American Pericles

A popular topic among those less optimistic about the American Experiment is to compare America to Rome, either the republic or empire. The former camp looks for the Sulla in the past and the Caesar in the future. The latter camp looks for evidence that the American Empire is in its final days, like fifth century Rome. The trouble with comparing America to Rome is it is not a republic. It has not been since Gettysburg and is now something closer to a radical democracy.

The more accurate historical analogy for modern America is ancient Athens. While America is not quite yet a radical democracy, that is the current path. Soon the electoral college will be circumvented, so that presidents are elected directly. The Senate was democratized a century ago. The franchise is universal and will soon extend to anyone currently standing on American soil. The last ragged bits of republic will soon be gone and America will be a radical democracy.

Just as the wealthy and powerful in Athens assumed democracy worked best when they controlled it, the American oligarchs favor democracy because they believe it insulates them from the public. The factions at the top are prevented from open warfare because they have a common enemy, the general welfare. Thus, they are always willing to cooperate in order to maintain their position, even if it means one faction gains at some small expense to another faction.

Probably the most important man in the history of the Athenian democracy was Pericles, the first citizen of Athens, as Thucydides called him. He was a statesman and general of Athens during the time between the Persian and the Peloponnesian Wars, which is usually called the Athenian golden age. He turned the Delian League, which was a federation of city-states, into an Athenian empire and led the fight against Sparta during the first two years of the Peloponnesian War.

What is often overlooked about Pericles is that he is responsible for the structures we now associate with ancient Athens. He began the public works projects to beautify the city, including the building of the Parthenon. Most of the surviving structures on the Acropolis, in fact, were the work of Pericles. It is possible that ancient Greece would have no hold on the western mind if not for those old ruins. What we think of when we think of ancient Athens is mostly from the time of Pericles.

Is there an analog to Pericles in the American narrative? The place to start would be Lincoln, who should be called the founder of America or possibly the re-founder or second founder. Lincoln destroyed the old republic and set the country off on the path of becoming a democracy. In one sentence, thirty words, Lincoln re-positioned the country to rest upon the Declaration of Independence rather than the Constitution and the history and debates that surrounded its creation.

The trouble is, Lincoln was not much of a democrat and he was no voice of the people, as was the case with Pericles. Lincoln really was not all that fond of the black people he was freeing from bondage. It is not clear that Lincoln fully understood the ramifications of his project. He certainly could not foresee his creation becoming first a continental empire then a global empire in less than a century. He may not have fully grasped the radicalism and ramifications that was contained in his Gettysburg speech.

That’s another important aspect of Pericles that is relevant to this age. He knew exactly what he was doing and he understood the nature of Athenian democracy. He was often accused of being a populist and a potential tyrant by the rich and powerful, because he so carefully courted the approval of the masses. Much of what he accomplished was in the face of resistance from what we would call the ruling classes of Athens. Pericles fully understood his projects and its significance.

Pericles was also committed to the general welfare. His first building project was the walls guarding the city of Athens. This had two consequences, in addition to protecting the city from attack. One is it put people to work. Rather than depending upon the generosity of the wealthy for such endeavors, the people could now count on the state to provide work on these projects. The other is it protected the poor in the city, but left the landed estates outside the city exposed.

The most obvious example of such a politician in American history would be Franklin Roosevelt, as he ushered in the federal public works project. It is easy to forget just how radical the Roosevelt administration was in America. The mobilization of the public in the face of the depression was unprecedented. For close to a century now, it is assumed that the federal government is responsible for the welfare of the people, rather than the states or powerful local interests.

Another interesting parallel between FDR and Pericles is that while both men were high born, from powerful families, they were opposed by the ruling classes. One of the great political dramas in golden age of Athens was the struggle between Thucydides, the leader of the conservative faction, not the historian, and Pericles over spending on projects like the Parthenon. Pericles outmaneuvered and outwitted Thucydides and the conservatives to win public approval for his projects.

Similarly, FDR faced a great deal of resistance to his projects. Factions in his own coalition objected to part of his program, while conservatives tried to bottle up his plans in the courts. Like the opposition to Pericles, the opposition to FDR was also keenly aware that there was a foreign policy element to the debate. The support for FDR’s domestic program was tied to support for his policies toward Europe. In fact, his domestic program was essential to his foreign policy.

Another possible candidate as the American Pericles would be the combined administration of Kennedy and Johnson. The space program is probably the closest thing America has to the Acropolis. The reforms of Johnson, which were largely created by the Kennedy people, haunt us to this day. Given the current unrest and the demographics of the country, it is not unreasonable to think that America will never escape the shadow of the Johnson administration.

Donald Trump, of course, could be the modern Pericles. He is not a great orator, but Trump has an uncanny ability to resonate with the public, both good and bad. He’s also a high-born man who sees himself as the defender of the public. No president has shown a greater concern for the general welfare since FDR. Unlike FDR, but like Pericles, Trump is faced with a ruling class committed to stopping him. As with Pericles, their opposition is strongly linked to foreign policy.

One other way to look at this is that in a democracy of any sort, the Pericles role is an essential one, as is the role of the oligarchs. Lacking the legal structures to balance between the natural factions in society, particularly the rich versus the general public, democracy evolves these roles in the form of charismatic politicians. Whenever the relationship between the people and their rulers gets out of balance, men step forward on behalf of both sides to reestablish an equilibrium

Of course, the other significance of the life of Pericles is that after his death, Athens was plagued by inferior men, inciting the worst habits in the public and only concerned with personal popularity. The inability of Athenian democracy to produce statesmen close to the quality of Pericles marked the end of the Golden Age of Athens and led to defeat at the hands of the Spartans. The run of politicians since FDR, with the exception of Reagan, is another useful parallel to consider.

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231 Comments
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Hoagie
Hoagie
4 years ago

The absolute volume of mediocrities holding political office today is daunting. It wouldn’t be so bad if they weren’t dangerous to the nation.

The Wild Geese Howard
The Wild Geese Howard
Reply to  Hoagie
4 years ago

Mediocrities?

Our political class is largely absolute trash.

Drew
Drew
Reply to  The Wild Geese Howard
4 years ago

Hang on, you can at least burn trash for heat, which is more than you can say about the current crop of stuffed shirts.

bubba
bubba
Reply to  The Wild Geese Howard
4 years ago

You get the government you deserve.

abprosper
abprosper
Reply to  bubba
4 years ago

Everyone else is down voting you but you are correct..
Our side can’t even create an ideology much less rule.

Sandmich
Reply to  Hoagie
4 years ago

I was thinking that: everyone from my small-burb councilperson to my Federal senator is worthless (I’ll give Trump a mulligan at this exact moment), where to start with that?

I recall my dad, a lifelong public school teacher, remarking that there was never anyone elected to the school board that wasn’t an incompetent fool with an axe to grind; it seems like everything is a school board nowadays.

abprosper
abprosper
Reply to  Sandmich
4 years ago

This is a product of lack of anything better to do. Between outsourcing, automation and computers there isn’t nearly as much of a real economy out there to drain off peoples energy and worse if you want money, nearly half of all GDP is government. This breeds politicians as vs. doers. I have no idea how you would fix that as it would require regulation aka government to fix. Making sure your fix doesn’t create more of the same problem isn’t easy. There are also social considerations. Real fixes require long term thinking. Consumer society is the antithesis of this.… Read more »

American Empire
American Empire
4 years ago

While comparing the US to Rome may not be accurate, I think it’s accurate to compare the US to *any* late-stage empire throughout history. Most late-stage empires seem to be characterized by the gradual replacement of the founding stock with barbarians who have migrated from all the “conquered” territories. The empire’s energy is thus consumed with keeping all the competing barbarians from tearing each others’ throats out while remaining blood and treasure is exhausted by bored, listless mercenaries in all the far-flung territories: https://mobile.twitter.com/hereliesthighs/status/1301647144252837888 Every empire throughout history seems to follow this trajectory to collapse, and the US fits it… Read more »

Apex Predator
Apex Predator
Reply to  American Empire
4 years ago

“Chinese will fall to multicultural imperial decay like every empire before it:” Was with you up until this line. China, unlike the US has 2000+ years of various stages of history including many periods of ’empire’. They have grown, contracted, become irrelevant, became relevant again, etc. Why? Because at their core they remained Chinese in spite of their fortune / misfortune. They quite clearly see what a blessing multi-kulti is over in the West why on earth would they bring that bioweapon into their own sphere watching the west implode in real time? No, the Chinese will be just fine,… Read more »

OrangeFrog
OrangeFrog
Reply to  Apex Predator
4 years ago

Yes indeed. The Chinese see it and realize it’s daftness, but as you say, in addition they have always been Chinese. A solid history of knowing what you are and what you ain’t is a massive help… I am counting on that for the UK.

Sasquatch Sam
Sasquatch Sam
Reply to  Apex Predator
4 years ago

They’re in the beginning stages of starting to accept LGBT. They will fall like everyone else.

