One of the truths of democratic politics is that enemies tend to be forever, while friends tend to be temporary. The reason is politics is personal. When someone does something to harm you in politics, you take it personally. You remember it long after the harm has been forgotten. When someone does you a favor, in contrast, it tends to be transactional, as the person doing the favor is acting from self-interest. Favors are impersonal, while harms are always personal.
This is something Kevin McCarthy is learning right now. His climb to the speaker’s chair has been sidetracked by a small group of malcontents. They oppose him becoming the next Speaker of the House because they do not like him. More important, they think he is a shameless liar, so they do not trust him. The reason they think this is that Kevin McCarthy is a shameless liar. To get where he is he had to knife people in the back, because he has no other qualifications for the job.
It will never be said publicly, but his role in knifing Congressman Steve King in the back, at the behest of the donor class, burned up his capital. If he is willing to work with the New York Times to ruin a Steve King, how can anyone in the caucus be sure he will not do the same trick to them? Politics is a sleazy business, but the reason to be in a party is to have the protection of the party. McCarthy broke an important rule so he is a man with few friends, only money to spread around.
Another truth of politics is that when you take a shot at the king you better not miss, which is where the anti-McCarthy forces are right now. They have to hang together or they will hang alone. Just in case that is not clear, the self-aggrandizing sociopath from Texas, Dan Crenshaw, gave one of his typical tantrums to the press, calling the holdouts forever enemies of the uniparty. In Hell right now, Stalin is slapping John McCain on the back why saying, “That’s your boy!”
The unspoken truth of this fiasco is that this would not be possible if the FBI had allowed the Republicans to sweep the midterms. If it had been a red wave, McCarthy would have had no trouble getting the votes from all of those newly minted House members excited to be in Washington. Instead, the FBI only allowed the GOP to gain a small majority to keep up appearances. That gives this small band of holdouts the chance to throw a wrench in the works of the uniparty.
This brings up the question that no one in the media dares ask. That is, why is it just fifteen members of the party opposing this oleaginous snake? For a long time, we have been told that most of the party is conservative, but the leadership is the problem, always cutting deals with the Democrats. If the conservatives could get control of the leadership, then things would change. It turns out that conservatives are as rare as hen’s teeth in the Republican Party.
The truth is, George Washington was right. No man is so virtuous as to resist the highest bidder and that is axiomatically true in politics. Marjorie Taylor Greene switched teams for the promise of some legitimacy. The party promised to let he pretend to be a serious person in exchange for her support of the uniparty. It turns out that those stories about old Marge being a cheap date were true. It is a good reminder that character is your best guide, even in the sleazy world of politics.
Of course, this whole affair is shining light on a truth about our politics. Democracy is just a show to conceal the real power in society. The holdouts know that they will get nothing from this, even if McCarthy steps aside. The guy who takes his place will be dancing the tune the donors call. Again, for the holdouts, this is not really about principle. They just hate Kevin McCarthy so they are taking their shot. In the end they know the Speaker will be a puppet of the donors.
This affair also suggests that the donors and their puppets in the two parties are tiring of the game of make believe. Once it was clear that the people are too docile to push back against things like lockdowns and mask wearing, no one in charge had any reason to worry about fooling the people with the democracy show. They can have this embarrassing food fight in public, because who cares about the public? Certainly, no one in either party or the pirates that control them.
It is why the right way to view it is as just another carny act on the stage that is liberal democratic politics. It is all sound and fury signifying nothing, but there is no harm in enjoying the suffering of the people made to perform on the stage. Given the age in which we live, expect the holdouts to be bought off or threatened by the FBI and this whole thing comes to end today. McCarthy is human filth, but he does what he is told, so the donors will probably save him.
Even so, there is a lesson for dissidents. Politics is always about friends and enemies, not abstract ideas. The goal is to increase your pool of friends, while limiting the pool of enemies you create in the process. Politics is always personal. Those who go out of their way to create drama and stir up conflict are always bad for your politics, so the best course is to avoid those people. You may not always be able to count on your friends, but you can always count on your enemies.
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If getting McCarthy into the Speaker’s chair (he’s already in the Speaker’s office!) is so goshdarn important, then why don’t 20+ Democrats vote for him on the next ballot?
OT
About something you posted on Gab:
These two idiots tried to get the coach of the soccer teams fired over something that happened thirty years ago.
Yes, the incident they apparently tattled about happened a long time ago — but the reason for the tattling, i.e. trying to get the coach fired, was much more recent: their son plays on the US national team, and for some reason landed in in Berhalter’s doghouse; he got very little playing time at the recent 2022 World Cup in Qatar — if you believe the story making the rounds, the reason the parents tattled is that they were angry about what the felt was the unjust sporting treatment of their son.
In any event it’s a tawdry tale, one fitting of America 2.0.
All True.
I’m not a fan of Gaetz, but I really enjoyed his letter to the Capitol Architect inquiring why a squatter was in the Speaker’s Office. He was another one hung out to dry. The media had him in their sights and McCarthy was nowhere to be found. He only survived by basically getting a junk yard dog lawyer and saying “no I won’t resign and you have no crime.”
McCarthy is a snake, and Fresno is a snake hole.
Notice how the dissenting vote is coal burning for a FL black guy. The GOP is most at home worshiping blacks. I guess it all started around black people, so they’re reverting to tradition.
The GOP is going to its grave how it started, worshiping N- words who’ll never do anything for them.
Sir, you win the internet today.
I can hardly even believe I was born there. What were the damn odds? The old man going through a medical residency – wrong place at the wrong time I guess…
I read that McCarthy just lost his fifth vote. Perhaps I am not cynical enough but I feel some admiration for the dissenters holding out against enormous pressure, including Trump. This admiration is what I feel for anyone fighting valiantly for a foolish cause, but it is still admiration.
Apparently, these dissenters believe strongly in their conservative values. Am I wrong?
I forgot about Z Man’s judgment: “Again, for the holdouts, this is not really about principle. They just hate Kevin McCarthy so they are taking their shot.”
