The Unraveling Right

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The defining feature of American Conservatism since the rise of Buckley and National Review is that it managed to conserve nothing. In fact, the movement was largely born out of the Civil Rights Movement, in which the New Right, as they were called then, conceded the right of free association to the Left. From that point forward, conservatism in America was mostly just a modification of Progressivism, often following it around like a shadow from one new radical idea to the next.

The truth is, whatever Buckley imagined for his movement in the beginning, it was soon turned into a partner of Progressivism. In exchange for a free hand in dealing with the Soviets, the Right would allow the Left to dominate domestic policy. It may not have been explicit decision, or even a conscious one, but that was the result. The Reagan years are a great example. The revolution cultivated the seedlings of global finance and presided over a massive military buildup. Domestically, it did nothing.

In fairness, the Buckley project did bring about the end of the Cold War, which few people imagined was possible in the 1960’s. Into the Reagan years, most people in the West thought the Bolsheviks were on the right side of history. The trouble was, this habit of acquiescing to the Left on domestic matters had become a part of the Right’s fabric. When it was time to turn back to domestic policy, they could not do it. Instead they allowed themselves to be tricked into a new foreign adventure by the neocons.

That is a useful way to think of the last thirty years. Buckley and his minions did such a great job of defining conservatism as the sidecar of Progressivism, it was incapable of adapting to the post-war reality. Instead, it put all of its energy into finding a new foreign policy cause to fill the void of fighting communism. Meanwhile, the Left was fully prepared to spend the peace dividend on outlandish social experimentation like open borders and homosexual marriage. The Right just stood by and watched.

The fact that Conservative Inc., the material and monetary manifestation of Buckley’s project, still staggers on, despite losing most of its relevance and audience, is a testament to institutional power. People get used to worshiping at the same place, so even when the place no longer deserves their worship, they return out of habit. For the same reason the Episcopal Church still exists, National Review still functions as a flagship for a movement that is long past its expiration date.

A sign that this hollow institution sits atop an equally hollow movement is this recent exchange between someone calling himself Sohrab Ahmari and David French, of National Review. Ahmari makes a case familiar to most on the dissident right, that conservatism has conserved nothing. More important, its very design is to ensure that it can never win a fight with the Left in the culture war. It is the designated opponent that puts on a good show, but in the end concedes the game to the Left.

The response from David French is an amusing confirmation of the most biting criticism of Conservative Inc., in that it combines a total lack of self-awareness and a dog’s breakfast of empty slogans. The fact that the French essay is heavily decorated with advertisements and pleas for money just adds to the humor. His argument is that making a bunch of ritualized noises about the past, while being rolled in the Culture War, is the definition of conservatism. Everyone agrees with this.

What Ahmari builds his case on is the observation that people like French invest heavily in maintaining a set of rules on the Right that prevents victory. That is, a primary activity is endlessly reminding people that to be conservative is to live by a set of principles. These principles control how the Right engages the Left. On the other hand, the Left is happy to help the Right enforce these rules, as the Left never plays by any rules. It plays to win, so these principles become a road map for winning every battle.

This is a certain type of sandwich, where normal white people are faced with an impossible dilemma. They can lose their moral purpose by breaking their own rules, while beating the Left, or, they can hold onto their principles and lose. That’s the role of people like David French. He’s like the Army chaplain, who convinces the troops to embrace pacifism. Alternatively, he is the Tokyo Rose whispering subversion into the ears of white people, undermining their will to fight.

The response by the rest of Conservative Inc. to the Ahmari post is revealing, in that it is not much of a defense of French or Conservative Inc. Reason Magazine babbles about individual liberty while calling Ahmari names. The fact that the core of the Ahmari post is that the individualism fetish is why the Right keeps losing is lost on the writer. Winning the culture war requires collective action with a collective purpose. There can be no individual liberty without first defeating the Left and retaking the public space.

Probably the most illuminating defense of French comes from Michael Brendan Dougherty in National Review. His post reads like it was coerced. There is a long meandering summary of the recent history of conservatism. The actual defense of French boils down to “he is worthless and his approach is laughably stupid, but hey, he’s a nice guy and is popular with my boss.” Conservatism is mostly just logrolling now, so this “defense” is a good example of why National Review is nearing an end.

The lesson to be drawn from the failure of conservatives, for those who will take up the culture war, is that principles are about what you won’t do. They are prohibitions on your behavior. When you engage the enemy with a long list of things you will not do in the fight, you have provided him with a road map to victory. That’s been conservatism for the last thirty years. Whether conscious or unconscious, their cherished principles have amounted to nothing more than a primer for how they will throw the fight.

The fact is, principles are worthless unless you can enforce them. The whole point of having principles is to legitimize the maintenance of order after the victory. Logically, the first step in a principled agenda is to win. That requires collective action and a willingness to play rough, not individualism and a fetish for tone policing. An army of individualists is a hunting ground for the well-organized. In order to get anything like a conservative order means white people acting collectively and doing what is necessary to win.

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212 thoughts on “The Unraveling Right”

  1. No, principles are a personal matter governing the fate of one’s soul and how one wishes to set an example and how one would wish to see others act in the world. Or if you’re an atheist you can just abandon all principle and act like a communist who sees power as the be all and end all. At that point what’s the difference?

    • For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? Mark 8:36

  3. “…There can be no individual liberty without first defeating the Left and retaking the public space….”

    There it is, it’s so simple, yet so many still can’t grasp this. Very frustrating. Glenn Beck was singing the praises of Justin Amash over the weekend, calling him the “leader we need” or some such. That he has even one listener left at this point amazes me to no end.

  4. The biggest challenge we will now face is to decide when to pull the plug and bugout. That is the ONLY target that we can shoot for aside from protecting our family.

  5. It isn’t just conservative Inc that is delusional and therefore helpful to the left in its victories.

    1. The evangelicals worship the jews and Israel putting the interests of Israel above the US.

    2. The gun consumers believe that guns aren’t a tool to get freedom, they are freedom so gun consumers don’t have to fight to save their country in any meaningful way.

    3. Normie Republicans aren’t really big on the whole connect the dots thing and think the US is still Reagan’s America

    4. The Dissident Right is content with losing because don’t worry “we are going to have a civil war baby!”

  6. At first, I thought Ahmari singling out David French obscured his point, because French is neither nice nor on our side. He’s frequently nasty and so obviously controlled opposition that only Bill Kristol is dumb enough to think he could effectively gate-keep the right.

    But on second thought, the focus on French worked out brilliantly. Without such a convenient whipping boy, Ahmari’s article would have gotten nowhere near as much of a response or attention. The little manifesto referenced in his article contained substantively the same ideas, but without the French angle, it barely registered.

    • If you want to make a splash and create broad attention, you’ve GOT to make it personal. Make the political personal, or it doesn’t resonate. It’s not enough to present the facts of the matter. Our top guys have to cut deep with sarcasm and personal attacks. This holds true for selling sport’s fight tickets, as well as literary fights. Punch Right. Puch Left. Punch somebody! Fuck’em all.

  7. I found the column by Ahmari excellent and the response by his defenders, even Rod Dreher, weaker than weak. You can get all sophisticated and nuanced, and I like that too, but David French is just a FAKE CON. He’s on the other side, and he’s pretending to be on our side for $$$ and to undermine and keep the Right harmless. Even his professed Christianity is so odd and bizarre, I wonder if he really believes it. He’s a Elmer Gantry neo-con.

  9. You want to ACTUALLY cut the power off at the source
    for [insert name] “commies”, “leftists”, “cultural marxists”,
    “progressives”, “socialists”, “feminists”, “feminism”?

    Two simple non-violent means:
    1. Take women’s rights away (NO voting, no
    education beyond H.S., no holding ANY
    job, position or office outside of being a
    wife and homemaker).

    2. Except for those that ACTUALLY deserve and
    need it (and private charity/religious organizations
    and voluntary donations CAN cover it as they have
    in the past) end ALL forms of welfare payments across the board!!

    In case one hasn’t had the chance to understand
    WHY the above is the ONLY truly ‘non-violent’
    solution to the problem, here’s TFM to explain
    it to you logically and rationally (yes the topics are related):

    Patriarchy and Fertility: Empowerment, Education, and Egalitarianism
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EVGr8JPjcMg&t=1097s

    Yale Research Supports TFM: Women’s Rights, Welfare $, & Collapse
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G6n-5qAFJTE

    Debunking Egalitarianism
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pKWoKxC-tQk&t=4s

    News: Women Are Children
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EnmQtjWBrfI&t=63s

    The 3 Reasons Women Shouldn’t Vote
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jEUXxLlVKLw&t=195s

    TFM Show: Why Women Shouldn’t Vote (Response)
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=alYKJb7Lhwc&t=646s

    How to Argue for Taking Women’s Rights Away (TFM 42O)
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NPIlR00M2dw&t=169s

    So, here’s your choice:
    Take women’s rights away and end all welfare and save Western Civilization.
    Allow women to continue to have their rights, Western Civilization collapses,
    and EVERYONE looses their rights (and massive numbers of people die
    needlessly in a struggle that DIDN’T have to happen).