The notion that the Chinese are immune just because they have thousands of years of history of resilience is itself a cope. White societies have thousands of years of history of resilience and they still fell. If the fighting Irish fell to globohomo, anyone can. The Chinese are decaying as we speak.

Crenshaw ate Dan
Crenshaw ate Dan
Reply to  Sasquatch Sam
4 years ago

This is because decadence always follows wealth. Any empire that accumulates wealth decays into decadence. I don’t think the Chinese are any more immune from this universal phenomenon than anyone else.

The Wild Geese Howard
The Wild Geese Howard
Reply to  Crenshaw ate Dan
4 years ago

I think a lot of it follows from the enormous, tens of millions large gender imbalance created by the “One Child” policy.

Couple that with the open hypergamy of modern society and increased acceptance of homosexuality is a foregone conclusion.

Add that to the

sentry
sentry
Reply to  Crenshaw ate Dan
4 years ago

chinese are immune because poor chinese balance the wealthy chinese, yin yang balance
Western whites used to be all yang, now they’re all yin

Kentucky Gent
Kentucky Gent
Reply to  sentry
4 years ago

“Western whites used to be all yang, now they’re all yin”

Even Andrew Yang 😉

Ghent Relief
Ghent Relief
Reply to  Sasquatch Sam
4 years ago

The history of the Irish is both fascinating and frightening. They fought centuries of oppression and subjugation, then surrendered to globohomo in less than 20 years. Now church attendance is cratering, imported Africans are stabbing the natives, and Irish TV cons the natives by saying “there have always been black Irish.” This isn’t a knock on the Irish but just an observation of how deadly and potent globohomo is. The Irish aren’t unique: Poland is just a couple decades behind them, for example. The winged hussars will soon have rainbow wings. It seems the best vaccine against globohomo is to… Read more »

Vegetius
Vegetius
Reply to  Ghent Relief
4 years ago

The Irish are an example of the long-term psychological effects of conquest, occupation and cutural subversion.
They’re one of the few white groups that experienced European colonization in the modern period.
This, plus betrayal by the religious linchpin of their identity at the same time they became negro riche, has catapulted them to front-runners in the race to become pure strain bugmen, ahead of even the Scots.

Ostei Kozelskii
Member
Reply to  Sasquatch Sam
4 years ago

Whites are biologically different from Orientals. We are imbued with a deep, double-edged curiosity about The Other. On the one hand, that curiosity, through exploration and science, allowed the world to reveal itself to itself. On the other, the curiosity has easily morphed into “going native,” adopting multiculti, and actually preferring other people to ourselves. This phenomenon seems almost entirely absent from Orientals.

Sandmich
Reply to  Ostei Kozelskii
4 years ago

The more they believe that they’re immune, the more likely they are to fall for it. I recall interviews with Italians back in the early 90s being puzzled about the obsession of some of American’s concern for their nation as a going concern. This was obviously a hit piece from a lefty org (“see how smart and refined these Euros are compared to the barbarians on the American right?”), but that kind of stuck with me. Italians thinking that there will always be Italians in Italy because there always have been Italians is symptomatic of everyone’s First Big Mistake.

sentry
sentry
Reply to  Ostei Kozelskii
4 years ago

man, stop, all that’s happening right now with white liberals is jewish & cia indoctrination, not white man’s curiosity or crazy white genes or jungle fever or whatever.

Last edited 4 years ago by sentry
Ostei Kozelskii
Member
Reply to  sentry
4 years ago

White curiosity makes us particularly susceptible to propaganda and indoctrination.

Stranger in a strange land
Reply to  Apex Predator
4 years ago

Indeed – what ancient (or not) civlization wouldn’t survey the landscape of the manifest and multitudinous blessings of multi-kulti and say: thanks, but no thanks.

B123
B123
Reply to  Stranger in a strange land
4 years ago

Yeah but the immediate sexual needs of men will come first. The millions of men with mathematically 0 chance of finding a partner will need to be placated. This will be through wifing up foreigners, either Africans or south east asians. Thus the first generation of “tolerance” will begin.

I’m sure if you showed a white man in 1800 how we are today he would have burst out laughing and dismissed you as a crank.

Nobody is immune to globohomo. Abortion just got legalized in South Korea and Taiwan is now celebrating homosexuals.

Ostei Kozelskii
Member
Reply to  Apex Predator
4 years ago

It could be that America’s lack of deep historical roots rendered it vulnerable to the Mudslide.

tonaludatus
tonaludatus
Reply to  Apex Predator
4 years ago

Sure, they will be fine but who would like to go through the murderous spasms of this great culture with its very long history? If you do not like the Maoist example for it is too close to us in time, then you do not have to go back more than 150 years and you have the Taiping Rebellion with its 10-20 million (!) dead, and there is a long list of others, too.

Ostei Kozelskii
Member
Reply to  tonaludatus
4 years ago

Well, we whites had a few murderous spasms just last century.

Citizen of a Silly Country
Citizen of a Silly Country
Reply to  Apex Predator
4 years ago

Yep, there’s a reason why China is still around and coming back to prominence for the whatever time and the Roman Empire is long gone.

A people can always recover . . . if they remain a people.

Member
Reply to  Apex Predator
4 years ago

Personally, I see East Asians as being as different from Westerners as Africans but in a less overtly dysfunctional sense. The Big Problem we have is that there are really 3 human races (European, East Asian, African) and what is going to work for one will fail, often disastrously, for the other 2. You see this in the corona mess. White bugmen like to point out that Asians have been voluntarily wearing masks for years. Why is being forced to do that such a big deal? The question is its own answer because it’s shows a degree of comfort with… Read more »

diconez
diconez
Reply to  Apex Predator
4 years ago

eh, idk. i thought the same about Japan, but they have a negress representing them in sport. that’s the first step.

Epaminondas
Member
Reply to  American Empire
4 years ago

We’re still a Republic, though the facade is wearing thin. Normie is getting anxious. And don’t forget: Republics form empires from trade and conquest. What comes afterward is the decadence and tyranny. Oligarchs always do what oligarchs do.

ProZNoV
ProZNoV
Reply to  Epaminondas
4 years ago

There’s only 3 archetypes of western government: monarchy (tyranny), aristocracy (oligarchy), and democracy/republic. Each leads to the next form as the current form fails for the same reasons every time.

Greeks had this figured out 2 thousand years ago. Rinse, recycle, repeat.

American founders knew it as well, and tried hard to devise a system to avoid the cycle. They failed, but it was a good effort.

Last edited 4 years ago by ProZNoV
Ostei Kozelskii
Member
Reply to  Epaminondas
4 years ago

America is an anti-white, black supremacist, fascist democracy.

Citizen of a Silly Country
Citizen of a Silly Country
Reply to  Ostei Kozelskii
4 years ago

It’s not blacks who run the show. Look behind the curtain.

Screwtape
Screwtape
Reply to  Citizen of a Silly Country
4 years ago

How about black fetishist then? The curtain people run their production but the stage sure seems full of a certain shade. Their “art” in this regard similarly reveals. I knew an aspiring writer from a local workshop who was inspired by one of the latest black fetish movies “to work up the courage to write his novel about a black man blah blah blah”. He was a small man of small hat. I responded that it was too bad his own people’s stories had all been told already. Got me out of having to critique and of his “work” after… Read more »

Ostei Kozelskii
Member
Reply to  Citizen of a Silly Country
4 years ago

Oh, but they do run the show. Not because of their innate talent or intelligence, but because of their willingness to use violence, and because white race traitors have deemed them the superior race.

ProZNoV
ProZNoV
Reply to  Citizen of a Silly Country
4 years ago

Agree, mostly. But “we” let it happen. The Derb would say we let in an “overclass”.

The blame, as such, is solely at our feet.

Be interesting to see if our Jewish and/or Catholic overlords are willing to let in an Asian and/or Indian class to supplant them?

Ivy League admissions would suggest…maybe?

Last edited 4 years ago by ProZNoV
SixxSigma
SixxSigma
4 years ago

Slightly OT here, but it looks as though a higher-up in the administration is aware of what’s coming after the elections and explicitly told us to prepare accordingly.

https://dnyuz.com/2020/09/14/trump-health-aide-alleges-broad-conspiracies-and-warns-of-armed-revolt/

This was a red link on Drudge, so even he thought it important enough to be shared. I’m a younger guy and used to get excited over happenings, but this year has brought a few too many of them. Let’s hope this guy is exaggerating.

Sasquatch Sam
Sasquatch Sam
Reply to  SixxSigma
4 years ago

Those revolts are already here and the “law and order” people aren’t doing anything to quash them. Attempted murderers like Grosskreutz are running free and doing interviews. BLM is attacking white people. Trump supporters are being shot and run over while Trump eggs his supporters into cities like Portland like so much cannon fodder. Antifa sets fires along the west coast while the “intelligence community” covers up for them.

If this isn’t revolt, what worse do we have to look to after the banana republic election?

”Higher-ups in the administration” are either complicit or overwhelmed and powerless.

