Brain Dead Idiots

If you were around in the 1980’s and old enough to have noticed politics, then you probably recall the smug satisfaction of liberals when they criticized Ronald Reagan and the people who supported him. You see, conservatives were uneducated rubes easily fooled by a jocular actor who took naps during the day. Smart and educated people were not fooled by this stuff. It was mostly a coping strategy, of course, as Reagan was wildly popular so liberals could only grumble.

The claim was not entirely without support. For most of the 20th century it was the Left that could claim intellectual rigor. Smart people went into various forms of liberal politics and churned out new ideas and proposals. From the New Deal to the Great Society, liberal intellectuals drove American politics. It was in the 1980’s when that started to change, and the right started to be the place where smart people went to debate the issues of the day and the polices to address those issues.

In fairness, there were very smart people on the Right prior to the Reagan years, but it was a small club. James Burnham, for example, wrote his foundational work during the Second World War. Bill Buckley was challenging the Left in the 1960’s. In other words, there were conservative intellectuals before the 1980’s. It is just that Reagan’s success worked to legitimize the right as an intellectual endeavor, which in turn brought in waves of young smart people.

The truth is the American Left never recovered from the civil rights era. The arc of American progressivism begins with demands to end slavery and ends with the demand that fat naked men have a right to wave their genitals in your face. While it is reasonable to say that the Left is degenerate and evil, the reason they embrace this stuff is that they are morons. The Left is now dominated by credentialed idiots who think being loud and obnoxious is the peak of humans thought.

As is their nature, however, the people who continue to identify as conservative followed their friends on the Left into idiocy. There was a time when the flagship publication of conservatism, National Review, sported some of the smartest and most original thinkers and critics in the country. That was a long time ago. Today you will find jarringly stupid posts like this one. That post is an echo of this longer and much dumber post in something called Law & Liberty.

There was a time when a phrase like “right-wing Marxism” would have been met with howls of laughter. The reason is the term is ridiculous. More important, there was a time when conservatives knew enough about Marxism and what it meant to be right-wing to know the term is ridiculous. The person who posted that item at National Review does not know this. The author of the source item seems to think the word “Marxism” is just another word for “bad.”

Putting aside the stupidity of the key phrase, the original article is riddled with errors that should have been noticed by the editor. An easy example is his claims about Russell Kirk, who has been forgotten by modern conservatives. The reason National Review types sent Kirk down the memory hole is he sided with the paleos. He proudly supported George Wallace, for example. Kirk was also the Michigan chairman of the Pat Buchanan campaign.

The author of that Law & Liberty article is either an idiot or a liar. He clearly does not understand the material. He does not know the history of the intellectual tradition that he is claiming to defend. Worse yet, his main argument is that the paleos were unpopular, which is proof they were wrong. There is no form of conservatism that claims truth is determined by popular consent. In fact, the rejection of that idea is the very first principle of conservatism as presented by Russell Kirk!

This brings us back to where we started. There was a time when conservatism was a vibrant and dynamic intellectual space. There was room for Sam Francis to critique Russel Kirk and a place for Mel Bradford to rebut the claims of Harry Jaffa. Those days are long gone now as conservatism has suffered from a long brain drain. What has replaced it is a narrow conformism. Dimwits like Bobby Miller and Michael Lucchese are now what passes for conservative thought.

Proof that the universe has a sense of humor, this state of affairs was predicted by many of those old paleos hated by modern conservatives. Sam Francis observed that Buckley’s movement would inevitably have to compromise its principles in order to have a place at the table. The price of admission was accepting the moral claims of the people who controlled the political system. You could not be a critic of that system and be a beneficiary of it. Something had to give.

These moronic posts on conservative platforms are the inevitable result of the necessary brain-drain that started when conservatives joined the club. Smart people ask questions and asking questions is always a good way to fall afoul of the prevailing orthodoxy, so conservatism began to select for the incurious and dull. The long arc of conservatism ended with morons shrieking phrases like “right-wing Marxism” while they point at the intellectual debate to their right.


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William M Briggs
1 year ago

Apropos of Kirk. His Center still stands in Mecosta, Michigan, and is worth visiting. This wee village, one just one road and not even one stop sign, even has a bookstore! The old-fashioned kind of bookstore, with creaking claustrophobic rows of used books for decent prices. Kirk chose well. There is nothing nearby except bucolic farmland. Alas, like all such endeavors after the great man’s passing, the Kirk Center has drifted towards conservatism. For instance, one of the latest meetings was “‘What Do Conservatives Believe?’: a conversation with Mike Pence and Betsy DeVos in Grand Rapids” Asking Mike Pence what… Read more »

Hemid
Hemid
Reply to  William M Briggs
1 year ago

Pence has always been a rotten bastard, but DeVos’s appearing with him shows that her ostracism (remember the stories?) taught her nothing. She was *physically chased* out of DC social life and those events were realer to us than they were to her.

Politicians are, no matter what, not us—and nothing else but not us. Even Rand Paul voted to give Ashli Babbitt’s killer a medal.

Ostei Kozelskii
Member
Reply to  Hemid
1 year ago

The only medal he should have gotten is made of lead…

cg2
cg2
1 year ago

Well I guess I’ll get out the old National Review “Classic T” one more time tomorrow when I sealcoat the driveway. It was a nice shirt though, Champion.

Alzaebo
Alzaebo
1 year ago

Wow. N. Feudalism’s substack has serious weight and heft. Quite the consideration of all sides to the debate on Enlightenment egalitarianism.

I’d say Dasein’s desired Catholic fascism has met it’s intellectual match.

His piece also addresses the Zman’s suspicion of Enlightenment values.

For me, the uneducated, unread, near illiterate, it better defines the pros and cons of Aryan hardware running Semitic software.

Magisterial and compact, Neoliberal.
Highest ŕecommendations.

usNthem
usNthem
1 year ago

That lucchese article was largely incoherent and the other was just kissing his pale, flabby ass – both pathetic. Practically nothing is beyond the bounds for dweebs like them. The US is observably circling the crapper, but hey, God forbid we fight fire with fire. Muh constitution and magic dirt will absolutely turn all the newly arriving black, brown and yellow folk as American any legacy White person and their apple pie, guaranteed.

