The Potemkin Resistance

If you are over the age of forty, one of the remarkable things to happen in your lifetime is the collapse of Buckley Conservatism. Odds are, if you are reading a site like this, you used to read National Review and similar publications on a regular basis. Maybe you moved to paleocon outlets like Chronicles, when you got too strong of a whiff of the neocons in the 1990’s. Alternatively, maybe you wandered into the Von Mises or Lew Rockwell style libertarianism, after growing disenchanted with conservatism.

All of that stuff is now in steep decline, fading from the scene so quickly that the next generation will probably not understand why it was popular. The Von Mises style of libertarianism will always be with us, as there is a theoretical foundation there that transcends contemporary politics. The synthetic, Reason magazine version will soon follow the Buckleyites into the void, just as soon as the Koch brothers get tired of funding what amounts to a carnival act. That’s largely true of the rest of Conservative Inc.

The funny thing is though, Official Conservatism™ and its traveling buddies in libertarianism was always more useful to the Left than to the Right. This is well traveled ground for people on this side of the divide, but it bears repeating. The conservative movement that grew up in the 70’s and 80’s never managed to conserve anything, other than their sinecure’s at think tanks and media outlets. After the end of the Cold War, this reality became even more clear as conservatism morphed into international liberalism.

This was not obvious in the Cold War, as prosecuting it was a real area of contention with the Left, but the main role of the Buckley movement was to provide a buffer zone for the culture warriors of the Left. Conservative Inc. would channel public rage at Progressive social policy, into harmless efforts at resistance. Articles would be written, books would be sold, oaths would be taken, but the trophy case would remain empty. The history of conservatism is a laundry list of defeats in the post-war culture war.

After the Cold War, this became increasingly obvious, as conservative voter rallied to elect conservative majorities, yet nothing changed. Instead, the Right launched the war on Islam, which became the new distraction. Meanwhile, the borders remained open, the culture declined and the white middle-class continued to shrink. This is why Buckley-style conservatism has fallen apart. It never managed to conserve anything and white people finally woke up to this reality. It’s now blinking out of existence.

The collapse of Official Conservatism™ has been a good thing for the Dissident Right, which grew out of the paleocon resistance of the last century. Talk to people in this thing and they almost always broke this way in the Bush years or after it was clear that Ron Paul would never crack ten percent of the vote. Unsurprisingly, people on this side of the great divide know this well, but few people think about what it has meant for the Progressive movement. The collapse of conservatism has effected them too.

This lack of a credible opponent, even one paid to lose, is one reason the Left has spiraled into a raging lunacy. Since the left is in complete control of the media and popular culture, they get to create the comparisons. When the comparison was between the dumpy and demure conservative, they had to tone down their act to avoid looking like a lunatic. Now that their basis of comparison is imaginary Nazis, figments of the most fevered imaginations on the Left, they are free to indulge the full depth of their rage and lunacy.

This lack of a sober sounding punching bag seems to be the motivation for pumping air into the tires of the synthetic “intellectual dark web” stuff. Calling the people involved “intellectuals” is pretentious, but pretending they operate in the shadows is silly. The point of casting them that way is to give them credibility with people who have walked away from conventional conservatism and especially libertarianism. This is just an elaborate honey trap designed to lure people over from this side of the divide.

Of course, their contempt for the rest of us gets the better of them. They are calling this thing “the intellectual dark web” as a poke in the eye at the people they truly fear. It’s the same reason Jonah Goldberg called is latest book “Suicide of the West.” It is a sneering contempt born from self-loathing. These are people who embrace all the shibboleths of the prevailing orthodoxy, not because they necessarily believe them or even understand them, but because they lack the intellectual firepower to build a coherent response.

Just as the demand for Nazis vastly exceeds the supply, and therefore the Left manufactures them, the need for a buffer zone between themselves and the dissidents requires them to build this wall called Quillette. They envision the “intellectual dark web” to function like a force field. The “dark web” will supply complaint opponents who will say their lines and take their beatings, in exchange for a one percent lifestyle. They will also actively police the boundary between what is acceptable what is “not who we are.”

Interestingly, the orthodoxy’s choice of buffer says a lot about the people who are ruling over us. In the previous age, the face of the opposition was a WASP-ish looking guy with an over-the-top Brahman accent. The only thing missing from Buckley’s act was a sash and a monocle. It’s fun to poke fun at Buckley from this distance, but in his prime he was a good example the middle class American male ideal. He cultivate the American James Bond persona, a smart, educated and sophisticated risk taker, who got the girls.

The people taking over the ruling class wanted to beat that kind of guy. This time the leader is a Jewish girl from Australia. The rest of the ensemble looks like the guest list for a Commentary Magazine fundraiser. No love for toddies and cucumber sandwiches in that crowd. It appears the great intellectual struggle of this new age will not include any white guys. Then again, when the plans for the future don’t include white guys, it probably makes sense. The phrase “intellectual ark web” begins to take on a whole new meaning.

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Glenfilthie
Glenfilthie
6 years ago

Conservatism did not evolve in a void. You’re looking at this in hindsight with 20/20 vision as a 2018 scholar. Let’s take a trip in the Way Back Machine: Back in the good ol’ days queers lived in closets or institutions. Second wave feminists were laughed at. Whites owned the coloured people, not the other way around. Most liberals of the time understood the necessity for this. You could still sit down and have a conversation with liberals that were otherwise respectable people. Or you could peacefully ignore them. The left started going seriously mentally ill around the turn of… Read more »

Dutch
Dutch
Reply to  Glenfilthie
6 years ago

Liberals jumped on the Clinton grift train in the ‘90s and had their first real meltdown when Al Gore lost the election. And away we went.

Hoagie
Hoagie
Reply to  Dutch
6 years ago

Remember Dutch, Al Gore was “appointed not elected”.

Dutch
Dutch
Reply to  Hoagie
6 years ago

Yup, GWB, not AG, was “appointed”, but that meltdown was the template for all that has followed, and also a guidepost for how the Dems can make sure they never lose an election by a few hundred votes again. The first widely known exercise in preventing such an outcome was Al Franken and a trunkload of ballots in an abandoned car, found or revealed a week after the election. Worked pretty well.

Nori
Nori
Reply to  Dutch
6 years ago

It’s still working pretty well in AZ right now, Dutch. Arch-liberal lunatic Kyrsten Sinema, leading over veteran McSally by 30,000 votes. Six days after the polls closed and McSally was initially declared the winner. Magic Democrat votes keep appearing in the largest county, Maricopa. I’m sure it’s just a tiny little coincidence that the Maricopa County Recorder, elected in 2016, is an activist Democrat with a history of animus toward ICE and Border Partol. Oh, he’s also one of the attorneys who defended one Manuel Celis-Acosta, ringleader who funneled guns to the Mexican cartels 2009-2011. That little DOJ op known… Read more »

joe
joe
Reply to  Dutch
6 years ago

There is no fury like that of a leech who fears losing his govt. enforced fat deal at the expense of others, and being paid only the free market value of his efforts.

A.B. Prosper
A.B. Prosper
Reply to  joe
6 years ago

Quite true.

