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.

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 Total State

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Note: Behind the green door is a series of posts on the original Planet of the Apes films, which I watched and reviewed. There was no Sunday podcast due to the holiday, but it will return next week. Subscribe here or here.

If you are of a certain age and inclination, reading The Total State: How Liberal Democracies Become Tyrannies, a new book by Auron MacIntyre, feels like a trip down memory lane to a time when you were discovering the major figures of what would eventually be called paleoconservatism. The text is filled with references to Carl Schmidt, Machiavelli, Vilfredo Pareto, James Burnham, Paul Gottfried, Sam Francis, and other figures who feature prominently in the paleo subculture.

That is the first way to approach this book as the writer was by his own account a garden variety conservative until a few years ago. That means he accepted the neoconservative foreign policy claims, the libertarian economics, and the civic nationalism of the Buckley crowd. The Trump years, the 2020 election and Covid forced him to reevaluate that way of framing politics. Working in the media, he also witnessed firsthand the corruption and mendacity of the fifth estate.

Judging from the number of references to Covid and how often it is used as an example in making points about what he calls the Total State, it is fair to assume that the mass panic and group think within the managerial class during Covid is what sent the writer on his journey out of civic nationalism. The state’s willingness and ability to trample the idea of a rights-based society in the name of public health, along with the media cheerleading, broke the spell of civic nationalism.

What followed was a crash course in the ideas of the “alternative right” as Paul Gottfried used to call it before that term was anathematized. The result is this book which can be read as an intellectual journey. Ideas common in dissident circles were new and amazing in their ability to explain what was happening during Covid. The enthusiasm MacIntyre has for the material will surely bring back memories for older readers who recall experiencing this material in their youth.

Another way of reading this book is as a summary, a Cliff Notes version, of managerialism and the managerial state. MacIntyre borrows the title of the book from Carl Schmidt, who called this form of government der Totalstaat, which translates into English as the Total State. He could also have used the term Sam Francis used, Leviathan, or simply the managerial state. All roughly mean the same thing, which is the all-encompassing corporate state.

Read this way, this book is an excellent primer for the person who is embarking on a journey out of civic nationalism. MacIntyre covers all the important bits using accessible language and recent examples, like the Covid panic. He makes good use of references to the pantheon of stars that make up the paleo constellation but does so in a way that does not require the reader to know about these people. It is an introduction to other modes of conservative thought and the topic of managerialism.

Still another way to approach this book is as the down payment on the long overdue project of building an alternative intellectual framework. What passes for the right in America was not much more complicated than saying, “not so fast” to the schemes dreamed up by the people we call the left. The closest anyone came to building an alternative moral framework was Sam Francis who died before he could finish is magnum opus, Leviathan and Its Enemies.

In his review of The Total State, Greg Hood suggests this might be the start or a restart of that project as MacIntyre is not just a nobody on the internet. He is a member of the so-called conservative media with access to influencers allowed to operate unmolested on the public stage. He regularly turns up on television during elections and has mainstream guests on his show. MacIntyre dusting off these ideas from a perch within mainstream media could be the start of the project.

There could be something to this as there is a gold rush right now to find something to replace Buckley-style conservatism. There are formal efforts like Yoram Hazony’s National Conservatism project and the Claremont Institute. There are informal efforts among online content creators, the sort of people I called Cosmos and those Dave Green calls the LinkedIn Right. There are lots of people searching for a New Right and perhaps they discover a new ideological framework.

The book is not without its flaws, of course. MacIntyre mentions Curtis Yarvin too many times and one is counted as one too many. Yarvin simply has no place in a serious discussion about politics or political theory. Maybe his name was dropped because he is reportedly Peter Theil’s court jester or maybe MacIntyre thinks this is a useful reference point for his intended audience. Regardless, seeing Yarvin’s name turn up in anything is like discovering a hair in your soup.

That aside, another quibble is one it inherits from paleoconservatism and that is it cannot explain why managerialism exists. Burnham noticed that it first appeared in fascist systems. Later writers observed that communism was also good soil for the growth of managerialism. Now we see American-style liberal democracy has also been overtaken by bourgeois managers. This is hardly an accident, but paleos have never produced an explanation for it.

That leads to another quibble that also comes from the paleo space. MacIntyre cannot provide an answer for what to do about it. He finished his book with three possible ends for The Total State. One is it staggers on due to a monopoly of power. Another is it is replaced by a strong man of some sort. The final option, the one MacIntyre prefers, is that it slowly dies from its own internal contradictions. Note that none of these lead to any action against the managerial system.

That was always the flaw of paleoconservatism. It was a call to inaction in the face of perpetual revolution from the top. You cannot build a political movement on a foundation that calls for hiding out in the basement until the storm passes. Even if the storm passes, what comes next will not be the work of those who choose inaction in the face of danger, but by those who have a platform that calls for action in pursuit of something different and better than hoping for nicer weather.