Mad Celt
Mad Celt
1 year ago

The Left is so smart their iconcept of sex is fatal.

Intelligent Dasein
Intelligent Dasein
Member
1 year ago

Slightly OT: Here is a follow-up to my yesterday’s post about Prigozhin acting as a brigand-hero within Russia’s historical tradition. Does anyone know how to contact Mercouris? I can’t find an email address on The Duran website. ~~~ One more good thing to come out of Prigozhin’s Rebellion (with echoes of Pugachev and Razin) is that it seems to have completely disrupted the prior news narrative concerning the Ukrainian counteroffensive. Similar to how Russia’s initial invasion in February ’22 finally dispelled the nonstop Covid-19 reporting, which by that point was nothing but a media meme which ordinary people had long… Read more »

Mike
Mike
Reply to  Intelligent Dasein
1 year ago

The world recognizes Putin as legitimate and that won’t change. He will do what he thinks is right no matter what so-called experts say. He is known for keeping his own council.

Jeffrey Zoar
Jeffrey Zoar
Reply to  Intelligent Dasein
1 year ago

There’s a dilemma for Putin in that his “slow” strategy was working. What better way to deplete the west’s failing ordnance supply than letting them think they have a chance to win, so that they keep sending the stuff until they have no more to send. Escalation by Russia risks counter-escalation by the west while the west still has something to escalate with. Prigozhin did him no favors in this sense. I do not see any chance for NATO to “snatch victory.” Zero. NATO’s best hope is a stalemate. It can never do better than that right on Russia’s border.… Read more »

KGB
KGB
Reply to  Jeffrey Zoar
1 year ago

If Putin were to go on TV and explicitly tell the Russian people that he’s attempting to drain the GAE of matériel, does anyone believe that the Kagens and others prosecuting the war from a Ukrainian perspective would even consider reversing course? I don’t.

If he is in fact playing that game, he might as well be up front about it.

Jeffrey Zoar
Jeffrey Zoar
Reply to  KGB
1 year ago

From our perspective that makes perfect sense. From their perspective, who really knows. They no doubt have plenty of known knowns that to us are unknown unknowns.

Member
Reply to  KGB
1 year ago

Unlike the monumental retards in the AINO Regime have done in every “war” they’ve fought since 1945, the Russian leadership ain’t broadcasting their war plans to every dickhead worldwide for everyone, including their enemies, to hear.

KGB
KGB
Reply to  Pickle Rick
1 year ago

I’m sure they won’t. My point is that it wouldn’t matter if they did because our rulers are completely invested in the reality they try to sell to the world.

Alzaebo
Alzaebo
Reply to  Intelligent Dasein
1 year ago

I agree that serious men,
Putin and Xi, acting under their own agency, has taken the narrative away from the brain dead idiots.

But, I also agree with Simplicius’ calculations: Putin must buy time to build up his numbers.

The reality simply is that he cannot risk his nation in a vainglorious attempt to “finish it”, the lumbering weight of Globohomo is a ponderous threat.

That would be like Italy trying to finish off the EU. We’re in a race against time.

Vajynabush
Vajynabush
Reply to  Intelligent Dasein
1 year ago

“Loose” legitimacy? An intelligent, verbose person like yourself doesn’t know the difference between “lose” and “loose”?

Fabian Forge
Member
Reply to  Intelligent Dasein
1 year ago

If you take Prigozhin at his word that this was a March for Justice and his beef was really with Shoigu not Putin we might have seen just the classic Russian “Oh, if only the Tsar knew!” move. Side note – I love that the regime toadies are calling this an ” insurrection”.

mderpelding
mderpelding
1 year ago

Sam Francis anticipated the the rise of what he termed as “middle American radicals”. I suppose that from the viewpoint of neo-liberal/libertarians that make up the modern National Review crowd, the term right-wing Marxist is the best they can do. After all, to these people, any “radical” idea is automatically called Marxist.

Mike

Wolf Barney
Wolf Barney
Reply to  mderpelding
1 year ago

Middle American Radicals- The subject of Sam Francis book, “Revolution from the Middle,” a collection of essays from his work in Chronicles. As of now you can buy the small paperback book for $179.00 at Amazon.

Also Borzoi has a podcast (Third Rail) from two days ago where one of the subjects discussed is Middle American Radicals. I haven’t listened yet, but here it is: https://therightstuff.biz/2023/06/25/third-rail-285-every-day-is-wigger-wednesday/

Vxxc
Vxxc
1 year ago

Heard of Caselaw? Its AI that is automated law. This is a good idea for law, prevailing Orthodoxy* and government. Anything bureaucratic, and above all the media.

*Orthodoxy; lets just admit most people want to be told what to say, if not what to think, this requires religion: its been a long journey Protestants, but congratulations, you’ve replaced the Catholic Church with the Progressive one , and what a replacement it is… the Rayburn building as the National Cathedral, the White House Executive Building as Sistine Chapel. The rest of us can perform our rituals in the DMV, or school.

Christopher Chantrill
Christopher Chantrill
1 year ago

Don’t forget Eric Hoffer’s line:
“What starts out here as a mass movement ends up as a racket, a cult, or a corporation.”
He was talking about civil rights becoming the Nation of Islam — in the Sixties!

No doubt paleoconservatism is also now a racket.

Alzaebo
Alzaebo
Reply to  Christopher Chantrill
1 year ago

If only it were. A racket implies funding and organization.