Still if you have civilization of any kind there will be people living off others taxes. This has been going on since Hammurabi if not before and those wasteful expenses ,make civilization possible

The cost of efficiency is taxes and bureaucracy or alternately you can pay with a poverty stricken dystopia. Choose wisely

Babe Ruthless
Babe Ruthless
6 years ago

It seems like all the token “conservatives” at left-wing publications are now Jews. (Well, they are conservatives, just not American conservatives.) The powers that be just don’t want to take any chance that a white guy will say something off-the-reservation. And even if they brought in a fully certified white cuck like David French, it would be so embarrassingly obvious what the game was that it wouldn’t do them any good. Also, what peeled me away from poseur-genteel Buckleyism and deracinated libertarianism wasn’t a rediscovery of the paleoconservatives, it was when the findings of evolutionary biology and genetics started making… Read more »

Wolf Barney
Wolf Barney
Reply to  Babe Ruthless
6 years ago

The Bell Curve in 1994 is when I was converted to a race realist. I remember resisting at first, since I truly wanted to believe “we’re all the same.” But then I decided I would put what’s true ahead of what I wish to be true. Also, the debates and interviews on mainstream TV with Charles Murray in’94 when the book came out would never happen today. That book would get buried very quickly.

Lester Fewer
Lester Fewer
6 years ago

White conservatives (and Whites in general) have got to get it through their thick skulls that all their grand arguments about ideology or moral, political or economic principles only makes even a lick of sense in the context of an intramural (Latin: “within the walls”) tussle among fellow Whites in a supermajority White society, where White societal and behavioral norms, and distinctly White manners of thinking, are taken for granted. The existence of an occasional Thomas Sowell or a Von Mises (not an “Austrian,” a Jew) does not change this pattern. They’re like Mowgli, the boy who was raised by… Read more »

dad29
Reply to  Lester Fewer
6 years ago

Not “white.” Aristotelian/Aquinian.

Trey
Trey
Reply to  Lester Fewer
6 years ago

This is close to where I’m going. “Intermural” is exactly what I’ve been mulling, thanks.

Guest
Guest
6 years ago

The spectacle of watching Rick Scott whine like a little b!tch as the mulatto mafia openly steals the election in Florida is enough to make me want to switch teams. What a fekin’ pathetic cuck. He deserves the loss that’s coming his way. Ditto for Kemp if he lets team Abrams steal Georgia.

DeBeers Diamonds
DeBeers Diamonds
Reply to  Guest
6 years ago

We live in a society where the Procedure is given a great deal of reverence by most whites. Obviously non-whites don’t care, but the media has a way of “look a squirrel” whenever they get froggy. Certain groups are graded on a curve, and will be as long as the present media system is in place.

Hoagie
Hoagie
Reply to  DeBeers Diamonds
6 years ago

It seems they’re also elected on a curve.

ExPraliteMonk
ExPraliteMonk
Reply to  Guest
6 years ago

What is your idea of an appropriate response from Rick Scott? Not trolling, genuinely curious.

DeBeers Diamonds
DeBeers Diamonds
Reply to  ExPraliteMonk
6 years ago

Spetsnaz, I’m serious.

Guest
Guest
Reply to  ExPraliteMonk
6 years ago

Proactively (i.e., well before the election), Scott could have and should have fired and replaced Brenda Snipes as the elections supervisor in Broward County, citing her past violations of election law as justification. Alternatively, Scott could have and should have appointed a separate elections monitor as a watchdog over Snipes. He did neither. During and in the immediate aftermath of the election Scott could have and should have posted State Patrol and/or National Guard officers to monitor the custody chain of ballots and seize any ballot boxes that fell outside the chain of custody. He also could have and should… Read more »

Dutch
Dutch
Reply to  Guest
6 years ago

Snipes has the shield of AWB. “A” is for “Administrating”. Her appointment was no accident, it was part of the strategy.

Guest
Guest
Reply to  Dutch
6 years ago

Pam Bondi, Florida’s AG, has apparently written several strongly worded letters to Florida election officials. Thank God. I was getting worried, but I am sure strongly worded letters will do the trick.

TBoone
TBoone
Reply to  Guest
6 years ago

If only someone had taught said Florida Election Officials to read! Drat!!

ExPraliteMonk
ExPraliteMonk
Reply to  Guest
6 years ago

“Scott could have and should have fired and replaced Brenda Snipes as the elections supervisor in Broward County,”

The supervisor of elections in a Florida county is an elected position. The governor cannot fire her.

Hmmm in Florida the supervisor of elections oversees her own election. Very interesting.

Guest
Guest
Reply to  ExPraliteMonk
6 years ago

Then Florida Governor Jeb Bush fired her predecessor, Miriam Oliphant, in 2003, so there must be some mechanism in Florida law that enables the Governor to fire an elections supervisor for cause.

Of course, Cuck Bush then appointed Snipes to replace Oliphant. Pathetic.

Andy Texan
Reply to  Guest
6 years ago

The instrumentalities of power are in their hands at the state and federal levels but still our Republican leaders allow a county election clerk have her way with the vote totals. Same with the federal judge tin horns. SAD! VERY SAD. Where are the strong men?

Rod1963
Rod1963
Reply to  Guest
6 years ago

Scott needs to fight back hard. He needs to ask Trump to have the DOJ look into election fraud in Broward county, as well as Arizona and Georgia. He should demand the firing of the GOP Chairwoman GOP Ronna McDaniel(Mitt Romney’s daughter) who can only whine about what is going on instead of sending a legal team down there to contest the voting, along with AZ and Georgia. I think we’re seeing the end of the GOP as a national party. Once Florida goes to Gillum, the party is dead and Trump cannot win in 2020. Trump should be involved… Read more »

Yellowish
Yellowish
Reply to  Guest
6 years ago

White women already switched the teams https://www.cnn.com/election/2018/exit-polls White women are the only group of women not to vote together with their race in midterm election according to CNN Women are the first one going to be surrender as usual Such as Nazi occupied Paris, Soviet occupied Berlin, American occupied Tokyo This time will be Non-European occupied America This is painful for guy who grow up at 90s Where “It’s the Economy, Stupid” was major political slogan Where Politics about Economic not Insane Race/Gender Issue People Okay with very homogeneous white culture film like “Home alone” Now film considered promoting white… Read more »

TomA
TomA
6 years ago

The war rages on many fronts. The media battle has always been psyops aimed at subversion of the original pioneer ethos and indoctrination of the masses. Converts are rare, but memetic infection can and does create lots of hive-minded zombies in the long term. Cultural subversion is the companion to this indoctrination. And the alien invasion and rampant obesity are also killing us off on a mega-scale. It’s not all bad however. Never forget that we still are a nation with more firearms than citizens. This renders direct tyranny via mass slaughter problematic for the ringleaders. Bullies are only tough… Read more »

Babe Ruthless
Babe Ruthless
Reply to  TomA
6 years ago

All true, especially “bullies are only tough guys when no one is shooting back.” Just to expand on one of your points: I’ve always felt that obesity is one of the profound, and profoundly underappreciated, political (not just health!) crises of our time. Maybe I can do it by analogy: in the late Chinese empire, such a high percentage of Chinese were smoking opium that is was enervating their whole country, making them easing pickings for western powers and Japan. What opium was to China, bad food is to us. Such a high percentage of Americans are fat, that not… Read more »

Epaminondas
Member
Reply to  Babe Ruthless
6 years ago

Mad Magazine had a cartoon back in the mid-60s showing us as so obese we were on scooters. Then on one side of the cartoon they showed thin Chicoms invading and just pushing the fatties over. It was an attempt to make fun of paranoid conservatives at the time (even as a kid I could understand that), but as I survey the world, it has grotesquely come to pass…though the invasion is from elsewhere.