    Oh and a side benefit of taking women’s rights away is that white
    fertility (and therefore more babies) WILL increase.

    Choose one or the other and don’t let your choice be the totally
    feckless ‘Tea Party’ choice of most of the 60+ yr old’s who joined
    it because “I hate socialized medicine but I don’t want to loose
    muh medicare and social-security..they’re mine..I’m entitled to ’em!!”
    simpy Trad-cucks who didn’t want to loose their gibs.

    That’s how it is, so don’t waste time ‘shooting the messenger’ here.
    If one hase logical and intelligent counters to what TFM has stated
    above, debate such with him.

    NorthGunner – The Truth Is It’s OWN Defense!

  10. For all intents & purposes, the so called conservative movement in the post war years has been nothing but controlled opposition. Quite obvious when you look about & actually see nothing really has been conserved. Just remember what Lenin said too about not only controlling the opposition but leading it just as well.

  11. Ahmari: “Thus, my complaint about French’s politeness wasn’t a wanton attack; it implicated deeper matters.” Be suspicious of people who are too nice or too surly. The nice guy signals, “Don’t probe, it’ll be awkward, and hurt my feelings too.” The surly guy signals, “Don’t probe or I’ll scare you more than I already do.”

    One thing my dad always “complimented” the Jews about is how they don’t give a shit about your manner…if you’re a *nice* guy…but only the substance of what you’re saying. I.e. are you bullshitting or not. It may be telling that the article’s author is Persian. Same Middle Eastern “not impressed with manners” outlook.

    The theme of his article also shows what we all suspect, that many writers on the approved Right are reading a lot of Dissident Right sites like this one. Kinda sucks though that they’re getting the credit and attention instead of the D-Right writers/bloggers who had the insights in the first place.

  12. Slightly off-topic, but a serious assault on the left might reasonably begin with a full-on attack on their heroes and icons. The story below on MLK was rigorously suppressed by the establishment media in the US. It should be spread far and wide and repeated as often as possible: King was a grotesque fraud, a sex criminal and an animal, and the evidence is indisputable:

    “The transcripts report King, an icon of the Civil Rights era, taking part in orgies, coercing women into performing sex acts upon his friends, and laughing as he watches a fellow minister rape a parishioner. In 1977, a court embargoed tapes of the FBI’s surveillance until 2027. There is no reason to doubt the accuracy of the transcripts. Also in 1977, a report from the Justice Department’s Office of Professional Responsibility confirmed that the transcripts faithfully reflect the recordings.

    Garrow’s article is harrowing to read, and must lead to reconsideration of King’s character. In Las Vegas, King takes part in group sex with the Gospel singer Clara Ward, an unnamed male friend, and a 28-year-old prostitute named Gail LaRue, a mother to four children who describes the evening as ‘the worst orgy I’ve ever gone through’.

    At the Willard Hotel in Washington, DC, King participates in a 12-person ‘sex orgy’ and boasts in Trumpian fashion that he has started the ‘International Association for the Advancement of Pussy Eaters’. When a woman refuses to perform what the FBI euphemisms as ‘an unnatural act’ — presumably oral sex — King discusses with his friends how she will be ‘taught and initiated’ into following orders, and tells her that compliance will ‘help your soul’.

    In the same hotel, King’s friend, the Baltimore pastor Logan Kearse invites King and his friends to meet several of his female parishioners. ‘The group met in his room,’ the transcript runs, ‘and discussed which women among the prisoners would be suitable for natural or unnatural sex acts. When one of the women protested that she did not approve of this, the Baptist minister immediately and forcibly raped her.’ A handwritten addition to the transcript notes that ‘King looked on, laughed and offered advice’.”

    https://spectator.us/american-outlets-mlk-transcripts/

    Oh, and fuck you, David French.

  13. The Episcopalian comment reminds me of a church near me that has a new message every week on the church sign by the road. This week it’s “BE INCLUSIVE!” Pastor is a woman. Her messages usually sound like all those items at Bed Bath & Beyond that are plastered with “Believe. Hope. Dream.” But this week she sounds downright scolding. She probably gave a sermon last week in praise of homosexuality, and some members gave her crap for going too far. So now she’s yelling at the whole town with her sign.

  14. I fear that many here are still making the same mistake. While it is true that Conservative Inc. is clearly a grift, and many low level grifters are in it like flies on shit, the truth of the matter is that the moving force behind it is AN EVIL, they are villains and vermin, and traitors. The men behind the mask of Hugh Hewitt, Joe Walsh, et al., are THE ENEMIES of Heritage America. And are working closely with their fellow travelers on the left. There is no REAL OPPOSITION in the morality play that normies are allowed to see.

  15. Team building and collective action only work when there are rules to the game. When in a fight with no rules (as in a fight with the Left or a tyrant, but I repeat myself), you must win or die. So the appropriate question is . . . what is the best way to win. If the arena is a debating club, then your focus on persuasion may have some merit. On the other hand, if the arena the Coliseum of Ancient Rome, then the only one you can really count on is yourself. And on a related note, if our government does go full tyranny, you really don’t want to paint a target on your back.

  17. As I see it, the biggest mistake those of us on our side of this fight have made is assuming that Conservative, Inc. was ACTUALLY TRYING to put up a fight at all. It’s all been a long con, controlled “opposition” at the highest levels. THEY are not on “our” side. Every neocon, almost 99% of them, were NEVER actually conservative and deserve a traitor’s fate. Including Buckley.

  18. “Logically, the first step in a principled agenda is to win. That requires collective action and a willingness to play rough”.
    Correct. That’s Islamification in a nutshell, and is working quite well.

  19. Several ideas on this website are new to me, this is how I understand today’s post with my comment at the end. I’m reaching here, please argue with me if you feel like it.
    —
    Conservatism was always designed or destined to fail. It’s a Potemkin Village of “principles” designed to give the left a handle with which to make us dance.
    —
    The Americanism that was killed off in the 60s was not conservative, it was boisterous and happy.
    Then along came determinism, fanatical rationalism, polluted altruism, etc. which led to the previously mentioned nihilism.

    Nihilism is an untenable state, so a rationalist will grasp for a “rational” solution: rigid ideology. This has a wonderful feature: Belief without questioning! This is what the Left is running on. Win at any cost, because “god is on their side”.

    Americanism was epitomized by many people, Teddy Roosevelt is a favorite, but lots of examples. For us to cower in front of the RACIST! charge means we deserve to die. If our principles are making us cower, our principles are a lie.

  20. What’s going on here is “Conservatives” treat the Left like peers, or fellow citizens while the Left treats the Right like enemies. Jim’s Blog has an old post ( https://blog.jim.com/war/how-to-genocide-inferior-kinds-in-a-properly-christian-manner/ ) referencing the Parable of the Good Samaritan which seems relevant here. The parable is often misinterpreted by churchians to interpret “neighbor” as everybody. But the whole point of the parable is to define who your “neighbor” is. “Neighbor” as defined in the parable, means those who show you good will, or reciprocate. The Left does not show you good will or good faith so they are NOT your neighbors, and they should not be treated as such. There HAS to be a dual code for friends and enemies! No “universal” set of moral principles.

    • Well, the great fun of 4th generation warfare is that your enemy consider you as a opposition and doesn`t understand that he is at war. This is not a new thing. Germany lost a war because Germans considered enemies as combatants but enemy considered Germans a Nazis.

      • The goal of “conservatives” is to prove Liberals wrong.
        The goal of Liberals is to destroy “conservatives”.

        Which way do you think the smart money bets?

  22. “Principles” is particularly ironc coming from neo-Con Inc.
    There were principles like not targeting or having excess civilian “collateral damage”. Nor torture (Abu Gharib, CIA black sites), the Geneva Convention (they are Enemy Combatants, not POWs in GITMO). And they let their mothers, sisters, wives and daughters be P***Y grabbed by the TSA in airports.

    So in the “global war on terror”, even the most apologetic “principled” conservative went beyond “by any means necessary”.

  23. Because conservatives believe in a business’ right to free association, leftists piggy backed on large corporations to enforce their social agenda.

    It never occurs to the conservative or libertarian that a corporation with the power to effect it’s own will on the people around it is not much different than a government.

    They really are the equivalent of the punk kids hiring our militarized police as assassins in swatting attempts, and the conservatives are oblivious to the fact that their government and police have been mercenized.

  25. The fact is, principles are worthless unless you can enforce them. The whole point of having principles is to legitimize the maintenance of order after the victory. Logically, the first step in a principled agenda is to win. That requires collective action and a willingness to play rough, not individualism and a fetish for tone policing. An army of individualists is a hunting ground for the well-organized. In order to get anything like a conservative order means white people acting collectively and doing what is necessary to win.
    That right there sums up just about everything that needs to be said…The only question I would have is can we organize just through cyberspace or do we actually have to have f2f conversations and debate to win…My thoughts on the matter is we have to the latter…What say you?