AnotherAnon
AnotherAnon
1 year ago

At the time, the idea of an actor as prez did sound a little weird. People were somewhat skeptical – but Californians knew he was capable. Had it been a leftie actor as the “First, first, first to crash the glass ceiling” there would have been nothing but “celebration”! Trump had his own way of dealing with political rivals during the ’16 campaign, but Nixon was the original who did it right in the modern era. Nixon’s treatment of Helen Gahagan Douglas was labelled “unchivalrous” (and it was) but it was tres modern. Heall but announced he would destroy her… Read more »

TomA
TomA
1 year ago

Here is another opportunity to learn an important lesson from the ongoing conflict in Ukraine. As most people know by now, beginning with the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991, the Ukraine became a hotbed of exploitation by native and foreign oligarchs who found it quite easy to bribe or elect a corrupt political leadership that would do their bidding. This went on for decades and sucked in countless US polticos who wanted in on the grift. The Bidens among them. The natural evolution of this criminal enterprise was to use it as a platform to take down Russia… Read more »

LineInTheSand
LineInTheSand
Reply to  TomA
1 year ago

TomA, I fear for Dan Bongino if ever run into him some time…

RDittmar
Member
1 year ago

Why in the world does anyone pay for content from National Review anymore? It is literally written by children. I almost never check them out but when I do after getting wind of something ridiculous they’re saying, the author in question is always an intern or grad student! This kid Bobby Miller knows nothing of the people he writes about. His parents may not have even been around when Reagan was president!

Ostei Kozelskii
Member
Reply to  RDittmar
1 year ago

I used to be an NRO regular, but havent been on their site in approximately 10 years. It seems I’m not missing much.

Vizzini
Member
Reply to  Ostei Kozelskii
1 year ago

I’d been moving away from NRO for years, especially after the Defenestration of Derbyshire, but the very last gasp was when some snot-nosed kid masquerading as an “editor” went after Mark Steyn for repeating the old Rat Pack “fruit cordial” joke:

Q: How do you make a fruit cordial?
A: Be nice to him!

Yeah, that scathing piece of homophobia warranted an official dressing down of Steyn. Steyn rightfully took his toys and left after that. Me, I’ve moved to the right so far since then that I regard Steyn as a squishy centrist.

Evil Sandmich
Evil Sandmich
Reply to  Vizzini
1 year ago

Reminds me of seeing a quip where the famous “Nazi Book Burning Photo” happened (supposedly) because originally the brownshirts were going to burn down the building while the child-grooming perverts and their books were still inside, but the Nazi regulars thought that was going too far….
Ahh even in the fires of my youth I would have never imagined ever thinking “Hitler, what a squish”.

pyrrhus
pyrrhus
Reply to  RDittmar
1 year ago

Indeed, as a former reader of NRO, I can only admire the sacrifice made by Z-man in actually reading the tripe being published by those dim-witted cucks!

Junior Wolf
Junior Wolf
Reply to  RDittmar
1 year ago

Be kind to Bobby miller, not easy writing a column and pitching for the Dodgers!

RDittmar
Member
Reply to  Junior Wolf
1 year ago

You have to admit though that Andrew McCarthy made a pretty smooth transtion to writing GOPe rumpswabbing boilerplate at NRO from his former career starring in such classics as Mannequin and Weekend at Bernie’s II.

Kralizec
Kralizec
Reply to  Junior Wolf
1 year ago

Sorry, it’s more like he’s catching for the Dodgers.

AnotherAnon
AnotherAnon
Reply to  RDittmar
1 year ago

NR should have folded long ago and its writers migrated to the Bulwark. In order to maintain their lifestyle, their conundrum is that a certain number of words need to be cranked out on schedule. While they do (still) manage to retain successful subject-verb sentence structure, it’s starting to sound like “Mad Libs” boilerplate and they only further confuse sloppy thinkers. Maybe that’s now the goal. Imagine how disoriented and lost you’d have to be for this article to make any sense.

Jack Dodson
Jack Dodson
1 year ago

National Review is low-hanging fruit for obvious reasons, but let’s also remember it has clawed back its pre-emptive surrender on transgenderism. As noted here often, conservatism amounts to reaction, then acceptance, and finally defending what is once opposed. I don’t recall another issue where NR did a 180 after it became obvious that opposition was politically profitable for its corporate and military beneficiaries.

Conservatism lost. Now its deadenders are reduced to decrying the little actual opposition left to the Regime, which it always did but in more muted ways.

pyrrhus
pyrrhus
Reply to  Jack Dodson
1 year ago

Conservatism is now represented by an Op-ed piece a while back in the WSJ about how America can win a nuclear war…I wish I were making this up….

Vizzini
Member
Reply to  Jack Dodson
1 year ago

“it has clawed back its pre-emptive surrender on transgenderism.”

Whatever. Who cares? Whenever some group tries to backtrack from something, you can be sure that the original position is what accurately reflected their views, and the backtrack is just playing defense.

NR is dead to me.

Jack Dodson
Jack Dodson
Reply to  Vizzini
1 year ago

To be clear, NR is garbage and has been for at least 30 years, and they obviously are down with the trans struggle regardless of messaging. The significance of the 180 is that it shows how little anything other than corporatism and militarism means to it now.

Gunner Q
Reply to  Jack Dodson
1 year ago

“National Review is low-hanging fruit for obvious reasons, but let’s also remember it has clawed back its pre-emptive surrender on transgenderism.”

There’s been a lot of that lately, but it’s all been pushback by women. It’s particularly obvious in the context of transgenders invading female sports. There are still no men in the halls of power.

TERFs will not be the savior we’re looking for.

theRussians
theRussians
Member
1 year ago

I see your bet and raise you Olivia Chow, new mayor of Toronto.
A more vile teleprompter reader you shall rarely find. Solid gold nuggets like “our mass transit is not working well and we have to look at that” and “we have to help families”.
How can it not be part of a humiliation campaign by the cloud peoples?

B125
B125
Reply to  theRussians
1 year ago

Our Democracy is sacred

Neoliberal Feudalism
1 year ago

“The arc of American progressivism begins with demands to end slavery and ends with the demand that fat naked men have a right to wave their genitals in your face.” This is due to the egalitarianism rooted in the heart of Christianity — “the first shall be last, the last shall be first” — and because of the ratchet effect, where a society’s core values get doubled down on indefinitely until it ends in either genocide or collapse. Bud’s stock price is at the middle of its 52 week trading range, and it is doubling down on the tranny stuff,… Read more »

Jack Dodson
Jack Dodson
Reply to  Neoliberal Feudalism
1 year ago

“The opposition to transsexualism will ultimately fail”

I would have agreed six months ago but no longer do. National Review, per usual, surrendered on the issue with “The Conservative Case for Transgender Rights” but has memoryholed that particular white flag. There are bridges too far and that was one.