We’re up to six votes that McCarthy lost.
Pingback: DYSPEPSIA GENERATION » Blog Archive » Friends & Enemies
Even the Harlem Globetrotters had to lose occasionally to the Washington Generals. The revolt we are seeing is led by ambition thwarted as much as animosity. Cocaine Mitch and McCarthy threw the election, which means a narrow Republican majority unable to do anything in the House and Dem dominance in the Senate. Which means in turn, corporate donors ignoring Republicans, and just assuming the Democratic Eternal Majority has arrived.
That’s fine for Cocaine Mitch. He’s in his eighties, he won’t even serve out his term. Its not fine for those with ambition who have the misfortune of being born straight White men when those attributes are hated and make them the enemy of the ruling class. What other options do they have? They see their lifetime sinecures fading away, right before their eyes. Committee assignments or worse offices mean nothing as they know they are at best there for only two years before a Democrat takes their place. In order for the con game to work, the mark has to win sometimes. The “fortified” election means Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries run everything, Reps know it, and now the vote has gone to a fourth vote with even more defecting. And an inability to adjourn.
Enough Rinos will defect, join the Democrats, and elect Jeffries as Speaker. Trump who has learned nothing and forgotten nothing has endorsed McCarthy demonstrating his unfitness for office and inability to learn anything.
Meanwhile the question of what to do with White men that have ambition beyond the pod and a bowl of cockroaches every morning has not been answered …
From the inauguration (Jan, ’17) to the midterms the “R” team held the House/Senate/Presidency. McCarthy was speaker when they *cut* funding for immigration enforcement and again when they put language in the “cromnibus” explicitly prohibiting any of the wall prototypes from being built. Yet Trump supports him. (Of course that was nothing compared to the bill they just voted for which prohibits any monies from being spent “to acquire, maintain, or extend border security technology and cababilities.”) It’s all by design. It’s what they want.
trump just keeps digging…
So apparently some black guy named Byron Donalds is the guy who us peeling off McCarthy’s votes?
McCarthy needs to go, but….
The Redingbats will have their own Magic Negro!!
Priceless.
“In Hell right now, Stalin is slapping John McCain on the back why saying, “That’s your boy!””
I laughed out loud on that one.
Okay, as an aside, here’s a bit of harmless anti-Semitic humor:
Why are Germans so obsessed with the idea of getting into heaven? You’d be worried too if there were 6 million Jews waiting for you in hell!
Z, you might be interested in this book reviewed in the WSJ op-ed page today, called “Data Driven.” It’s about longhaulers being hassled ostensibly by government regulation but actually more by their panopticon managerial overlords (who happily leap beyond the gov’s minimal required tracking, treating is a pretext/excuse really). This part in particular evoked the way-we-live-now class-war feel of it: “A dispatcher sitting far away with ELD data on the screen and the Weather Channel on the television may override a trucker’s judgment that the weather is too rough to drive through and order him or her to get on the road.”
Incidentally about the WSJers’ pronoun propriety there: I’m aware of various anecdotal female truckers of course, who tend to look as Bea Arthurish as one would expect, but are they as likely to defy orders from Lawyer HQ as their male counterparts? If you have more women in any given organization the managerial medicine is always going down easier—That’s obviously by design.
This party is done, put a fork in it. I was just watching Fox News and they are now nominating Byron Donalds as Speaker. Who is that you ask? Good question!
He is a numinous negro who is a freshman Congressman. But being the Party of Lincoln™, of course they have to show their non-rayciss cred to their Masters, the Democrats.
So they are actually nominating a freshman congress critter with NO experience based on no other credentials than he is a negro.
Hakeem Jeffries, the democrat, has the most votes, McCarthy, and then this new magic negro are the 3 candidates. Just when you thought Clown World couldn’t get anymore absurd, it does! Maybe let’s just nominate a horse (h/t Caligula) or a dog at this point, why not?!
F-ck this party and f-ck this country. Please let it burn sooner rather than later, I cannot take it anymore.
“always look, on the bright side of life”. Monty Python
little by little you are replaced in all positions with fake narratives to drive it as the NPCs are positioned to clamor for their own annihilation.
I’m voting Comet and Asteroid in ’24.
Easy. Nothing is fucked. You’re being very un-Apex.
It’s like Lenin said: the worse, the better.
Having a dual-leadership deal with not one but two Urban Achievers in the top spots, what could be worse-r than that?
“Easy. Nothing is fucked. You’re being very un-Apex.” omg i can’t stop laughing…
They threw out a ringer for a ringer!! !!
Cheer up, Apex. Byron and Hakeem can decide our nation’s pressing issues with a rap contest.
The Speakership will come in a plain brown rapper.
Putin for Speaker! He’s great at speeches.
I must say, this Byron Donalds character has my full support. Aside from the hilarity that will no doubt ensue under his “leadership,” do y’all realize what this means? They could literally do the meme! When the Donalds-led GOP fails to oppose one single item on the Democrats’ wish list, the Donks can say, with full justification: “He a good boy! He dindu nuffin!”
And I’m pretty sure one of them actually would, because in my darker moments I’m convinced they’re just openly trolling us now.
I followed that link to Eyepatch Dan. Here is what is interesting to me. What I saw there is something you see more and more of. Maybe it was a coincidence. You have Crenshaw and his size 1, snow white assistant, and then from the reporters to the security guards you have Haiti and Bangalore. It is an apt visual.
The radical transformation is well advanced. What is interesting is how this shows how disposable people in the system are. The Hive wants to change color, the order goes out, and faces and the color of them change.
Crenshaw is always the pot calling the kettle black. Last year he was calling his, “enemies”, performers as they took out Liz Cheney and he prepared another on camera lone-wolf Navy Seal Marvel Comic Congressman super hero skydive. Now he is calling them narcissists. I spent a bit of time watching the Claremonters preparation for this. They clearly are housing the faction that does not want McCarthy in and they have some activists very riled up about the FBI abuses.
America got bulldozed and so did the GOP along with it.