Lester Fewer
Lester Fewer
Reply to  Epaminondas
6 years ago

The Russians have really gotta be kicking themselves; for nigh-on fifty years, they damn well broke the bank spending money on missiles, troops, and military hardware to invade the USA, the finest piece of real estate on Earth — and they totally failed.

Turns out the Mexicans totally succeeded invading with a different strategy. All they did was sneak in and offer to do the dishes.

TomA
TomA
Reply to  Babe Ruthless
6 years ago

WWII was largely won by thin-as-rail farm boys and ranch hands from rural America. We would have trouble raising more than a few million similar men in our modern age. But don’t get me wrong, I not disparaging anyone who has been seduced by bad food in unnatural abundance, I’m just saying it’s a non trivial problem. Bring back real boot camp and that will change in a hurry.

Member
Reply to  TomA
6 years ago

Say sayonara to soy.

Big Ag is for the Shabbos goy.

Grass fed free range beef brings joy.

No more Mickey Dees, even for the toy.

For that matter, no more Morris Dees, and his ploy.

A.B. Prosper
A.B. Prosper
Reply to  Libertymike
6 years ago

Droll. However diet ain’t everything and let me ask me ask though, what worth cause would these men be fighting for ? Any power worth our time could utterly destroy us at will with nukes, germ warfare or in the case of China conventional arms The only moral use might be mass expulsion of undesirables or sealing the border which are not on the table, As it is we need a far smaller military not a larger one and even our less than healthy society produces more than enough stout men for the task. 80% of people live in cities… Read more »

Member
Reply to  A.B. Prosper
6 years ago

AB, I was just riffing.

Lance_E
Member
6 years ago

Something is definitely off with Quillette. At first it seemed interesting: university professors going up against the progressive left? Amazing! But I quickly noticed the pattern. Every single one of their usually very long think-pieces has a distinctive message that says: “progressives have gone too far, but we can fix it, so don’t stop the funding!” A typical example is this one: https://quillette.com/2018/01/02/no-one-cares-feminist-theory/ Essentially can be summed up as: “gender studies is up its own asshole, but you definitely don’t want to ban it like Hungary, no sir, you just need some better academics and more rigorous methods! Don’t throw… Read more »

ExPraliteMonk
ExPraliteMonk
Reply to  thezman
6 years ago

More like an intellectual dork web, amirite?

Lance_E
Member
Reply to  ExPraliteMonk
6 years ago

I prefer “Ineffectual Dork Wads”.

Lance_E
Member
Reply to  thezman
6 years ago

Their echo chambers amplify the growing schism between liberal and progressive. When they say “heterodox” they mean everything to the left of Ben Shapiro.

It ties into their tendency to label everyone from Trump to Milo to Alex Jones as “far right”. Part of it is dishonest spin, but many of them really believe that 15-20% of the country is just some crazy fringe.

Dutch
Dutch
Reply to  Lance_E
6 years ago

A useful exercise is to identify which wing of the hard left each player inhabits. There is the Obama wing, who hates the country and sees it as “too white and (hetero) male”, and simply wants to rip it down for its own sake. Then there is the Clinton wing (Bernie Sanders is a member), where the grift is the thing, and any cultural injury is simply necessary collateral damage. Players on the left fall into these two camps, which are currently situational allies, but hate each other as well.

Wolf Barney
Wolf Barney
Reply to  thezman
6 years ago

I’ll never forget the shocked and troubled look on Dave Rubin’s (intellectual dark web member) face when Molyneux explained racial differences to him. He couldn’t believe (and didn’t want to believe) what he was hearing. Stuff all of us take for granted, and here he was, hearing it from a man he trusts and respects, for the first time.

Cerulean
Cerulean
Reply to  Lance_E
6 years ago

‘But I quickly noticed the pattern. Every single one of their usually very long think-pieces has a distinctive message that says: “progressives have gone too far, but we can fix it, so don’t stop the funding!” ‘

That, and the writing sucks.

Joseph
Joseph
6 years ago

Pat Buchanan was more or less right about everything from early on, including being so outraged by the Iraq war that he started The American Conservative magazine in 2002 to critique the neocons. At that point he was already a decade into his core mission of exposing the establishment Republicans as fools and fakes. He ran against Bush Sr. in 1992, fueled by his hatred of that man’s globalist policies and the effect they were having on blue collar Americans. Many credit him with costing Bush the election. He remained unrepentant. His book “The Death of the West”, published in… Read more »

dad29
Reply to  Joseph
6 years ago

RIGHT ON, BROTHER!!!!! Exactly what I’ve been saying since Trump’s election.

Buchanan was also “othered” by the GOPe as an anti-Semite (a lie, of course) and like Kavanaugh, was first in class at Georgetown Prep. Happily, he did not swallow the Jesuit Kool-Ade, even though he was forced to swim through a lot of it.

Wolf Barney
Wolf Barney
Reply to  Joseph
6 years ago

Pat Buchanan was right about everything and doesn’t get the credit he deserves. A few months ago, Pat and Sean Hannity had an on-air squabble about Iran. I don’t know a lot about the subject, but assumed Pat was right and Hannity was wrong. That’s how much faith I have in Pat. Besides Hannity still hasn’t scraped off all that neocon residue.

Christopher S. Johns
Christopher S. Johns
6 years ago

Yeah that Ben Shapiro, murky master of the dank, dark web…he’ so mysterious, so edgy. What’s remarkable is that this nonsense is believed. Actually scratch that, I don’t think it’s believed by anyone who doesn’t have a direct interest in selling it. These supposedly daring dark webbers giving utterance to forbidden thoughts are nothing more than a gaggle of Conservative, Inc. Jews who realized Conservative, Inc. was past its sell date and that they needed to rebrand. They also realized that they needed at least one gentile on board, so they roped in the well-meaning but dopey Jordan Peterson. The… Read more »

Calsdad
Calsdad
Reply to  Christopher S. Johns
6 years ago

I really don’t think they “roped in ” Jordan Peterson.

Jordan Peterson is doing his own thing from what I can tell – and he arrived where he is by virtue of the fact that the SJW crowd within academia is attacking what he perceives to be established truth.

In my experience – most of the people who bitch about Jordan Peterson have never really taken the time to listen to the full breadth of his opinion.