I’ll read your blog now.

Bacon Burger
Bacon Burger
Reply to  Jack Dodson
1 year ago

“I would have agreed six months ago but no longer do. ”

Why? because of some lame boycotts that will be forgotten in the near future.

At least the anti-gay marriage movement got a bunch of state-level bans in place before the whole thing folded.

The continued enthusiastic support Trump and his tolerance of tyranny is another point of evidence at how un-serious the right is.

Jack Dodson
Jack Dodson
Reply to  Bacon Burger
1 year ago

“Why?”

Twenty states have outlawed child genital mutilation, for starters.

Bacon Burger
Bacon Burger
Reply to  Jack Dodson
1 year ago

“his tolerance of trannys”

damn spellchecker.

Intelligent Dasein
Intelligent Dasein
Reply to  Neoliberal Feudalism
1 year ago

If you think that Christianity is some kind of egalitarian social movement, then you know literally nothing about it and you would be better off keeping your mouth shut. You have absolutely no conception of the meaning of the scripture you cited, nor do you apparently recognize that it doesn’t even conform to the definition of egalitarianism. If many who are first become last, and many who are last become first, that signals a “circulation of elites.” That still preserves the hierarchy, does it not? The scripture does not say “both the first and the last shall be moved to… Read more »

DLS
DLS
Reply to  Intelligent Dasein
1 year ago

“Neoliberal Feudalism” would have been better off starting his second paragraph with “The popular misinterpretation of Christianity…” But even then, does anyone really think the left gives a rat’s ass whether Christianity espouses egalitarianism or not? At best you could argue that some of the surrender on the right to progressivism is rooted in this misinterpretation. It would have no effect on the victory of leftism, but at least we would have our story straight.

Ploppy
Ploppy
Reply to  Intelligent Dasein
1 year ago

Christians literally think nonwhites have souls. Sounds like an egalitarian social movement to me.

Maus
Maus
Reply to  Ploppy
1 year ago

All living things have “souls.” That is the very definition of animate. Men have rational souls and share in the image of God because they possess an intellect and a will. Animals, lacking these powers, have a mere animal soul. I leave it to your own judgment whether nonwhites are humans or mere animals; but I will note that men’s will and intellect are variable, hierarchical and subject to a Gaussian distribution. In other words, the fact that blacks average one standard deviation below whites in intelligence is nothing for them to crow about. So, whatever souls they do have… Read more »

Ostei Kozelskii
Member
Reply to  Maus
1 year ago

Maus on Gauss–it’s been a good day.

Ploppy
Ploppy
Reply to  Maus
1 year ago

But all of egalitarianism flows from that basic universality of people having souls. It’s always going to make you feel obliged to treat others fairly, which is an enormous disadvantage when the others don’t have any problem with treating you unfairly.

Compsci
Compsci
Reply to  Intelligent Dasein
1 year ago

There is perhaps a confusion here of “Christianity” and “organized religion”? As well as plain interpretation of written scripture. Whenever folks point to such failings of Christianity, more often than not I trace such misguided understanding back to a religious organization’s practice and narrative. One reason why I no longer affiliate with any denomination.

Ploppy
Ploppy
Reply to  Compsci
1 year ago

The scripture could very well be the perfect revealed truth of the world, but what matters is how the people who believe in it behave in practice. If the scripture is based, but the adherents overwhelmingly act pozzed, is the religion itself based or pozzed?

Ostei Kozelskii
Member
Reply to  Ploppy
1 year ago

If the adherents were based for almost two millennia and have been pozzed for merely half a century…

pyrrhus
pyrrhus
Reply to  Neoliberal Feudalism
1 year ago

Transsexualism is strictly part of the collapse of a hopelessly corrupt society…No society that allows children to be mutilated and sterilized can survive, and it is only in the West that such insanity exists….So the West will not survive…

Ploppy
Ploppy
Reply to  Neoliberal Feudalism
1 year ago

@Neoliberal Feudalism

I read your whole series the other day and became similarly depressed as when reading Uncle Ted’s manifesto.

kerdasi amaq
kerdasi amaq
Reply to  Neoliberal Feudalism
1 year ago

I can understand, now, why arrogant elitist snobs hate, fear and loathe Christianity.

| C.T.

It looks like someone is suffering from an inferiority complex as they chase the mirage of the noble pagan Aryan.

Citizen of a Silly Country
Citizen of a Silly Country
1 year ago

The article by Lucchese is classic colorblind CivNat cowardice. It’s an ideology for those who want to hide out and feel morally superior about it. The fact that their brand of colorblind civic nationalism has been on a 50-year losing streak (and, no, Reagan at best held back the tide on a few issues) never crosses the mind of guys like Lucchese or Steve Sailer. They’ve conserved none of their principles, and, yet, they want to stay on the same path. Colorblind CivNats always has the same problem. They can’t answer this simple question: Who are your people? You can… Read more »

LineInTheSand
LineInTheSand
Reply to  Citizen of a Silly Country
1 year ago

I agree with all of this, especially the part about conservatives betting our very survival on their ability to convince non-whites that they are individuals with no loyalty to a racial group and who love that constitution written by those dead white racist slave owners. Good luck with that. However, as we recount the many failures of conservativism, I imagine them replying, “Well, you guys have lost worse than we have. Lindbergh, Wallace, Buchanan, Perot, Trump? All losers. Reagan was more popular than any of your guys. Why should we give your ideas a try?” What are good responses to… Read more »

Citizen of a Silly Country
Citizen of a Silly Country
Reply to  LineInTheSand
1 year ago

That’s actually a good point and might simply be a sign that there is no good answer.

It might just be that whites need to get our asses kicked for awhile.

There’s zero chance that their colorblind civic nationalism will take root with non-whites – ever. There’s probably zero chance that white identity politics will take root with whites – for now.

Not a great answer, but it might be the truth.

DLS
DLS
Reply to  LineInTheSand
1 year ago

“What are good responses to that challenge?” Ford, Bush I, Bush II, Dole, Romney, McCain.