Ostei Kozelskii
Member
Reply to  Sasquatch Sam
4 years ago

When Trump is reelected, the scale of the revolt will dwarf what’s happening right now.

Xman
Xman
Reply to  Ostei Kozelskii
4 years ago

I’m not sure he’s going to get re-elected. The Left will cheat and commit fraud, than sue Trump, alleging that HE “stole” the election. It will be in the courts for months, and then a leftist judge somewhere will declare BHarris the “official” winner…

tarstarkas
tarstarkas
Reply to  Sasquatch Sam
4 years ago

The “law and order” “patriots” would be utterly crushed. They wouldn’t even know what hit them. Besides, when an enemy is committing suicide, you shouldn’t try to talk them out of it or worse, attempt to rescue them!

diconez
diconez
Reply to  tarstarkas
4 years ago

i don’t see enemies committing suicide, all i see is allies being punched right…

tarstarkas
tarstarkas
Reply to  diconez
4 years ago

Describing reality is not punching. The patriots et al are all living in fantasy land where they show up holding their ARs and then they win. They are absolutely over-confident and not prepared, especially for the intelligence war. They are laboring under the delusion that the cops and the military are ultimately on their side. Cops and military men are not chosen for their patriotism and their propensity to fight the man. They are chosen by their propensity to do what they are told. Their allegiances are to their superiors and to the state itself (both the abstraction and their… Read more »

Glenfilthie
Glenfilthie
Member
4 years ago

In school we were always taught that Lincoln walked on water and was America’s saviour. From my limited studies of the man – I think he was just an average slob pulled along and buffeted this way and that by current events, and he did the best he could. FDR – in my Canadian opinion – was a shit stain on American history. Most of your recent presidents were little better. Say what you want about Trump, the rich powerful global oligarchs hate him… and to me, if you’re smart… you’ll give him a second term. If America puts an… Read more »

bubba
bubba
Reply to  Glenfilthie
4 years ago

Nobody likes him. He’s a loudmouth braggart and imbecile. He’s also a poser who LARPs as a leader, but the ones pulling the strings are laughing their asses off behind his back. It’s not in Trump’s nature to lead. Just look at his posturing and the way he speaks – everything is done for maximum effect. He’s a master marketing pro and salesman – but that’s about it.

JR Wirth
JR Wirth
Reply to  bubba
4 years ago

This is true. He’s a con man.

Jim Smith
Jim Smith
Reply to  bubba
4 years ago

Bubba, you are deluded. Take a look at what is unfolding. Give it just a few weeks, and then the game is on.

Chad Hayden
Chad Hayden
Reply to  bubba
4 years ago

We all have our problems with Trump, but one faithful litmus fest is that ppl who hate Trump probably hate me too.

Bilejones
Member
Reply to  Chad Hayden
4 years ago

Trumps biggest point is that he’s hated by all the right people.

CompscI
CompscI
Reply to  Bilejones
4 years ago

Something about being “judged by the enemies you keep” comes to mind here.

Alzaebo
Alzaebo
Reply to  Chad Hayden
4 years ago

That’s the comment of the year, Chad Hayden.

tonaludatus
tonaludatus
Reply to  bubba
4 years ago

To quote the Very Most Reverend Jessie Jackson “I am somebody” and I like Trump. Yes, Pres. Trump is a loudmouth braggart and he is a phenomenal master salesman, maybe the best, and I like him. perhaps you are indeed a nobody but no offense intended.

Epaminondas
Member
Reply to  bubba
4 years ago

Nobody likes YOU.

Stranger in a strange land
Reply to  Glenfilthie
4 years ago

At least the nitwit neolib of whom you speak, and assorted psycophants would get along famously with the youthful ultralib presiding in Ottawa.

Epaminondas
Member
Reply to  Stranger in a strange land
4 years ago

You seem to have created a new word, a combination of “psychopath” and “sycophant”. I guess a “psycophant” would be a self-seeking flatterer who suffers from chronic mental disorders.

Drake
Drake
4 years ago

I have a hope that Trump becomes our Sulla in a second term. Without something as brutal as Sulla’s proscriptions, he’ll never clear out the deep state, Soros, antifa, and all the lunacy going on out west. I know it’s wishful thinking – but it sure would be cool to see a list of proscribed “outlaws” posted on the White House website.

Felix Krull
Member
Reply to  thezman
4 years ago

At this point, what’s needed is a Vladimir Harkonnen.

Joey Jünger
Joey Jünger
Reply to  Felix Krull
4 years ago

Weinstein sort of looked like him.

Like
Like
Reply to  Felix Krull
4 years ago

We have plenty of Harkonnen’s – they’re in Banking, and wear small hats.

Like
Like
Reply to  thezman
4 years ago

Trump will never give the order to fire, he has no stomach for violence. As for Solon – Solon didn’t have to filter it through the synagogue.

We actually could use and potentially get a Lycurgus (lawgiver to Sparta, which pulled it out of degenerate Oligarchy into Military Republic) but that’s a long shot.

MemeWarVet
MemeWarVet
Reply to  Drake
4 years ago

I wanted him to be Sulla four years ago. Instead, we got one of the forgotten nonentity consuls of the 60’s BC

Ostei Kozelskii
Member
Reply to  Drake
4 years ago

I’m afraid even that would be too little, too late.

Sausage
Sausage
Reply to  Drake
4 years ago

Pinochet

diconez
diconez
Reply to  Sausage
4 years ago

Caudillo Franco, even better.

Nunnya Bidnez, jr
Nunnya Bidnez, jr
4 years ago

Is “Democracy” itself merely Bread & Circuses? When there is a small cohort of wealthy oligarchs, and powerful political & cultural elites, what role is there for the teeming masses of common man? When the top level exerts so much control, by controllling their own factions of commoners, what hope is there for low-level warlords and would-be oligarchs from gaining a foothold to pull themselves up? This system is a method for the very tippy top to pull up the ladder behind them, to prevent competition from the next levels down; by precluding a middle class of petit-oligarchs, it enslaves… Read more »

Drake
Drake
Reply to  Nunnya Bidnez, jr
4 years ago

I keep saying it because it never ceases to amaze me. New Jersey is ruled by an absolute dictator who also happens to be a Goldman Sachs partner. Many of the rubes in the cities are applauding as he crushes small businesses while sending Amazon and Walmart stock into the stratosphere.

The Wild Geese Howard
The Wild Geese Howard
Reply to  Drake
4 years ago

Heh, I think Whitmer in Michigan is even worse.

She’s openly governing on a, “kick the dog, ” model and there are huge swaths of morons who think that’s just great because she’s, “keeping them safe.”

OrangeFrog
OrangeFrog
Reply to  The Wild Geese Howard
4 years ago

“Public Safety” must surely be the greatest attack vector a potential tyrant can exploit…

The Wild Geese Howard
The Wild Geese Howard
Reply to  OrangeFrog
4 years ago

Safety is truly what the masses crave.

I remember reading a book about the rise of SUVs. That text described focus group studies that repeatedly found subjects desired the most, “womb-like,” experience possible.

Ostei Kozelskii
Member
Reply to  The Wild Geese Howard
4 years ago

Alas, a womb easily becomes a tomb. See present “America” as exhibit A.

Screwtape
Screwtape
Reply to  OrangeFrog
4 years ago

Indeed. Stoke fear. Provide bromide solution that is 50% comfort and 50% discomfort. Leave them begging for more. Part conditioning toward inaction, part conditioning toward submission to State authority or bad things will happen. The messaging becomes like the road signs: slippery when wet, move to higher ground when flooding, watch for falling rocks. The absurd comfort of state sanctioned wisdom.

tonaludatus
tonaludatus
Reply to  The Wild Geese Howard
4 years ago

Gov. Whitmer’s “kick the dog” model with her rhetorical flourish about “life sustaining procedures”, what an orator and philosopher!

diconez
diconez
Reply to  Nunnya Bidnez, jr
4 years ago

pretty much. for each Pericles-like bouts of caesarism that come and fix the problems for a generation or so, you get many more non-descript consuls. which is why i propose a punctuated monarchy of sorts, in which the dynasty is taken to referenda every couple decades or so, and also forced to intermarry with commoners at least once per 50 years or so, so they don’t go dumb due to lack of outbreeding. it would look like what Putin or the Castros got going on, but a bit more free. and lots of smaller referenda could be held on the… Read more »

Last edited 4 years ago by diconez
Severian
4 years ago

Pericles, for all his faults, wasn’t plagued by the Enlightenment. Even the most radical Athenian “democracy” appealed to a tiny fraction of the demos, because Greeks all assumed, deep in their bones, that only certain men are capable of freedom. Expanding the Athenian franchise was a debate over fractions — was it to be a fraction, or a fraction of a fraction, which decided? The Enlightenment version, though, assumes that all men are capable of freedom, because all men are at bottom rational. Everything the Founders did was affected with this error… which, as we now see, is fatal. Bio-Leninism… Read more »

Severian
Reply to  thezman
4 years ago

I think both Pericles and the Founders would’ve grasped the Roman notion of the city-as-goddess: Roma is more than just the physical city of Rome or the ruling clique. (The Founders came pretty close to saying something like this; that “proposition nation” stuff the cucks are always going on about was real). And they’re right, if you want to maintain the physical security of the polis — the people have to buy in to fight effectively. The “problem” is, this is still paternalism — benevolent paternalism, surely, as in “the father of his country,” as opposed to the paternalism of… Read more »

Last edited 4 years ago by Severian
Higgs Boson
Reply to  thezman
4 years ago

The Swamp likes their bribes and kickbacks and want to keep them without Trump poking his finger in the mechanics of their corruption. He’s got them shaking with rage at the prospect of forensic accounting and exposure. Who does he think he is.