Moran ya Simba
Moran ya Simba
Reply to  Calsdad
6 years ago

Im on the fence about JP, but even if he is ‘controlled opposition’, he’s not entirely useless I think. For one, he helped me to see the link between cultural marxism and postmodernism better. Z is fast to say ‘infiltrator’ or the equivalent, and that’s fair enough, maybe he’s right. And maybe, w my Lincolnite respect, time for JP, admiration for Churchill, Im just softer than him, or more naive or behind the curve or whatever (I will admit, Shapiro is not my deal either; it aint the ((())), I just have trouble taking too seriously a 5 foot guy… Read more »

Saml Adams
Saml Adams
Reply to  Calsdad
6 years ago

Peterson’s quality is that he has an endless reservoir of self control and can sit there and patiently dismantle a twit like the woman that interviewed him for British GQ recently. And somehow has managed to avoid being hurled to the abyss.

libertardian
libertardian
Reply to  Christopher S. Johns
6 years ago

I’m not a fan, but JBP seems like a decent enough guy. I respect the fact that he doesn’t have a backup country like the others do, though I guess the >$50k/month he brings in from Patreon alone is a safety net in its own right. Insofar as he benefits our side, I think it’s not from his laughably idealistic politics, which indeed are detrimental, but from his telling the legions of young men raised by women to take responsibility for unfucking themselves. I can pretty easily see a scenario in which a scrawny, sexually frustrated kid in his 20s… Read more »

John_Pate
Member
Reply to  libertardian
6 years ago

Peterson lies by omission. He’s damaging to a true understanding of HBD by carefully stopping short and at points outright lying about what is known about the science.
His self improvement stuff is all very individualist… something which I fondly imagined Z had pointed out is problem for white nationalism.

libertardian
libertardian
Reply to  John_Pate
6 years ago

His self improvement stuff is all very individualist I heard him once on Rogan’s podcast saying you have to get yourself straightened out first, then use your excess capacity for the benefit of those close to you, and then your community, and so on. Concentric loyalties, acceptance of responsibility, finding meaning through productive work… It all seems in line with Z’s message to me. Certainly not “individualist” the way a libertarian justifying offshored manufacturing and heroin legalization is. Remember, JBP’s target audience is notoriously so aimless that “clean your room” is helpful advice for them. ANY self improvement is better… Read more »

James_OMeara
Member
6 years ago

I think I get your point, but WFB was never seen as a “risk taker” who “got the girls.” I mean, wasn’t he supposed to be all Catholicky and “good husband and father” a la the Conservative ideal? I suppose that’s why he created the Blackford Oates persona for his fiction; didn’t he get to sleep with the Queen? Speaking of queens, there are larger cultural changes going on here besides “no more white men” (which of course is indeed what’s happening). What was once seen as the male ideal, since about 1990 seemed, well, impossibly swish and “epicene.” Ironically,… Read more »

Nathan
Nathan
Reply to  James_OMeara
6 years ago

I read a short book (probably based off a Vanity Fair article) by Gore Vidal about the meaning of Timothy McVeigh in the early aughts. It was light years more insightful than anything CIA Bill Cuckley ever put in Neocon Review. I miss the days when a lefty could write something that wasn’t social justice dreck.

That was about the point I Iet my subscription lapse. The Iraq War was the last straw for me as far as being a respectable conservative.

David_Wright
Member
Reply to  thezman
6 years ago

Well I tend to disagree here. Buckley displayed mucho testosterone in his threat to smash in Vidal’s face on live television. Yeah, buddy and you will stay plastered!
Then there’s George Will. Shall I go on?

A.B. Prosper
A.B. Prosper
Reply to  David_Wright
6 years ago

My money would be on Gore Vidal in that match though knowing Buckley it probably would have been a slap fight. He was married with a son but so twee. All that aside I dislike pretentious upper crust twats and have trouble taking them as seriously being on my side or on anyone’s side except the rich The country club and its chamber of commerce allies were in my opinion worse than the Left until rather recently. At least during most of its heyday the Left wanted a better society for all where as the CC ‘s guys just wanted… Read more »

King Tut
King Tut
6 years ago

I can’t quite believe what I am seeing on my US newsfeeds. The Democrats are openly and brazenly cheating on the midterm election results in several states and, as far as I can tell, the only response from Republicans (including Trump) is some indignant squawking and not much else? Que Pasa? Is this a case of “never interrupt your enemy when he is the process of rigging an election result”?

Dutch
Dutch
Reply to  King Tut
6 years ago

Yup. The normies have been trained to vote once in a while, write a letter to someone once in a while, and talk about the injustice of it all with their buddies. That’s it. We, here, are essentially an amped up version of the same, so far. We might have more clarity about where this is headed, but our menu of choices is rather slim, unless you want to run around in the streets and break stuff—but that’s Antifa’s deal. As to the people in power, they are trying to figure out how to calibrate their responses. Everyone walks on… Read more »

King Tut
King Tut
Reply to  Dutch
6 years ago

Doesn’t bode very well for 2020 election, does it.

Dutch
Dutch
6 years ago

It is important to differentiate between situational allies whose interests align with your own, and those who truly hold dear the principles and ideas we live by. The Buckleyites were situational allies in the fight against communism, but are allies no more. Their interests no longer align with ours.

Member
6 years ago

Most of us weren’t really paying attention when WFB and his cronies were purging “conservatism” of everyone but neocons and then suddenly it seemed as if there never were any other flavors of conservatism besides loyal white middle and working class voters, many evangelicals or Catholic, dutifully voting for whatever clown the GOP ran because we didn’t know any better. Until Trump politics had grown pretty stale once Pat Buchanan was depersoned with spurious suggestions of anti-Semitism and Ross Perot went crazy. The line of clowns that ran for the GOP were such small men. Bob Dole, war hero though… Read more »

Dutch
Dutch
Reply to  Arthur Sido
6 years ago

We knew better but didn’t have a choice. Actually getting the limp GWB into office was a helluva lot better than either Algore or the horsefaced Lurch. We took what we could get. Of course, we were also operating in a much more narrow sense of what the longer term outcomes might be. Obama, Hillary, and Bernie sort of blew the doors open on the depth of the danger we face.

Cerulean
Cerulean
Reply to  Dutch
6 years ago

“Of course, we were also operating in a much more narrow sense of what the longer term outcomes might be.”

Dutch, I think there’s always been a habit of thinking we could NOT possibly be a generation away from a banana republic. It affected me … maybe many of the older people here. Maybe some not so old.

Apparently this has a name: normalcy bias.

Calsdad
Calsdad
Reply to  Dutch
6 years ago

I disagree. Many who claimed to be on the right most definitely did NOT “know better”. Before we even invaded Iraq I was going at it with so-called “conservatives” who would get incensed when I would tell them: “You’re going to lose the fucking war, bankrupt the country – and get a lunatic Democrat elected as President once Bush is done – you morons”. I take some solace in being correct – but being correct doesn’t deflect incoming rounds from crowds of Antifah run amuck – does it? Shit like this is why I read blogs like Zman’s now –… Read more »

Calsdad
Calsdad
Reply to  thezman
6 years ago

Well maybe that’s where my cynicism comes from. I was not fooled – and as I said : was telling people AT THE TIME that they were idiots for supporting all the Mideast mis-adventures. To me the stupidity of the whole thing was rooted in basic principles and warnings issued to us as far back as the time of the founding of the country. We were told to stay out of foreign wars – as they are undertaken by those who want empire. I was also opposed based on my reading of history – as I’ve been reading books about… Read more »

Severian
Reply to  thezman
6 years ago

That’s where I was — *somebody’s* got to pay for 9/11, or else we’re not a serious nation. Saddam was convenient. I figured “spreading democracy” was just eyewash for the love-the-world crowd, our “allies.” But no — those idiots really believed it.

Din C. Nuffin
Din C. Nuffin
Reply to  Severian
6 years ago

No they didn’t.