Intelligent Dasein
Intelligent Dasein
Member
Reply to  LineInTheSand
1 year ago

A discussion of whether a position is popular or unpopular is not really a debate about the substance of any policy. The response to this sort of thing should simply be, “My principles do not wax and wane with their popular appeal. I believe what I believe because I think it to be true. What do you do?” That should be followed up by insisting that your positions’ historical provenance on the cultural-political Right is very well established and that you are not out of place trying to influence the party which has traditionally been the primary political vehicle for… Read more »

Wolf Barney
Wolf Barney
Reply to  LineInTheSand
1 year ago

LineInTheSand- Our ideas have not only been suppressed but some of them are considered outright evil because of the indoctrination. That’s a very hard obstacle to clear, as all of us know from trying to get friends and family to see what we consider obvious truths.

B125
B125
Reply to  LineInTheSand
1 year ago

Hanania (lol) said something like that recently.

He said that 90% of white people would consider us their #1 enemies and want us locked up.

The intent obviously to demoralize us, but he still has a point.

btp
Member
Reply to  LineInTheSand
1 year ago

Imagine that. A democracy doesn’t seem to have the ability to protect itself with elections. Who could have foreseen this?

Mike
Mike
Reply to  Citizen of a Silly Country
1 year ago

Looking back Reagan and Thatcher both ended up destroying what they claimed to preserve. Both were disasters for the working class and supercharged financialization iin their countries and made the oligarch class much more powerful.

pyrrhus
pyrrhus
Reply to  Citizen of a Silly Country
1 year ago

Yes, and Sailer’s readers frequently remind him of that..I think Aristotle said something about tolerance being a virtue of a dying society, and civ-natterie is proving that every day…

Citizen of a Silly Country
Citizen of a Silly Country
Reply to  pyrrhus
1 year ago

Not only will Sailer not choose sides, he doesn’t even acknowledge that there are sides. Sailer won’t even come out and say that he’s against white identity politics. He just doesn’t ever talk about it – good or bad. Why? Because he knows that to come out against whites doing what every other group does would mean that he’d have to offer a plan for how to stop non-whites from organizing as groups, and he knows that won’t happen. His smug brand of colorblind civic nationalism is ridiculous. He pats himself on the bat for “noticing” racial difference unlike those… Read more »

JerseyJeffersonian
JerseyJeffersonian
Reply to  Citizen of a Silly Country
1 year ago

You do God’s work. Once I got intrigued by links to the Z-man, and was exposed to a vital (in the sense of being alive, and alive to the possibilities) comment section here, it was lights out for my expenditure of time over there. BTW, I was not exposed to those links over there, but through a poster at Col. Lang’s old blog, Sic Semper Tyrannis. Now, under the invidious influence of his co-poster, TTG, it ain’t the same over there, but in times past it had a paleocon air. Ah well, sic transit gloria mundi. Also, my comments at… Read more »

Tars Tarkas
Tars Tarkas
Reply to  Citizen of a Silly Country
1 year ago

“Because they are intellectual cowards who refuse to accept that the principles of the Constitution aren’t “natural rights” that will always win out ” Intellectual and every other kind of coward. Completely worthless. But the problem we have is what exactly is an American? You can say it’s white people, but that doesn’t really hold water. A Russian, German, Finn and Englishman are not the same people. Not to mention other ethnostates have ethnic groups which predate the formation of the modern state. You cannot change your ethnicity. All those Mexicans crossing the border are still Mexican even if they… Read more »

c matt
c matt
Reply to  Tars Tarkas
1 year ago

The best we could realistically see here would be a mirror of Europe. A federation of ethno-states, maybe even ethnic conclave within. But that requires a radical adherence to freedom of association and decentralization of power. Not likely to occur by choice, but perhaps possible when it all falls apart. Cf. Roman Empire, USSR, etc.

Krustykurmudgeon
Krustykurmudgeon
1 year ago

Full disclosure I wasn’t alive when Reagan was president (and I never would have voted for him) but I feel there was the capital r Reagan and the small r Reagan.

The capital r Reagan was people mostly outside his cabinet who were the hardcore shock troops. Think of someone like stan Evans or yaf. However most of his senior level admin was not that except for meese.

The small r Reagan was the actual administration which was significantly less “movement conservative” in orientation.

I feel this is the confusion a lot of people have.

Zulu Juliet
Zulu Juliet
Reply to  Krustykurmudgeon
1 year ago

I voted for Reagan twice and have never had a twinge of regret. I cannot say that about any other presidential candidate I voted for. God, I miss voting for that man.

DLS
DLS
Reply to  Zulu Juliet
1 year ago

Agreed, but I also have no regret about voting for Trump. Sure, he was disappointing in a lot of ways and lost to the swamp. But he did expose it, which counts for a lot. And defeating the evil hag was a win for the ages. OTOH, my votes for Dole, the Bushes, Romney and McCain? Had each of those results been reversed, would anything today be any different?

c matt
c matt
Reply to  DLS
1 year ago

One of my few proud electoral achievements was not voting for mcstain.

The Wild Geese Howard
The Wild Geese Howard
Reply to  Zulu Juliet
1 year ago

Regardless of the specifics, Reagan’s larger-than-life, warm to the American nation demeanor was a major contributor to making the 80s a fun decade.

Alzaebo
Alzaebo
Reply to  The Wild Geese Howard
1 year ago

Fun? The 80s was an absolute blast. There will never be another 80s.

Ostei Kozelskii
Member
Reply to  Alzaebo
1 year ago

I bet the 50s were a blast, too. Unless you were a nuggra. Heh.

The Wild Geese Howard
The Wild Geese Howard
Reply to  Alzaebo
1 year ago

Right?

The 80s are also where the march of technology in several areas really began benefitting the populace without driving us insane as it is now.

The 90s were also quite good in the parts of the world where I was, but the music in the first half of the decade was unbelievably dark for those ostensibly good years.

Then the music got mostly crappy with the resurgence of corporate-controlled pop and soundalike post-grunge bands.

90s pop culture also saw a lot of 70s style darkness and perversion creep back into the movies.