Like
Like
Reply to  thezman
4 years ago

America is 327M people over 2 million square miles, 214M of who are white. America is also a very dense Federation- the Republic’s structure duplicated tens of thousands of times. It is bounded by Oceans east and west, Tundra to north, to the south desert, mountains, jungles. We are a nuclear superpower. We are heavily armed. None of these can be ignored in any calculation or wished away. What is happening is the System – The Blue Model, the Left – is dying and badly. We have no replacement in sight, and no foreign force can conquer us or liberate… Read more »

CNewtonsmith
CNewtonsmith
Reply to  Severian
4 years ago

I agree with this, and I would add that the industrial revolution and the warp speed of development of technology has added a generous helping to this incomprehensible mixture of this society as well as western civilization to this “collapse” of civilized man. Our founders made some horrendous mistakes! They were not sufficiently aware that freedom of speech could lead from “political speech” to outright destruction of a language and the total inversion of truth. Jefferson had no idea that the “pursuit of happiness” as an inviolable right from God would lead to the elevation of sodomy, pederasty, severe nihilism,… Read more »

Sandmich
Reply to  CNewtonsmith
4 years ago

That’s the thing to keep in mind: technology is the wildcard in this morass that makes it incomparable to earlier events. What used to take centuries, now takes decades (or less).

Joey Jünger
Joey Jünger
4 years ago

I think your analogy about the Landlords of Famine Ireland is probably the most salient. Looking at the Indians making their big play with Kamala, it would appear that we’re not just ruled by foreigners who hate us, but ruled by foreigners who come in and succeed the foreigners who hate us (Jews, usually good at Chess, look like they might be getting cleared from the board, or at least pinned and forked by the arrival of new bishops and knights). The problem (from their side) is that America, like China or Russia, is huge. You can invade it, but… Read more »

Ben the Layabout
Ben the Layabout
Reply to  Joey Jünger
4 years ago

France pre Revolution sounds eerily similar.

whitney
Member
Reply to  Ben the Layabout
4 years ago

Not really. The revolution in France and the Bolshevik Revolution were the peasants and the proletariat, useful members of society, who are being exploited by the elites and attempting to overthrow them. Now our Revolution is useless people in society who are being used by the elite to retain the power they already have

MemeWarVet
MemeWarVet
Reply to  whitney
4 years ago

Disagree. The French Revolution was almost entirely a top-down project of the Liberal Nobility, especially in its early phases.

The later phases were lead by a professional political class that didn’t exist prior to 1789.

Felix Krull
Member
Reply to  MemeWarVet
4 years ago

Yes. It was a coup attempt by Louis’ uncle, the Duke of Normandy, whose print shops churned out illustrated newsletters about Marie Antoinette’s sex life, resplendent with donkeys and scullery maids.

Of course, things got out of hand…

MemeWarVet
MemeWarVet
Reply to  Felix Krull
4 years ago

It was Louis’ cousin, the truly wretched Duc de Orleans, who was the worst. He used his home as a revolutionary base because it was exempt from the censorship laws.

On the plus side, our gal Charlotte did buy her knife there…

Felix Krull
Member
Reply to  MemeWarVet
4 years ago

True – thanks. The Duke of Orleans, Philipe Egalite. I mixed them up.

whitney
Member
Reply to  MemeWarVet
4 years ago

Those revolutions and this one are being led by the intellectual class, which is turning out to be the most dangerous class that has ever existed, but the French Revolution and the Bolshevik Revolution were against the king and the Czar respectively. Also there was nothing comparable to our managerial class and their power. What we see going on in the streets today is the army of the people in power. That is the opposite of the French Revolution and the Bolshevik Revolution. And the people in power are starting to resort to open extortion. We’re going to see more… Read more »

Felix Krull
Member
Reply to  whitney
4 years ago

What we see going on in the streets today is the army of the people in power. That is the opposite of the French Revolution and the Bolshevik Revolution.

That is because it’s not a revolution.

The relevant power dynamic is when a king allies with the proletariat against the nobles, like Louis XIV and Napoleon did. In our case, it’s the elite allying with diversity against middle class Westerners.

whitney
Member
Reply to  Felix Krull
4 years ago

Right

Felix Krull
Member
Reply to  whitney
4 years ago

Just thought I’d mansplain the point you made in your post.

You’re welcome.

whitney
Member
Reply to  Felix Krull
4 years ago

and I appreciate that

diconez
diconez
Reply to  Felix Krull
4 years ago

and it’s even worse, because unlike in those earlier cases, the middle/noble class is actually quite large, and much more decayed.

diconez
diconez
Reply to  whitney
4 years ago

the French and Bolshevik revolutionaries were staffed by bureaucrats and freetraderist urban bourgeois schemers. of course, there was also Murat’s mob, but those just were the shock troops. the king and the czar and nobles may have had more power the jure, but de facto the liberal bourgeois capitalists and bureaucrats were the organizers of society. now, of course the king and the czar could have spread the power and wealth more efficiently so no one thought of toppling them, specially considering the nobility had become way useless in tending to the masses; however, even then you see that “serving… Read more »

Like
Like
Reply to  whitney
4 years ago

At no time was either Revolution the peasants. It was urban bourgeois leading hired mobs intimidated by thugs, with the Bloodthirsty hand rubbers getting their chance at last. In both cases what tipped the balance was the defection of Troops, weary of incompetent leadership. The gold for the French Revolution was provided by the Duc D’ Oleans, the gold for the Russian Revolution by Ludendorff. What we are seeing now is exactly what the French and Russians saw- and we are paralyzed and being witty just as they were. Like them we’ll be dead, too. but the good news is;… Read more »

diconez
diconez
Reply to  Like
4 years ago

agreed. most in the provinces in France, and most of the Russian peasants, were for the throne and altar. it was the weariness at the capital and the promise of gibs that made them turn – and even then, you had the Vendee, and the struggles of White Russians…

Last edited 4 years ago by diconez
Drew
Drew
Reply to  Ben the Layabout
4 years ago

No, it doesn’t. There are two revolutions that are much more similar to the current situation: The Haitian and the Colombian. In both revolutions, old European powers, financed by Jews, exploited new world lands and indigenous people. They held onto power by stoking racial tensions among the subordinate classes. The good news is revolution was pretty straightforward and relatively easy. The bad news is permanently lower standards of living and smaller, poorer political entities.

diconez
diconez
Reply to  Drew
4 years ago

the revolutionary Latins didn’t throw away all whites, just the more Castilian and/or conservative whites.

and like you say, eventually it blew back on them. Benito Juarez and the browns hijacked the white Latin liberal and then left parties. thus you might understand the appeal of dictators to conservative and/or white Hispanics… and why Trump is up among some of them. that said, the Latin right only started parrotting taxcuts and freetraderism since the CIA and IMF infiltrated it in the postwar; not before, when it was distributist and focused on law and order.

Last edited 4 years ago by diconez
The Wild Geese Howard
The Wild Geese Howard
Reply to  Joey Jünger
4 years ago

Looking at the Indians making their big play with Kamala, it would appear that we’re not just ruled by foreigners who hate us

It really is quite disturbing that Kamala appears to have been levered onto the Dem ticket by a tiny coterie of wealthy Indian Silicon Valley tech executives that wield power totally out of proportion to their numbers.

Like
Like
Reply to  The Wild Geese Howard
4 years ago

I think we’ll find the Indians aren’t any better at our politics then they are at their average tech work – sucks, and a white guy has to fix it.

But at least after the election we can hate them too.

B123
B123
Reply to  Joey Jünger
4 years ago

Eh I’m not sure Kamala is their big play. After Biden promised to nominate a woman of colour, she was really his only choice. Susan Rice (too corrupt) Stacey Abrams (too openly anti-white) leaves pretty much only Kamala.

Kamala is nothing like an Indian woman. Indian women are generally soft and submissive in their outer appearance and mannerisms. Kamala is a bitch and Indian men would be repulsed by her.

Based on Saikat Chakrabarti’s example the Indian play will be actual foreigners, technocrats, young, and openly anti white like AOC. Kamala is an old school “Black school” Dem.

