Over a century ago, Robert Lewis Dabney noted that Northern Conservatism never conserves anything. It makes a show of resisting whatever Progressive fads are currently popular, but in the end, it always gives in and eventually, embraces the fad as a principle of conservatism. He was probably not the first to note this, but his description remains the most famous, among those who traffic in taboo thoughts. His description of conservatism as a shadow that follows the Left is a great image that captures their nature perfectly.
The Dissident Right often uses a version of Dabney’s description to describe the modern conservative movement. What gets lost is the fact that Dabney was describing northern conservatives. This geographic split has been erased from the modern mind, as the people who won the Civil War slowly, but surely, erase everything but the history of the North from the nation’s memory. That last bit is critical. One of the distinguishing features of 20th century American conservatism was its Yankeeness.
One reason for this, of course, is that Progressivism is rooted in the North. In fact, it has been pretty much confined to what Colin Woodward called Yankeedom. This map is useful for understanding the demographic contours of American regionalism. Those dark blue areas are where Lefty walks the streets unmolested. It only makes sense that the loyal opposition would be located in the same areas. The colleges and universities growing the next generation of Progressives, also produce their conservative analogs.
There is another angle to this. There were fifteen presidents before Lincoln. Six of them were from Yankeedom or the Midlands. The rest were from the Tidewater or the South. Virginia used to be called the Cradle of Presidents because seven pre-Civil War presidents were from there. Only one post-Civil War president, Woodrow Wilson, has been from Virginia. Of the thirty since the war, twenty-five have been from Yankeedom or from the Midlands. There have been nineteen from parts of the country that fall into the dark blue portion of that linked map.
Since the Civil War, America has been dominated by one region of the country. It stands to reason that politics would be rooted in this region as well. Because Progressives, in various manifestations, are dominant in the North, they have been the driving force in America politics and culture as a whole. Naturally, any reaction to this would be culturally rooted in the North as well. Put another way, politics in America has been a lover’s quarrel between the two halves of Yankeedom since the Civil War.
This arrangement probably would have collapsed a century ago, but world events interceded to lock things in place. The Great War, the Depression, World War Two and then the long nuclear stand-off with the Russians locked things in place. With the nation at risk, any effort to upset the domestic political arrangements would be quickly swatted down. The reason our politics are in a flux now, with the old arrangements collapsing, is there is no longer an exogenous force to lock things in place. Normalcy is returning.
This is why the gap between Progressives and the Buckley Conservatives seems so small all of a sudden. The stand-off with the Soviets was not just a military and political conflict. There was a moral and philosophical conflict. That magnified the differences because it cast them against the backdrop of the larger dispute between Eastern authoritarianism and Western pluralism. Once that backdrop was gone, what was left was two sides squabbling over trivial items and competing for the love of financial backers.
It is also why politics turned into a screaming match after the Cold War ended. There were no big areas of dispute, so they had no choice but to pretend that the trivial differences between the two sides were enormous divides. That was the crucial insight of the Clinton people. Bill Clinton won in 1992 by bellowing about how Bush the Elder did not know how grocery store scanners worked. Clinton, Bush and Obama were basically the same guy, but the political class carried on like they were polar opposites.
What all this means is that we are in the transition period between the third and fourth phases of American history. The first phase was the Colonial Period that lasted up to and included the Revolutionary War. Then there was the Constitutional Period that lasted until the Civil War. The third period was the Yankee Imperium, which lasted from the Civil War through the end of the Cold War. What comes next is debatable, but it is clear that the rest of the country is going to have a say in the political life of the country.
One thing that is certain is that the political arrangements, both formal and informal, will change as the nation transitions to what comes next. The great centralization of power over the last century to implement the Yankee moral vision domestically and build out the empire around the world is not made for a world of identity politics, regionalization and an empire in retreat. We have legal and political institutions for white people to manage disputes between white people. Those are useless in a majority-minority country.