B125
B125
1 year ago

The DR has a lot of smart people on it. Even though pop culture has convinced people that “racists” are only robe wearing hillbillies that hate for no reason except that they are mean people. Essentially all it is, is noticing. We basically live in the real world while everyone else lives in an ideological fantasy land. And once you notice, there’s not much that can counteract walking down the street and noticing that everyone else is foreign. If you notice, you start to construct a new reality around what you see. Whatever the “left” is today has no more… Read more »

Ostei Kozelskii
Member
Reply to  B125
1 year ago

“I saw an article this morning that said the solution to Canada’s housing crisis is to increase immigration even more. They have no answers.”

Oh, but they do have answers. All of them terrible, alas…

Zulu Juliet
Zulu Juliet
Reply to  B125
1 year ago

They have no solutions, because they aren’t interested in solutions. Practical solutions to real problems are of no interest to any modern liberal from Biden down to the lady on your local school board. What they ARE interested in is being on the proper side of acceptable morality. No time is spent trying to make citizens lives safer and better. It is all spent promoting themselves and their fealty to the latest fad: Global Warming, Diversity, Ukraine, Face Masks, Asylum Seekers! Pot holes, crime, robocalls, inflation? Meh….

DLS
DLS
Reply to  Zulu Juliet
1 year ago

Not only do they have no interest in pot holes, crime, robocalls, and inflation, but pot holes, crime, robocalls, inflation are all racist. So having no interest is the morally superior position.

c matt
c matt
Reply to  DLS
1 year ago

Robocalls are racist – of the 100s I’ve received not one uses a foreign accent or ebonics.

Fred Beans
Fred Beans
1 year ago

I remember very early in Reagan’s presidency, one of ABC’s street correspondents assuring us that Ronnie wasn’t really into being president, he just wanted the accolades of having been one. He wouldn’t run for a second term, preferring to be an ex-president.

Ostei Kozelskii
Member
Reply to  Fred Beans
1 year ago

I remember along about 2003 it was conventional “wisdom” on the Left that Bushitler would never relinquish the White House. He’d either be removed in chains, or he’d install himself as Tyrant for Life. All I could do was chuckle and shake my head. I’m still chuckling.

JerseyJeffersonian
JerseyJeffersonian
Reply to  Ostei Kozelskii
1 year ago

They’re always projecting, aren’t they?

Mike
Mike
Reply to  Fred Beans
1 year ago

Looking back at the that time, GHW Bush was that guy. His whole life was onee of constant striving for the perfect resume and when he became President he was satisfied and really didn’t care about reelction.

Hemid
Hemid
Reply to  Fred Beans
1 year ago

Similarly, conservative conventional wisdom on first-term Trump remains that he wasn’t trying to win the presidency, just making a publicity tour for his “brand.” He got the GOP nomination because the DNC and media conspired to deliver it to him via “free advertising,” knowing he’d lose the general because all sane people despise him. Then he won the general because the white American “rump” population is scum. The entire conservative establishment can truly believe such stupid things about Trump and America because they’re nothing like us—not only in that they know nothing and “notice” even less, but because they’re all… Read more »

Paintersforms
Paintersforms
1 year ago

I remember the 80s right as holy rolling mega churchians on one hand, Wall St on the other. Didn’t like either, but the movement had serious momentum. By the Bush years, the act had become stale and retarded imo. It’s true in retrospect that the left is stuck in the 60s, but the collapse of Bush and the breaking of the Obama seal was probably necessary for the emergence of a new right, put down in its toddlering as alt-right. Pretty clear by Obama’s 2nd term that’s where the action was. Already a force, evidenced by Trump’s election. Two things… Read more »

DLS
DLS
Reply to  Paintersforms
1 year ago

I agree with you, but how does an increasingly popular new right beat vote rigging in a browning country?

Black Dog
Black Dog
Reply to  DLS
1 year ago

I think the federal government is lost forever. The best solution to that predicament is to neuter it as much as possible, do everything possible to return to states rights.

Some states are also lost. Better to just abandon them.

What I think we need to do is move to defensible states that we can control and prosper in and make our stand there. One last round of “white flight” and then no more running.

Paintersforms
Paintersforms
Reply to  DLS
1 year ago

I don’t have a good political answer. Getting increasingly particular, so more universalist things like civic nationalism seem increasingly foreign and stupid to me. Otoh I also increasingly see how it’s used against people who take it seriously by those who don’t, and I think they’re on to something. It works because there aren’t as many universals as ‘we’ believe. I’ve never been one to put too much faith in ideas or institutions (or rules, frankly), but I’ll say this: as the things you count on let you down, you find out what’s solid. It’s painful, but you come out… Read more »

LineInTheSand
LineInTheSand
1 year ago

The most charitable interpretation of the two posts that Z Man noted is that they are opposing collective action by conservative-leaning people. These writers want to encourage each traditional person in our country to see himself first and foremost as an individual who is independent of any commitments to a group. This is very bad advice because most non-whites see themselves first and foremost as members of a racial group, which they want to see dominate the country. For example, Colin Powell voted for Obama. Most conservative hispanics favor some form of legalization for illegals. The real world will show… Read more »

DLS
DLS
Reply to  LineInTheSand
1 year ago

Actually, you have white-pilled me today. If leftist whites can see enough reality to return to their racist past, perhaps the plurality of whites can keep the country from falling below Brazil. I know, low bar.

Compsci
Compsci
Reply to  DLS
1 year ago

The plurality of Whites is already holding up the country. Problem is that the “smart fraction” is not getting any bigger. As the White race declines—and nothing shows differently—and the minorities increase, the national IQ will decline, eventually falling below the numbers needed to support a first world, technological society. There are unknowns, such as whether we can import smarter people or if AI can truly fill the gap, but the national IQ is on a trajectory downward and that seems irreversible. Here’s an interesting study: “Wolfram, T. (2023). (Not just) Intelligence stratifies the occupational hierarchy: Ranking 360 professions by… Read more »

OrangeFrog
OrangeFrog
1 year ago

First off, Z Man. Thanks for the effort you put in to put-up-a-post (or more) each day. Doesn’t go unnoticed. But… Left, Right, Center? I’ve simply lost all care in the world about the definition of these terms. I’ve lost all care in the world regarding Western politicians and their motives (they’re all aligned with the devil). And discussing these things in person with others seems daft now. A man has God. And perhaps he has his family. A man ought to engage his mind and reason about only what he can really see and affect, in my book. I’ve… Read more »

Alzaebo
Alzaebo
Reply to  OrangeFrog
1 year ago

Tune in, turn on, drop out-
without the faux artificial enhancements.