Liberty Mike
Member
Reply to  B123
4 years ago

Big Stacey, in my view, would have been a better bet for Biden as she is far more of an authentic American negress.

To be sure, the Democrats may have reasoned that they have black woman all to themselves and that Harris might give them a better shot with suburban white wahmens.

OTOH, Harris’ personality is more abrasive and off-putting than that of Big Stacey.

Joey Jünger
Joey Jünger
Reply to  B123
4 years ago

“Too corrupt” and “too openly anti-white”?! Have you been asleep the last ten years? There is so such thing. I went for a walk through my normie neighborhood today and saw as many BLM/Biden Harris yard signs as Trump/We Support our Police signs. A little less than half of white America are basically chickens trying to find a farmer to lop their heads off.

Ostei Kozelskii
Member
Reply to  Joey Jünger
4 years ago

FWIW, in my white, middle-class nabe, I’ve seen exactly 3 BLM signs and one Ho’-Joe sign. Trump and cop signs are everywhere.

Txsodbuster
Txsodbuster
Reply to  Joey Jünger
4 years ago

MOVE

diconez
diconez
Reply to  Joey Jünger
4 years ago

a big problem with those normies is that they only know blacks through their talented tenth friends or gta san andreas soundtracks. that needs to change. freedom of association/segregation must return.

Ostei Kozelskii
Member
Reply to  diconez
4 years ago

With every riot and atrocity, they are coming to know the Hutu…

The Wild Geese Howard
The Wild Geese Howard
Reply to  B123
4 years ago

Eh I’m not sure Kamala is their big play.

Doesn’t matter. Kams helps shift the Overton window of acceptable candidates.

Susan Rice (too corrupt)

The issue with Rice is that she has led a decent, almost traditional personal life. That means she has no strings for them to pull at will.

Vizzini
Vizzini
4 years ago

Did Greece or Rome have to contend with deliberate intellectual sabotage of this scale?
University of Chicago only accepting English students willing to work in black studies

The University of Chicago’s English department will only consider graduate school applicants interested in “working in and with Black studies” for this upcoming admissions cycle, it has announced.

sentry
sentry
Reply to  Vizzini
4 years ago

you’re right, manipulation right now is off the charts, it’s mostly done through women though, who demoralize men when they look at how fallen they are
University social studies + social media ruins them

Last edited 4 years ago by sentry
B123
B123
Reply to  sentry
4 years ago

It will be very ugly in 10 to 15 years… unlike in the past more men have taken the redpill and refuse to be betabux for these broken hoes.

Not only will the fertility rate drop even more, but we will see how horribly these landwhales and disgusting borderline onlyfans sluts hit the wall.

Johnny
Reply to  thezman
4 years ago

How did you rate Nixon’s presidency on the immigration issue Z? Did they ever try to overturn the 1965 Immigration Act? I gather Nixon barely paid attention to the issue, and then Reagan blasted us with that 1986 amnesty.

Ostei Kozelskii
Member
Reply to  Vizzini
4 years ago

Black Supremacist America. Get used to it.

TomA
TomA
4 years ago

The quality of the people elected to office is a reflection of the quality of the voters who put them there. When the quality of these elected officials goes down, that is a lagging indicator that the electorate has already declined. At least 30% of the voters in most jurisdictions are now parasites solely looking for more government gravy, and they habitually vote for the most corrupt politician that promises them the most free shit. This is a vicious cycle of decline, and the longer it goes on, the deeper the bottom.

Drake
Drake
Reply to  TomA
4 years ago

Yes – every nation gets the government they deserve.

B123
B123
Reply to  Drake
4 years ago

White men wanted pussy, drugs, and money and that’s what they got.

Today we have less money (except boomers), harder to find a wife (less pussy), and lots of drugs so white men can kill themselves off instead of fixing the problem.

Good times make weak men.

Member
Reply to  B123
4 years ago

That was certainly the dream of the 1960s. Of those three things only the drugs reliably make it to ordinary men today. The money and the pussy both go to a smaller and smaller gang of alpha-alphas. Perhaps that is part of TDS (Trump Derangement Syndrome). When it infects soyboys it’s driven by the perception that Trump is actually one of those alpha-alphas. Trump is the jock who gets to bang every girl the soyboy wants. Trump makes millions as the slick negotiator while they use their worthless college degree to get a job at Starbucks. For the wammen the… Read more »

Ostei Kozelskii
Member
Reply to  TomA
4 years ago

So true. A people gets the government it deserves. And that applies to all forms of government, not just democracies.

RoBG
RoBG
Reply to  TomA
4 years ago

If we had a truly independant media (not the one bought-and-paid-for by precisely the same corporate crooks that select and run both parties’ candidates) voters might be more informed and make better choices. I’m with Darren Beattie: having a media outlet and the blackmail tapes is probably more important than winning elections at this point.

OrangeFrog
OrangeFrog
4 years ago

The franchise is universal and will soon extend to anyone currently standing on American soil. If it goes all the way to this, it is truly a terrifying prospect – what a way to land the nail in the coffin. The idea of realising that anybody with no connection to a land can just vote for something they want – and then promptly disappear – fills me with sadness. Of course, this already happens to an extent – even a newly arrived migrant from Bongostan is effectively rootless here, with no understanding of the history of the land he is… Read more »

Like
Like
Reply to  OrangeFrog
4 years ago

Unless you realize the franchise is long a fraud. If you want power, go old school.

We may only pray someone does.

diconez
diconez
Reply to  OrangeFrog
4 years ago

third world countries only have the trappings of democracy, so as to be able to participate in the global politics. deep down i feel they are utterly uncomfortable with it…

abprosper
abprosper
Reply to  OrangeFrog
4 years ago

The US cannot be salvaged by voting anyway. Its still good to try this is the LARPING phase not the action phase and while we pretend we can fix it, we can build an ideology. Its not going to be easy though. Too many people on our side think that a high tech urban society can have fertility with low wages and no social welfare. Its nonsense and they might as well join the oligarchs since they are doing their work for them. We’ve had near 50 years of wage arbitrage and near 50 years of low fertility in a… Read more »

JR Wirth
JR Wirth
4 years ago

“As democracy is perfected, the office of president represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart’s desire at last and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron.” – HL Mencken. Any of the past five Presidents could fit this description, especially GWB. However if you define the word moron, Biden will be the actual result. The end of the line.

Gespenst
Gespenst
Reply to  JR Wirth
4 years ago

The Republicans gave us GWB, a moron.

The DNC said, “Hold my beer”, and offered us a senile dementia case.

The Wild Geese Howard
The Wild Geese Howard
4 years ago

A couple Zero Hedge commenters got me thinking about the real shot in this fall’s elections. Their point was that the Presidency is a distraction play. Look at how the Deep State has shown the Presidency is very weak now. They know it. This is why they could care less about any criticisms of Biden at this point. The real prize is the Senate and all the local DA and sheriff’s races. I’m sure Soros is in on those already since his strategy has proven effective. It won’t even be hard, as shown by the tranny in NH who ran… Read more »

Paintersforms
Paintersforms
4 years ago

It’s hard to draw parallels. Athens was never a republic (I think) and Rome was never a democracy. Add a pinch of nationalism and colonial roots, America’s progress has been pretty unique.

Why we’ve always tried to compare ourselves to others is part of our troubles imo. We’ve always had an identity crisis (fittingly in 2020).

Jim Smith
Jim Smith
4 years ago

Very interesting comments here. Some invoke Sulla. Others Solon or Pericles. Or maybe Caesar, or Augustus. Or Lincoln or FDR in certain twisted ways. There is a sense of foreboding, of holding breath and buckling seatbelts. Seven weeks from today. Maybe nothing will change. Maybe everything will.

Last edited 4 years ago by Jim Smith
Drake
Drake
Reply to  Jim Smith
4 years ago

My money is still on this one being pretty much the status quo once all the dust settles. In 4 years, I think we’ll see the wheels come off.

KunioKun
KunioKun
4 years ago

The Landmark Editions of The Peloponnesian War and its sequel Hellenika were an absolute joy to read. Give them as a gift to any little boys you know in their early teens and tell them that trash super hero movies have nothing on the crazy stuff that happens in those two books. Really every book from the Landmark Editions series is fantastic.Lincoln is a boomer saint. I don’t think the woke will care about anything he said. It would likely get in the way of stomping on White faces.

Paintersforms
Paintersforms
Reply to  KunioKun
4 years ago

Difficult to find in hardcover. Definitely excellent. Worth it just for the maps.