    • It’s f2f. And make no mistake, for every f2f conversation or “organized” arrangement, the unorganized and un-talked-to know what to do when the time comes, and they are orders of magnitude higher in number than the numbers of conversations or organizations. Better that there is no head on the snake or identifiable leadership or written organizing principles. People have eyes and ears, and thinking brains, and they use them. A lot of people know the score, and lay low. All those nominal CivNats that don’t say much? How many of them have donned protective camouflage? More than you might think, IMHO.

      • Dutch, correct. There are natural leaders out there and many more followers. It just takes the right spark to produce ignition. In the meantime folks prepare physically and mentally for the right combination of events to ignite a movement. Most all are in some stage of preparedness—from questioning to certainty, and all that entails.

        • It’s not actually a leader-follower thing, and that’s the rigid sort of thinking people need to break. Give your engaged dissident white neighbors and acquaintances some credit for figuring out what is going on, what it means for them and their families, and what they need to do and can do about it. We are long horizon thinkers with some real individual discipline. It is what makes certain cultures more desirable over others, and we need to assume fealty to a roughly common cause, even if no conversation is had or any organizing structure put in place.

          So it becomes a matter of choosing your “friends” wisely, and be careful who you talk to. Be a “grey man” but get to work.

  26. Don’t forget that bow tied freak George Will peddling his new book on this very topic. It shouldn’t sell more than five copies in Georgetown and seven copies in Bethesda. Maybe two copies in Mclean. Talk about a zombie corpse that still roams the earth.

    • Someone will launder money through a think tank and buy a 100,000 copies.

  27. Z-Man writes, “Logically, the first step in a principled agenda is to win. That requires collective action and a willingness to play rough, not individualism and a fetish for tone policing.”

    Compare and contrast: the American Indians in their wars were all about individual bravery, counting coup on your enemy by whacking him with a coup stick to gain prestige.

    Sounds like TradCon behavior, doesn’t it?

    Note that the side that won the long Indian wars used Winchesters in preference to coup sticks.

    Sounds like Antifa behavior, doesn’t it?

    • FIreWire, actually it was Winchester’s and pure savagery that won the plains Indian wars. The Indians indeed were brave, vicious, and unmerciful—and that was eventually reciprocated by the cavalry and towns people of the plains. In my readings, these Indians had long given up counting coup wrt enemy encounters. Ambush, torture and scalping was the name of the game, albeit again for individual status within the tribes.

      When Sheridan took over the fight, he changed tactics. He had his soldiers search out winter camps, which he raided and burned—removing the Indian’s herds of horses and winter food stores. The remaining Indians fled to starve and freeze on the plains. After a season or two, the remaining bands (what was left of them) sued for peace (once again) and returned to the reservations. More than one chief has been quoted as saying it was captivity (on reservations) or extinction of a people.

      The lesson here is one of doing what it takes to win—without dragging the baggage of “principle” along to delay/prevent victory. Even after action reports I’ve read has Calvary officers lamenting the hardships and fate of the Indians whose villages were destroyed and foodstuff taken. But to a man, they did such to ensure a speedy conclusion to this “bloody business”.

  29. It hasn’t been 30 years. It’s been perhaps twice that since Buckley, with the aid of the corporate media, kicked the John Birch Society and others of like mind out of the conservative movement. And of course Buckley couldn’t possibly have done it without the corporate media behind him.

    But true conservatives are still around. It’s just that while you would frequently hear and read condemnations of them in the corporate media back in the 1950s and 1960s, now the corporate media simply ignores them.

    Example: If you only read the corporate media, would you have ever heard the name Paul Gottfried? Or for that matter any of the true libertarians like Murray Rothbard and Hans Herman Hoppe you lump in with the creeps at Reason Rag?

  30. Coming soon by NRO: The Conservative Case for Open Borders

    Too busy at work to write a long comment. This is one of your best posts evah, and should be flagged or pinned for re-reading.

    Got that PO Box yet?

    • It is an excellent post and highlights why I read here every day even though I only comment on rare occasion.

  32. What’s the point of even addressing French and nro soy boys anymore? Nobody reads their garbage, they have zero cultural capital at this point. They have no consitutents and no base. They just write gay and fake articles for their millionaire donors.

    The good news, or bad news depending on your perspective, is left wing rule after trump will be so brutual and overtly tribal that whitey will have no choice but to acknowledge we live in a non-white world and embrace tribalism. The issue will be settled not by intellectual discourse but the brutual realities of demographics and politics. Boomer navel gazing style politics could only exist in a super majority white country. There is no other path forward.

    • For every one of us there are 100 normies still being suckered by Conservative Inc. It’s why we have to keep stripping the bark off these guys.

      • Agreed to the ratio of “us” to normies but don’t think Conservatism, Inc. is suckering the normies to the same extent as even three years ago. It has some influence left, true, but it is wasting rapidly. Stripping the bark off the guys is important, because they do have to be destroyed, but mostly to signal to the Left the coming struggle will be quite nasty and to bring the normies along with us to engage in that struggle.

        De Ferrers is right substantively if not tactically..

        • Oh, they still do. Go to any Instapundit thread and you get the civnat people full force. They may not like NR, but they think it’s just the current crop and not what they’ve been pushing for decades.

      • It seems like you could argue that talk radio or Fox news has this power and influence over normies. But NRO? The traffic has collapsed since trump and they shut off the only fun part of the website. Without comments, it’s just a echo chamber of Jonah Goldberg. Unlike Jonah, the trolls used to be funny and witty. Now it’s a site for old boomers and a few college republican spergs.

        Just looking at Alexa and their social media engagement, it doesn’t look like a healthy and vibrant site regardless of boomer drives.

      • “…we have to keep stripping the bark off these guys.”

        They so richly deserve a good flaying.

        And besides, it is kinda fun. And we want Our Thing to be fun once in a while.

    • National Review just conducted a Spring fundraising drive and got readers to give them $200k, above and beyond their subscriptions to “fight socialism.” I wish what you are saying was true, but they still have an audience.

      • $200,000 will be burned up in a jiffy. They would need $2,000,000 to make a difference.

      • Yes, but did they elect (or defeat) Trump? Can they pack a venue with 20k+ supporters on a week’s notice for a stump speech. Yeah, a lot of old White guys (folks here excluded of course) can write checks out of their burgeoning 401k’s (thanks to Trump BTW), but when it comes to a street fight, the best they can do is put out a special edition pontificating on conservative “values” and “ethics”. It’s the masses we seek, not these parasites.

        When the revolution comes, they go to the wall with the rest. Figuratively meant, of course. 😉

    • De Ferrers, a bunch of crusty assertions starting with “no” “nobody” “zero”, doesn’t make them true or even essentially true. Besides, what do you want a blogger to do, repeat the same big idea every day?

  33. Below is An excerpt from French’s response. It’s one of the most detached from reality things I’ve ever read:

    “Ben Domenech, in a Federalist essay supporting Ahmari, compares the radical forces of the illiberal Left to the white walkers from Game of Thrones, “bent on utter and total destruction of everything American Christians hold dear.” He paints with too broad a brush, though there are of course radicals who would like to stamp out Christian liberty. But the Valyrian steel that stops the cultural white walker is pluralism buttressed by classical liberalism, not a kind of Christian statism of undetermined nature, strength, power, or endurance.“

    • Reality put aside, it’s a word salad. Strung together to appeal to fellow elitist snobs. I’ll take Trump any day to push across an ideal and inspire a movement.

      • No, because less than 10% of the population has watched Game of Thrones.

        • That French would use a Game of Thrones reference says so much. Although I wonder . . . are we going to be reduced to citing such things to try to get through to some of the young, for whom that is their only cultural reference besides Starbucks?

    • The ‘of course’ is a tell, that French knows the score. It reminds me of those old WW2 flicks, when some message on BBC radio like “Aunt Sally is recovering from her shoulder surgery” meant “an armored German division is moving west into Luxembourg.”

      French was a promising and able young writer, as I remember. He writes at gunpoint now – that last sentence is proof.

      He knows, but he’s afraid of the Void. He’s neither better nor worse than anyone who keeps a well-paying gig by dutifully reporting to mandated ‘diversity workshops’, like some readers and commenters here at the Z-blog, for example. They know who they are.

      French also has his hands full with those little brown people he and his wife took into hearth and home, future enemies of our culture and civilization. They will bring the kind of bliss to the French family that the Parsons’ kids brought to that happy home in Victory Mansions.

      • Imagine the scene: The cute little brown people, a decade from now, no longer so cute, demanding reparations from mom and dad. More likely from dad alone, mom having run off with a girlfriend. Dave’s final contribution to The Flagship of American Conservatism: The Conservative Case for Assisted Suicide.