In the end, the judgment of any book is whether it did what it set out to do, not what could have or should have done according to the critics. When approached by any of the angles above, The Total State accomplishes the goal of the author. It is a book for those who would like a fuller understanding of the terms commonly used in dissident circles and for the people looking for a path out of the banality of what passes for conventional conservatism.

If you like my work and wish to donate, you can buy me a beer. You can sign up for a SubscribeStar or a Substack 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 through the postal service to: Z Media LLC P.O. Box 1047 Berkeley Springs, WV 25411-3047. 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.

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.

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Media And The Cult

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A mostly unexamined aspect of the ongoing crisis is the role the media plays in keeping the managerial class misinformed. It is always assumed that the firehose of lies that come from regime media is designed to trick the public, but the truth is no one in charge cares about public opinion outside the extremes. Politicians come and go, and the parties take turns pretending to be in charge but the administrative state and the managerial class that runs it are permanent.

One only has to look at the presidential elections over the last thirty years to see that elections have no impact on policy. Bill Clinton was supposed to be a break with the polices of Reagan and Bush, but things changed very little. Bush was supposed to bring decency back to the White House. Instead, he empowered the neocons, who set about making war on the world. Obama was supposed to put an end to all that war making, but instead doubled down in Afghanistan.

If you could map changes in public policy from election to election since the Cold War you would end up with a line that slowly moves upward. The only change we see is slightly more of the same with each change in administration. The same can be said of the changes in the House and Senate. As we have recently seen with the Republicans in the House, they are just a shadow of the Democrats, who shadow the Republicans as they take turns in the majority.

The reason for this is ninety percent of our elected representatives never have to fear the voters. They only have to fear the wrath of their party leaders, who are the representatives of the economic elites that underwrite the system. For the typical congressman or senator, there is no profit in appealing to the voters, if it means going against party leadership. That can only result in a primary challenge, so the rational course is to do what the party tells them.

If the political system is now immune to public opinion, then why are we awash in mass media filling the public square with propaganda? One reason is inertia. There was a time when winning the voters mattered and the media was an essential part of how the parties presented their claims to the public. Listen to media figures talk about their profession and they often sound like museum pieces. The Washington Post hilariously has the line, “Democracy Dies In Darkness” on its masthead.

Another reason for the explosion of agit-prop might be that as the number of safe seats has grown, the consensus between the two parties has narrowed. That means the range of acceptable dissent has narrowed as well. Look around Washington and there is only one acceptable position on most issues. For example, you can wail about the southern border, but you cannot oppose immigration. You can “care about working families” but you cannot oppose finance capitalism.

When a broad range of positions are tolerated, the focus is on winning the public to your side, but when the range of tolerable positions is narrow, the focus must be on keeping everyone inside that tolerable range. That is where the media comes in with its firehose of official nonsense. The point is not to sway or trick a skeptical public, but to enforce conformity of opinion inside Washington. Ironically, this was the primary purpose of the media in the Soviet Union.

Take for example this post at the National Interest. This is one of the many neocon publications used to control official debate on foreign policy. It was founded by Irving Kristol, one of the founding members of the neocon cult. The post reads like it was written by a crazy person, but that is because it is a collection of assertions circulating in the mass media for years. The point of the post is to keep these assertions circulating and therefore the default position on Russia.

Imagine you are a congressman sitting on a committee that serves the interests of the Military Industrial Complex. Image further that you made the mistake of reading unapproved analysis of the war and the war claims. You might be tempted to question the people making the claims, until you run into this wall of official opinion that sprouts from every regime outlet and every regime member. Even if you are skeptical, you will find nothing but hostility to your questions.

In many respects, Washington now operates like a cult. People at all levels are recruited into politics because they conform to the attitudes of the cult. Those who show a lack of enthusiasm are either bullied into submission or expelled. Meanwhile, those inside are subjected to a constant wave of mass media that reinforces the currently acceptable opinions of the cult leaders. The media is an endless chorus praising the cult and the positions held by the cult.

Another aspect of cults is that the people inside them lack the perspective and self-awareness to see themselves as being in a cult. No one ever says “I decided to join a cult” because no one in a cult thinks they are in a cult. Instead, they think the logic of the cult explains everything that needs explaining. To those outside, the logic of the cult seems weird and possibly dangerous. The people inside appear to be painfully divorced from reality, maybe even insane.

This is exactly how normal people see Washington. They see lunatics ranting and raving about imaginary demons, while obvious problems are ignored. One congressman after another swears allegiance to a foreign power, while hooting about China and Russia influencing our elections. This is all amplified by a mass media system that is designed to reward such behavior and punish any hint of skepticism about the narrow set of acceptable opinions.

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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.

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











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