One final thought on this. These phases of American history have been punctuated by violent conflict. The people who settled and founded the country were not gentle, passive souls. The Colonial Period ended in War. The Constitutional Period ended with the Civil War. It is reasonable to think that this transition period will have its violent elements before we settle into that fourth phase. We live in a low violence time, so civil war is unlikely, but the coming years will most likely feature harsh, regional disputes.
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“Those dark blue areas are where Lefty walks the streets unmolested”
Well, except for Hollywood and Washington, DC. They seem to be molesting everybody!
As a Michigander, I take exception to some of the coloration of my state. True, that Detroit, Lansing, and Saginaw/Bay City are deep blue, but the U.P., the central to northern portion of the southern peninsula, as well as the western areas around Grand Rapids are in NO WAY deep blue commie-topia. This isn’t just a “little spot here-and-there” nitpicking. This is really not even close to accurate. I suspect there are many other locales where the author got it wrong.
Here’s where I’m stuck. After the last 11 months of Hillary stooping even lower than Gore did in his 2000 loss and the all-out effort to undo a election, by hook or by crook.. how can the half of the country that voted for Trump EVER accept a prog / Democrat win going forward? I mean, think of 2024.. their best chance.. The left and the media have crossed a line. The last administration clearly politicized large swaths of the Government. The Trump administration has 7 years to attempt to hold folks accountable and assure us nommies out here that our Feds aren’t corrupt and partisan. A sticky wicket.
My prediction: 40 years of GOP/Trumpian rule. A time of growth, contentment and positive change. I look forward to the death of the GOPe that spawed Bush and the rest.. the ones that hated Reagan. Like the old Democrats, within 12 years or so, most of the globalist in the GOP will have died. And a page will turn for the better.
Interesting theory, but what you call Yankee Progressivism is even more dominant in much of western Europe than it is in the northeast US. Places like Sweden, Germany and the Netherlands. There is something going on that is rooted in something that goes beyond American history, or even English history, some impulse towards extreme universalism and xenophilia. European nations that took many hundreds of years to build are being undone in a few generations of mass immigration. It begs, in my mind at least, for a deeper explanation than American regional differences.
After WW2, the Yankee Empire rebuilt Europe in its image through institutions like NATO and the Marshall Plan. Come on now, this is NRx 101.
Post WW2 came decades of jewish Frankfurt school propaganda that has held sway in the west. The best intentions of egalitarianism spawned the fruits we see before us today, quickly destroying us. Will we see a strong white man turn things around? Nigel Farage and Geert Wilders are out there, trying… Anyone here in U.S., besides Trump (who is held to some degree by jews/Israel)? Paul Nehlen? Roy Moore?
Jews did not undo Western Europe after WWII. Europe was Judenfrei. If progressive ideas promulgated by Jewish academics took hold in Europe (and the US) as they did, it was the Europeans who carried the torch and still do.
Yeah, but look at the U.S. We’re falling apart just as badly as the EU. We don’t see, YET, our hidden country enclaves of immigrants in Idaho, New York, Minnesota, Connecticut. When we do, what will happen?
Get real, white Euros are too passive. That’s the sad story of our time.
Retaining 80% of their population, ruling the Soviet Union, creating the BIS, UN, Bretton Woods, owning much of the Euro media (and all of Hollywood), “advising” Mao and half the governments of Africa and Latin America, creating and leading the 60’s radicals and the Diversity Cult- that’s not judenfrei, not by a long, long ways.
Southern Conservatives just watched helplessly while Southern Progressive Socialists tore down Southern Historical Monuments and labeled you all Racists. Southerners have no intestinal fortitude. Probably why you lost the War of Southern Slavery.
Southern Cities aren’t inhabited by Southerners. They are Yankee colonies filled with techie carpetbaggers drawn in by Republican policies. See Houston, Charlotte, etc. We have no control over those town councils and mayors.
Dallas, Houston, and Austin are all deep blue areas.
Matt, you’re right, except that if compare individual precincts/districts/neighborhoods within those metropolitan areas, you’ll see many pockets of bright red.
I think the being outnumbered 4 to 1 had a lot to do with it.