  34. This battle between French and Ahmari is very similar to an old exchange between Derbyshire and Laurence Auster some years ago.

    Auster found Derb “insufficiently traditionalist” by which he meant too willing to abandon conservatism for a strategy that might win but would forever close off any return to tradition…

    At this point, for someone like French who spends all day in the political world, to still be peddling Americanism is inexplicable, even if it is simply doing his master’s bidding.

    He knows the Left, which does not believe in the Constitution or the Flag uses them as sticks to beat back any attempt to return to constitutionalism. Laws to be discarded when they would suit our purposes, but which are sacred when they are twisted to suit anti white purposes. Such a law is no law; it cancels itself. Yet he still plays the game.

    The best way to uphold the Constitution is to burn it, for it has long since become a mockery of itself. The founders would tolerate no such fate. They revolved for a lot less. Most of our wars have been fought over a lot less. Conservative is progressivism, but too many in our movement are also too nostalgic for a way of life that is long gone. Whatever its good points may have been it put us on the road to our current situation. Setting the clock back simple sets the stage for a repeat performance somewhere down the road.

    The only way to advance it is to stop believing that.

    • The GOPe Credo per L. Auster:

      “I declare that this government is no longer a constitutional and moral form of government. I will deal with it, and I will obey its laws, and I will support it when it is defending our country from foreign and domestic enemies. I will vote in its elections and participate in its political debates. But I will never accept it. I aim at a restoration of constitutional and moral order.”

      The morality of defeatism.

      Derb v Auster (20 years ago):

      http://www.amnation.com/vfr/archives/006938.html

    • When enough true Americans start to realize that the American flag has come to stand for literal baby murder and spits in the face of Jesus Christ, then the sea change from the “cynicism” compartment to the next step will truly be afoot. Does anyone feel pride anymore in looking at the flag?

      • If you really want to trigger people at a protest, don’t bother with the CSA flag or the Nazi flag. Pull out the Iranian flag or the DPRK flag.

  35. “Meanwhile, the Left was fully prepared to spend the peace dividend on outlandish social experimentation like open borders and homosexual marriage. The Right just stood by and watched.”

    Two things:

    1) The Right “just stood by and watched” because the public face of the Right is made up of the same spoiled brat, suburban white kids as the left. They go to the same universities, and subsequently learn that you cannot beat the left, and trying to do so will result in social outcasting and career-killing accusations. They’re correct about that. They also consume the same pop-culture as the left, and know that that institution is against them, too.

    2) They were right. Sorry but they were. Trump showed that you can get elected by opposing the left. But seriously, what’s he going to do? Fire academia? Fire 3/4 of the judges and lawyers? Fire 7/10 of the public bureaucrats? Fire 9/10 of the schoolteachers? Fire Hollywood (how would you even do that?) Where they were wrong is that they just gave up, assuming that the mainstream battlefield was the only one that existed. This is expected of spoiled brat, suburban white kids.

    We’re now fighting a one-party state. The left took over academia, and no one cared because everyone just assumed what went on there was just a bunch of stupid kids and it didn’t affect them. Well, it was just a bunch of stupid kids, but – surprise, surprise – it did affect them.

    Now, we must study how dissidents, like those of Poland in the 70s and 80s fought against a one-party state.

    The only thing that can bring down a one-party state is a foreign intervention or an economic collapse.

    • Actually what you must study is Michael Collins, and the methods he used to defeat the British Empire. And no, he didn’t do it by putting bombs in shopping malls and blowing up innocent strangers.

      • The history of the final phase of the struggle to create the Republic of Ireland is generally instructive.

        Step one: in the 19th century Daniel O’Connell pioneered the techniques of mass peaceful protest later used by Gandhi and King; O’Connell basically invented the March on Washington. This established the unassailable Justice of the Irish cause, and though O’Connell didn’t win, he brought dignity, clarity, and intellectual depth to the movement, something ragtag resistance outfits like the Peep o’Day Boys could never do. O’Connell in some ways was Ireland’s Trump.

        Step two: during the failed Easter Rising of 1916, Connolly and Pearse and their band of fanatics seized the Dublin General Post Office by force, proclaimed the Irish Republic, and were promptly shot to pieces by the British Army, which applied such outlandishly overwhelming force to a small bunch of nutcases that it utterly disgusted the regular Irish people. The Irish public actually were mad at Connolly because they had begun to think peaceful incrementalism was going to work. But the outrageous brutality of the British response turned them. It was sort of a Waco moment for the Irish. Rest assured President Kamala will give us Waco in spades.

        Step three: this change in the public mood created a space for Michael Collins to emerge, and his tactics and methods ultimately proved successful. He could not win the north, but the north was not winnable, he got 80 percent and that sufficed.

        To those who say a White ethnostate is impossible without nuclear war or some other all-out bloodbath, I say Whack the ral-de-ra, hunt the hare and chase her Down the rocky road and all the way to Dublin, one two three, four five.

        • To talk of the success of the IRA without mentioning the significant support it received from great power rivals of the British is silly.
          The analogy only works if you can find financial,military and political backing from China or Russia to help your movement.

          Also,the British elite was not as determined to hold on to Ireland the way the current elite is when it comes to eradicating the West. The mounting costs of maintaining the Empire, a lack of sympathy for the Scottish protestants in Ulster and the lack of strategic threat posed by an independent Ireland meant that the logic of Ireland in the UK no longer applied. None of these factors are analogous to the present context.

          • I could see an American Dissident Right movement getting backing from Russia.

            If the American Left retakes power, they have invested too much time, money, and airtime into the threat of the Russian Bear to let it go. To say nothing about Russian resistance to the poz.

            What better way for the Russians to keep American Democrats busy than bankrolling a low cost resistance movement? They’ll be accused of it anyway.

    • First is good to go after primary source. Why West was so weak that it fell like rotten fruit in 1968 ? In the East, civil war started straight after liberal takeover in 1918, lasted for years and despite tens of millions victims, liberals actually never had full power. Stalin extraordinary leadership skills stabilized liberalism for 2 decades and after his death, move towards normality started. The only force, what kept liberalism alive was Stalin criminals fear for revenge. So there is very little to learn from Poland. In the West there never had such anti communist resistance that only mass murders can control it.

  36. In a hilarious example today, Jim Geraghty writes a column entitled, “The Right’s Grifter Problem” about scam fundraising PACs hoovering up donations from gullible saps and then spending very little in support of Republican candidates. I don’t know if he is just shameless or too dumb to know this, but National Review has been selling email and mailing addresses for decades. A number of these retired donors getting scammed are probably National Review subscribers (or former subscribers) who had their contact info sold by National Review. What a pathetic organization.

    https://www.nationalreview.com/the-morning-jolt/the-real-problem-conservatism-faces-today/

    • Most of his examples are from 2017 and previously. Which brings up the question, why did NR publish this NOW? Why not last year or 2017?

      • Because those donations could be going to NR. Also, once they establish some true grifter PACs, they’ll attack some of the ideologically impure as grifters.

  37. Actually, the Episcopal Church hasn’t changed at all. It’s still what it’s always been: religious trappings for the opinions of the WASP ruling class. From Puritanism to Abolition to Prohibition to Civil Rights to Open Borders. The joke is that they think they’re “speaking truth to power,” LOL. They even have bumber stickers: Worship Like Catholics, Think Like Hippies.

    • Puritans turned into Unitarians, not Episcopalians. Abolitionists were largely Methodists. All mainstream religion in the US — Episcopalians, Methodists, Lutherans, Presbyterians, etc. — was fatally corrupted by cultural revolution of the ’60s. You could say they’re all liberal Jews now. This is the point Ahmari misses: the religious establishment, including the conference of bishops, is steadfastly opposed to everything he stands for.

    • “The joke is that they think they’re “speaking truth to power.” The Left has begun shedding the “truth to power” trope, since it’s become so obvious that they’re the power now. AND they’re proud of it, since it did take a lot of time and effort, so another reason to shed it. Now their posture is them talking down to their lessers, the deplorables. Sure they’ll still mouth the “truth to power” thing when it suits them, but it’s not the grand theme it used to be for them.

  38. One thing I’ve noticed about this (and similar) controversies is how the writers always feel obligated to mention they are friends with the combatants. Now maybe this is journalistic ethics (to make clear any personal ties), but it sounds more like a kind of boasting. Rod Dreher does this a lot, and he did on this issue, too, mentioning he is friends with *both* Ahmari and French. (Indeed he mentions this dual friendship *twice* in the first paragraph). Dougherty also mentions his friendship with both people. This is a big part of the limits of Conservatism Inc. They all know each other and like each other so much. And so the harshest criticism is likely to come from outsiders to the movement. Populist/Dissident bloggers and YouTube personalities are interlopers who “don’t get it.”