“The truth is that, for reasons that have a lot to do with the U.S. government bureaucracy, we settled on the one issue that everyone could agree on which was weapons of mass destruction as the core reason [to go to war].” [Wolfowitz, 5/9/03]

Calsdad
Calsdad
Reply to  Severian
6 years ago

A “serious” nation makes the RIGHT PEOPLE pay for their crimes. It doesn’t go around blowing up whatever is most convenient. It also does basic common sense type things – like defend the border. Especially when the “war” we’re allegedly in is going to be waged with terror cells and people sneaking into your country. Show me again where the wall was that went up after 9/11 to actually defend the country? Show me how the US decided to get off dependence on foreign oil so we could tell the Mideast to pound sand? Instead we were told to go… Read more »

Epaminondas
Member
Reply to  thezman
6 years ago

“…could not bring himself to acknowledge that attacking Afghanistan to get at the Taliban was what countries have to do.”

I remember reading Laurence Auster at the time. He was urging us to wallop the thugs in the Near East and then get back out, promising to come back if they raised their heads outside that area again. It was sound advice.

Calsdad
Calsdad
Reply to  thezman
6 years ago

Ron Paul actually DID acknowledge that somebody should pay for the attack – but because he holds himself quite strictly to the Constitution and the law – his solution was that we should issue Letters of Marque – because in reality what 9/11 was – was more of a “police” type action – than a war started by a nation state player. And he also made the point that – if we’re going to go to war – then a DECLARATION OF WAR needs to be issued. Otherwise the country is simply not behind said war – and what you’ve… Read more »

dad29
Reply to  Calsdad
6 years ago

Taking out the Saudis would most likely have resulted in demolishing the oil fields, and the Rockefellers–and all their domestic servants, camp-followers, and bought politicians– would not like that at all. Nor would Limbaugh.

Calsdad
Calsdad
Reply to  dad29
6 years ago

One of my talking points at the time – when I was arguing with some idiot conservative about how their urge to blow up the Middle East was both “not serious” and just an exercise in failure-to-come, was to point out the estimates of how much the whole thing would cost – proffered up by people like Paul Wolfowicz – were wildly off-base – to the point of being insane. And if we REALLY had serious people running the country – they’d be doing a cost-benefit analysis – figure out that a war in the Mideast was going to fail… Read more »

Rcocean
Rcocean
Reply to  thezman
6 years ago

That was my mistake with Bush. I thought we were going to take out Sadaam, and then leave. And wasn’t there talk about the Iraqi oil paying for the whole thing? And then before you know it, we’re “nation building” and the whole point is to make Iraq “safe for Democracy”. And I’m like, that’s not what I signed up for.

Anyway, how’s Democracy in Iraq working out? Or does anyone care? I never hear about Iraq in the MSM.

Lester Fewer
Lester Fewer
6 years ago

Lots of minds never broke bread with Buckley;
His whole act was just too Scrooge McDuck-ly.
But an NRO cruise?
One more scam for the Jews:
All the whites are just too-drunk-to-fuck-ly.

Frip
Member
6 years ago

Just to echo Z. In the Politico link, Lehmann has a defensive, submissive demeanor, showing that she knows the Left is master and she all but promises to play her role like a good Buckley and police the baddies, and not get out of line herself. The interview is that of a school principle putting a mildly naughty girl on notice. If she was a real iconoclast (and could articulate) she’d have used the interview as a platform to put the Left in its place. Side note. Writer: “Lehmann, who talks slowly and carefully, with a scientific precision…” I’ve heard… Read more »

DeBeers Diamonds
DeBeers Diamonds
Reply to  Frip
6 years ago

Lots of casual participants in the Right love to make the joke that “conservative women are hotter”. Somewhere along the line there’s probably even some “studies have shown” that confirms it. But other than titillating the middle-aged male base of the right, what exactly are we gaining from promoting women like Lehman with a “looks benefit”. Say what you want, but Rachel Maddow was never promoted because of her looks.

Hoagie
Hoagie
Reply to  DeBeers Diamonds
6 years ago

Madcow was promoted because she’s a gay man trapped in a dyke’s body.

joe
joe
Reply to  DeBeers Diamonds
6 years ago

Maybe the ‘angry plucked chicken’ look appeals to some on the left? Early sexual experiences can become a fetish. Cloaca is the word for a combination vagina/anus, like a chicken has – I think it’s also a very good description for those on the left.

dad29
6 years ago

Never read National Review, aside from occasional perusals in the MD’s office. I subscribed to Human Events for 20 years. Paleocon, with a few exceptions. Got the NR take from a local radiomouth (Sykes, now a NeverTrumper) who spouted their fusionist line very effectively, until it became clear to him that fusionism simply could not work any more. It is amusing to read and hear various stripes of ‘conservatives’ yammer about the End of Conservatism, usually combined with a heavy dose of “Demographic” yappaflappa. Those “conservatives” never, ever, mention that “demographics” has TWO parts: 1) children of the Other Guys… Read more »

Calsdad
Calsdad
Reply to  dad29
6 years ago

I see an awful lot of blame for the lack of white births being laid at the feet of “must be perfect” and worshiping the Gods of sex and materialism, but I can tell you that at least from my experience – the biggest problem is simply one of finances. Which is why I continually go back to making the point that much of the leftist empire rests on a foundation of other people’s money, and (as Karl Denninger has pointed out ad-nauseum) – a societal and economic structure that stresses wealth extraction over everything else. Poor people have kids… Read more »

dad29
Reply to  Calsdad
6 years ago

It is dysfunctional to think that having a family of 4-5 (or more) children is a bad deal. FWIW it’s also a lack of faith in God. Be that as it may, the statistical history will show that the end of child-bearing was roughly co-incident with the advent of EEO. When “equal pay” came into play, women jumped into the workforce. That was not the bad news; the bad news was the effect on prices of consumer goods including housing. Between LBJ’s Guns And Butter of Vietnam and a doubling of incomes, the inflation was too much for most people.… Read more »

Calsdad
Calsdad
Reply to  dad29
6 years ago

It’s not dysfunctional to acknowledge reality and reality is that in many cases it’s simply impossible for people (to be more specific – white people) to afford a large family unless they want to live in poverty – and I can tell you that around this region – living in poverty means you’re going to be living in a shit section of town – in a shit town – and you’re going to have to learn Spanish. I’d even argue that the massive increase in immigration is a big factor in damping down birth rates among whites. 50 years ago… Read more »

dad29
Reply to  Calsdad
6 years ago

Hmmm. My wife and I managed to live in a reasonably nice part of town while raising MORE than 5 kids on one income. Your problem–and it is a problem–is that you have zero faith in God, Who always takes care of children and drunks. And I am not a high-earning professional, by the way.

It helped that I drank, eh??

Chaotic Neutral
Chaotic Neutral
6 years ago

Good discussion, but I wonder how young people who are attracted to the dissident right find their way here for the most part. I’ll bet very few of them come by way of national review or chronicles. Speaking for myself, who am not really very young, but I started with the more extreme stuff and worked my way back to national review and chronicles, as I figured out how loony the extemists tend to be. I’m like the drug addict who used to do heroin and now just smokes weed. What is the typical age of the Zman reader? I… Read more »

Backwoods Engineer
Backwoods Engineer
Reply to  thezman
6 years ago

True for me. Gen-X (’67), got “here” by a circuitous path in paleoconservative and Libertarian circles. Too many to list.