Southern conservatives allowed the die hard democrats to define them with their own KKK racism as well as southern hatred of the Republican Party
What do you think of the “party system” interpretation of the political history of the US? The “fifth” system was the New Deal hegemony that started in 1932 (which ended the “fourth system” that had prevailed since 1896). The concept of the successive party systems was made popular with a book from 1968, and nobody seems to know what exactly the “sixth system” is.
I’d say that the election of 1980 was a “turning” point in that it crushed the old New Deal consensus, but it didn’t really establish a new consistent pattern of voting. I’d also suggest (perhaps with you?) that the collapse of the USSR in 1989-91 combined with the death of the old Southern attachment to the Democratic Party and the replacement of the old leftist fondness for the white working class (a strong feature of the “fifth system”) with marxist-tinged “identitarian” politics that embraced the extremities in society on the basis of ethnic and sexual identities and came to reject and loathe the white working class led to the dominance of a sort of “managerial bureaucracy” in which the two parties squabbled over trivialities and pretended that there was some substantive difference between, say, Bush I and Bill Clinton or Bush II and Obama. It was these people (a combination of leftist leaders and a sham “rightest” opposition wearing bow ties) who adopted (without ever putting it to the electorate) the “invite in a new population” policy that has prevailed not just in the US but also throughout Europe.
The 2016 election in the US (and to a lesser extent the rejection of the managerial class’s policies seen in the success of Brexit and the comparative, if ineffectual, rise of nationalist parties on the Continent, something that would have been unheard in all the years since the end of WW II) can be conceived, I think, as a popular revolt against the “sixth party consensus”. Whether it marks a clear division leading to a new “system” or is merely a bump along the road (as the 1912 election of the Progressive Woodrow Wilson didn’t mark an end to the overall Republican dominance in the period 1896-1932) remains to be seen.
The problem with the 1980 election was similar in some ways to the 2016 election. A President was elected who sought to remake the system, within the rules, but he was largely alone in his quest. Reagan hoped to set the philosophical and political example for the future, for others to pick up and run with, but it never came to pass. This is likely, in large part, because Bush I had no interest in perpetuating the movement, and also that the powers-that-be tied Reagan up in knots with the Iran-Contra thing. A similar playbook is in operation to neuter the influence of Trump.
A big difference is that the true conservatives of the 1980s were pulled into a sort of complacency, assuming that the first Bush administration would be an extension and continuation of the Reagan administration. It was nothing of the sort. Will we fall into the trap once again, post-Trump?
The 1980 election was another example of the old adage, “You can count on the Americans to do the right thing, after having tried everything else.” The right answer, with regards to dealing with the Soviets, was confrontation. It just took the American political class 30 years of trying the other options, before finally settling on the right answer.
to paraphrase Andy Warhol who was the first to realize that the movies(and the extended media ) are the main force that controls the culture and runs the country . we all know who runs the movies .
They are the new yankees and unlike the old yankees they dont give a shit about this country.
Not making excuses for yankee folly but at least they thought what they were doing was proper .
As we focus on “the shadow that follows radicalism,” it’s worth paying attention to the radicalism itself.
https://www.scribd.com/document/337535680/Full-David-Brock-Confidential-Memo-On-Fighting-Trump#from_embed
The first few pages are no surprise, but are worth reading, I think.
Cerulean;
I read this document more as trolling for additional, non-Soros money. I can’t be the only one that gets stuff like this in the mail on a nearly daily basis from DC Post Office Boxes purporting to be on our side.
One could only wish that Brock’s descriptions of us deplorable’s capabilities and organization were accurate. That it is idiotic doesn’t make it harmless, however.
One of your best, Z.
Everyone is welcome to my modification of Bill Buckley’s “Stand athwart History crying ‘Stop!'”
Thus: What modern “movement” conservatives actually do is jog along behind History’s juggernaut calling out: “Would you mind slowing down a little, please?”
It is in the nature of most men to fix things, which is what conservatives do. Progs invent the kind of things that fail immediately unless they are “fixed”. Progs currently are undergoing an alien experience–conservatives are not fixing Obamacare. They really really want to, but suddenly there are so many bad thinkers holding them back.
