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 thoughts on “American Pericles

  1. 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.

  2. 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 involvement that served to protected business interests of its colonies rather than ensure the security the homeland. Economic and industrial decline began to erode due to cheaper foreign competition and cheap labor along with massive public debt. Social and political upheaval came about with class restructure as the aristocracy collapsed and unemployment numbers spiraled. Mass media, in the form of newspapers and radio, controlled and manipulated public opinion. And of course religion continued it’s downward spiral into moral irrelevance.

    The US is currently going through exactly the same changes today.

  3. “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.”

    • 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

      • 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.

        • I recall hearing G. Gordon Liddy talk about his tenure in the Nixon administration. He said that in the late 60’s and early 70’s, they were sure the country was headed for a crackup or a revolution. Instead what came next was a long slumber of social peace.

          • 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.

  4. 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.

  5. “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.

    • The Republicans gave us GWB, a moron.

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

  6. 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 for sheriff as an R on a, “F the police,” platform.

  7. Pingback: DYSPEPSIA GENERATION » Blog Archive » American Pericles

  8. 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 neighborhoods from rioters. I’m not talking about pandering – a strong president with an unapologetic message of law and order will not only rally our people but will attract these ppl on our side. In the 25% white town of my childhood it was the Mexican and black guys who worked out, white and Asian guys played computer games. These guys respect a display of strength. They want to know that you actually do have a couple of balls down there when rubber meets road.

    Ideally, things would be different but ideally the vote would also only go to married home-owning white men with at least one child. We need to operate with things as they are. For example, Trump should be going to California on 9/16 to celebrate El Grito with a giant unmasked party for the Messikins. That would increase his support from everybody – whites would love to see him giving zero shits like that, and more hispanics would see him as their white guy. The media would be doing the “he’s hurting Latin Americans” bit and most hispanics would laugh. Then comes Chinese New Year…

  9. 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 (reformers).

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

    • 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.

  10. 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.

    • Isn’t that true of all forms of government? Africa gets big man government where the ruler is clownish and corrupt. China gets dictators that are efficient and relatively honest.

      • 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.

        • 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 hysterical rage is a cover for the fact that they desperately want him to fuck them.

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

    • 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.

  11. 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.

    • 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.

  12. 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.

    • 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 of the brain that hold most people back from selling schlock online degrees or tchotchkes door-to-door are absent. He has no shame, will say anything, and experiences morality the way the rest of us deal with indigestion.”

      • 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.

        • 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.

        • 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).

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

        • 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.

      • 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.

      • 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” in comparison, and he was the worst until Trump. A successful government should keep the dregs from rising to the top. Democracy can’t do that.

  13. 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.

  14. 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).

  15. 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 has merely morphed gradually to accommodate the desires of the oligarchy, who in turn have morphed into the present-day hi-tech/information oligarchy now running the system. Voting is merely a ruse to keep the citizens pacified. Had Sulla possessed the kind of intelligence-gathering technology now in use, his victory would have been complete. No Caesar could have escaped. My fear is that the hard tyranny coming our way will be cemented in place permanently by an all-consuming hi-tech prison from which escape will be impossible. Even an implosion and dissipation of American power might leave us with dozens of smaller hi-tech despotic kingdoms. What happens in the next 20 years will be crucial. We will get figurehead “emperors” who will continue to spout the same democratic/republican rhetoric the masses want to hear. But soon we will no more resemble a republic akin to our founding than the Rome of Augustus resembled the Roman Republic of the third century B.C.

    • 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 host would crap all over the notion, but the situation Lincoln faced, as outlined by Engdalh, G.E. Griffin and others, was virtually no-win.

      “I have two great enemies, the southern army in front of me and the financial institutions, in the rear. Of the two, the one in the rear is the greatest enemy….. I see in the future a crisis approaching that unnerves me and causes me to tremble for the safety of my country. As a result of the war, corporations have been enthroned and an era of corruption in high places will follow, and the money power of the country will endeavor to prolong its reign by working upon the prejudices of the people until wealth is aggregated in a few hands and the Republic is destroyed. I feel at this moment more anxiety for the safety of my country than ever before, even in the midst of the war.” – Abraham Lincoln

      The words of one of his contemporaries hints to this:

      “The death of Lincoln was a disaster for Christendom. There was no man in the United States great enough to wear his boots and the bankers went anew to grab the riches. I fear that foreign bankers with their craftiness and tortuous tricks will entirely control the exuberant riches of America and use it to systematically corrupt modern civilization.” – Otto von Bismarck, German Chancellor (1815-1898), after Lincoln assassination.

      “My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or to destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone I would also do that.”

        — Abraham Lincoln, 22 August 1862, in a letter to Horace Greeley, editor of the New York Tribune

        “I will say, then, that I am not, nor have ever been in favor of bringing about in any way the social and political equality of the white and black races… I am in favor of having the superior position assigned to the white race.”

        — Abraham Lincoln

      • 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.

        • 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.

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

        • 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.

    • 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.

      • 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.

  16. 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 elderly neolib and a collection of chit skinned commie noggers in charge, they will be doing the worst thing they could do at the worst possible time.