I thought these people would be hapless as the economic situation unraveled and expected a three ring circus. I never would have thought that they would have declared themselves illegitimate by calling the nation illegitimate and going after the heritage population with daggers. In prior crisis at least the rhetoric called out to our founding and heritage as sacred and called the people to rally together.
This thing is a suicide mission. I guess those smug and vile vapors of evil that emanated from Obama should’ve been a warning heeded. What is going on here is incredible. The managerial class has given up. It is fitting that the boomers final act is just a re-enactment of the draft/responsible evading, flag burning, anti-American, self-indulgent hippie love fest having college tantrums that they ushered themselves onstage with 6 decades ago.
One green shoot is Eyepatch McCain was outed as a fraud and Deep State shill fairly quickly. The downside is he did get re-elected, but his national prospects are nil.
and that says a lot about Texas. just like McConnell’s re-elections say a lot about Kentucky. nothing truly revelatory, just un-needed confirmation of how things really are.
The normiecons I encounter with their slava ukraini attitudes give me regular reminders
Ain’t that the truth. Most of them could not immediately find Ukraine on a map however they are sure that Putin is at fault.
This Crenshaw cretin has the most republican district in the Houston area. Alas they are all civic nationalists and sports enthusiasts who lap up the MSM. His voters still think of him as a war hero and will never learn the truth no matter how often he outs himself as NWO flunky.
Jack: Thing is people (not meaning you) need to bear Crenshaw and Cornyn (not to mention Abbott) in mind when they wax rhapsodic about Texas’ freedumbs. This state is demographic toast and we cannot wait to leave.
PeriheliusLux: “It is fitting that the boomers final act is just a re-enactment of the draft/responsible evading, flag burning, anti-American, self-indulgent hippie love fest having college tantrums that they ushered themselves onstage with 6 decades ago.”
SILENT: Nancy Patricia Pelosi, née D’Alesandro, born March 26, 1940
SILENT: Addison Mitchell McConnell III, born February 20, 1942
SILENT: Joseph Robinette Biden Jr, born November 20, 1942
BOOMER: Charles Ellis Schumer, born November 23, 1950
BOOMER: Jerome Hayden “Jay” Powell, born February 4, 1953
BOOMER: John Glover Roberts Jr, born January 27, 1955
At the rate we’re going, the Silents might hang on until circa January 20th, 2028.
Believe it or not, the Boomers still do not have full control of the gubmint.
Boomers gonna boom for a long, long time yet [pace the V@xxines].
GenY & Millennials & GenZ gonna hafta be very patient [and remain PureBlooded] if they wanna live to see power.
Heck, we only got rid of near-GREATEST Barbara Wa Wa [born September 25, 1929] just the other day.
Young Blood Adrenochrome does wonders for longevity.
This is going a little overboard with the generational distinctions. People born within 15 yrs of each other, most of them less, are not that far apart, regardless of where one draws the generational line.
Might do you some good to update your prejudices. Nearly half the USSC is already GenX. More than half of Congress. Most of the appellate branch. Most of the leaders of industry. But that’s to be expected when the leading edge of the Boomers are pushing 80.
No matter how evil Boomers are, they age at the rate of one year per year, too.
Steve: “Might do you some good to update your prejudices.”
Bro, I’m not sure what you mean about prejudices; I’m just describing what I’m seeing.
And if the SILENTS are still running the show [which they are], then you’ve gotta acknowledge the fact.
Heck, I didn’t even mention SILENT Charles Grassley [born September 17, 1933].
Do you think BOOMER Willard Mitt Romney [born March 12, 1947] has any intention of retiring in the next twelve or sixteen years? Do you think there’s any senator whom Willard would not character-assassinate [or ackshually violently-murder-assassinate, with the aid of the Deep State], in order to succeed B!tch McConnell, when B!tch finally decides to retire in another ten years?
We’ve still got BOOMERS waiting patiently for the frigging SILENTS to get out of the way.
Heck, MILLENNIAL Alexandria Ocasio Donkey-Chompers [born October 13, 1989] ain’t gonna be supplanting GENX Hakeem Jeffries [born August 4, 1970] anytime soon.
Obviously CW-II/WW-III could change things in the blink of an eye.
But at the snail’s pace we’re moving right now, Alexandria Ocasio Donkey-Chompers better be planning on living almost all the way to the 22nd Century if she wants to become Speakerette of the House.
“Once it was clear that the people are too docile to push back against things like lockdowns. . .”
In some defense of the people, they were starting to push back on lockdowns and the “flatten the curve” nonsense.
But then the other hammer was dropped and the media/government unleashed the Floyd rights to smack them back down. Nothing less than ruthless state-sponsored terror. This is what we live under; it’s what we’ve *always* lived under.
Another in a long list of Brutal Truths by Z Man. What makes this current situation even more vitriolic than 1860 is the racial/ethnic stew that has been stirred up over the past 50 years. That guy you merely hated a hundred years ago is now someone you want buried alive. This is getting uglier by the day. The New Class don’t play by the old rules.
they might not play by the old rules, but is suspect they are going to be surprised when they get the old results.
There’s rules?
🙄
Progess is evident. The “risk” of the anti-McCarthy gambit is that some Republicans could be induced to defect and support Jefferies, and he becomes Speaker while there is an R majority. The progress is that the base and the GOP holdouts correctly recognize that this isn’t a risk at all. A mere 10 years ago, taking such a “risk” would have been unthinkable.
“ It is why the right way to view it is as just another carny act on the stage that is liberal democratic politics. It is all sound and fury signifying nothing,”
Perhaps. No argument with your conclusions, but they seem a bit nihilistic. Andy Biggs is our Congress critter. He is often on the air here in the State. He was on the air here this morning. He was questioned as to the current situation. His answer was succinct and simple. He described the current problem with the Rep’s and especially the front runner for speaker McCarthy—basically that McCarthy is a swamp animal who is way too friendly with the opposition, Dem’s. He ended quickly with another simple conclusion, if you want change you start at the top. Biggs promised to never vote for McCarthy.