DMac
DMac
Reply to  thezman
6 years ago

Very accurate for me. Pushing 60, and wound my way through various degrees of libertarianism, but voting R as an anti-D measure. High school in the mid70s was majority minority, so a healthy dose of HBD realism. Been lurking here for a while, enjoying the commentary.

Carrie
Reply to  thezman
6 years ago

I arrived in the dissident right through a process, like everyone else. Being an unmarried (no cats!!) Gen-X (‘77) female, the metaphorical bag started to come off my head somewhere between when Iraq became a quagmire (‘08-‘09?) and the election of The Great Black Saviour. A friend and political analyst said something i’ll Never forget (around about early 2012 before the “Messiah”’s re-election): if he gets re-elected, there will be war in this country. But it was really between ‘12-‘14 when it became crystal clear (to me, a bit later than most) that the R and D dichotomy is fake,… Read more »

Saml Adams
Saml Adams
Reply to  thezman
6 years ago

Still have to give WFB credit. Somebody donated a bunch of his books to the high school library and happened to pick the “The Jeweler’s Eye” off the shelf one day and that was the gateway.

Frip
Member
Reply to  Chaotic Neutral
6 years ago

Like most people on the Dissident Right, my enlightenment came through Richard Brookhiser. (said no one ever)

Severian
Reply to  Chaotic Neutral
6 years ago

I was apolitical throughout young adulthood (mid-Gen X), which meant I was a conventional liberal, though I only ever said anything “political” to get laid (then as now, Leftist girls were easy, though then as now it was pretty much dumpster diving). I was so naive, I believed that Francis Fukuyama “end of history” horseshit, not because I thought history ever ended, but because I believed people are basically decent and rational. Hell, I was so dumb I voted for John McCain in 2000 — I was the kind of naive that makes Pollyanna herself squirm. Then 9/11 happened (as… Read more »

Tykebomb
Tykebomb
Reply to  Chaotic Neutral
6 years ago

One of the last millennials by age. I’m fundamentally one of those spergy atheists types who cant deny the science on IQ. All my politics flow from the average IQ of the invaders and The Most Important Graph in the World.

Maus
Maus
Reply to  Chaotic Neutral
6 years ago

Late Boomer/Generation Jones. Cast my first vote for Reagan. Read NR and admired Buckley the man. Then I discovered Buchanan and the scales fell from my mind’s eyes. Voted for him each time. Despite frustration, I never lost faith. But the paleocons have been swept into time’s ash heep. After this last election, I will end 39 years as a Republican and re-register as No Party Preference. TINVOWOOT.

Wolf Barney
Wolf Barney
Reply to  Chaotic Neutral
6 years ago

I’m late 50’s, got here from Chronicles in the early 90’s, where I discovered Sam Francis, who became my favorite writer. Later in the early days of the internet, I became a voracious reader of Vdare, where I discovered Steve Sailer and John Derbyshire and some others. At around that time I also subscribed to The American Conservative, since that was Pat Buchanan’s magazine. I don’t remember exactly, but I probably discovered Zman through Sailer’s links. One thing that I love about today’s Dissident Right/Alt Right, etc, compared to back in those days, is the humor and the ridicule of… Read more »

BFYTW
BFYTW
Reply to  Wolf Barney
6 years ago

Early 30s. Got here from links at WRSA. Disenchanted by the Washington Generals’ constant surrender/forfeiture/ankle-grabbing/cucking, esp. during the Obama years, and the general lack of difference between R and D. Growing up in a diversity mecca (to rival Zman’s Lagos), and going to school with Cloud People, I’ve long seen the writing on the wall. Best case scenario, we’re heading for South Africa. Worst case, Bosnia x Rwanda as CA likes to say. My experience is that the older you are, the heavier the shade of your rose-colored glasses – age correlates with unfounded optimism…Lee Greenwood, shining city on a… Read more »

Member
Reply to  Chaotic Neutral
6 years ago

I am a Boomer and growing up with the Vietnam war, I came to the conclusion that war is a racket. I couldn’t get into either side of the political divide. The politicians on both sides loved war and the military industrial complex too much, the left was too under the thrall of socialism and grand domestic experiments that did not take into account human nature, and the GOP mainly struck me as a party of their donors. Mass immigration and political correctness further alienated me from the status quo. The Democrats embraced both while the GOP embraced invade the… Read more »

Epaminondas
Member
6 years ago

The Lew Rockwell website is a fever swamp of conspiracy theorists. It got old and stale. Every few months you would get yet another take on who really killed JFK. Or who is actually behind the Fed. Or what the Pentagon is actually doing down in the basement. Give it a rest, guys.

Barnard
Barnard
Reply to  Epaminondas
6 years ago

I find that the most challenging part of reading genuine dissent commentary. Unz is largely the same way, you read a few columns that make sense and then it devolves into crazy conspiracy stuff. There does have to be some policing just to keep things sane and tethered to reality.

Chaotic Neutral
Chaotic Neutral
Reply to  thezman
6 years ago

I think he may be right about lbj. I read that lbj declined to run for a second term. Why would he do that? That’s unusual for that psychological type. He felt he was compromised and they would wrong every drop out of him they could.

(Ok to add a layer of conspiracy, when I went to put in the security code, the first three letters were Lbj! No joke! Explain THAT away!)

Calsdad
Calsdad
Reply to  Barnard
6 years ago

Why does it have to have some policing? Police yourself. Read and make up your own mind. I see far too many things like this coming from the right – that sound conspicuously similar to the same crap I hear from the left. If more people had the capability of exercising judgement and were able to be in control of their own minds – well then maybe we wouldn’t be in this mess in the first place. That whole Bernie Sanders episode where he was bitching about how there were too many decisions to make when buying deodorant seems like… Read more »

Colbert
Reply to  Barnard
6 years ago

the big problem on Unz site is mostly this smell of old-left (propalestinian, pro-Putin, against Ukrainian nationalism, anti-NATO and so on)

Epaminondas
Member
Reply to  thezman
6 years ago

Peak libertarianism was 2010. When armageddon failed to arrive, we all drifted back to reality.

libertardian
libertardian
Reply to  thezman
6 years ago

I have no idea what they are doing these days

They’re jacking off to new shitcoin protocols while they wait for Gary Johnson to gear up for his 2020 run.