    • 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.

      • 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.

  17. 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 is our future, for good or ill (10,000:1 it’s for ill).

    • I find in Pericles another useful divide. The conservatives looked at Athens as them and their duty to the people was not a lot different than their duty to their slaves or animals. Pericles saw Athens as the demos. It was that sum of all people, even those not able to participate in the politics of the city.

      The Founders would have sided with Pericles on this score. Our current rulers are clearly on the side of the old oligarchs. They look at the American public as an amorphous blob to be tolerated and exploited. Their anger at Trump is that he is both a traitor to his class and represents an alien body in their system.

      Another parallel is how the conservatives regularly accused Pericles of being a tyrant. Oligarchs always accuse populists of wanting to be tyrants. It is the thing they fear most.

      • 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 treating the people as your chattel… but it’s paternalism for all that.

        “Problem” in quotation marks, because although this is absolutely the right approach to governance — as demonstrated by both primate biology and recent history — a culture still steeped in the Enlightenment won’t accept it. Neither the rulers or the ruled want to think of themselves as what they are. Thanks to radical democracy, the ruled think of themselves as the rulers. Thanks to globohomo, the rulers think of themselves, not as benevolent patriarchs, but as social surgeons, cutting badthink out of the body politic like gangrene. Both sides hate each other, and soon enough it will be every man for himself.

        How’s that for irony? Marx was right, Bizzaro World-style — it’s the Capitalists who attained revolutionary consciousness and remade the world in their image.

      • 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.

      • 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 us.
        This is ending, badly, and we don’t know what will replace it.
        I think now that Trump has shown they can be defied, more will step forward, and finally some will throw them down.

        But these lands in the end will likely be ours, at least that we can leave as inheritance.

    • 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, and -you fill in the blanks! Their Deism led them to believe that man’s rational mind would keep things on the “straight and narrow”. Admittedly, some did admit to the weakness of their endeavors in framing the constitution. Give them A for effort!
      Also as an autodidact of the american Civil War, I have always been disturbed by the sanctification of Lincoln. He was not on board with keeping the blacks in the country. Refer to his remarks in the Lincoln/Douglas debates about the black slaves. He wanted to send them to colonies in Central American or back to Africa in Liberia. The Emancipation Proclamation was signed under some duress, because the fervor of the North to continue the war was weakening somewhat! He totally destroyed State’s rights. Zman is totally correct in his statement that Lincoln did as much to destroy federalism as any president!

      • 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).

  18. 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 to a T. I was in the suburbs of the Imperial Capital recently. My god, it is not America. The parks were full of Indians, and even the countryside around the Imperial Capital was full of Han and Hijabs. Foreigners poured in and out of every imperial court (federal contractor office building) there.

    We are the Byzantines after they stopped being Roman, or the Austro-Hungarians on the eve of the Archduke’s death, or the Brits importing the dregs of the Commonwealth after they lost India.

    China, meanwhile, with its confident ethnic superstate, is still where the US was in the 1950s when it was a confident 95% white ethnostate giddy with its newly-acquired territories. But the Chinese will fall to multicultural imperial decay like every empire before it: the cracks and chinks (pun intended) in their armor are already there.

    • 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, not sure if that was just a cope on your part “American Empire”.

      • 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.

      • 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.

        • 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.

          • 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

          • 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

        • 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 be poor. Poor societies also have higher birthrates.

          • 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.

        • 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.

          • 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.

          • 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.

        • 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.

      • 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.

      • 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.

      • 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 autocracy that only an Asian could understand.

        I would extend this to “laws of history” regarding the fate of empires. The course taken by Rome or the US will not necessarily be that of China.

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

    • 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.

      • 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.

          • 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 that.

          • 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.

          • 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?

  19. 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 in. Legal technicalities aside, he really is just a chap standing on American soil.

    At the end of Lawrence James’s book Raj, he mentions that once the British departed they left Indians with thorough belief in the democratic system. In itself, this statement is silly as for the majority of it’s life The Raj was certainly not something democratically controlled by Indians; but my first question really was ‘How can such a people really appreciate a system they had no hand in developing?’. I am not sure that Mr James would wish to fully comprehend the answer because some of it must surely be genetic.

    A good essay. Keen to read more on the state of Athens in those days.

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

      We may only pray someone does.

    • 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…

    • 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 near exact correlation.
      Having children in modernity is expensive and if you can’t or won’t pay for it in wages or in benefits than modernity and/or babies go.
      We are getting just that. Maybe if they aren’t wiped out the Amish with their 5-7 babies vs our 1.8 (1.2 for libs) or so will do better.

    • 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.

      • 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.

        • 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.

          • 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.

          • 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.

          • 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.