Thanks. It’s amazing how they are able to maintain the jog, while groveling and apologizing.
Z-man,
I am a regular reader of your website and enjoy many of your articles. You have often touched on the topic of the difficult problem of attracting people to the alt-right and what that involves. This article touches on some themes that will definitely make me think twice about outright joining the movement.
I understand that you are a southerner (Southron) and that is where your heart is but to keep hitting on the idea that the South is good and the North is bad puts off a lot of non-Southerners. I grew up in the West (Colorado before California migration turned it into an open sewer). I own the flag draped over the coffin of an ancestor that fought with Company D 1st Missouri State Militia Cavalry (USA). He grew up in a slave state and sided with the bad Yankees (I won’t listen to that stuff about Missouri being a border state and not truly Southern).
The South voted as a block to elect Woodrow Wilson twice and FDR four times. How conservative can the South really be? All of the prog stuff that’s going on in this country has had plenty of Southern support over the years. The white hat/black hat stuff is overly simplistic.
If any of you want to hear Southerners defend slavery before the war then please purchase these two books: Blanchard-Rice Slavery Debate (1845) and Brownlow-Pryne Slavery Debate (1858). The really noticeable thing about these debates is how the positions on both sides hardened in the 13 year span between debates.
I know better than most what Southern conservatism involved and I just ain’t that kind of conservative.
“This Mr. Wales is a cold-blooded killer. He’s from Missouri, where they’re all known to be killers of innocent men, women and children.”
–Grandma Sarah
Bloody Bill Anderson. That mess in Missouri was almost beyond belief, real mad dogs off the chain and running. It didn’t get wrapped up until the Federal government took it with proper seriousness and sent some hardened units West.
If being conservative meant anything, you Americans wouldn’t be in this mess.
My God Dabney was prescient. In 1897 (year before his death) he described perfectly the role conservatism has in our political life, even more so to this day.
“the shadow that follows Radicalism as it moves forward towards perdition.”
It has always seemed to me that Northerners are divided over their allegiance to Lincoln or to Freedom of Association. So far, Lincoln keeps on winning.
“Freedom of association for me, but not for you”. That has always been their marching orders.
I doubt that the establishment will ever want you to think of the next civil war as a civil war, it’ll be a random string of shootings (like, say, Las Vegas) and waco-type events. Civil unrest, etc.
BTW, that’s how the start of the Soviet Union collapse happened – there were some regional squabbles on the periphery and the central government started to demonstrate an inability to govern and it just kept degrading until they downsized to a level where they could govern again.
The determining factor will be fiscal. When, not if, but when the can smacks the wall at the end of the road is when we’ll see what’s what. There will dividing lines across generational, racial, and assorted special-interest lines, all vying for limited financial resources, all desperate to retain whatever government largesse has been thrown their way to date.When the checks from Uncle Sam no longer arrive and/or are severely diminished is when the true divisions will begin, generally along regional boundaries but also locally, as federal programs are downsized and slowly ceded back to the states. I’m in my mid-50s and may not live to see it through but I suspect in my childrens’ lifetimes they will. My overriding concern is the lack of prepardness so many younger people exhibit nowadays. In a culture where lack of cell phone access is cause for hyperventilation, several magnitudes greater in both preceived and real deprevation will be experienced. How will the present generation of “safe-space” mentality youth adapt? Not very well, I suspect. A high divsion of labor exists in advanced economies. When economies shrink so does this division, which wil also bring about another dividing line:The feminization of society will be seriolsy curtailed. No one will have the time nor patience to endure superfluous demands for “equality and diversity” based on personal preference. It will be, “Get in where you fit in and pull your weight or get left behind.” Period.
Agreed.
It may be the catalyst that will change everything. In previous harder times the family made sense as it was a survival mechanism: it allowed you to pool resources and divide labour and win as a team.
Today, and chit house feminist can ditch her husband, goof off at work and get cash and prizes because of her vagina. Here feral children also get a free ride (no grades at school, everyone gets a trophy, self esteem is more important than education, etc). It works because we live in opulence and abundance.