Rcocean
Rcocean
6 years ago

You’re right on Target. I was a big NR fan through the 80s. My first big break came in 1992. I was shocked that WFB would support Bush over Buchanan. Shock II came when NR fired Ann Coulter. Shock III when “NR Great Conservative” Frum called Buchanan and Novak “unpatriotic” for opposing the Iraq war. Shock IV when NR was just “okey-dokey” over McCain picking Liebermann as his VP. Shock V when NR basically supported Hillary in 2016. Now, I can’t even read the damn thing. Who cares what Kevin Williamson or David French or Jonah Goldberg says? You might… Read more »

Severian
6 years ago

The “Jewish girl from Australia” is a 2010 college graduate? As in, she’s just eight fucking years out of college? Oh my. Even if she was on the eight-year bachelor’s degree plan that so many take these days, that means she’s on the light side of 30. I’d barely begun to realize how much I didn’t know at that age — the 30s and 40s are supposed to be one long slide into realization of the depths of one’s ignorance. Yeah, I’d say their choice of controlled opposition says a lot more about them than they intended…

sirlancelot
sirlancelot
6 years ago

My only experience with William F Buckley was his TV show on PBS. It’s surprising to read he was the face of conservatism. Even as a young man with little interest in politics he always came off as a pretentious bore. When friends and I want to mock the country club, white-shoe crowd we break into that ridiculous accent of his. It’s encouraging to see Buckley being exposed as the fraud he was however the left will always field more of the same phonies. And that’s the problem. The left controls the narrative. It’s very pervasive. The liberal doctrine shows… Read more »

TimNY
TimNY
Member
6 years ago

And what won’t you see in the conservative inc. news? any discussion of immigration and the last election. Power line blog was a favorite of mine for a good while. Long after I wiped NR off my bookmark list I still read powerline. Reading an analysis of the last election in Minnesota and what was missing? Any mention that Minnesota is now 20% vibrant. Conservatives will whine about the mainstream media, gop weak candidates, but speak the truth that immigration dooms them? Never. This last election was a harbinger of bad fortune.

Tom
Tom
6 years ago

Z, This is a question offered in good faith and with an open mind. I’m sincerely interested in an opinion here. I can trace my family back to Henry II’s conquest of Ireland when he ducked out of town to avoid the bad press that came from that unfortunate incident involving Thomas Becket. But I still can’t shake the sinking feeling that when the lines start to get more fortified around ‘our people’, some meaningful portion of them will be arguing that however white I may think I am, I’m not white enough. So I’ve got it in my head,… Read more »

c matt
c matt
Reply to  Tom
6 years ago

Interesting point. The three A’s considered pillars of Western Civ (not the only pillars, but certainly part of the canon) might not be considered white enough by some alt-right groups – Aquinas, Aristotle and Augustine.

What to do with them?

dad29
Reply to  c matt
6 years ago

Better damn well KEEP them. See further below….

Federalist
Federalist
Reply to  c matt
6 years ago

Augustine, being from North Africa and apparently of Berber descent, could arguably be considered “not white enough.” Although, it seems to me that he would have been white by any reasonable standard. I would imagine that people from North Africa would have been quite a bit whiter at that time (pre-Islam) than now.

I’m not really sure how Aquinas and Aristotle could be considered “not white enough.” Italian and Greek, respectively. What’s the issue?

c matt
c matt
Reply to  Federalist
6 years ago

There are some who find Southren Europeans not white enough.

TomA
TomA
Reply to  Tom
6 years ago

Here’s my take. We’ve been a species a lot longer than we’ve been a spectrum of races, cultures, religions, and any other nominal distinction arising in recent times. Evolution wants us (Homo sapiens) to be smarter, stronger, and more robust with each passing millennium. Civilization, technology, and modern politics are now perverting that process (which extends back over 200,000 years) and turning us into wimpy dependent parasites. No one wants to become a wimpy dependent parasite, but the piped piper effect is strong and addictive.

james wilson
james wilson
Reply to  TomA
6 years ago

Evolution doesn’t want us smarter or stronger unless that happens to make us robust, and only so long as it does that.

TomA
TomA
Reply to  james wilson
6 years ago

Smarter and stronger is how we got to the top of the food pyramid. Robustness is what keeps us there.

Joseph
Joseph
Reply to  Tom
6 years ago

The number of your direct ancestors rise as a power of 2.
2^1= 2, number of parents
2^2 =4, number of grandparents
2^3 = 8, number of great great grandparents.

Now, assuming 3 generations per century (conservative) and 900 years back to Thomas Becket give us 3×9 or 27 generations.

2^27 = 134,217,728

Now of course intermarriage drastically reduces this number, but still going back that far and claiming it means anything is a fool’s errand, in my opinion.

Even Fauxahontus’s (Elizabeth Warren) claiming10 generations back was viewed as absurd. And rightly so.

Tom
Tom
Reply to  Joseph
6 years ago

That might be relevant if I was working backwards from my genetic markers, but I’m not. I’ve never checked my genetics. The only thing I meant to claim is knowledge of my family history. The combination of birth, marriage, landholding and other records don’t mean ‘nothing’ in my opinion. And to be perfectly clear, I don’t claim to be related to Henry II. My oldest documented ancestor was given a barony by him after the invasion, and though there are no direct records, for various historical reasons it is assumed he was originally from the region of the marcher lords… Read more »

Calsdad
Calsdad
Reply to  Tom
6 years ago

I don’t know how much this helps in the United States – where “whites” are a pretty blended up bunch (at least among all the different variants of whiteness) , but I find it somewhat astonishing that the poz has been so fully inflicted on the different “tribes” in Europe – many of whom can trace their lineage back thousands and thousands of years. Sweden is the example that I always go-to, as it seems one of the most extreme. The globohomo effort has seemingly convinced the Swedes that they’re bad for not making their homeland into some sort of… Read more »

Shrugger
Shrugger
6 years ago

Nailed by your first paragraph. Embarrassingly spot on.

Drake
Drake
Reply to  Shrugger
6 years ago

Yep. I made the same rounds. Agreed with some of what I read at those places, disagreed with other stuff. Ultimately realized all those places were intellectually and morally bankrupt.

The collapse of Reason Magazine into a self-righteous, semi-leftist, globalist heap of crap has been fun to watch.

Chief
Chief
Reply to  Drake
6 years ago

The cruise ship racket was the dead giveaway. A-holes like Goldberg would do anything to find themselves surrounded by paying sycophants.

But you had to know it was veering into near parody when the boat vacations with your favorite “conservative intellectual” started. Just imagine spending thousands for the pleasure of paying for Rich Lowry’s Scotch.

And finding out later that all along you were just sucking up to a cuck.

Unbelievable.

Barnard
Barnard
Reply to  Chief
6 years ago

Out of curiosity, I looked up the details of the cruise National Review is running in December. It appears this is a less popular route for Holland America as they were selling rooms on the same ship on their website for 25% of what the National Review cruisers are paying. You would think the scales would fall from their eyes at some point, but Conservatism, Inc. has yet to run out of gullible saps willing to fork over their hard earned money for nothing.

Epaminondas
Member
Reply to  Barnard
6 years ago

“…but Conservatism, Inc. has yet to run out of gullible saps willing to fork over their hard earned money for nothing.”

Probably retired oldsters who never learned how to use a computer and still subscribe to Time magazine and the Wall Street Journal. Their bookshelves are full of Bush/Reagan/Churchill biographies and screeds. They watch Fox news. Amiright?

Gravity Denier
Gravity Denier
Reply to  Epaminondas
6 years ago

You’re right, and amusingly so. Carry on!

Karl McHungus
Karl McHungus
Reply to  Epaminondas
6 years ago

and TV Guide!

DeBeers Diamonds
DeBeers Diamonds
Reply to  Barnard
6 years ago

The most popular Dissidents have been Ann Coulter and Tucker Carlson, and one can still catch a whiff of opportunism about them. By comparison, the old lions of talk radio still have combined audiences in the tens of millions. AM radio will nevertheless soon (10 years) be dead, no one has even bothered to boot Glenn Beck and put Shapiro in his place. Lots of Boomers still think the tactics of 1994 are still going to work in 2020.