Epaminondas
Member
4 years ago

I still favor the analogy with Sulla. Consider that the Roman victory over Carthage and Hannibal neatly parallels the American victory over Japan and Germany in WW2. Both victories gave its respective victors world control. Both nations descended into cultural decadence following those victories. And both nations underwent disastrous demographic changes in the wake of their victories. In America Lincoln was merely the step-‘n-fetchit for the banker/industrial class. He is a useful symbol of their power. The oligarchical landed classes were destroyed by the new merchant class. The Republic rolled on with its new overlords firmly in charge. Our Republic… Read more »

Last edited 4 years ago by Epaminondas
brunob
brunob
Reply to  Epaminondas
4 years ago

well, maybe… but what no one can argue is that Lincoln’s project, to the extent that he might have been more aware than our critical histories suggest, certainly never had a chance to repair any of the disasters wrought on America by the war in his second, peacetime term. there has been so much ink spilled on whether Lincoln killed America or saved it that it is pointless to argue could-have-beens. i assert that he was assassinated at virtually the exact moment when the long term consequences to the nation were both terrible and irreversible. i might guess that our… Read more »

Liberty Mike
Member
Reply to  brunob
4 years ago

He despairs of corruption in high places and the money power working its iniquitous ways in an effort to aggregate most of the country’s wealth into its hands?

And yet, there are Lincoln cultists who would pronounce the ugly mass murderer a noble Nostradamus for divining the future he wrought with his profligate promotion of the American System, crony capitalism, the income tax, the deportation of elected officials, the suppression of free speech, the incarceration of journalists who opposed his treasonous agenda, and, let’s not forget the War of Northern Aggression.

brunob
brunob
Reply to  Liberty Mike
4 years ago

your points are well taken.
but consider that the british in their playing of the great game would have gladly taken the south back as subjects. there is plenty of reason to believe that was their intention.
i’m very happy to consider Americans of the south as my compatriots now. what a world if that were not possible.

Last edited 4 years ago by brunob
Epaminondas
Member
Reply to  brunob
4 years ago

If he was aware of the vast machinery of the merchant class waiting in the background, then he was even more reckless than assumed.

brunob
brunob
Reply to  Epaminondas
4 years ago

not just that vast machinery. scylla and charybdis
keep the union, fall to the bankers, lose the union, return to the british empire.
seems like no choice at all when stated this way.

Sandmich
Reply to  Epaminondas
4 years ago

Perhaps, but there’s lots of gaping holes in those plans, not the least of which being the whole scheme being dominated by people who could not, on their own, develop an indoor toilet.

Epaminondas
Member
Reply to  Sandmich
4 years ago

The development of indoor plumbing was the response of an expanding Northern urban population suffering under the imminent threat of typhus. Rural people had no such fears. And little neurosis.

Forever Templar
Forever Templar
Reply to  Epaminondas
4 years ago

Can Americans ever cite their own history without referencing WW2?

H I
H I
4 years ago

America is not a democracy. We’re ruled by the Deep State, with the elected ones mainly putting on a show. When the elected one actually try to do something, like Trump, they’re opposed at every turn. Here’s a better description of the system: https://twitter.com/0x49fa98/status/1305584588014735360

David Wright
Member
4 years ago

Are we on “dissident right” now supposed to be Roosevelt Democrats?

Bruno the Arrogant
Bruno the Arrogant
Reply to  David Wright
4 years ago

Well, I suppose you can stay on the dissident right and become a New Deal Democrat, or you can throw in with Spencer/Enoch et al and become a full blown socialist/communist.

Like the libertarians, the dissident right seems to be hell bent on reproducing the political environment that led to the conditions they’re rebelling against.

Epaminondas
Member
Reply to  thezman
4 years ago

Good question. My parents and grandparents worshipped him. They received tangible benefits from that administration. But they were not the philosophical types who pondered more deeply disturbing political issues.

ProZNoV
ProZNoV
Reply to  Epaminondas
4 years ago

My grandparents hated him – and they were just hard working dust bowl displaced Okie white trash. Should’ve been his base.

WWII killed a LOT of their brothers in both the Pacific and the Atlantic, so that’s probably part of the reason.

But they lived on social security in their later years.

Last edited 4 years ago by ProZNoV
Liberty Mike
Member
Reply to  ProZNoV
4 years ago

As realists, we are required to acknowledge that FDR was a mass-murdering communist megalomaniac who thought nothing of sacrificing hundreds of thousands of American white men to his globalist ambitions and who likewise thought nothing of sacrificing millions of German, Polish, and Russian white men in service to his fellow travelers, Churchill and Stalin.

Felix Krull
Member
Reply to  Liberty Mike
4 years ago

That doesn’t mean he was a bad person.

David Wright
Member
Reply to  Felix Krull
4 years ago

No he was a great man. Gold confiscation, attempts at packing the court, nefarious duplicitous deeds in getting America in the war.
Slander on Lindbergh and, well I could go on.

tarstarkas
tarstarkas
Reply to  David Wright
4 years ago

Attempts? He did stack the courts. In 1945 the entire SCOTUS was FDR appointed. This is to say nothing of the federal courts. This has had a lot of long term effects and not just via rulings of their day. With the federal courts being so stacked with FDR progressives, this pushed law itself leftward. Law is especially subject to who is on the benches.

David Wright
Member
Reply to  tarstarkas
4 years ago

Supreme court, adding seats.

abprosper
abprosper
Reply to  ProZNoV
4 years ago

Not an FDR fan but if a DR society eliminated welfare and state pensions they would hate the results. The net result would be mass poverty and economic stagnation do to the efficiency trap of modern manufacturing. On top of this, because people are urban the TFR would decline further. Upside. almost no single mommies, downside a lot fewer babies. The new TFR would be like Russia circa the 90’s, around 1.3 maybe lower. A basic rule of the economy since the 30’s is in order for someone to move up either there needs to be a lot of growth,… Read more »

Like
Like
Reply to  abprosper
4 years ago

How do you plan to get this DR society? Shitposting? You’re venting, this is a brilliant release valve. The. PTB lets the potential opposition wank online, occasionally banning someone so as to apply just enough pressure to remind everyone who’s boss. You’re all so cowed you think its a massive Federal Conspiracy and you’ll be arrested if you were to take it further than wanking. In truth its doubtful they know you exist, and they certainly don’t care. Your real enemy is an SJW being funded by oligarchs, a neckbeard. oh hey they found Q today. Be titilliated – imagine… Read more »

diconez
diconez
Reply to  abprosper
4 years ago

Russia in the 90s had lots of leftover abortion culture, and still does, thus they could not build family without the gibs. of course, you can’t go full neoliberal like they did in the 90s, which coupled with leftist-liberal degeneracy made for mail-order brides to become a thing. but, you can’t just spread out the gibs and expect the masses not to become blackified as well, just look at America in the 70s, or the current degenerate white British gib-class. also, if there’s a gib i would give, it would be precisely more towards housing, and less towards unemployment insurance,… Read more »

Last edited 4 years ago by diconez
abprosper
abprosper
Reply to  diconez
4 years ago

Problem with housing subsidies is that they make housing more costly. Now there are things that can be done to reduce costs, mostly limiting corporate and rich people from owning too many but that is pretty controversial. Ultimately the DR’s job is to take away freedom on a lot of levels to ensure a healthy future and that is no easy sell. Also without going into a long dissertation on the topic, there are benefits to both negative liberty (leave me alone) and positive liberty (here is a hand up) and most societies need a measure of both. What that… Read more »

Drake
Drake
Reply to  thezman
4 years ago

The globalists looting and destroying the middle and working class learned it from FDR.

abprosper
abprosper
Reply to  Drake
4 years ago

Perhaps true but no matter what Treasury Secretary Mellon though, no one had time to wait while the rottenness was purged from the system. You have a few months of mass hunger and impoverishment in a Republic before people elect President for Life Roosevelt or worse. The complete unwillingness of the Republicans to bend, create a temp program for a few years and get back to business led to it being crammed down their throats. That which does not bend when needed will break. This BTW will protect President Trump who is a big spender as needed. And yes maybe… Read more »

Vegetius
Vegetius
Reply to  thezman
4 years ago

To paraphrase the Roman oligarch Iacocca, what we call history is a trick played on the dead for the benefit of those who wield or want power. Always has been, always will be. The trouble with any sort of ideological awakening is that it leads to a paint-by-numbers reimagining of past events and a simplistic resorting of historical actors into white hats and black hats. This is bad enough, but I have observed that many dissidents seem to settle on a view of history composed only of black hats and small hats. Radical revision can be useful in shaking some… Read more »

Last edited 4 years ago by Vegetius
tarstarkas
tarstarkas
Reply to  thezman
4 years ago

Why shouldn’t we?

Forever Templar
Forever Templar
Reply to  thezman
4 years ago

If you hate Bush Jr., and genuinely hold antiwar beliefs, then it’s requisite to hold some distaste for FDR. The cripple pushed America into a world war.

abprosper
abprosper
Reply to  Forever Templar
4 years ago

Wilson was the culprit as were American oil Barons every bit as much
Had we had “not a drop leaves our shores” policy from the start , Japan would not have been cut off from oil since they never had it and not felt they needed to attack us.
Frankly most of our problems could have been solved by not having forego trade at all but proto Globalists like Wilson have ambotion and the pepople whoback them see the world as markets rather than what it is, a myriad of dangers.