Actual acid priests, serious guys taking 30,000 units of LSD in strictly controlled settings- (guided, mentored, no freakouts, bums or recreational)- told me they were looking for God.

DLS
DLS
Reply to  OrangeFrog
1 year ago

I upvoted this 3 times, which unfortunately only adds one vote.

Ostei Kozelskii
Member
Reply to  DLS
1 year ago

Upvote harder!!

JR Wirth
JR Wirth
1 year ago

Given the events of the last 20 years, from G W Bush, to Obama to present, these people can no longer hide in theory and a litany of “if onlys.” The test is done. Pencils are down. The scantrons have been collected and run through, sounding like a geiger counter as the machine scores. The test scores are posted on the wall and they’ve failed. Their subscriber base is now subsidized by billionaires throwing a few bones to them. Even the grad student in tortoise shell glasses no longer exists. Maybe some clown at William and Mary. We now live… Read more »

OrangeFrog
OrangeFrog
Reply to  JR Wirth
1 year ago

“We now live in an emotive, untethered society. Free from all constraints, morals, etc. All is lost. Nothing has been conserved, it never had a chance, and the ship of state will hit the rocks hard and break into pieces. Many will drown.”

Guess it was ‘ever thus’ considering Man’s fallen state.

3g4me
3g4me
Reply to  OrangeFrog
1 year ago

OrangeFrog: I’d emend that to Women’s innate nature. Granted, every evil that women have wrought came about because men neglected their duty to guide and control women. Whether this was due to cowardice or internal saboteurs or modern plastics leaching away testosterone is another question, but I assert the root of our rot is women running amok. The lack of rationality, the excessive emoting, policy based on feelings and hopes and dreams, morality based on women’s survival instinct pandering to the conquerors, exhibitionism and attention whoring based on following the herd and their child-like desperation for attention, etc. ad nauseam.… Read more »

c matt
c matt
Reply to  3g4me
1 year ago

The best degree for a college girl has always been the MRS. Still is for most of them.

Compsci
Compsci
Reply to  c matt
1 year ago

Yeah, but that assumes one settles down to marriage and children and forsakes taking up the traditional role of men and becoming a “professional woman”. Seems meeting a spouse in college just leads to a “power couple” and forming a tradition family unit gets slighted. I, like 3g4me, have no answer. I see the same pitfall being stumbled into with my grand children. Oldest is at genius level. Could read at 4 yo. Now writes letters/cards in cursive to us at 6 yo. So what to do? Well, nothing. She’ll be snatched up by a dozen different schools when she… Read more »

Ostei Kozelskii
Member
Reply to  c matt
1 year ago

Master’s in Roast Science?

The Wild Geese Howard
The Wild Geese Howard
Reply to  OrangeFrog
1 year ago

If he could feel human emotions, Cthulhu would be most pleased.

Alzaebo
Alzaebo
Reply to  The Wild Geese Howard
1 year ago

My gods, that’s it. The nature of the gods, the hive minds or Mind- that is, their strange appearance of “sentience”- is based on their storage and processing medium.

Sorry. Won’t explain. I owe Geese, as I owe Apex and Citizen, unpayable debt.

The Wild Geese Howard
The Wild Geese Howard
Reply to  Alzaebo
1 year ago

Alz-

You are far, far too generous and kind, my friend.

Ostei Kozelskii
Member
Reply to  JR Wirth
1 year ago

To say that “nothing” has been conserved is a bit much, but I’ll grant you that the lion’s share of Western civilization has been demolished and the Leftist Taliban are marching with their sticks of dynamite toward what remains.

Glenfilthie
Glenfilthie
Member
1 year ago

The hardest part of the Dissident journey is the first step. Just to get your foot in the door, you have to accept and acknowledge that your nation is dying, your people are committing cultural and ethnic suicide, and that You-Know-Who was mostly right about the jews, our women are irredeemable sluts, perverts, and largely unfit for motherhood. When Normie comes off the couch like that, he knows that the Matrix is a lie… but he doesn’t know what to do with it. Or how to proceed. Most normies are older and have never read politically before. They don’t know… Read more »

Götterdamn-it-all
Götterdamn-it-all
1 year ago

I would have gladly voted for Wallace in 1972 had he not been shot. I still believe the FBI was behind it. I ended up voting for Nixon.

Ostei Kozelskii
Member
Reply to  Götterdamn-it-all
1 year ago

The present me would have voted for Wallace, but the me of 2003 would have viewed him with horror. Yes, I was a Griller, and I’m none too proud of it.

Alzaebo
Alzaebo
Reply to  Ostei Kozelskii
1 year ago

7th grade me: “But he was a racist!”

My teacher, Mrs. Glenn:
“That doesn’t mean he deserved to get shot!”

Ostei Kozelskii
Member
Reply to  Alzaebo
1 year ago

That statement would get Mrs. Glenn drummed out of the schools these days.

Member
1 year ago

Is “right wing Marxism” just another code word for “national socialism”, which all intelligent goodthinkers must reflexively condemn to prove their upper class intelligence?

btp
Member
Reply to  Pickle Rick
1 year ago

Yes. It is a version of the observation that Nazis were socialists because, look! it’s right in the name!

Jack Dobson
Jack Dobson
Reply to  Pickle Rick
1 year ago

It is indeed a thinly disguised euphemism for national socialism. The Republican Party and so-called “conservative movement” were never anything other than corporate shilling wrapped in faux populist messaging to attract enough rubes to secure victories. The corporatists probably represented a single digit-percentage of the movement yet controlled 99 percent of the apparatus. Buchanan, Perot and Trump terrified the fraudsters because they highlighted how little the most-marketed ideas really mattered, and those guys and their supporters were icky fascists. There was only one leg on the stool, and two if an unnecessary distinction is made between the military and corporations.… Read more »

Ostei Kozelskii
Member
Reply to  Pickle Rick
1 year ago

The term “right wing Marxism” is incoherent and meaningless. However, there are some on the DR who do not condemn socialism tout court. Perhaps that is what confused the NR hack. (I haven’t read the piece, BTW.)