    Dougherty’s piece is filled with commentary on how the Right is a big happy family. Sure they squabble among themselves at times, but they are all friends and will stick up for one another when uncouth outsiders intrude. The important thing is to play by the rules, and value civility above all else. Yeah, I know Ahmari is apparently an “insider,” but this controversy can be seen as an effort to rein in a would-be renegade in their ranks who is daring to criticize such a nice guy as David French. Dougherty’s “history lesson” seems to have been included to suggest that all this Trump populism stuff is just a passing fad just like other internal right wing squabbles of the past.

    • One of my takeaways from the 2016 primary battle was that the Conservative Inc. crowd had never grasped how much they were hated—not by the Left, but by their own putative “audience.” For a long time they had been the only game in town for anybody leaning Right; they could excuse their failure to deliver on their “principles” by whining about the difficulty of the tasks at hand, by endlessly regurgitating their anodyne ideas, and by prescribing patience for a long run that never materialized.

      But a single alternative in the person of Trump—who not only addressed a real national concern, but fought back against opponents AND fought to win—was enough to launch an exodus from the “venerable” organs of the establishment Right.

      I think the bought-and-paid-for employees of Con Inc. (in print and politics) are still in denial about how much “their own side” hated them. If you factor in the Left, it’s a yuge majority that holds them in contempt and ridicule. The fact that they all attest to being “friends” is their pathetic confession to the self-reinforcing fantasy-world bubble that allows them turn a blind eye to that reality.

      Just as they never learned anything after the failure of the Iraq incursion, they will never draw any lesson from the current situation. The irrelevant remnants of Con Inc. will still be booking cabins long after the cruise ship has been sunk.

    • Unlike our host, I think, I have no respect for MB Dougherty. If I’m not mistaken, he now lives in Ireland, and considers himself Irish. Nothing wrong with that, BUT I prefer people who comment on US politics to have some skin in the game. Further, Z-man calls his post “Rambling”. What post by MBD is NOT rambling? He’s one of those vague, rambling, verbose, softy, Center_Right types who loves to write about theory, and feeling and principles and NEVER about actual y’know Reality.

  39. “These principles control how the Right engages the Left.”

    You meant “controlled.” The Right no longer pays attention to ludicrous individuals such as David French, George Will or Jewish former communists who bang on about War O’ The Week. While their house organs have started to put some distance between these asinine clowns and their publications and broadcasts, it is too little, too late. Eventually the bluehaired heiresses who supported the great fraud Buckley and his successors will die off and no longer toss coin into the till after one of these charlatans cops a feel at sea on a cruise ship Yes, they still can play court jester on left-wing television shows but even that is drawing to a close.

    • Addendum: I read Stephens’ piffle and then the Ahmari piece. One premise that has to be rejected is people such as French are “nice.” No, in fact they are evil incarnate. French and Stephens are fully aware we have entered a life and death struggle with Marxism yet they encourage no resistance. By championing anything less than full on resistance and if that fails revolt and violence if necessary, they not only are complicit but responsible, or would be if anyone listened to them any longer, for the coming civil war. It may or may not be avoidable, but failure to fight now ensures the former if there remains any chance of the latter.

      French once railed against “fight fire with fire” conservatism. That’s not a reasonable, “nice” position but preemptive surrender and an attempt to save his ass.

      THANK GOD for Donald Trump.

  40. Consider the response to this letter to the editor from someone who started reading NR from the late 1950s, almost from the mag’s beginnings in 1955. It was published online April 18, 2019, and in the May 6 print edition. They’re jettisoning their longtime readers.
    …..
    From NR:

    Beliefs Can Go Bad

    My very liberal aunt, chairwoman of the English department at UC Davis, gave me a subscription to NR in the late 1950s. I have been a subscriber ever since. Lately I have become disappointed in much of NR’s editorial slant.

    An example is your paragraph (April 8) on the New Zealand massacre. I think you need to explain why you take it as a given that white nationalism is a creature of the Right. Perhaps you should carefully define exactly what it is that NR believes constitutes “the Right” that harbors white nationalism.

    James Bridges
    Lafayette, Calif.

    The editors respond: Conservatism expresses, among other things, a reverence for community and custom. White nationalism is a demonic parody of this disposition.

  41. Something an old boss told me long, long ago from his time in Viet Nam with the 173rd Airborne. “Be the surprisor, not the surprisee”. As you point out, the right is historically too predictable, running plays out of Jomini’s book of Napoleonic tactics. Do think this is why you get an almost anaphylactic response on the Left to a 14 year kids making YouTube videos parodying them. The Leftists didn’t see that one coming. Need about a thousand more ideas like that.

  42. CivNat conservatism is the “principle” of not bringing any weapon at all to a gun fight.

    Ahmari is from Iran, only moved here when he was thirteen. He converted to Catholicism, but from his background–maybe just from his bones–he probably intuits the basic principle of tribe up or die.

    And French–I actually associate him in my mind with LGBT month. Not that he’s gay, but that he really is a sort of freak, by historical standards–a person so pathetic, so milquetoast, so lacking in even ordinary manliness, self-respect, or respect from others, as to be the “M” in a sort of political-intellectual S&M freakshow.

    People only read him to see to what new level of abasement he can sink. Just as with the gay-parade types, it is an indictment of our degenerate age that he has even been allowed to crawl out of the woodwork and hold a place in public life.

    • “a person so pathetic, so milquetoast, so lacking in even ordinary manliness, self-respect, or respect from others.”

      In other words, gay.

    • I’ve noticed this sort of physiognomy in a lot of prominent Conservative, Inc types…Evan McMuffin, etc…

  43. Could you kindly quit spreading the myth that people outside Soviet Union had something to do with SU collapse ? The truth is opposite, Reagan politics almost saved the SU giving cause the Soviet hardliners.

    • When I was in graduate school in the late seventies, I came across an interesting economic analysis of the Soviet Union written by a CIA operative. It was in an academic newsletter that was published quarterly, so it was meant to be seen by the public. In this analysis, the writer asserted that, according to his calculations, the Soviet Union would implode due to economic stress sometime in the late 80s. He was amazingly prescient. I wish I could remember the publication, but it was one of those seldom-seen newsletters you come across in the libraries of business graduate schools. Reagan was not yet president at the time.

      • Ravi Batra? He also predicted the collapse of Capitalism.

        https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Downfall_of_Capitalism_and_Communism

        Remember Lester Thurow and his insistence that Soviet communism had already economically surpassed the Western market economies (MIT economist for those who have never heard the name). He published a long article in the NYT listing chapter and verse why this had happened and why it would continue…then literally a week later the USSR collapsed.

        Lester, who had been a constant in public debate, was not heard from again.

    • Juri…..thought Reagan star wars spending pushed SU into a continuous spending battle. Please explain from your perspective the effect of Reagan’s military spending push on the SU. If the hardliners stiffened their collective spines against Reagan, was not more SU $ spent to keep up the arms race? Another perspective from you?

      • Actually, spending was very much irrelevant because SU produced everything domestically and in the State owned factories. After that, despite decay our life was still better that in Stalin starvation era. It was general stagnation, dysfunctionality and absurd what brought people to the street. Hardliners wanted to turn SU something like North Korea where are also economic problems and thanks to Reagan, they almost succeed. Eastern Europeans have used that in wartime, life is shitty, so no big problem. We see this even today, when nobody in Russia and Eastern Europe cares about sanctions and threats.

        • There is also a logistical aspect to this:

          if you don’t have to continually siphon off gains in production to a large avaricious investor class you get more bang for your buck.

    • Ludwig Erhard tried to achieve goal of unification threw buy off soviet in 60s

      Russian always poorer even Belle Epoque era

      Communist Russia bound to end disaster due to their poverty and lack of tech development

      Reagan Policy were usual republican Ponzi game

  45. Without realizing it, Dougherty, French and “nice” whites like them represent a supreme hubris of so many whites. They simply can’t imagine themselves or whites in general not being in charge, or the world (and its rules and institutions) the we created not being the norm. They can’t imagine that other groups might not adopt our culture – democracy, individualism, fair institutions and following the rules. They can’t imagine their world – the white world – being overrun and destroyed.

    They advocate playing nice and following their principles – even when the Left doesn’t – because they have no concept that we’re in a war for survival. To them, it’s all just a debate that we’ll win because, well, what else could there be.

    Whites have been on top for 500 years. That’s a very, very long time. Dougherty, French and nice white people are a result of that winning streak.

    • Citizen, hard to believe that there are Whites that can’t see not being on top. They see, but are in denial. The examples are boundless. Just to cite those in America: Major cities in ruin under minority leadership—dysfunctional school systems with minority majorities—Judicial functioning being thwarted or simply overwhelmed with minority criminals—AA placing gross incompetents in essential employment positions.

      It does not take a rocket scientist to extend these abominations to what remains of White, functioning America. Denial is a powerful psychological force, that is sometimes even held on until the moment of death.