Lance_E
Member
Reply to  DeBeers Diamonds
6 years ago

The tactics of 1994 did not work in 1994 either.

Member
Reply to  Lance_E
6 years ago

The tactics of 1994 did work for the cucks.

Just ask Conservatism, Inc. and it will cite The Contract for America.

A.B. Prosper
A.B. Prosper
Reply to  Libertymike
6 years ago

Back in the day when I was a younger and less cynical man I called the the Contract on America

Of course even than being a young slightly left leaning Paleo Con I wasn’t into Neo Liberal economics

Of course the fact the Left and the establishment Right has signed up for the Neo Liberal Package and for Cultural Marxism is like a perfect recipe for Dystopia or a very nasty rotation of the elite

George Orwell
George Orwell
Reply to  Chief
6 years ago

Puts me in mind of that ridiculous racket Ricochet.com where you pay for the privilege to post comments online AND the privilege of being censored by their cucked “code of conduct.”

TimNY
TimNY
Member
Reply to  George Orwell
6 years ago

You also get to pay Mona Charen’s editorial fees. Isn’t that nice? Paul Rahe is great to read (see his book on Greece) but the rest of it is useless.

Karl McHungus
Karl McHungus
Reply to  Chief
6 years ago

I’m not buying Lowry as a Scotch man…or as a man.

Karl McHungus
Karl McHungus
Reply to  Drake
6 years ago

and boring.

TBoone
TBoone
6 years ago

A commenter recently stated he left NR when he began to feel it was run as Proggie Agitprop. (Too brief & inaccurate recall here). With WFB’s early CIA history, I wondered was it ‘always’ an Agitprop shop? Just random association/musing on my part. I am currently re-reading ‘Deep Survival: Who LIves, Who Dies, and Why’. He delves into the neuroscience & psychology of how we think, view our world/situation and use previous experience as ‘templates’. Applied to life & death survival situations. Many famous stories we of this age cohort have heard of previously. Fascinating stuff. VAST Oversimplification follows: The… Read more »

Frip
Member
6 years ago

Z: “It’s fun to poke fun at Buckley from this distance, but in his prime he was a good example the middle class American male ideal. He cultivated the American James Bond persona, a smart, educated and sophisticated risk taker, who got the girls.” Funny, well put. I know he worked some kind of spell, because when people praise him, I want to jump in and put him down. When people put him down, I want to jump in and say “yeah but…” As for him being effete. Maybe so. But he was probably one of those effete guys who… Read more »

Member
6 years ago

The real action will happen in meatspace, not the Dark Web.

Moran ya Simba
Moran ya Simba
6 years ago

Something else, the intellectual ‘dark web’?? Anything you can find on google is not a ‘dark web’. The ‘hive’ calling it that is actually them ‘appropriating’ terminology that began on our side of the fence, and for a web NOT immediately accessible. Same w ‘woke’, which used to mean something like red-pilled but which I have now seen used to mean almost the opposite, and a few other examples like that that I cant remember right now.

They re trying to steal our dictionary.

chedolf
Reply to  Moran ya Simba
6 years ago

Woke” originated on the left. People on the right later started using in mockery of the left.

Moran ya Simba
Moran ya Simba
Reply to  chedolf
6 years ago

Ok, didnt know that, thanks.

Im thinking that the divergent vocabulary between the right and the left is yet another sign of how we’re really becoming two ‘tribes’, and perhaps not a trivial one.

chedolf
Reply to  Moran ya Simba
6 years ago

It’s kind of surprising that “politically correct” originated on the Left, too.

Fabian_Forge
Member
Reply to  chedolf
6 years ago

Yes. “Politically Correct” originated long ago as a term of derision used by some of the more fun loving Lesbians to mock their vinegar drinking bitter sisters. But then, like “Queer”, it was repurposed as an honorific.

A B
A B
6 years ago

I thought the Weinstein brothers were credited with whelping the “intellectual dark web”?

I glance at the twitter threads and it’s nothing but cuckage and progs dipping their toes. Hard pass.

Jordan Peterson, who is outstanding on the gender issues, sometimes shows up, gets out of his lane, and shows his ass.

Moran ya Simba
Moran ya Simba
6 years ago

I dont know if Z’s mapping of the power struggle landscape, who’s really on what side, where they stand etc, is the right one but I sure know that I do NOT know what the right one looks like. I had never heard of that Jewish Aussie gal before, or her magazine for that matter. But given that I am admittedly confused about who’s one who’s side, Im probably in the state, whoever’s running this circus, wants me, and you, in at this stage.

Michael Erpelding
Michael Erpelding
6 years ago

The neo-conservatives understand. To paraphrase, “a conservative is a liberal mugged by reality.” Note the inherent nihilism of the holy first amendment, that each citizen is entitled to their own truth, governed by the truth the powers that be provide them.

Recusant
Recusant
6 years ago

Were did you get that Clare Lehmann is Jewish? I know two ‘Lehmanns’, unrelated, and neither are Jewish.

chedolf
Reply to  Recusant
6 years ago

Lehmann has contributed to a variety of publications, including … the American Jewish online magazine Tablet.”

Quicksilver75
Quicksilver75
Reply to  chedolf
6 years ago

Yeah, a dead giveaway is her twitter t/l. Also search for Immigration or Hate speech issues on Quillette. The only immigration related one is a Neoliberal piece which tries to coax the Coalition of the Fringes to put their masks back on, and continue with slow motion collapse rather than Antifa style anarchy, eg. “We don’t need to build a wall and we don’t need to abolish ICE.” Also, Quillette show no objection to the Jewish initiated restrictions on free speech which the Howard government tried to repeal but were kept in place after massive pressure by Jewish lobbies. Lastly,… Read more »

Quicksilver75
Quicksilver75
Reply to  Recusant
6 years ago

I suspected her Ashkenazi roots based on facial looks but regardless, a bigger red flag was her tweet about 6 months ago feigning agnosticism & fresh naivete on the immigration issue. The ensuing thread was like something out of an AEI or Reason symposium – her most fervent followers wheeling out the “illegal bad – legal good” trope and that it’s only a matter of making a merit-based points system and all would be well with immigration. A huge red flag is the Blank Slate world view on race, and ignoring the population explosion in Africa, Middle East. It is… Read more »

chedolf
Reply to  Quicksilver75
6 years ago

Glenn Greenwald: “Can someone please tell me the views of the members of the ‘Intellectual Dark Web’ that make them ‘non-tribal’ dissidents? They seem to be purely tribal to me: mostly white male westerners, often Jewish, who defend the US & Israel and rail against Islam.” (This was in response to Andrew Sullivan, who described the IDW as “a variety of non-tribal thinkers.”)

Beachcomber
Beachcomber
Reply to  Quicksilver75
6 years ago

Regarding the illegal bad – legal good trope; I use it all the time. I look at it this way, let’s get a foot in the door. Let’s get all the people to make a stink about illegal immigration and if we stop that we can then tackle legal immigration.

If you come right out with no immigration ever you turn off most people. They think you’re a quack and stop listening. Sure it’s sneaky and manipulative but the Left didn’t get us where we are by being open about their goals.