I see the next civil or regional or racial war being very brief, very nasty – and the recovery being almost as ugly as the war itself. A lot of people will need to change the way they think.
It should not be underestimated how many characteristics state governments have absorbed from the federal example. If Switzerland is a good example of republican government, and it is, counties will be more important entities than states, and should be.
Agreed, which is probably why knowing your local sheriff isn’t always a bad thing. He’ll be one of the more powerful entities in many counties, particularly rural. Having a good knowledge of the political power brokers in any county won’t hurt, either – if for no other reason than to recognize the machinations as they unfold..
I’m thinking of forming a ‘bitcoin’ religion to draw the coddled youth into one great scheme.-It will be something like Scientology. -lol. Since all the former institutions of this nation are in question, and everything is moving so quick, many don’t know what to aim for or how to carve a niche for themselves.- It leads to why they’re getting jerked around so easily by the puppet masters.
By 2032, over half of all Federal spending will be on each of the following items: interest payments on the debt, social security, medicare/medicaid, Obamacare, welfare payments. That’s over 250% of all Federal spending, for those not keeping track. Just for these programs. Please notice that the military and all Federal agencies aren’t included in the total.
We have until about 2022-2024 to fix this train wreck. After then, the train starts wobbling off the rails, and can’t be recovered without a crash.
Separate note – for those who believe that men with rifles can’t tackle the US military, I will direct your attention to exhibits Afghanistan and Iraq. Tanks are big and scary, but don’t go far without fuel. The men in them like to eat and drink, too. Oh, and tanks don’t have toilets, either. Jet fighters can’t take off without fuel, and rely upon a steady flow of spare parts. Bombs don’t naturally grow on planes – they’re built elsewhere, and transported in trucks and trains to airfields. The insurgents there quickly learned all this. They also learned that CNN was on their side, and an incredible force multiplier.
I was musing about the divide in American politics and something occurred to me.
During the two previous eras of intense polarization — the 1850s and the 1960s — there was a “signature issue.” The abolition of slavery was the driving issue in the Civil War era, and once that was settled, the polarization receded. The Vietnam War was the driving issue in the 1960s, and once the US withdrew the polarization receded.
But I can’t for the life of me identify the current driving issue. The Left is constantly outraged, but the subject of their outrage constantly changes. Gay marriage! Tranny rights! Kill police! Censor speech we don’t like! Regulate the Internet! End fire! Et cetera!
This is a problem because there’s nothing to settle. The only common thread in Leftist outrage is that they hate conservatives and want them to shut up and die. There’s no way to settle that short of a bloody civil war.
How will it end?
Well, they tried the race card with BLM, but that blew up in their face. My hunch all along is we see the Left wheel around and start clamoring for local autonomy. The CalExit thing is a good example. Read lefty sites and a form of the “Benedict Option” is increasingly popular.
Who do you think will annex CA? China? Or Mexico?
Mexico will annex it (already has most of the population), but China will own it.
God let’s rid ourselves of those bastards. California has to go. Don’t care who gets it.
Trim;
Excellent insight. It’s possible that the signature issue arises largely by chance and that it’s percolating just below the surface right now. The Dreyfus Affair in France is the historical example that comes to mind
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dreyfus_affair
This particular signature issue is largely incomprehensible now, but it bears some resemblance to the Trump-Russia imbroglio and the Gen. Flynn persecution at present. Starting with an obscure coverup of military counter-espionage incompetence in 1894, it percolated below the surface for four years before it blew up overnight in 1898. After that it lasted until 1906.
Like the Trump-Russia issue, the furor among the French elite was entirely disproportionate to the particular matter at issue, specifically whether Capt. Dreyfus had been framed. Instead of cutting its losses, which it easily could have done, one faction of the French elite decided that this was the hill to die on. The other main faction decided to help them do so. That’s why it lasted so long.
Interesting that the Left are the ones who grabbed signature issues and ran with them in the past. Does it have to be this way in the future?
