The sorry state of American conservatism is a regular topic in dissident circles, mostly because the decaying carcass of Conservative Inc. continues to stagger around politics and the media. Some parts continue to do the best they can in their gatekeeper role, while others continue to rationalize Progressive fanaticism. It staggers on mostly because of donor money that keeps the various rackets going. For how long is unknown, as the source of that money is now quite old.

An example is the recently dead David Koch. A long time libertarian fanatic, he and his brother poured tens of millions into so-called conservatism. They kept Reason Magazine afloat and helped set up its finances so it will persist after the Koch brothers are gone. They also played an active role in turning Buckley-style conservatism into warmongering libertarianism. Neocon money on one side and Koch brother’s money on the other defined post-Cold War conservatism.

The trouble with this structure is it operated like a vice, squeezing everything useful out of the Right, leaving nothing but pens for hire, career men and fanatics. What was squeezed from conservatism was any reason to support it. On the one hand, it wished to turn men into moist robots serving the economy. On the other it sought to convince Americans they had to be cannon fodder in the national pursuits of Israel. Its political pitch to white Americans was reduced to, “But the Left is much worse.”

You see the emptiness of conservatism in this Kevin Williamson post about how David Koch was supposedly on the Right. The post itself is mostly about Williamson, who has taken to writing like a teenage girl of late. Everything is about his feelings now. Putting that aside, his claim for placing David Koch on the Right, and presumably libertarians as a whole, is that he liked ballet. This is supposedly evidence of his love for high culture, which according to Williamson is the exclusive domain of the Right.

Of course, the question of whose high culture never enters the discussion, as that treads on dangerous territory. For the modern conservative, “culture” has come to mean a universal thing that anyone can enjoy. More important, it has no origin. It just popped from the void, fully formed. Koch’s alleged love for this mystical thing supersedes his support for open borders and globalism, not to mention his support for Progressive causes like homosexual marriage and abortion on demand.

Another reason co-called conservatives were happy to call Koch a right-winger is the Left was happy to call him a right-winger. The best maneuver in the Progressive playbook is to select the leaders of their opponents. They focus their attention on one soft target, making that person the symbol of their cause. That person then becomes the easily mocked and ridiculed leader of the opposition. For example, they turned the alt-right into a joke by cultivating Richard Spencer as the face of the movement.

In the case of the Koch brothers, the Left was happy to make them the bad guys, as they were never going to be a threat. Instead, they would pour millions into conservative operations, which would happily purge themselves of social conservatives and skeptics of global capitalism. That neocon – libertarian sandwich that was conservatism, became the other slice of the Progressive sandwich that controls American politics. The choice is a libertarian warmonger or a Progressive fanatic. That’s democracy!

The end result of that neocon – libertarian vice is that so-called conservatism was stripped of its intellectual core, as well as its connection to its intellectual history. Rather than a defense of tradition and the moral order, conservatism became a public relations department for the plutocrats financing them. Like every racket, the money is always what comes first. Conservative writers are just common streetwalkers, going with whoever pulls up to the curb. They’ll do anything for a buck.

In fairness, their dancing partner is no better. It largely goes unremarked, but the Left is every bit as intellectually vacant as conservatism. They are silent on global capitalism and silent on the ramifications of the post-national order. They are entirely incoherent on why they support the things they support. The conservative case for men in dresses is ridiculous, but looks erudite compared to the Progressive case. The modern Left is a toddler rolling on the floor, sobbing out incoherent demands.

Of course, the purpose of the commentariat in current year America is to operate as an endless distraction. The Left carries on so that their side does not notice that politics is now controlled by a handful of billionaires and their hired men in politics. The Right has the job of keeping the white middle-class focused on punching at air, while those billionaires tighten their grip on the economy and culture. Conservatives and liberals are now just the entertainment portion of the custodial state.

Perhaps this is just the natural transition from one historic cycle to the next. We are arguably at the end of several long historic cycles. The Enlightenment, the Industrial Age and the American Empire are all reaching a denouement. The confluence of these three final acts is responsible for the great tumult in the West. The lack of an intellectual class is simply the result of these cycles having run their course. What comes next is a new intellectual class for the demographic and technological age.

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