      • Denial is a powerful psychological force, that is sometimes even held on until the moment of death.
        That’s Truth right there Brother…Reminds me of that quote Its easier to fool someone than convince them that they have been fooled…

  46. Obviously, David French is worthless. One thing interesting about the guy is that you used to head FIRE (Foundation for Individual Rights in Education). After being so exposed to the Stalinist forces in higher education, you’d think he’d realize what he was up against. Evidently not. Actually makes it more damning of him.

    I’d like nothing more to return to an era in which it was classic liberals on side versus conservatives on the other. But why pretend we live in such a world now? The insane left must be crushed.

    Btw, I saw on twitter that there was something like a “conservative case for transgenders” made recently on NR. Didn’t bother to read it.

    • The Conservative Case for Transgenders sounds like something NR would publish. Here are some other possible titles in the series: The Conservative Case for …

      … Concentration Camps
      … Clitorectomy
      … Sodomy
      … Pedophilia

      • There is a good conservative case for concentration camps. Got to put the Leftists somewhere

        • @AB
          How about just shipping them off to Central America that way we wouldn’t have to waste resources…

          • Probably better. The problem is that you have to house them first and I can imagine the screams of the cheap labor crowd after 50 million deported foreigners, 20 million Leftists and who knows how many slain

            I estimate wages would go through the roof even with all the useless jobs gone

        • Will there be an orchestra and Olympic-sized swimming pool? How about a de-lousing chamber with a wooden door?

          • Stack the fat ones on top of the skinny ones. No really, I do it with dead cats all the time. Like kindling and tallow.

            I found what the “roller coaster” was referring to. I wonder why it’s not a major exhibit?

            (A rail car on tracks down a tunnel that, when it hit a stop at the end, would tip over, popping open big steel doors and tumbling the lot, screaming and alive, into giant fiery furnaces!!
            From the authoritative, exhaustively documented “Memories of Auschwitz”)

          • Plus I tried tossing pellets of bug powder in my shower and all I got was wet bug powder.

          • Don’t forget the Bear and the Eagle, the Electric Floors, the Masturbation Machines…

    • My impression is that French would be a pleasant enough guy to know. But as an opinion maker he is more what the Left would LIKE a “conservative” to be, than an authentic voice of the Right.

      It baffled me in 2016 when French was encouraged (by the Never-Trumpers)) to make a run for President against Trump. How could anyone imagine that such a nobody would even have a chance of winning?

      But then I awakened to the rationale that French was a person who’s story ticked certain boxes that were assumed to appeal to what Conservative Inc. regards as the “rubes” who vote Republican. That showed me (a) how cynical the GOPe truly were, and (b) how little they cared about defeating Klinton in the November election.

  47. A few years ago, I’m not sure First Things would have ever published Ahmari’s piece. They were usually better than the National Review but you could see progressive sentiments slipping through all the time.

    I’m glad to see folks finally rolling up their sleeves. Ahmari may not be a dissident in the true sense of the word, but more power to him.

    • Yup. First Things was a shill for John Courtney Murray accomodationism–to the Cloud/Elite/Ruling class. Don’t know what happened to them, but it’s rather nice to see.

      • First Things Editor R.R. Reno has had a gradual awakening over the repulsive nature of our elite class, and I believe this has led him to a deeper consideration of how the prevailing culture—not just the present-day mutation, but modernity as a whole—actively undermines, and is now antagonistic towards, the Christian idea.

  48. If your boxing opponent wears brass knuckles under his gloves and you don’t, you’re not principled, you’re a chump.

    • I keep saying: this is not a Marquis of Queensbury duel with referees; this is a bar brawl for all the marbles.

      I know I’m a Jew. I’m also a staunch Conservative. Pro-life. Pro-gun. Pro-strong borders and a strict immigration policy. Pro-Constitution and the BoR. Pro-small government.

      Will you reject me – as an individual – as an ally because I wear one of these? If we agree on 80%+ of things, including strict immigration policies, shouldn’t Reagan’s rule of an 80% ally apply?

      http://redpilljew.blogspot.com/2019/02/for-your-amusement-kippot.html

      Going to wear this one, below, to my synagogue’s “meet the candidates” event in 2020.

      https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-VhmDf8rFe9c/Wj5noc4X6VI/AAAAAAAAAGI/ExtDb3McMe8KsNaUubkqeSuBT4uXnPOsQCLcBGAs/s1600/gadsden%2Bkippa.png

      • That’s a tough one Brother to answer because it all comes down to trust…Can we trust you not to stab us in the back at a critical moment when the war can be won or lost…If we had history together and you had been in tight spots with us and didn’t let us down then it would be a lot easier but just words on the internet aren’t going to cut it…JMHO

          • I don’t know Brother I think I like First we try, then we trust better…

        • A very good point. At this time, all I can say is read my essays and see that I’m consistent in what I say. Absent being in a foxhole, I’m not sure what to tell you.

          I will say this – and you’ll have to take my word on it – a friend who is former military told me that I’m one of the handful of people they’d trust with a gun behind them if TSHTF. I was flat-out honored by that.

        • There’s about a one in five chance he’s not lying,

          Is the upside of including him five times greater greater than the downside of excluding him?

          How has that openness done so far for you?

          What’s Harvard, a school established to educated Protestant ministers teaching nowadays?

          Hows the Christian movement in Yeshiva University doing?

          When will you get a clue?

      • Different tribes can work together when their interests cross. The key is remembering that we’re from different tribes and understanding boundaries

        For at least 50 years, Jewish leaders have been in the enviable position of getting to be rabidly tribal while being fully accepted by gentile whites. However, some whites (people around here but more and more normie gentile whites) are waking up to the fact that the world is tribal and we’d better start acting like it. And given the power of Jews, one of the first groups that we’re noticing is Jews, as it should be.

        I have no problem working with Jews who support our cause. I support a Jewish homeland and see Israel as a model for what I’d like my future grandkids (or more realistically great grandkids) to have for themselves. But Jews need to understand that they no longer get a say in our tribal affairs, just as outsiders don’t tell me what to do with my kids.

        Frankly, I think any Jew with a brain in their head should be screaming from the rooftops that their leaders are fucking over rank-and-file Jews. Making the West more multi-culti to lower the odds of Jewish Holocaust 2.0 possibly made some sense up to a point, but they’ve long past the point of diminishing marginal returns and the curve starting to fall quickly.

        Blacks hate Jews. Hispanics hate Jews. Asians and Indians don’t hate Jews, but they definitely see them as another tribe and as competition. None of those groups will ever accept or trust Jews nor will they care much if another group attacks you. I’m not even going to bring up Muslims.

        Jewish leaders are making the lives of American and European Jews much harder and more dangerous. They’re also threatening to turn the only real allies that Israel has into neutral at best and enemies at worst. You think Obama liked Israel. What about Rep. Omar. Jews may think that they can keep these pit bulls on a tight leash – and maybe they can – but they’ll rip your face the first chance that they get.

        Jews are in better shape than gentile whites, but they’re leaders are screwing them over as well.

      • Let’s identify that 20%, starting with the blood libelous Holyhoax. Your position is …?

  49. My last moment with the National Review was during the Ted Cruz filibuster to stop Obamacare. The National Reviewites were bleating wildly that his filibuster would single-handedly destroy all hope the Republicans had for the 2014 Congressional elections. It was shameful that Ted Cruz was actually fighting the imposition of Obamacare. Their argument seemed to be “people want Obamacare, even though we oppose it, so let’s not oppose it now, but try to repeal it later, maybe in 2017 . . . if we have control of both houses . . . and the Presidency . . . and maybe we will reform Obamacare, not repeal it . . . because if we repeal it, no one will ever vote Republican . . . but really, we oppose it.”

    When I pointed-out that Cruz (despite his faults) was actually showing some backbone and finally giving conservatives something to fight for, they immediately went Marquis of Queensbury rules, and “that is not our principles.”

    In other words, National Review will never fight for those ideas in which they believe.

  50. “…a conservative order means white people acting collectively and doing what is necessary to win.”

    Unfortunately, the left anticipated this. They’ve gone into all the Protestant churches and subverted the leadership. In other words, they inoculated themselves against the most potent potential resistance on the right: religion. This is going to be a long, hard fight. You’ll know we’re winning when you see religious organizations turn against the leftist agenda. I’m not seeing much of it, yet.

      • The comments on the American Conservative article are pretty bad, almost as bad as the prayer in the clip: Lots of feminism and tone policing.

        • Most of Dreher’s regular commenters are religiously observant leftists. That’s why I quit reading him. He doesn’t have the will to call them out as traitorous.

    • This is how Russell Moore continues to have a job at the Southern Baptist Convention, and will until that organization is nothing but a flaming ruin.