Z has suggested (rightly) the analogy of the Cargo Cult. See an immense nostalgia for the 60s (though by people that did not actually experience them) and for leftism–again by those that never saw the “fruits”. Attribute some of this to a frantic search for something that will bring some sense of meaning and purpose to these people who have led the most self absorbed lives in history
I live in a college town. They play songs from the sixties almost exclusively in all the stores and buildings around here. Nauseating. Can’t wait for my fellow boomers to die. Hoping I out last most of them.
There is an additional dimension to our current situation. It is the “feelz”. The left has encouraged the adoption of the primacy and legitimacy of how people “feel” about things. The internet has exaggerated this element. People “feel” wronged by others who believe or live their lives differently than how those with “feels” choose to live theirs.
It is madness, but it is the world we live in. Reality doesn’t care how people feel when things shut down and needs are not met. Which they will do, sooner or later.
And if they keep it up, they are going to feel some high velocity lead.
When things shut down due to needs not being met is when white men may start to be appreciated again.
“The abolition of slavery was the driving issue in the Civil War era, and once that was settled, the polarization receded.”
I have to disagree with this. I know what you are saying, but at the time of the Civil War I don’t think that more than 3% of White Yankees gave a shit about negroes. They certainly didn’t go to war over them. And once the issue of slavery was settled, the polarization did not recede. It still hasn’t receded. Now, subsequent history has been written to make slavery the casus belli for the War of Northern Aggression, and it is somehow used as a badge of honor to justify the rape of the South by the North. But propaganda is still used to impugn the South as a bunch of dumb inbred racist hillbillies. No receding polarization that I can see. Of course, polarization of White South and White North will recede. Once the White South has been replaced by browns and blacks. Then utopia will be upon us and the glorious America that the Yankee leadership foresaw will finally appear. For ever and ever, amen.
It is no contradiction to say citizens of the North regarded both Negroes and slavery poorly. It was something unclean, to be washed away. And war is an adventure when you feel certain to impose your will easily and quickly.
Personally I’m tired of modern judgements of the motives and philosophies that incited men to fight in the Civil War. It happens to be the first war, anywhere in the world, for which we have abundant written records, not just from the historians, not just through the memoirs of generals, but from ordinary men writing letters to their families.
North or South, we discover a people – can I say it? – better than we are. The life expectancy in that age was roughly 40, even without war. They didn’t get everything right, the way we do. They didn’t have time.
So noble of the North to bring them in to dump them in the South, and then blame the Southerners for the whole mess.
The blacks are a cursed race. God help us correct this scourge we’ve brought upon ourselves through slavery. The magic negroes are in high demand and are sought out for employment over our capable and talented white men, who are then displaced from our economy. God protect us from black governance and the corruption, violence and dysfunction that brings. White men, rise up, claim your place, your women, your society. And thank you, white men, for all the beauty and excellence you’ve brought the world thus far.
Thank you, beautiful smart white men:
J.S. Bach: Brandenburg Concerto No.3 in G, BWV 1048 – 1. (Allegro) https://youtu.be/1IWWJcDDxPY
Thank you, beautiful smart talented white men:
Beethoven “Symphony No 9” Karajan (Stereo)
https://youtu.be/fRZaX6-dsn8
You’re being ironic, am I right?
If not, then you need to see a doctor.
Got yer plane ticket to Harare or Johannesburg- or Camden- right here.
No, asshole.
I agree with White Male. The issue of the War Between the States was money. Lincoln and the north milked the South to support its programs and, when the South had had enough, Lincoln pushed the South until they unwisely fired on Sumter. Slavery was a hot issue but money was the fundamental cause.
The current basic driving issue is race. The “coalition of the fringes” wants white genocide, but if that’s too much for them to ask, they want whites (except the self-hating variety) to be a low-caste minority.
Whatever the ostensible issue or cause du jour, at heart it’s about the future of the white race.
The current driving issue is immigration, obviously. C’mon, Y’all …
Yankee power is now dependent on skimming operations of various sorts. Keeping those alive which it can and creating new ones are necessary to be able to project that power. The shock of the last election was due to the failure of the money from the skimming operations to elect the Yankee choice.