Forever Templar
Forever Templar
Reply to  abprosper
4 years ago

Damn, hadn’t considered that. Thanks.

diconez
diconez
Reply to  thezman
4 years ago

maybe not hate, but definitely more like forget.
Hjalmar Schaacht (sp?) did better with the Four Year Plan, in the same time frame.

MemeWarVet
MemeWarVet
Reply to  David Wright
4 years ago

Is the implication here that ceding the moral authority to use government for the good of the people was the right thing for Republicans to do?

Bruno the Arrogant
Bruno the Arrogant
Reply to  MemeWarVet
4 years ago

So how did using government to cater to “Da Little Guy” work out? Other than giving the Democrats the incentive to create lots of “Little Guys”, particularly minorities, immigrants, etc.?

MemeWarVet
MemeWarVet
Reply to  Bruno the Arrogant
4 years ago

Which, of course, has nothing whatsoever to do with the fact that the Right completely seceded the field to the Left…

Bruno the Arrogant
Bruno the Arrogant
Reply to  MemeWarVet
4 years ago

So both parties doing the same destructive things would have led to a better result than one party doing them?

Exactly, what positive outcome would have resulted from Republicans jumping down the same rabbit hole?

This sounds like the perennially popular “the Republicans would be ok if they were more like the Democrats” lament.

MemeWarVet
MemeWarVet
Reply to  Bruno the Arrogant
4 years ago

I can think of two examples from Europe where it was working pretty well…

diconez
diconez
Reply to  MemeWarVet
4 years ago

yeah but Poland and Hungary are much better and more focused than FDR and the haphazard myriad administrations and agencies. not to mention him beginning the low rate credit scheme and other subtle ways of helping too-big-to-fail Wall Street, while the depression limped along Obama-recession style. lots of small hats were friends of his. meanwhile Italy, Germany, and others were doing better. that said, at least FDR didn’t sell out local industry or do away with segregation as much as others that succeeded him from both parties – even sainted Nixon or Reagan were not particularly good in those areas…… Read more »

Paintersforms
Paintersforms
Reply to  Bruno the Arrogant
4 years ago

If you’re playing basketball and you think the ball is evil, the other guy is going to dunk on you a lot and win.

diconez
diconez
Reply to  Paintersforms
4 years ago

yeah, but thankfully libertarianism is dead. doesn’t mean budgets and credit ratings will disappear as well though. we don’t want a small state, just an efficient one.

ProZNoV
ProZNoV
Reply to  David Wright
4 years ago

Surprised Teddy Roosevelt wasn’t mentioned: he was a child of wealth and privilege, but very much a man of action. (some good, some bad)

Famous for “trust busting”, aka successfully challenging powerful monopolies.

Also a one term president.

MemeWarVet
MemeWarVet
Reply to  ProZNoV
4 years ago

TR was a 1.75 term president; unlike his Hyde Park cousin he respected the two term tradition (in 1908, anyway)

Last edited 4 years ago by MemeWarVet
Liberty Mike
Member
Reply to  ProZNoV
4 years ago

And a blowhard who had more than a touch of Brian Williams.

diconez
diconez
Reply to  ProZNoV
4 years ago

also the Square Deal, which was actually a fascist organic redistributive measure that all society liked.

also enforced safety and good pay in factories, without needing to acquire the means of production or such nonsense. elite GOP hated him so much he had to form his own party. thankfully Trump got over that hurdle and took over the GOP – now, if only he was as nationalist as we and maybe TR himself would want…

Last edited 4 years ago by diconez
LineInTheSand
LineInTheSand
Reply to  David Wright
4 years ago

Creating an economy that rewards most people (who want to be productive), as opposed to rewarding the oligarchs or creating a maximally efficient economy, is the goal.

If that’s socialism, I can live with it.

diconez
diconez
Reply to  LineInTheSand
4 years ago

socialism can’t properly reward the productive, specially if the productive desire maximal efficiency and/or less children, both of which socialism aims to because it’s a materialist doctrine. but i get your point about the other options being worse. distributism, clerical/guild fascism, whatever but pure socialism i guess.

Last edited 4 years ago by diconez
diconez
diconez
Reply to  David Wright
4 years ago

agreed. though some version of distributism/economic nationalism should suffice, without going full Strasser self-defeatist.

and also, secularism doesn’t help.

Last edited 4 years ago by diconez
Eric W Scholz
4 years ago

“In one sentence, thirty words, Lincoln re-positioned the country to rest upon the Declaration of Independence rather than the Constitution.”

That’s a great insight. We devolved from the Constitution’s balance of powers to government empowered by “rights” derived from “the proposition that all men are created equal.”

Last edited 4 years ago by Eric W Scholz
Chad Hayden
Chad Hayden
4 years ago

The republic already belongs the left. They aren’t trying to overthrow us, we’re trying to overthrow them. IMO the best development of the slippery democratic slope will be the onset of big man/caudillo types in the presidency. At least that’s my hope, and seems to be the trend described. Strong man presidents will resonate strongly with most working class whites, but also an increasing number of Hispanics. Referencing Z’s tenet of winning first, then establishing the rules of the game: in the new America our group will need to build alliances. Look at the way the Latin Kings defended their… Read more »

Last edited 4 years ago by Chad Hayden
Karl Horst (Germany)
Karl Horst (Germany)
4 years ago

Reaching back so far in time to either Rome or Greece seems irrelevant to today’s reader given no one can possibly relate to a world that existed over 2,000 years ago. If you need a tangible example one can look at for the current decline of America, you need look no further than the decline of the British Empire up to and following WW1. Just walk through Manchester, Birmingham or London to get a glimpse what your future will look like. From the days of the American revolution, up until the Boer Wars, the UK continued to extended its military… Read more »

Johnny
4 years ago

Zman did you ever read the Drudge Report? I guess what goes around comes around doesn’t it?
https://www.zerohedge.com/technology/drudge-report-continues-historic-readership-collapse-down-40-year-over-year-august

G Lordon Giddy
G Lordon Giddy
4 years ago

Trump seems to recognize that we need to get out of the Middle East.
It’s our Sicily equivalent to the Greeks.
Then today Trump brags about almost taking out Assad. Like that would not pull us further back into the Middle East?
Then Trump talks to Woodward and he is shocked that Woodward stabbed him in the back?
Shocked I say!
We are not Athens we have advanced to idiocracy.

Jeff Albertson
Jeff Albertson
4 years ago

You may (or not) be interested that Curtis Yarvin is writing about this phenomenon in his longish style. I think he is writing a book and publishing each chapter on line. https://graymirror.substack.com/ But I believe you have to register your email to access. I was first nudged out of my libertarian orbit by moldbug, further by the zman, and I still consider myself neoreactionary, although I recognize that the caravan has moved on. Still, good reading if long-windedness is to your taste. I was particularly intrigued by his characterization of “our side” as bolsheviks (revolutionaries) and the magatards as mensheviks… Read more »

Chad Hayden
Chad Hayden
Reply to  thezman
4 years ago

Curtis Yarvin thinks that action follows ideas. It’s the other way around.

Darryl Licht
Darryl Licht
Reply to  thezman
4 years ago

I think I spent some time slogging though his stuff. I don’t remember any of it.

Jim Smith
Jim Smith
Reply to  Jeff Albertson
4 years ago

I find Yarvin’s latest piece to be fascinating and spot-on. His very wry sense of humor is icing on the cake.

Member
Reply to  Jeff Albertson
4 years ago

I also give credit to Moldy for my de-programming. I also enjoy watching the drama surrounding his Urbit project as it highlights the willingness of the tech “community” to shit on a clever idea if it comes from a BadThinker. His struggles with deplatforming might also bear fruit in practical ways for //ourthing// since it’s a tech platform that can now only succeed against the wishes of the elite. As such it punches holes in enemy lines that we may be able to pour through.

JR Wirth
JR Wirth
4 years ago

I’m sure Trump wold very much think of himself as a Pericles. In reality he’ll be seen as just another failed President on the downslope of the country. San Francisco is about to extend the franchise to 16 year olds by the way.

bubba
bubba
Reply to  JR Wirth
4 years ago

Matt Taibbi, for all his faults, had a great article on Trump recently. I urge everyone to read it. It is an excellent summation of the man and how elites, the left and the right, the DR totally misunderstand his nature: https://taibbi.substack.com/p/the-trump-era-sucks-and-needs-to “The elite misread of Trump is egregious because he’s an easily familiar type to the rest of America. We’re a sales culture and Trump is a salesman. Moreover he’s not just any salesman; he might be the greatest salesman ever, considering the quality of the product, i.e. himself. He’s up to his eyes in balls, and the parts… Read more »

Last edited 4 years ago by bubba
Jim Smith
Jim Smith
Reply to  bubba
4 years ago

Taibbi shows himself to be clueless when he ends his essay with this: “Isn’t four years of this enough? Trump has made us all crazy, and it’s time for the show to be over. We deserve slow news days again.” He yearns for a time before-Trump, thus lacking all understanding: Trump was elected to END to what Taibbi yearns to return to. Whether Trump turns out to be effective for that or not, it is why he was elected, and may be elected yet again.