    • Epa;
      You are right that the Mainline Protestant churches allowed themselves to be converged from inside their hierarchies. This followed from hiring insiders from prestigious-yet-Godless theological schools staffed by apostates which are connected to Godless, converged big U’s. Their poison was ‘The Religion of Nice’* Their membership is cratering.

      Because they are independent congregations, i.e. *not* connected to or controlled by an organized religious hierarchy, most evangelical churches are *not* converged. They are growing, often at the expense of mainline denominations. But they have shied away from politics for a number of reasons.
      — Not their core mission. Bringing people to Christ and building up the community of believers is what they see as their core missions.**
      — Even in hierarchal churches, divisiveness and schism are always dangers, even more so under congregational governance. So why court it_?
      — Concern for their tax exempt status, sometimes used as an excuse by the weak-kneed.
      — Been burned by the GOPe in the past, just like the Tea Party. Lookin’ at you Carl Rove.
      _____________________
      *”It’s not *nice* to make degenerates feel bad about their life choices…”, for example. IOW, Cafeteria Christianity where one decides for themselves which parts of scripture need ‘updating’, which sins are more OK than others, etc.
      **There is no such thing as *the* Evangelical Position on any particular theological issue. But there is a great deal of overlap on most of them.

      • Buried my own lede. Intended point: Protestant Faith is indeed available as a motivator for restoration (or whatever one wishes to call it). But a para-church organization(s) will be needed because that faith is to be found among Protestant Evangelicals (not mainline churches), whose organizational structure is fractal and not hierarchical.

        BTW, it is *because* of that structure (lack thereof) that they have mostly evaded convergence.

      • Agree with what you said above, but want to add one more item. Beware the women in the Evangelical churches. They are getting more and more powerful. And are willing to throw their weight around and influence church practice in ways unheard of 20 years ago.

        My wife and I have a running gun battle over the LGBT issue. She knows the theology, but would never allow herself to say no to them. Or as you put it, feel bad about their choices. For her, Christianity is about being nice and accepting everyone. Anyone who has read the Bible knows that a bunch of nonsense.

        Also, the worship songs used to be about sin, repentance and grace. Now they are little more than odes to overcoming neuroticism. Whats more neurotic than a woman?

        The Evangelical churches are doomed unless they have strict standards and are willing to exclude those who won’t meet those standards.

        • “What Would Jesus Do” is the religious version of the secular Left’s Platinum Rule: Do unto others as they would have you do. It’s the moral philosophy of slaves.

        • The Evangelical churches are too busy importing Asians to add to their numbers to exercise any standards. And how fortunate, and what a coincidence, that so many of these people are willing to work for minimum wage in the Evangelicals’ businesses.

        • GUEST:
          I’d get a good laugh out of you reading aloud to your wife, a blog post by Ann Barnhardt. That would be hilarious.
          I’m sure your beloved’s eyes would cross, and she’d start screeching about how Ann is “not nice,” especially in her descriptions and observations about sodomites.
          (NOTE: not having her read herself, b/c that way she wouldn’t get through the second sentence if read that way.)
          Ann Barnhardt has a more solid spine than half the men (or more) in the West.

    • They’ve gone into all the Protestant churches and subverted the leadership.

      And they’ve made a helluva run at the Catholics, too, but there’s a large and VERY firm resistance both in and outside of the USA.

      • The Catholic church has been infiltrated since before Vatican II.
        The Novus Ordo-ites have no idea what’s going on.
        There is NOT a firm resistance inside the US or outside of it, either.
        If there were, Cardinal Burke and/or Pope Benedict XVI, the one and only Pope (not Jorge) could film a two-minute “presser” and send far and wide.
        And this would be done.

    • The only relevant place of worship for us now is the Church of the 2nd Amendment.

  51. While Con, Inc. is a grift, the equal if not prevailing motive for pathological cuckery for guys like French seems to be the desire to be liked and admired.

    To repurpose another of Alissa Rosenbaum’s Atlas quotes, “it is of such pennies and smiles that the desolation our homeland was made.”

    As fellow traveller Mark Liebovich of the NYT admiringly said of ruthless hack Harry Reid in his book “This Town,” the only person whose opinion Harry Reid gave a damn about was his wife. Harry would walk over the corpses of every other man and woman on the planet.

    We can’t fight sociopathic sons-of-bitches with emo beta cucks like French in the ranks, much less in the vanguard. The only respect Our Guys should court is ours. Being damned & hated by the enemy is a badge of honor. Those unable to stomach shitlib spite need not apply. Cast out the Fifth Column Cucks who stab their brethren in the throat for shekels & feelz.

    At least the guys at Pravda acted out of fear of the gulag. French frags his own for fear of harsh words from degnerates who want him dead.

  52. It’s not easy for people who basically just want to be left alone to band together with other people who just want to be left alone to take collective action to ensure they continue to be left alone.

    • Your comment is correct and emphasizes the need for a more inspiring dream. The libertarian dream inspires a few, but not enough, and if it denies race realism, it is self-defeating.

      For some of us, the distant possibility of an ethnostate fulfills this need, however unlikey and difficult it may be. At this time, every dream is a long shot.

    • You hit the nail on the head. But the future is not a straight line. Whites have been on top for so long that we can’t even imagine our world, our lives, being threatened. Our individualist tendencies may change very quickly when we realize that have to work together.

      Our tribal muscles have atrophied due to not being needed for generations, but they are still there.

      • Whites didn’t think in racial terms other than knowing that there were a few blacks who lived somewhere else, over in that ghetto where we never went. Now you can’t escape race. It’s the topic that doesn’t go away, no matter how much Whites don’t want to think about it. Race and identity politics is one of those things where even if you don’t want to play the game, it’s going to be forced on you and you’re going to play.

        • We didn’t have to think in racial terms in the same way that 5th generation rich kids don’t have to think about money. It’s just always there. For whites, being on top and being in control was just always there.

          We’re like a rich kid whose parents are starting to talk about problems with the business. We know that something’s not right – and not good – but we don’t understand yet that our lives are about to change, that we’re going start thinking a lot about money soon.

          • Good analogy, Citizen. Part of my talking points is always to explain how the Leftists—when in power—can and do implement policy to “spread the wealth” wrt our new vibrancy. Section 8 policy under our last HUD secretary is a good place to start.

            My impression is (unfortunately) that as long as Whites can retreat to a walled off “Whitopia” little immediate progress will be made. On the other hand, the destruction of such “boundaries” are most immediately felt in the denser population areas. We almost had a revolution with forced school bussing until the Whites fled or went private. The same can happen again as the Leftists overreach.

          • “Western man towers over the rest of the world in ways so large as to be almost inexpressible. It’s Western exploration, science, and conquest that have revealed the world to itself.
            Other races feel like subjects of Western power long after colonialism, imperialism, and slavery have disappeared.
            The charge of racism puzzles whites who feel not hostility, but only baffled good will, because they don’t grasp what it really means: humiliation.
            The white man presents an image of superiority even when he isn’t conscious of it.
            And, superiority excites envy.
            Destroying white civilization is the inmost desire of the league of designated victims we call minorities.”
            Joseph Sobran, April 1997

          • Compsci:

            I’ve had the same basic idea for some time. That given the opportunity to run away and not deal with your problems (ie be a coward), most people will take it. Some of the densest white liberals I’ve ever met live in lily white idyllic suburbs (Mass esp) and think all other races act like colored versions of white people, with superficial differences only, no change in temperament/behavior.

            That isn’t to say all of us need to live in West Baltimore, because the fact that we’re here implies we don’t need to learn this lesson regarding race. Apparently a plurality of European peoples do, and I think actual physical encounters are the only way someone will really “get it”.

        • Wolf – This is what normies or “moderates” or color-blind boomercons need to be reminded of – they’re going to be made to play, to choose a side. The simplest way to put it is “Your skin color is your uniform.” Or, as my older son puts it, “Our side isn’t going to kill you if you refuse to “choose a side;” we’re just not going to save you when the other side kills you – which they will.

    • @Spud
      It’s definitely not easy but if it’s not done then we will lose everything and I mean everything… Frustrates the shit out of me…I’m just a Knuckledragging Lineman and if I can see the need why can’t everyone else…

      • Lineman, because your insight has nothing to do with your occupation or propensity to “ knuckle-drag”. If I knew how to synthesize such wisdom, I’d be rich.

    • True. The natural outcome though of leaving people alone is ten year old drag queens in gay bars

      Now sure in a racially homogeneous society of people with a strong Christian morality, a moral attitude toward business and that is primary rural, its fine.

      I don’t see that being a thing in most of the the US which means to have order and moral conduct, its boots on necks all the way down.

    • Not easy, but not impossible. Today I met a real soul-mate. After about 15 minutes of casual chat we realized were blood-bros in our contempt for modernity. There is unity in that.

