The Republicans kicked off their 2020 convention promising to do a better job than the Democrats in this age of panic driven virtual reality. Instead of disembodied heads floating on screens it would look more like a convention. They even had some people gathering in a physical place in North Carolina. The Democrats tried to make themselves look cool by relying on Zoom sessions for all of their activity. The result was it looked like something a YouTube grifter would put together.

To make that point early, they had Charlie Kirk open the show for them. While he is pretty much just an enormous empty head attached to a stick figure, he was standing behind a podium giving a normal speech like a normal person. The fact that he was selected to open the show should remind the Fuentes – Casey crowd that modern politics is entirely disconnected from popular opinion now. They effectively exposed Kirk as a fraud, but his backers still like him and that is what matters.

In fact, the whole TP-USA operation is a good entry point for people coming to this side of the great divide in understanding the reality of democracy. The rich people sponsoring Kirk and his operation are like the people who back boy bands. The record companies assume the kids have to listen to something, so if they flood the zone with their material, they get the sales. In the case of Kirk, they know the political kids will join something, so they control the options they can join.

After Kirk, it was the usual parade of diversity we have come to expect from our ruling class propaganda events. There was a woman then a black football player and then a black Democrat politician. Both from the South. In diverse America, blacks and women can identify as “southern” but it can never be a white guy. Then it was some Hispanics of various types and then the girlfriend of one of Trump’s kids gave an impressively weird speech about something. It was just weird.

After appealing to all of the constituencies that will never vote for Republicans, they had Jared Taylor come out and give the case for white people. He made the case that even though the GOP is full of actual cuckolds, white people have to vote for someone, so it may as well be the party that occasionally supports their interests. While Trump is not a white nationalist or an even a racist, he is the embodiment of implicit whiteness, while Biden is the manifestation of the current anti-White pogrom.

Obviously, that never happened and will never happen. The diversity crap irritates everyone on this side of the great divide and many on the other side as well, but the sad truth is most GOP voters lap that stuff up. It is why Trump does it. Generations of Americans have been indoctrinated into this cult of diversity. White people get misty-eyed when they see a black or brown endorse “their side.” It is both validation and flattery, a one-two punch that still works on normal whites.

There have been many ways of describing the established politics. The inner party – outer party construct makes the Republicans the colorful paint job on the Progressive vehicle at the heart of our politics. The kosher sandwich is a phrase popular with the anti-Semites to describe the false dichotomy of democracy. People get to vote who they like as long as that person supports the system. The NRx guys used the term cathedral, while neo-liberal critics used the term motte-and-bailey.

Another way to think of it is the Republicans and conservatives operate like an invisible fence that rings what is acceptable political discourse. The people are wearing shock collars, so when if cross the line they get the jolt. If they stay over the line, the juice is shut off, but if they try to cross back, they get the full blast. The result of this is the zone of acceptable politics is ringed by those who wandered beyond the barrier and now look in wishing they could return.

It is why the alt-right scared the Left so much five years ago. When they were just suburban white guys making jokes about diversity, feminism and multiculturalism, they threatened this construct. People could look outside the barrier and see normal people having fun, not wearing their shock collars. Then the alt-right put on funny costumes, strapped on their collars and marched right into the barrier. Their conditioning was too much and they played the role the Left needed them to play.

It is one of the paradoxes of dissident politics. The Left bans dissidents from the parts of the public square they control. Dissident then demand to be allowed back onto these platforms, often destroying themselves doing it. This serves the interest of the Left, by reestablishing that barrier in the minds of the people. If the damned just go off and enjoy their life outside the barrier, indifferent to being excluded, it undermines the logic of the system and the legitimacy of the gatekeepers.

That is easier said than done, which is why the old regime staggers on. Trump won because he is the most unconventional politicians in forever and he will be re-nominated at a thoroughly conventional convention. It’s not that the people organizing it are deliberately trying to undermine him. It’s just that like everyone inside the system, they only know the system. They have been immersed in it their whole life. It is their reality. They are just parts of a whole they do not fully comprehend.

That is the dissident project, when you think about it. It is not about injecting heretical nanites into the existing system in order to transform it from within. It is not about launching an assault against it, like it is a city to be sacked. Those both serve to validate the system. It is about contradicting the underlying reality of the system, by constructing an independent reality. Dissident politics must exist outside the current construct as a genuine alternative.

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