Last edited 4 years ago by Jim Smith
Peabody
Peabody
Reply to  Jim Smith
4 years ago

Trump didn’t make us crazy. The media gave permission for the already nuts to act out. He’s done nothing objectionable by any lefty standard. The non-stop gaslighting by people who fancy themselves pundits, journalists, etc. is the most tiresome aspect of this timeline.

bubba
bubba
Reply to  Jim Smith
4 years ago

There is an excellent expression in Russian:
“его очень много”.

It literally translates to “there is too much of him”. I think a lot of people are getting Trump fatigue from him being in the newscycle 24/7 (something that he craves btw).

Jim Smith
Jim Smith
Reply to  bubba
4 years ago

We never got enough of FDR, JFK, Elvis or the Beatles. Why should we be fatigued now by a newly transformational and disruptive President?

RoBG
RoBG
Reply to  Jim Smith
4 years ago

Nobody has done more than Taibbi to expose the Bankster Heist that began with TARP and continues to this day with BlackRock and “money printer go brrr.” The largest wealth transfer (multi-generational debt) from labor to capital in history. And the functionaries of both parties approve, hoping their kids will also get a job at Goldman-Sachs or BlackRock.

Jim Smith
Jim Smith
Reply to  bubba
4 years ago

Taibbi is a pimp for counterrevolutionary elites being challenged by an upstart populist revolt. Read about the ongoing populist struggle to “wrest power from the globalist capitalist classHERE.

Last edited 4 years ago by Jim Smith
bubba
bubba
Reply to  Jim Smith
4 years ago

Trump is not a populist, he’s just posing as one. I thought we covered this already.

James O'Meara
James O'Meara
Reply to  Jim Smith
4 years ago

Indeed. His shtick for the last TWENTY YEARS has been to misrepresent populist positions as absurd “conspiracy theories” (e.g., “Michelle Bachann says the Chinese want to replace the dollar bill” when she clearly meant “replace the dollar” but don’t let anyone think about that) as you can see right at the start of the linked piece; I bet he wants his readers to think “people in the shadows” is a reference to George Noory’s occult “shadow people”. Banned Hipster takes him apart here: https://bannedhipster.home.blog/2020/07/22/matt-taibbi-and-the-great-liberal-vs-progressive-optics-war-of-2020/

Vegetius
Vegetius
Reply to  Jim Smith
4 years ago

>Taibbi is a pimp for counterrevolutionary elites
That is an original reading of Griftopia, I will grant you that.

Jim Smith
Jim Smith
Reply to  Vegetius
4 years ago

It’s would certainly be Paul Gottfried’s read on the situation.

JR Wirth
JR Wirth
Reply to  bubba
4 years ago

The problem with the current elite is that they think they have more options than they have. Ironically they should be thankful that Trump came along. They just don’t like Trump personally because he offends them. They’re so thin skinned that policy preferences just aren’t enough. They loved the idea of Hillary (strong powerful matron taking charge as the pinnacle of the suffragette movement a hundred years ago) and he shattered all of that. They especially hate “salesmen.” But Trump’s real damage to the country is his spending habits. Even the thin, homosexual black man before him looks downright “conservative”… Read more »

Member
Reply to  JR Wirth
4 years ago

Given the general madness of the place I’m surprised it wasn’t age 6 with plans for later inclusion of family pets in the franchise.

Bartleby the Scrivner
Bartleby the Scrivner
4 years ago

Anyone else try to use Parler?

its impossible to log on

GetBackUp
GetBackUp
4 years ago

OT: Ed Dutton weighs in on reality of group selection.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H7V3_t9FNqM&t=32s

CompscI
CompscI
4 years ago

Z-man, our local Victor Davis Hanson. Never heard a better synopsis.

tarstarkas
tarstarkas
4 years ago

Why is Reagan exempted?

JR Wirth
JR Wirth
Reply to  tarstarkas
4 years ago

Because unlike Biden his Alzheimers showed up in his second term. I

Marko
Marko
4 years ago

Gore Vidal used to call FDR the American Augustus.

Drake
Drake
Reply to  Marko
4 years ago

I prefer Bracken’s nickname for him – The Crippled Commie.
He purposely kept the Depression going in order to accumulate more power for himself and the federal government.

Chet Rollins
Chet Rollins
Reply to  Drake
4 years ago

He also milked the UK financially dry in WWII to establish the United States as a global hegemon after the war.

tarstarkas
tarstarkas
Reply to  Drake
4 years ago

We are still living under the consequences of FDR. FDR was the second worst president, right behind Lincoln. Both of these men lead the pack in worst ever by a very large margin.

Epaminondas
Member
Reply to  tarstarkas
4 years ago

You underestimate the destructive evil of LBJ.

Carl B.
Carl B.
Reply to  Epaminondas
4 years ago

And the Axis of Disaster: Clinton, Bush, Obama.

Peabody
Peabody
Reply to  Epaminondas
4 years ago

Don’t forget Wilson.

Wilson, Lincoln, FDR, and LBJ. The Four Horseman.

Ostei Kozelskii
Member
Reply to  Epaminondas
4 years ago

Yep. He was a monster.

david
Reply to  Epaminondas
4 years ago

To me , it seem so obvious that if any state decides to abolish welfare, they’ll see a MASS exodus of minorities, criminals, homeless and unproductive immigrants. Crime would drop by 70% and the downtowns would be safe again. For some reason wignats call me a boomer for saying this. Blacks and latinos dont even pay enough into taxes to cover their welfare consumption cost, so welfare is literally a proxy for blacktino neighborhoods. Why would any conservative support this?

Sandmich
Reply to  david
4 years ago

The thing to keep in mind is the powers on the other side of these transactions. Section 8 subsidizes real estate/landlords, food stamps subsidize junk food producers, and Medicaid, oye Medicaid, is just a tool used by the medical industry to extract as much welath as they can from the nation, and so on. Whenever a change is proposed these monied interests summon their mau-mau gangs to browbeat any dissenters.

LineInTheSand
LineInTheSand
Reply to  david
4 years ago

Cutting off welfare puts you at odds with a large number of worthwhile whites who have been cast aside by globalization.

What is more likely to succeed: cutting off welfare or an immigration moratorium? Of course, neither is probable, but which one is wiser into which to invest our energies?

The root question is: is our primary issue race or economics?

Last edited 4 years ago by LineInTheSand
CompscI
CompscI
Reply to  LineInTheSand
4 years ago

I don’t see it as an either or. Both can happen. Natural born US citizens can be on the dole for a limited period. I’d even put a lifetime limit. Immigrants get deported if they become welfare recipients, as they would if they commit criminal offenses.

RoBG
RoBG
Reply to  CompscI
4 years ago

The laws against immigrants becomimg a “public charge” have existed since the earliest colonial times. They’re just no longer enforced.

abprosper
abprosper
Reply to  LineInTheSand
4 years ago

Its both but if we have to pick one, pre 1986 or so it was economics.
After that it gradually shifted to race. Its race now.
That said cutting off welfare won’t work. Ignoring the harm done to Whites all you’ll get is favellas with drug gangs taking over the job of the state.
Also you won’t be allowed to do this without a collapse or some serious change either courts will intervene or the electoral; college will get nerfed and the more populace states will gather all the political power and cram welfare down your throat.

diconez
diconez
Reply to  abprosper
4 years ago

eh idk, blacks and latins before the 60s didn’t have crime as nasty as it got after LBJ, who tore up their families subsidizing black single moms and their abortions. though then again colored shantytowns looked crappier when segregated, but then again so did everyone’s. FDR was a bit more balanced, but still very gibs-friendly, and in a pro-corporate deficitarian way too. Compsci is right, you can care about poor whites and the needy in general without keeping them on the dole forever nor favoring minorities; nor destroying families and budgets on the altar of the state, but rather feeding… Read more »

Last edited 4 years ago by diconez
Christina
Reply to  LineInTheSand
4 years ago

I’d start with an immigration moratorium, re-patriation program, and a 5% scale back on welfare everytime the unemployment rate falls below 5%.

When our welfare net is solely supporting the most destitute, supplemented heavily be charities, begin opening immigration only when unemployment is below 5% and close it when it reaches 10% or when immigrants as % of population reaches a certain number in any given state.

CompscI
CompscI
Reply to  david
4 years ago

This has been discussed for years, but for reasons never seems to reach a critical mass. It’s called “souring the milk”. It’s the opposite side of the coin wrt immigration—legal or illegal. Turn of the safety net and watch he flood return.

KeepTheChange
KeepTheChange
4 years ago

Usually, the people that we don’t see pick our choices for us. We can pick any one of the candidates that they offer us. But, Trump was an exception to this … he had his own money. Maybe same with Perot, that ole cur dog, as he called himself.

Like
Like
4 years ago

I like this “ open warfare because they have a common enemy, the general welfare.”

trackback
4 years ago

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