    • A less complimentary way of putting it is: Conservatives are mostly lazy and don’t like politics AND won’t get politically active unless some deeply cherished belief or lifestyle is threatened RIGHT NOW in some way. These people are short-sighted and always want to “declare Victory and go home”. And many of them can think of only two things: talking about how they’ll run to a cabin with their guns OR getting really angry and doing something stupid.

    • That’s not what is needed though. All that’s needed is for libertarians to stop treating socialists like libertarians. You don’t need to stand arm in arm, but everyone who loves freedom needs to unite under a simple philosophical premise:

      Treat socialists like socialists.

      Extend Christian treatment to Christians.
      Extend Libertarian treatment to Libertarians.
      Extend Socialist treatment to Socialists
      Extend Communist treatment to Communists

      Every single problem of western “cuck” society comes from extending Libertarian and Christian treatment to non-libertarians and non-Christians.

      Anyway, why is this so hard to understand and why is it considered so morally repugnant? It’s the reverse golden rule: Other people are treating you in the way they want to be treated themselves.

      • Bravo, Sunspot.
        The only edit I’d offer is: let’s just lump the Socialists and Communists into one pile.
        It’s more than likely that the Socialists are already heading in the direction of their more-extreme brethren, the Communists, anyway.
        Hats off to you.

  53. Roger Kimball published an essay on that controversy in American Greatness making it clear that this French v. Ahmari battle is very serious indeed. The same website also published a far more bellicose essay. Here’s the final graf:

    “But our enemies must be reminded that wars have been fought on the basis of far more trifling matters and that their continued attempts to fracture our country, subvert our system of government, and destroy all that we hold dear is dangerous and we will no longer tolerate it passively.”

    Immediately preceding that there is this:

    We have never and will never advocate unprovoked violence.

    “Unprovoked”………OK, then.

    One suspects that the revolution you discussed yesterday is ever closer. For example, looking at the Lake Calhoun (MN) hazing by Somalis “pretending” to use guns justify active, armed, response vs. calling the cops which produced no arrests, nor did it prevent a second round of Muslim aggression…..

    Hmmmm.

      • The local police and the feds would come down on them like a ton of bricks and people there aside being mostly Scandinavian also aren’t ready to become anti authority by a long mile

        The US needed to purge itself of a malfunctioning government long ago, maybe during Roosevelt or certainly back during the Eisenhower administration after his invasion of Alabama but it is what it is.

        Roosevelt was an inevitable response to an inflexible system.

        American industry will grift itself to death given any chance to do so and has seen by basically every single firm from cars to software, huge numbers of them will abuse workers and customers

        If you can’t bend enough to resolve an emergency than go back to business with some fixes after much less actually fix issues you’ll get someone with a lust for power and more of that.

        On immigration and the Social Democratic agenda , most of what as implemented made lives better and the US was overwhelming White till around the mid 90’s .

        We deserve what we got and what we’ll get. and unless we learn to have group identities and to enforce those identities we’ll go out and won’t even get to be what we need to be, many nations and we’ll deserve it.

        • People there being mostly Scandinavian, still have the romance of excessive melanin. They are the cousins of Gunnar Myrdal, Mai Britt, and more recently Hubert H. Humphrey and Walter Mondale.

      • Once upon a time, citizens would have done a Tulsa on the Somalis.
        Now those same citizens who have just been terrorized would turn you in if you took out the trash because of the brainwashing they have had…Makes me sick and enraged…

      • That’s one incident. THere’s also the arson at the Lake Calhoun bath house (municipal-owned) and more recently, the beating of a couple of college students at the U of M el-stop in downtown Minneapolis.

  54. [AntiFa are kicking the shit out of a normal white kid who refuses to kneel before them]
    David French: [turning to his friend] They shouldn’t be doing that.
    David French: Well, my work here is done.

  55. Some Cold Warriors.

    Conservatism surrendered on the home front and tore the goal posts down at halftime.

  56. One additional aspect of the principle fetishists that is worth discussing is the 15-20 year lag behind the left in adoption of principle. This seems to be how the racheting effect is realized: a new generation grows up with X, is told by the left that X is normal/good/virtuous, and these types on the “right” start claiming it is a conservative principle, and to oppose it would be unthinkable.

    Surely Thomas Jefferson had two guys sodomizing each other on his mind when writing the declaration. He also probably thought we should bring in Somalis by the tens of thousands. “After all, that’s who we are!” (This is one of their most insidious lines)

    • Yep. I was lamenting just last night wrt how “history” begins for most of us after we reach the age of 10. Sigh.

  57. I always wondered why Republicans play politics the way the Washington Generals play basketball.

    • Regular paychecks, and, in the case of Republicans, invitations to nice parties in Georgetown. Souls come cheap these days.

      • Eric Cantor got a seven-figure lobbying position after being voted out. Paul Ryan got a directorship from Rupert Murdoch, in addition to his wife’s wealth.

        If we lose, we will be a despised, aging minority with nowhere to run. If a GOP congressman loses, they get paid without having to pretend to work.

        • In the old days, it was called bribery. But they were unsophisticated back then. Now they bribe politicans with “campaign donations” and life-time jobs on Wall Street or K street. Of course, some of them don’t even need to be bribed: Like Romney, Bush, McCain or Ryan. Mitch McConnell, OTOH, is obviously running a business – legislation for Cash – and has no principles other than $$.

    • And like the Washington Generals, conservatives always defer to blacks.

    • “Until recently, Sohrab Ahmari was a mainstream conservative — urbane, intelligent and unfailingly good-humored…”

      That whole article is pretty funny.

      • Somehow it’s very difficult for me to take seriously someone of Iranian birth who has converted to Catholicism. It’s about as convincing as a Jew converting to Islam.

        • Not so. There are still St. Thomas Christians and Armenian Catholic Christians in Iran today. Not many, but they are Iranian by birth.

          In Ahmari’s case, he went down a path I think a lot of us are familiar with, from dissent from all religion to nihilism to Nietzche to Marxism to a sort of Christian communitarianism with conservative social impulses. And then he got fed up with the left and Islamic excesses and took up the Church Militant thing.

          • Due apologies for misspelling Nietzsche’s name… some German names have always been a stumbling block for me.

          • So he’s gone through all this mental turmoil and change and you expect it’s all over now? He’s now stable?

          • Epaminondas, I tend to agree. Not certain why so many down votes. In an era of grifters attracted to many rising movements, prior history is all we have. Can we all grow and change, certainly. But caution is in order with those with sketchy resumes/backgrounds.

          • (((Converts))) were instrumental in the abomination that was Vatican II.

          • Christianity has been rife with heretics and the errant since its founding. It’s nothing new.

            Ist a religion with a loose history, multiple hierarchies and a very simple foundation which was originally relayed by oral tradition. Theological drift is an inevitable outcome of that kind of situation.

          • There’s a difference between caution and simply dismissing someone out of hand. His article wasn’t the typical carefully worded cuckfest. Except for calling French nice in person, he guts French for advocating a consistently failed policy. Plus, he actually calls for fighting back at the moral level.

          • As of this writing, I’d say there are at least eight hard-core Catholics reading this blog.

          • And by “hard core” Catholic, you mean regularly attending TLM and acknowledging that Jorge is NOT the man on top, right??
            And none of this namby-pamby Novus Ordo stuff….

        • Generalities are good and useful, but we have to be prepared to see the exceptions, because they do exist. Is there a better advocate for immigration restriction in the Trump administration than Stephen Miller, for example?

          • Miller is still relatively young and has no history of being on the left. He is an anomaly. Don’t count on seeing many more like him. We’re lucky to have him.

        • Epa;
          ALL the first Christians were converts. Yet they turned the world upside down. Almost like they had some strange supernatural power, like we need now.

          • It was a little more complicated than that, Al. But I get your point. Minds can be changed.

        • I’ve had Persians tell me that if the Ayatollahs were ever overthrown in Iran, many of them would return to Christianity and / or Zoroastrianism.

          • I’ve always advocated a more subtle campaign against Iran. Keep talking about how great Iran was before Islam. How Islam caused it to stagnate. Undermine the regime that way.

        • Seems to me, Epa…..that the discussion should be about what he SAYS, not how he wandered about getting to the statement. You retain the right to be suspicious, of course. So do I.

          By the way, all the Apostles were nice Jewish boys once.

        • The Middle East used to be heavily and in many places majority Christian. Given that Christianity is a Middle eastern religion, the natives take too it quite well, Persians especially so.

      • I laughed, especially when Bret conceded that “South Park-style mockery” would help bring down progressivism. I suppose edgy trolling is permissible as long as it’s on a syndicated broadcast.

        • Trolling is fine for waking people up and gaining new recruits, but it doesn’t win the war. It’s a first step, nothing more.

    • Don’t let the goyish name fool you, Brett Stephens is a man whose loyalties lie elsewhere.

    • Stephens is the very icon of the conniving Jew. He is a parody of himself.

      • Stephens cried to a national tv audience about a random twitter account calling him “ovenworthy.” That’s my lasting impression of him.

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