Chet Rollins
1 year ago

The hypermoralization of language has made everything silly. Maybe so many words are being written now thanks to mass media it was inevitable, but the hyper-emotional and moralistic connotations of words now has made them Boeing and meaningless, more like a magic incantation than anything descriptive.

Forever Templar
Forever Templar
Reply to  Chet Rollins
1 year ago

And also the elongation of previously succinct and concise terms. Black>African-American>Person of Color is a prime example; not to mention the plethora of nonsense that comes out of the faux-gender and science circuses.

JerseyJeffersonian
JerseyJeffersonian
Reply to  Forever Templar
1 year ago

I remember a Bloom County comic from some years back. Mother of son, looking out the window, father sitting in his easy chair…

Mom: Oh, look at the cute colored children playing.
Son: Mom! We don’t say that anymore!
Mom: Negro?
Son: Oh, no!
Mom: African-american?
Son: No, people of color.
Pause: Mom and Dad exchange looks…
Mom and Dad together: Colored people!
Son covers his face with both hands…

KGB
KGB
Reply to  JerseyJeffersonian
1 year ago

I pulled out my collection of Flannery O’Connor short stories last week, for the first time in several years. Oh boy, can I safely assume that Miss O’Connor has been removed from every school in the nation? The word “nigger” appears in her stories more times than on a Dr. Dre album.

Ostei Kozelskii
Member
Reply to  KGB
1 year ago

Well, bah gum. I may have to bone up on my O’Connor!

JerseyJeffersonian
JerseyJeffersonian
Reply to  JerseyJeffersonian
1 year ago

It should be remembered in this context that rhe acronym, NAACP, connotes National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. TIf the “colored people” really stuck in their craw, they should long ago have updated this to something like National Association for the Advancement of People of Color, NAAPOC, no? Upon cursory reflection, I found this amusing, anyway.

Ostei Kozelskii
Member
Reply to  Forever Templar
1 year ago

People who butcher language have no respect for language, and therefore have no regard for the ideas language conveys. This linguistic barbarism indicates that the Left’s ideology is intellectually bankrupt. And indeed, it is.

Oswald Spengler
Oswald Spengler
Reply to  Ostei Kozelskii
1 year ago

Leftists support the butchering of children’s genitals and fetuses in the womb. Butchering language is nothing to these people.

Ostei Kozelskii
Member
Reply to  Oswald Spengler
1 year ago

You’ve just explained to me why I’ve often seen pictures of the Brady Bunch’s Sam Franklin on faculty office doors. For the life of me, I couldn’t understand the significance. Now I do. Much obliged.

Wolf Barney
Wolf Barney
1 year ago

I’ve read a lot of Samuel Francis in Chronicles and even subscribed to his newsletter back then. This is the first time I’ve heard of “Right-Wing Marxism.” It looks like this guy from Law & Liberty is trying to create a smear term.

Alzaebo
Alzaebo
Reply to  Wolf Barney
1 year ago

A programming upgrade, since the Left supports Ukro-nazis.

My Comment
My Comment
1 year ago

Matt Walsh has just announced that the transgender movement was started by Nazis. It was started in the Weimar era by a member of the tribe that owns the company he works for.

Question is whether he knows he is lying or has to create an alternative reality where he can safely live just like the left does.

Either way it is just the right being stupid to keep the money flowing.

Carot and stick indeed.

Chet Rollins
Reply to  My Comment
1 year ago

I am almost certain Matt was intentionally trying to get community noted. Sort of the strategy of making your argument so bad it allows bad thinkers an avenue to make their thoughts expressed.

Glenfilthie
Glenfilthie
Member
Reply to  My Comment
1 year ago

Yep. JewTube has all kinds of vids running with the title, “Matt Walsh OWNS The Gays” and “Matt Walsh Destroys The Trannies!!!”. In every case, its a shitshow where Matt is trying to reasonably debate with a guy in a dress and explain why he isn’t a real woman. Our esteemed blog host used the phrase where the parties had their day in the sun, “where they were the place to go to discuss the issues of the day…” Today neither party dares discuss the issues – growing black militancy, uncontrolled borders, uncontrolled criminality, rampant degeneracy and perversion, and an… Read more »

G Lordon Giddy
G Lordon Giddy
1 year ago

The ultimate honor for us dissidents is to be called a Nazi and a Marxist in the same sentence.

Oswald Spengler
Oswald Spengler
Reply to  G Lordon Giddy
1 year ago

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EvPMXqONe0Q

“McBain to base…under attack by CommieNazis!”

Evil Sandmich
Evil Sandmich
1 year ago

Today you will find jarringly stupid posts like this one.

Only outdone in stupidity by the comments over there in support of it.

Outdoorspro
Outdoorspro
Reply to  Evil Sandmich
1 year ago

“Today you will find jarringly stupid posts like this one.”

Curse you, Mr. Z! I really felt like my brain and soul were being slowly sucked out of me while I read that. I think there was some creature in some YA fantasy books/movies that did that, or something…

Is thinking in pop-culture metaphors a sign of diminishing thought? I’m starting to realize the significance of Jonah Goldberg always using Simpsons references.

Mr. Generic
Mr. Generic
Reply to  Evil Sandmich
1 year ago

> Only outdone in stupidity by the comments over there in support of it.

They are fake. Almost all of the “engagement” you see on social or media sites are entirely fake — either paid actors or bot armies.

Alzaebo
Alzaebo
Reply to  Mr. Generic
1 year ago

Now come on. Those bots are using their real names!

DLS
DLS
Reply to  Mr. Generic
1 year ago

That was my thought. I doubt even the handful of wealthy donors, who keep NR alive as a gatekeeping operation, even read it. Like the election fraud apparent in some counties that had more votes than registered voters, NR has more commenters than readers.

dad29
1 year ago

Buckley’s movement would inevitably have to compromise its principles in order to have a place at the table.

Witness the ‘other’-ization of Joe Sobran, which allowed Buckley another several months’ dining with the Bigs.