Now I don’t argue with your observation, Z-man. Only to point out that, as foolhardy as it may be, there are in Congress 20 representatives who seem to recognize the problem and are willing (at this point) to sacrifice their Congressional careers and die on that hill. (And they are putting their careers at risk as they are threatened directly with retaliation.). Biggs states that there has to be a compromise Speaker candidate that can be found among the 238 Rep’s in the House.
I agree with him, but am not overly optimistic. The trad Rep’s on the air are fuming over these few “malcontents”. They also prove your observation Z-man, that the Parties don’t care about the voters. Hugh Hewitt has gone so far as to call these Rep voters who support the “rebellion” as ignorant and not to be listened to. In short, marginalizing them.
There is no joy in this observation for me, only a teaching moment.
Hopefully if Russia attacks us, the first nuke will land in DC and the second in Manhattan. Hopefully, I’ll live long enough to make some popcorn.
and the third in San Francisco (which with any look, will pick up a ‘spare’ and get Newsom in Sacramento).
You forgot Boston.
Gospodin ICBM will be so spoiled for choice, that he might just spaz out and explode over Topeka.
Guess it depends on who is on the air. In my parts, it’s the opposite. The on-air ire is directed towards McCarthy and Crenshaw.
In the end, your Mr. Biggs will cuck just like they all do. Don’t believe a single word, including “if,” “and”, and “the,” that issues from the alimentary aperture of a politician in Our Democracy.
Perhaps, but there are any number of those type in the “Freedom Caucus” and they’ve been fighting the good fight for years. They will never suit you because you won’t accept working within the process.
Losing the battle is not the same as surrendering. To paint 100% of anything with the same brush is perhaps too broad a stroke. It’s easy to sit on the sideline and scoff. My hopes are limited as well, but I wish all those who fight the good fight well.
I think all of this is theater. The holdouts will soon give in and McCarthy will be speaker. Business as usual in Washington.
The holdouts have to be bought. It seems clear at this point they aren’t going to cave just from threats. The fact that this is the first time this has happened in 100 years is notable.
This friends/enemies distinction is only partially true. There’s got to be some glue to hold a dissident movement together. You mention forming local Jared Taylor/AmRen clubs similar to other such clubs that begin with fellowship but are then sustained by common values that transcend selling one’s soul to the highest bidder. The test is what happens to those values when these dissident groups begin to exercise some power however limited in scope.
I just hope these clubs don’t have a ready-made association with names like Taylor or AmRen. Why add baggage right out of the gate?
What does an Elks Club or Moose Club stand for? Whatever the members decide. But the names themselves give no hints.
Would the Screw the Hutus Club be a dead giveaway?
Where do I sign up!
I’d be willing to make an exception in that case.
Today’s post is a brutal expose´ of what ails us as a nation and a government. Yes, it’s bad and getting worse. Cocaine Mitch is back in business and proudly backstabbing the dirt people everywhere. Should McCarthy find a way to backstab his way to the Speakership, this will complete the doom cycle that began in 2020. So what is the silverlining in this fiasco? We get to the bottom faster. And that means less harm to innocents and a faster rebound.
Soon politics will become a sideshow to the coming Russian Army offensive that will finally put an end to the Ukraine mess and the mRNA genocide should reach critical mass in the next few months as well. And all the normies will be flabbergasted by the speed with which their world of affluence collapses around them. Reality is about to hit like a 2×4 upside the forehead. I sincerely hope that everyone on this board is well prepared, because it’s about to get interesting.
It seems to me that the destruction of the middle class has been continuing for decades, unabated. And 98 percent of the youth are happy (or their equivalent) to be locked in hovels, rent-slaves, owning nothing and caring even less. Inflation has been pernicious since the 60’s. People are not going to wake up. For most people, anyone who drops dead died of myocarditis, which (in their view) is perfectly natural for 20 year olds. There is not going to be a moment when 50 percent of the vaccinated drop dead. Simply, there will be some more death. As there has been. And it will continue the slow process of enslavement. It’s frog-boiling. And most will never notice. There is no second coming, no revelation. The Beast has been born and slouched off. No one seemed to notice. If they did, there would have been revolts in 2008. There would have been revolts with the 401k fiasco several years ago. Cue crickets. Nothing will change, except for the gradually decreased standards of living that most will not notice, except to beg for more gimmes from the overlords.
Look at the crimes, openly bragged and aired, by our overlords. They reveal what they do – even including their child sacrifice and abuse rituals. Look into the Podesta emails and that recent Balenciaga. They rub this in our noses because we are so processed and overstimulated we do not care. They reveal their methods to us, and we are titillated for a moment, then we pass. Pure apathy. J. Alfred Prufrock. Dopamine addicts. Utter paralysis.
That’s why they believe we are worthy of dying. They have initiated us into their belief system (seriously – think of the knowledge of occult that has been implanted into the pop culture), and our failure to further progress results in earned destruction.
We are the eloi.
i don’t think the vaxx holocaust is frog boiling. it’s not a big kaboom either, but it is accelerating like a truck losing it’s brakes on a mountain road. and it is claiming plenty of cloud people along the way.
I agree. The scamdemic and the medical “authorities” have suffered greatly. Perhaps the last bastion of government prestige has been lost/breached.
Heretofore, we listened to the medical authorities–they were after all looking toward our best interest. Sure 50%+ of the populace still thinks they have our best interest at heart. But those are not pre-scamdemic levels.
As the data rolls in, they will suffer even more loss of authority And as the CDC, HHS, NIH, WHO and the other involved alphabet health agencies fall, they’ll take with them others–like big pharma and the NEA.
Anything that shakes the establishment and disillusions a sleeping populace benefits our side. Baby steps.
Venting/ranting is good for stress relief, so have at it. And there’s a lot of truth in what you’ve posted, but don’t allow yourself to give in to despair and defeatism. That is how they win. If nothing else, get a few #10 cans of pork & beans for the larder and sit by the front door with your Remington 700 at the ready. At the very least, you can give ’em Hell in your last stand.