One of the keys to success for non-yankees, or cowboys, if you will, is to undermine the abilities and institutions of the Yankees to make cowboys pay for their own subjugation.
I will agree with this to an extent, with the modification being that regional disputes are likely to remain small in scale – even down to a neighbourhood basis. There is too much state directed military power in the US for it to escalate beyond this. In my limited view, from afar.
Unless you consider that opposing groups obtain access to material high grade weaponry is possible.
Yes and no. If conflicts remain contained and local, yes. If widespread, then those blue lines are pretty thin, particularly if the operating areas go beyond geographically compact cities.
STB;
Like Saml, I have to disagree. If the disputes are local, then yes. If regional, then maybe no. Like at the start of the last civil war, there is plenty of military power available to regional political forces in the various National Guard bases and armories that are under each state governor’s command. Even the considerable federal reserve forces that count (Army and Air Force) are regional in composition and so susceptible to local takeover.*
The difference then was that the active duty federal forces were miniscule and so had very little ability to stop the armories being taken over by the locals. Both now and then it would take a bold governor to act alone. But in concert, another story as we saw 150 years ago.
Likely scenario: Coup and counter coup.
*And the Pentagon in its ‘wisdom’ moved most of them to the South 12 years ago.
Even behind enemy lines here, the reservists and National Guardsmen I’ve know over the years represent almost exclusively the right side of the spectrum. Ditto for PD outside of the large cities. It would be an interesting question, though one I’d prefer not to see answered empirically. Have also known a couple ex Yugoslavs that were around for the Sarajevo “fun”. Another case study in how fast things can go from fine to shit.
The ex Yugoslavs can confirm that “Diversity was their Strength.
Yeah, a mass-scale Principles vs. Pension dilemma with very little time to decide may be in their future. This would be the sort of historical hinge-of-fate moment like when the Cossacks in St. Petersburg decided not to ride down the demonstrators nearly exactly 100 years ago eventually giving the world the USSR.
I completely share your desire to not find out empirically. The Russian Civil Way that followed in train from that unfortunate incident of elite incompetence in St. Petersburg ‘only’ killed about 20 million over the following four years. And that happened in a much more thinly populated land than the US is today.
Most American political conflict goes back to the Civil War…but it’s the English Civil War, not the American one. Colin Woodward’s map is neat, as is his book, but a better place to look for explanations would be David Hackett Fisher’s “Albion’s Seed: The Four British Folkways of America.” You’re also correct that Western (re: white) institutions designed to function on principles will not work in a majority-minority nation. Paul Kersey pointed out on an episode of the American Renaissance Podcast that when you break it up by race, 70 % of blacks think Trump should be impeached and 70% of whites think he shouldn’t. The Congressional Black Caucus wasn’t even trying to oust Trump on the high crimes and misdemeanors of Collusion, Pussy Grabbing, or whatever nuttiness white progressives are throwing at the wall in the hopes it will stick; they were actually trying to get him impeached on the grounds of encouraging white nationalism, because we all know the goal of white nationalists is to declare Jerusalem the capital of Israel or something. I swear Charles Murray was too kind to these people in “The Bell Curve.”
What I like about Woodward’s book is it gets to the point and does a nice job putting the granular differences into context. Albion’s Seed is just way to long. I never recommend it for that reason.
Looking for recommendations on intelligent and readable books about the English Civil War…
This is good popular history.
Here’s another.
If you want a good podcast on it, then I recommend this one. His podcast covers all revolutions, but he has a series on the English Civil war that is quite good.
Here is a concise history of that period that is easy to understand…
https://www.audible.com/pd/History/A-History-of-England-Volume-2-The-Tudors-and-the-Stuarts-1485-1688-Audiobook/B0161JXLMC?ref=a_pd_Histor_c5_lProduct_1_1&pf_rd_p=69c485e8-e33b-471c-b905-1c3a178e1994&pf_rd_r=Y2K2V6H9CK6GZHPDTDF0&
JayMan has broken it down into about 12 nations, as I recall. His site is recommended…
Jayman is a big fan of American Nations.