          • 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, basically a rate of growth exceeding the rate of efficiency improvements or someone must retire/pension out.
            A lack of pensions means much less spending as people need to save enough to stop working and to pay off a future home.
            CAUTION BORING ECONOMIC SPECULATION
            We can’t assume a decent rate of return do to low demand and that dratted efficiency trap so as a guess would be as follows
            We’ll assume a DR Republic , defaulted debts fairly low spending and a natural interest rate market driven. Inflation will be low with possible deflation
            Lets say its a 50K income . 15% all income taxes
            Of the 42,500 K take home , 20-25% would be saved , lets say 20% this includes annuities and some kind of senior health plan
            That is spendable income in the 34k range.
            Of that another 200 for private unemployment insurance , so 33,800 .
            Now on top of that , a lot of people will want to pay off a house. Let’s assume a 200k house at 5% vs 30 year. This knocks off another 200 a month.
            On top of that you are looking at a down-payment of around 40K , doable with family aid which means 5 years more lower consumption.
            That means the real economy will be much smaller and constantly battling an efficiency trap.
            We get the economy of 1960 which isn’t bad but also isn’t nearly as rich . If this works for the DR great but its a hugged shock and while we get the 1960 economy, we aren’t getting the 1960 fertility rate.
            Its a manageable but would require tight controls on the political class as the high money growth focused society they crave simply won’t work.

          • 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 Walter, you’re next.

            You’re not even on anyone’s list, you don’t rate.

            just in case you do, we’ve got more denunciations of anyone who even counter- protests than even Beria could stomach.

            As long as its gas, you’re safe.
            And so is the system.

            That’s the real life DR “society.”

          • 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, since it clearly shows from your analysis that people need much more help with that (not to mention, the ability to refinance, get equity, etc). plus, you forgot to mention trade, in which a DR nation would be able to at least keep home more legit productive jobs, and even avoid too much deflation. all that said, 1960 sounds legit great as you put it tbh – but, like you hint at, without religious-moral revival, the fertility won’t rebound.

          • 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 measure is will depend on conditions of course.

        • 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 the US would have been better off without the New Deal and the Great Society but I’ll remind you that no one wanted it gone even in basically all White America and that during that Great Society till 1973 , the US had very decent fertility.
          Guns and Butter did us in as we could not have both and an oil shock too.
          However that went, its not going up for many many years until three things happen, families become stable. immigration ends for decades and/or there is mass repatriation and the population declines to meet the level of steady work.
          Better hope automation doesn’t get better or the later will never be achieved though.

      • 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 few into an awakening. And it would be the basis of a future foundation mythology. But it can also produce more of the binary thinking that many otherwise right-minded people are slaves to.
        We are sailing into the wind and as Themistocles said, those who confuse tacking with cucking will be thrown overboard lest they mutiny.

      • 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.

        • 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.

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

    • 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?

      • 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.?

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

          • 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.

          • 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… plus, while gold was indeed confiscated and it was a pity, at least the pegged dollar value FDR left was respected for a while. but yes, overall his reforms did worse in the long run, even if they in the short run kept the nation running a couple generations.

          • 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.

          • 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.

    • 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.

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

      • 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…

    • 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.

      • 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.

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

      and also, secularism doesn’t help.

  20. 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 the land and the people will eventually devour you. I guess the demographic tsunami (and the fact that America is not old, like China or Russia) may be their way to keep the natives tied up while they extract what they can. Driving around America makes me think they may have extracted what there was to take.Now it’s our time to starve (we can’t emigrate to America on a coffin ship; America’s dead).

      • 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

        • 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.

          • 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…

          • 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…

          • 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 and more articles about how if the left doesn’t win the country is going to burn. That’s extortion by the people in 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.

            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.

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

          • 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 the people” becomes another part of the faction struggle, regardless of political system. democracy gave power to the masses in the short run, only to have it taken away by the new professional political class that administered said power to the people. total war and national mass conscriptions were not a thing before 1789.

        • 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; there’s no place to run. So learn to stop running- or swim, really far.

          • 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…

      • 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.

        • 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.

    • 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.

      • 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.

    • 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.

      • 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.

      • “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.

      • 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.

  21. 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 the commoners, and makes them dependent on the whims of the tippy top.

    (hat-tip to AOC for phrase “tippy top”)

    • 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.

      • 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.”

          • 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.

          • 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.

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

    • 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 issues, as opposed to on officials. that said, it’s really hard not to have totalitarianism in this age of humongous hard to control societies, regardless of system. best make it a friendly, mostly blind big brother.

  22. 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.

  23. 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.

    • 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.

      • 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.
        My guess is that you need to limit the franchise , mandate long term marriage and clean up the morals of society. If this were a religious nation , it owuld be easy but as it is now? No.

  24. 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.

    • 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.

        • 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…

      • 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!

          • 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 superiors).
            They don’t even know who their potential enemy is. They all think they would be fighting the military or the national guard or something. They are as clueless as leftists in this regard. There is an enormous police state which also has a lot of tentacles in other parts of the state and quasi state like universities. It is the police at all levels that they would have to fight. Conservatives are not the types of people to go to war against cops. The cops will also have the assistance of the military in terms of communications and organization. They will infiltrate the patriots (they already have).
            The patriots also have the problem that they have drawn their line in the sand of gun confiscation. So all the feds have to do is not have gun confiscation and conservatives will help the cops load children onto cattle cars if asked.

    • 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.

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

      • 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.

          • 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?

          • 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.

          • 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?

          • 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.

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

          • 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.

          • 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 them from it…

          • 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.

          • 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.

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