I have a front row seat to the future of America. I mourn for my daughters. I still live my life; it does not stress me. But I think most posters here are out of touch with the reality of the youth. I am excellent at my job and very well liked (“of the year” nominated every year). I like the young folks. But I have worked for long enough to see the trend, and I have worked in three distinct places across the country, and the trends are horrifying. And they are accelerating. And it is sad, as I like most kids, but they are being poisoned, and no viable options exist for the majority.
Eloi
Good posts, but in the end, there are always options for the young. It all depends on how one wants to live.
important words,
Still, we need to walk in these areas to know (or imagine) how bad things can get in order to hopefully deal with them should they come to fruition. I am not the most empathetic person and I think this protects me from the gloom getting any significant hold on my morale… it’s more like I’ve noticed a new pattern in how the ants are organising. They might still consume me but at least I won’t be surprised and be out of supplies for the Remington.
I’ve been hearing this “The-end-is-coming-soon!” talk for at least the last 10 years. I remain unconvinced.
This is exactly my point. The end is already here. It is either the end of the beginning, or the beginning of the end. But the downward slope has been occurring, and most do not notice.
Well, America formally ended directly Biden was inaugurated. I truly believe future historians–if literacy survives the looming apocalypse–will record that moment as the date of America’s death, just as July 4, 1776 was its birthdate. And, of course, America didn’t just suddenly up and die when Biden was sworn in. His inauguration simply punctuated a terminal process more than 50 years in the making.
But the true collapse, the period in which society disintegrates and anarchy reigns, has yet to arrive and I really don’t think it’s just around the bend as many dissidents do. What passes for a semi-functional America may well persist another 40 years. If so, odds are pretty good I won’t live to see our Americageddon.
for a start, once energy delivery is gone, most of the midwest, upper midwest, and new england become depopulated. a lot of the third worlders will walk back to their home countries once the carcass here is picked clean. and the nigs will be long gone too. guess which race is best cold adapted?
The most notable aspect of this clown show is the spectacular lack of talent among this generation of pols. The absolute sh*t has risen to the top. Say what you will about Newt Gingrich and Dick Armey, but you cannot compare McCarthy or any of these current GOP jokers with them in terms of brains and talent.
It’s now blindingly obvious that the System doesn’t want anyone talented anywhere near the levers of power. McConnell has at least animal cunning, as did Pelosi, so they were kept in place since it was too much work to get rid of them and it was easier to pay them off. The younger people are total clowns from central casting and this is by design.
Government has been outsourced to lobbyists and staffers. They are very smart; even Maxine Waters has very smart staffers. They write the bills and do the work. The pol clowns preen for the cameras. This is a very convenient arrangement for the MIC and the Corporate overlords. Think WWE wrestling…….
The problem is that the System risks losing credibility, as you would think Joe Griller will never believe that Kevin McCarthy and Joe Biden can run the country. So it’s an experiment in how far they can push the outer limits of credibility. AS Neil Howe (Fourth Turning) has observed, eventually you get to a crisis and there’s no talent available to confront it.
I totally agree there is a spectacular lack of talent, but don’t think it matters at the moment. The need to keep up a good appearance has passed when the likes of Biden and Fetterman can be used as the face of the Regime. When the inevitable crisis comes and things implode, that may matter greatly, but at least for the present it does not. The oligarchs who control us are living in the moment now.
Does Joe Griller really believe Biden or McCarthy run the country? My assumption is J. Griller believes (or at least hopes) Biden and McCarthy have competent staffers somewhere. No sane person could honestly believe these clowns run anything – I thought that, at least, was common knowledge.
I don’t think Joe Griller knows or give a fuck about who runs the country. All he cares about is his favorite sportsball Negro having a heart attack on the field.
He’s damn sure that the vaxx had nothing to do with it, though… only a nut would believe that
Joe Griller will care about such things as we do here when he can’t make the nut at the end of the month. What you decry is the Boomer generation that still has the wherewithal to survive in these times to a disproportional degree as compared to other cohorts.
There is a sea change coming. Boomers are dying off and their children are not doing as well are they did when taking over from the “Greatest Generation”. I see this with frequency. This–coupled with immigration of even less able people–and trouble lies down the road.
I am coining a new word “lessables”. The test is can they make change backwards in their heads.
when money is literally free for the power mongers, paying off the likes of a pelosi comes at…zero cost.
Looks like pureblood non-citizens are banned from entering the US until at least April 2023. Novak Djokovic will miss another tournament.
The charade continues from the White House. All of Europe, and even most places in Asia allow purebloods, some with no restrictions, some with a negative test requirement.
I thought we (USA) allow non-positives in at this time, but do no require vaccination. Can anyone clarify?
Citizens are allowed in and out freely.
Non citizens must provide proof of full vaccination against COVID before boarding a plane, or while crossing a land border. Very limited exceptions apply. Testing is not accepted as an alternative.
It’s on the CBP and DHS websites. Most Americans have no idea this is still in place.
“Citizens are allowed in and out freely”. for now. i was wondering about this after i saw the notice of requiring vaxx to enter the country.
Indonesia continues to be dumb on jabs since their leader is a WEF-approved technocrat.
There are probably some good lessons for us from Indonesia. Even when they had one of their own, Suharto, ruling with an iron fist, he didn’t expell the moneyed foreigners (Han) who control much of the nation’s institutions and economy. What hope do we have that a modern Pinochet would adequately deal with the foreign tribe in our own lands?
Maybe we have reached our Crisis of the Third Century stage. Obviously, the voters are no longer in charge, if they ever were, but who wants to run the show and who do the other power players feel comfortable letting run the show.
The interesting thing about the crisis period was that the system was falling apart, but there wasn’t really another system or group that everyone felt comfortable replacing the current system with, so it just staggered on.
Quite obviously, looking at Biden’s cabinet, we know which group runs the show on topics which they care about, but I’m not so sure the small hats really want to run the whole show. Middlemen going to middle, so to speak. OTOH, they’ve definitely taken off the mask for foreign policy, finance and the media.
What’s going on with West, Musk and others is very open.