URL, for Jayman?
A fantastic weekend piece. Well done Z.
“We live in a low violence time,”
Wait a month… a year…. an inch of time.
Virtually everything in history is a variation of Hemingway’s “gradually then suddenly”. The question is what will the trigger be? Faceberg has two utilities. Great way to keep up on kid pictures and stuff like that. But if you live way behind enemy lines, it’s also a great listening post. In my case, a window into the what is going through the minds of the educated, upper middle class Progressive world. And it is batshit crazy. Could screen snap dozens of variants of the CBS lawyer chick’s “I’m glad a bunch of hillbillies got killed in Vegas” on virtually any current Progressive totem. But these are not stupid kids in mom’s basement, they are otherwise professional, “normal” people. I’d go with Z’s LARP’ing/Cargo Cult theory that they are looking for meaning in their middle aged lives, so are advocating for a civil war because the 60s seemed so romantic to them. Not being hyperbolic in stating these people would support an outright coup.
Make no mistake, Las Vegas was an attack by the deep state on Trump supporters, or likely Trump supporters.
Saml;
Just in case anybody doubts your above observation about just how crazy the Progs. are these days, here’s a prospective on today’s topic from their side:
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/omar-el-akkad-donald-trump-american-civil-war/article37267643/
It’s one of the most deranged rants I’ve seen in a supposedly mainstream publication: Completely confirms that American Whites *are* under threat from Progdom (if the author’s views are in any way representative). Of course it’s from the Canadian Cloud, which is reputed to be even more insane than our own.
Could only read halfway through, had to catch my black helicopter ride to spend the night plotting to keep the people down. Articles like these showcase the narcissism and self importance of these people…their self worth is entirely tied up in the assumption that we spend our days and nights endless obsessing over them.
Any civil conflict must necessarily arise among antagonists already in the employment of government. The reason is the cost of modern weaponry. It will be a come-as-you-are civil war that could degrade into more primitive tactics as we wear out each other’s capacity to replace the high tech devices. The longer it goes on, the longer it CAN go on.
A civil war would collapse much of the economy and leave the large cities starving…4th generation warfare would be fought more with food than bullets.
This, with substations. No electricity, no water. Some rules of three act faster than others.
A friend of mine that spent time in Afghanistan once told me one of the biggest pains in their collective asses were the old men with Enfields. These guys would take reasonably accurate shots from a 1000 yards, shoot and scoot style.
I’ve read that the Russians immediately killed any Afghan prisoners armed with an Enfield or Moisin because they hated the snipers so much.
Indeed. But as I have pointed out to Dmitri Orlov, the fact that America is heavily armed at the civilian level makes it unique. That fact has somewhat limited the depredations of both the State and the rival factions. It’s what we used to call a Mexican standoff….
I don’t see how the 2020 presidential election does not descend into a sinkhole of violence. The left, egged on by their enablers and cheerleaders in Big Media, will physically attack Trump and his supporters, and will feel justified in doing so. Trump supporters will be compelled to respond in kind. The writing is already on the wall for this, and anyone denying it just isn’t paying attention.
Yes, let’s expect some violence from lefty in 2020, but bear in mind an important lesson that observant leftists are sure to have learned during 2015-2016. Leftists attacked Trump supporters from coast to coast. Lefty even attacked the Democrats’ militia in Chicago and bloodied a few of the D’s blue goons (i.e. Chicago police officers, aka “heroes” to r.w. jurisprudes) at a Trump rally in March 2016.
Did Trump supporters reply to lefty according to a reasonable policy such as ‘eyes for an eyelash’? Did they demonstrate a willingness and capacity for action? Well, no. In fact, they replied like sheep and doormats. So pathetic.
Sheep and doormats? Well, they won, against all the odds. The leftist tactics didn’t change their vote; it might have expanded it. You call this pathetic? I call it civilized.
Did you storm out on the streets with a baseball bat, Allen?
^^^This. Spot on.
Re: “We live in a low-violence time.” Not true, never was true, never will be true. Until humans are replaced by robots. Then, the robots will fight each other.