However, are the other factions – agencies, military, non-choosen billionaires, etc. – ready to completely hand over the keys to the tribe. I’m not so sure, especially on something like Ukraine which can get us all killed. And, again, I’m not so sure the tribe really wants to all of the keys. You think they care about transportation policy.
But no other group in Washington has more power and could take over the show, nor am I sure that they really want to take over. They want control over their area, but there’s no grand plan.
Then, there’s the fact that this is a huge – like, really, huge – country. Washington can’t control everything, everywhere.
The system staggers on with various factions controlling different parts, but nobody in full control, in part because nobody could take full control and in part because no faction really knows what it would do with the system if it was in control. Nobody has some big plan for the way that they want the country; they just want to control the parts of policy that they care about and to protect that control.
This is pretty spot on. Every once in a while we get a whiff of internal divisions, but who is who and why is murky. The political/administrative figures are puppets and dutiful whores, obviously, but there seem to be divisions among the oligarchs who control them. For example, the small hats seem pissed that China won’t let them run the show, and the Bezos types want to make nice with the PRC.
It cannot and will not hold like this, but that doesn’t mean one group doesn’t eventually get the upper hand. I hope to see Gulfstreams heading for Tel Aviv, but that doesn’t necessarily mean the best possible outcome, either. As you write, this country is vast and we already seeing cracks and divisions among the jurisdictions. That’s probably the best hope, a peaceful and relatively bloodless separation.
The tribe cares about the Middle East, Israel, Russia, Wall Street, real estate, Hollywood and turning the US into a multi-everything bazaar where no group is powerful enough to threaten them.
That’s pretty much it. Sure, they enjoy a good hate-whitey escapade here and there, but they still want to live around us.
They have no grand plan for the US, so they’re happy to let other groups run the actual store outside of their areas of concern.
I’m not even that sure that the tribe care about China outside of China threatening their stranglehold on global finance. You really think the tribe cares about our industrial base and the heartland? No way. China is a threat to the dollar/treasury system, which is the banking system, which is controlled by the tribe.
China/Russia/India is the first real threat to their global banking power in 150 years. Granted, the dollar remains supreme for now and for at least a decade, but you can see how it might be challenged.
People don’t understand that the banks create money, and therefore, control the world. Sure, Western govts and central banks could reign them in, but guess who control them? But the tribe doesn’t control China or Russia or India.
Ukraine isn’t the big threat to the tribe. It’s not controlling the global banking system. That’s always been the foundation of their power and still is.
A couple of years back there was a shift in the Tribe’s attitude toward China. Whether correctly or not, that seems to have been the Tribe first felt that its stranglehold on the global banking system was imperiled. The propaganda organs went from Good China to Bad China overnight. Super junk peddlers like Bezos, though, are still on team Good China.
I’m no China expert, but I’d guess that Xi taking full control and kicking out the pro-Western elements in the party.
Before then, the hope was that China would join the global trade/banking system, much as Japan had done. No, the tribe doesn’t control Japan’s banks, but it control the dollar/treasury system that the Japanese banks rely upon.
Xi made clear that China would not be controlled by “Western” powers. That’s why he’s trying to move toward a more domestic based economy and to have separate relations with energy producers. And, most importantly, break away from the dollar/treasury global banking/trade system.
Btw, he’s not even close to achieving those goals, but the fact that he’s talking about them openly makes him target #1.
It’s the banks. Xi is threatening the tribe’s stranglehold on the banking system. Btw, no, the tribe doesn’t directly control the banks. Look at the CEOs. As Z notes, if anyone controls the banking system, it’s Irish Americans. 😉
But the tribe controls the bank regulators, the banking committees in DC and the Fed. Now, how long will this control last? I don’t know. Again, they’re no longer running the banks directly, so their power base is more in DC and related to their control of donor money and the media.
The truth is that the tribe’s grip on control is slipping and the next generation coming up isn’t even close to as skilled as the generation that will move on over the next decade.
Bezos gets his power from peddling China’s junk; other tribe members get their power from controlling world finance. Hence the rift: Merchants vs Bankers.
The Tribe had been in the process of pivoting to China for at least 20 years. Remember when we loved us some China?
They were going to move in and take charge of China’s financial system. Remember the Potemkin Villages in China? Well Xi put a stop to that. So now the West is against China.
China is a vampire society anyway, as the Z Man pointed out previously. They should never have been permitted to join the WTO.
What’d really be hilarious is if the jogger hakeem jeffries somehow shucked and jived his way to the speakership. Don’t know if that’s actually possible, but a dem speaker with a gop/e house majority would probably be a s*** show.
usNthem: Absolutely. I cannot share anyone’s concern about anything in politics, because as Zman wisely notes, it’s all sound and fury signifying nothing. The moneymen and the string pullers will continue to do what they do in the concerns that matter to them, as Citizen has also noted. The rest is merely a tempest in a teapot, or a carny show, and I will take my sh*ts and giggles where I can find them.
When I saw the headline about McCarthy losing the first and second ballot, I guffawed. Of course it changes nothing for the average person – and the system of over-paid bureaucrats and staffers who actually write the ‘laws’ will continue to function as the shell that it is. I just cannot comprehend how anyone can look at this and say that voting or politics matters at all regarding their everyday life and the future of their family.
No one is coming to save you. The congressional holdouts aren’t your heroes, although they certainly provide a lovely outlet for some spleen. “Your” congressman and “your” city council and “your” schoolboard know who and what they work for, and the mythic ‘voter’ does not factor into it. But for most foolish people, hope springs eternal. I can only repeat, No One is Coming to Save You. Meantime, enjoy the theater and laugh where you can. Hakeem Jeffries is perfectly suitable in an admin with people like “Admiral” Levine. Honk honk.
the speaker vote is kind of like the 2023 version of Battle of The Alamo. the script almost writes itself.
McCarthy also backstabbed Madison Cawthorn for showing up in DC and talking in public about the place. I felt bad for the kid as they destroyed him.
It really was “Mr Smith goes to Washington”, without the happy ending.
Something else this reveals is the end of the Republican Party even as controlled opposition. Something to bear in mind is the it already was dead at the conclusion of the George W. Bush administration. By sheer luck Trump kept the plug from being pulled.
The GOP will cease to exist as a national thing come 2024 despite the State’s best efforts to keep the controlled opposition intact. Will there be a rush to mandate voting? That could backfire spectacularly.
Apparently McCarthy took the holdouts to a room after the first vote and read them the Riot Act, and got an additional defector for his troubles. The fact that clown thought he could intimidate the Reps shows his lack of anything resembling leadership.
For some reason the scene in Rocky where Creed’s trainer shouts “He doesn’t know it’s a damn show he thinks it’s a damn fight” comes to mind.
McCarthy is stupid as well as sleazy. Regardless of how this shakes out, he’s toast.
Rule #1 of leadership:
Never give an order that won’t be followed, or you can’t force someone to follow.
For dissident politics to make any headway, the Republican Party must destroy itself first. This shitshow in Tubman is showing how threadbare the Vichy Right is, and I applaud it.
At this point, I wouldn’t rule out a reprise of the threats and fistfights or a full on Preston Brooks style beatdown of the 1850s US Congress, only fake, gay and geriatric.
These clowns are too old to wield a cane and too stupid to see it is coming. Win/win. The oligarchy needs younger and smarter help, but the oligarchy ain’t what it used to be, either.
It is remarkably similar to the 1850’s, and Z is onto something with the TR analogy, too.
Scooter jousting is the only way forward
Even the most brutal dictator can’t rule by force alone. To use the phrase our rulers have been out there parroting, there needs to be a stochastic element. Too much killing and all of the generals band together out of fear of the randomness of the leader coming for them. Too little killing and they start to think it might be wise to take a shot at the king while he’s weak. Saddam’s Comrade’s Massacre/ Public Purge in 1979 was a pretty good example of letting the politicians know it could happen to you but didn’t have to. It was also less creepy than seeing Zelensky unfurl the flag in Congress while wearing his green pajamas.
I really wish Trump had been all of the horrible things that his critics hallucinated he was. If he had a shot—the human capital or at least a moment to strike when the system was most vulnerable—he blew it with the January Six protest, which became a coup for the system after the feds lured those suckers into the kill zone. I imagine, though, there is enough military brass—and agents in the various alphabet bureaus—disgusted enough that they’re watching and waiting, and hoping, just like us. Sane communiques keep accidentally leaking out of hotbeds of madness, from the university to Silicon Valley.
Nobody ever wants to be the first person to charge a hill, and you can’t blame them. Ashley Babbitt’s crime was crawling through a broken window and the Dindu who snuffed her got a metal.
I still have visions like the Braveheart moment when the people storm the local governor’s stronghold. Not that it would be physical in nature but an “archers to the towers” moment on Capitol Hill would be quite pleasing.
Actually we should direct our attention more on the FBI headquarters.
The Taliban pretty much lost every battle they fought against the federal armed forces. Yet, the US government pulled it’s forces out of Afghanistan.
The lesson is that you don’t fight the government where it’s strong, but where it’s weak. The contiguous US is huge, population density is low, and armed state and federal check-drawers are less than 2% of the population. As long as you reside away from the coasts, outside a major city, you can effectively ignore the federal government.
The lowest-risk strategies for fighting the federal government are to reduce your federal tax load (i.e. make a point of engaging in income or revenue strategies that legally reduce the amount you owe, including taking a pay cut if feasible) and finding ways to avoid taxable activity (i.e. finding ways to stay clothed or eat that don’t require money, like sewing or gardening).
It’s obviously not very cathartic to withdraw from the federal social and economic order, but side-stepping the federal government is very crucial to it’s downfall. It’s impossible to resist an entity on whose health and goodwill you rely, so find a way to stop relying on it.
‘You know you never defeated us on the battlefield,’ said the American colonel.
The North Vietnamese colonel pondered this remark a moment. ‘That may be so,’ he replied, ‘but it is also irrelevant.’”
from On Strategy, by the American Colonel, Harry G. Summers Jr.
joeyjunger: Totally agree. What still gets me about the Jan 6 suckers, though, are reports that they patriotically sing the Anthem in their dindu-run prison. How are they any different than those who purchased Trump trading cards, or the average voter? Even after being unjustly imprisoned and sentenced and forgotten by the average ‘citizen,’ they still believe in the inherent ‘goodness’ and ‘justice’ of the system. Most people just shuffle through life on autopilot, and they always prefer fantasy to reality. “If the Tsar only knew . . . “
It’ll be interesting, watching the Uniparty sic the FBI on the malcontents. Wonder which page of the huge files of dirt they no doubt possess on everyone will be “leaked” first?
I have a question for you; At what point do the security services start thinking they have the whip hand? America really has been exceptional in that our armed forces have been largely apolitical. Even Brazil’s military made some noises when Bolsonaro’s reelection was stolen — they might or might not have supported Bolsonaro, but they were flexing a bit. I’m amazed the AINO military hasn’t tried something similar, especially now that so many troops are pulled back from the latest failed imperial war.
Same deal with the FBI. They’ve always been nakedly political; they just 1) had a better PR department back in the days, and 2) had the good sense to confine their politicking to the Swamp. But now that they’re openly harassing goofballs like the My Pillow guy as Enemies of The Regime, how long before they start openly issuing diktats?
I imagine there’s something very much like a Death of Stalin situation going on in Washington right now, since Brandon is a vegetable, but the masks are dropping rapidly. What’s your take? Will we see the security forces openly creating and deposing “barracks emperors” anytime soon?
If the FBI was going to blackmail the holdouts, that would have happened by now. My read is they have no interest in this, other than maybe getting Jim Jordan into the speakership. That would remove him from the oversight committee where he has promised to hold hearings about the FBI.
My read on the FBI is that it is camp runamuck. Much like Twitter, the competent people have been swamped by political cranks, weirdos and trouble makers. The man at the top is just riding the tiger. The people at the top simply care about being on good terms with the White House and DOJ.
We saw a DOJ/FBI schism with the raid on Mar-A-Lago. After Garland authorized the raid on Trump’s home, Wray just up and went on vacation while it took place. It’s not like Wray wouldn’t rape and murder a child and then take the pennies out of its eyes, but he understood that raid could come back to haunt him. After all, much of what is going down in the Speaker contest is the result of Wray and Garland going after Gaetz and coming up short. I suspect Garland was the top in that relationship and Wray didn’t enjoy it.
Curiously one of the people involved in the Gaetz affaire was someone from the Israeli Embassy.
Something I find extraordinary is that the FBI/Deep State did take an unsuccessful kill shot at Matt Gaetz, who survived charges against him of banging teenagers. Gaetz is the ringleader in the movement against McCarthy, and the apparent reason is he wants a commitment to destroy the FBI and correctly feels ol’ Kevin ain’t up for it.
It may be kabuki, but man it is unbelievable such could happen in this totalitarian age.
As for the military, it is ready to roll the moment the State decides it is time for the Cossacks to ride. Remember, it was active in the failed impeachment of Trump and refused to follow his orders to put down the Floyd revolution. The next step is obvious.
Also the idea that the US military being not too political is unique to the US!
Netherlands,UK, Canada ,Australi,New Zealand, Scandinavians
As Moldbug reminded us, Augustus didn’t say he was a king, but that’s what he was. Augustus allowed the Roman people the pretense that they still had a republic even after he had effectively demoted the Senate to an advisory board, and this arrangement proved so useful that it lasted over 500 years, until Justinian finally dispensed with the fiction around the time he opened Haghia Sophia.
I’d imagine that’s more or less the plan for us. The people who are really in power are perfectly willing to pay 535 stooges a fat paycheck to be the ones to take rotten vegetables to the face when the angry peasants get fed up. I doubt that anyone important is in a hurry for that arrangement to change.
That seems like a good plan, but it wasn’t real smooth in the Roman case — for instance, that whole “century of nonstop civil war” thing in the 200s.
And that’s exactly what precipitated the “Crisis of the Third Century” — the security forces asked themselves why they bothered with the “legitimate” succession procedure when they could just create the Emperor from among their own.
It’s wiki, I know, but I’ll just leave this here:
“The situation of the Roman Empire became dire in 235. Many Roman legions had been defeated during a previous campaign against Germanic peoples raiding across the borders, while the emperor Severus Alexander had been focused primarily on the dangers from the Sassanid Empire. Leading his troops personally, the emperor resorted to diplomacy and accepting tribute to pacify the Germanic chieftains quickly, rather than military conquest. According to Herodian this cost Severus Alexander the respect of his troops, who may have felt that more severe punishment was required for the tribes that had intruded on Rome’s territory.[12] The troops assassinated Severus Alexander and proclaimed the new emperor to be Maximinus Thrax, commander of one of the legions present.”
You’ll have to make allowances for everything being so ludicrously Fake and Gay now, but the parallels are obvious.
“Fake and gay” wouldn’t even begin to describe an Emperor Lloyd Austin.
Whoever, maybe Wray, is the Beria in that show should remember how it ended for him. You have to believe that eventually they will start eating each other.
Yep. “The Revolution eats her children.” A Robespierre awaits, as do the tools of his trade.
The regime leadership is weak, relying on the self-defense mechanisms of it’s “blob” to keep everyone in line. That certainly isn’t “nothing”, but it doesn’t keep some faceless Putin-style GAE agent from pondering some interesting possibilities.
Of interest is the twenty guys the Germans thought might overthrow their government. On one hand it’s ridiculous to think that not even two dozen guys could overthrow a western government, but on the other hand, it kind of wouldn’t have been very surprising either.
I shamefully haven’t followed it closely, but was the alleged German coup attempt just another 1/6 puppet show or the real thing? I thought it was the former because of the humiliation the United States inflicted on Germany by blowing up NS II and the fuel and food shortages that will materialize over the Ukraine war.
It’s a massive show of force against literally nothing, like sending a Panzerregiment to put down a veterans’ lodge.
Every globohomo country seems obliged to do its own version of Trudeau’s out-of-uniform military attack on the truckers, the ’20-’21 US coup (fully uniformed), the French government cracking Yellow skulls, the Dutch shooting at the farmers, etc.
Finland is late to its NATO initiation rite, and it’s hard to predict it. The only protest there, ever, is a state-sanctioned Muslim riot. The country’s leaders are threatening to starve the people, as is now standard, and the Finns shrug. They’ll *really* have to fake it.
Wondering if the attempts of the FBI to entrap Gaetz with a minor has something to do with this also. Rest assured, if McCarthy did what he did to King while sleeping well at night, I wouldn’t put it past McCarthy to be a part of that caper also. At that point, Burn It All down is the only reasonable option left.
The reactions on the right have ben hilarious, the professional pundits are grasping their pearls complaining about all the great things a GOP house could do (lol), while normal people are just laughing at the chaos. They don’t even care who’s speaker, it’s Joker mode all the way down. Such mindsets are contagious too, and this show might be the first cracks to a massive break of legitimacy in all our major institutions.
The FBI/DOJ attempt to frame Gaetz looms large here. Probably the worse thing that could happen to McCarthy is to somehow win.
Chet: From your lips to God’s ears.
Also the Senate Republicans passed the catastrophic Omnibus bill on their way out. That bill made this House irrelevant until October 1st.
So really why should we care about any of goings on in the House? It would probably be better if there was effectively no House for as long as possible.
i can only imagine how aroused the civnats are, over this puppet show. high fives and hand jobs all around.
Yeah, first they get Roe v Wade overturned. Then the GOP barely won the Senate. Then they get Title 42 extended. Trump is running again. Elon is owning the libs. Now they got Kevin McCrappy on the skids! Yee-haw!
GOP barely won the House and barely lost the Senate
I’m enjoying the hell out of this shitshow and I’m hardly a CivNat. It’s like opera for the mentally retarded.
You are, of course, the exception.