Prudentialism

One of the many interesting aspects of the Trump era has been the collapse of what was called conservatism in America and the rise of a new coalition to replace it as the dominant force in the Republican Party. Most pundits have been happy to call it Trumpism or MAGA, as they hope it is temporary. Others have tried to jam it into the populist bucket, despite the fact it is not a populist movement. Beyond these superficial attempts at labeling, not much has been said about it.

Not everyone in the coalition is thrilled by what they are seeing. Many older conservatives, the paleo variety, are happy to see Conservative Inc. head off to bankruptcy, but they are a bit uncomfortable sharing a pew with people like Robert Kennedy Jr. or Tulsi Gabbard. They wince when Tucker Carlson gets along with old school lefties like Jimmy Dore or Aaron Maté. They spent their lives on the opposite side of these people and now they share the same movement.

In fairness, it is even more difficult for the old school lefties, because for them, politics defines their life. That means they are now faced with supporting that which they were sure was evil until not so long ago. It also means their conception of evil may have been wrong, which means their conception of themselves was wrong. This is why it is difficult for an ideologue to adjust to new evidence. Unlike the non-ideologue, such adjustment requires a reexamination of their soul.

That aside, the issue everyone is struggling with is that our political buckets, like so much of the past, have been a fiction. The left-right framing was never two groups opposing one another, but two groups negotiating with one another. It was Team Fast versus Team Slower, both agreeing on the destination. The “conservatives” were never interested in conserving anything but their sinecures, while the liberals were hellbent on sweeping liberalism into the dustbin of history.

For as long as anyone has been alive, the consensus in American politics has been the radicalism at the heart of progressivism. Egalitarianism, universalism, and the blank slate are the three legs of this ideological stool. What motivates and justifies using this stool to smash up American society and go abroad to smash up other cultures is the intense belief that they are commanded by history or history’s God to impose this ideology on the people of the world.

This is how we arrived at this odd time where John Derbyshire and Paul Gottfried share a pew with RFK Jr. and Tulsi Gabbard. The excesses of progressivism, unconstrained by the necessity of the Cold War, have put everything at risk, thus calling forth an old force that has been dormant since Gettysburg. That force is prudentialism. The thing that lies at the heart of Western conservatism is a set of precautionary principles that act to avoid unknowable negative consequences.

If you listen to what RFK Jr. says about medicine, for example, it generally boils down to restoring prudence to the field. The drug makers operate on the assumption that they must rush everything to the market, which often causes new harms while having little impact on the thing they are trying to mitigate. The Covid vaccine is a great example of the recklessness of medicine. Even a little bit of prudence would have avoided this easily avoidable error.

Similarly, Tulsi Gabbard’s main reason to exist is her skepticism of the military industrial complex and the foreign policy community. For the last thirty years, we have staggered from one ill-conceived conflict to the next, never stopping to ponder if what we are doing will have negative consequences down the road. No one seems to be able to think beyond the first move. The main thrust of Gabbard’s critique is that a tiny bit of prudence could have prevented many of these debacles.

The reason these two are attracted to Trump’s movement is that fundamentally, Trump is the great champion of prudence. He would rather not spend money than spend it, not because he is cheap, but because he knows that spending it has consequences and unless you put those consequences in the balance, you are recklessly spending money and that is not prudent. Trump’s foreign policy is motivated by a desire to not create new problems which will lead to new conflicts.

If Team Slower had not abused the word “conservative” for so long, what we are seeing could be easily labeled “conservatism.” Decades of verbicide have left us with a poverty of language to describe what we are seeing. It is why Trump never uses the old labels when talking about politics. He did not call the people running USAID “leftists” or even “radicals” but instead called them “lunatics.” In the current context, it is both the appropriate word and the accurate one.

Even so, Trumpism is the return of prudence to our politics, and it is the necessary precursor for the return of a genuine American conservatism. To paraphrase Michael Oakeshott, “Trumpism is to prefer the familiar to the unknown, to prefer the tried to the untried, fact to mystery, the actual to the possible, the limited to the unbounded, the near to the distant, the sufficient to the superabundant, the convenient to the perfect, present laughter to utopian bliss.”

The boys and girls in conservative sinecures are hostile to Trumpism because it casts light on their project, revealing it to be nothing more than the sidecar to the radicalism they claimed to oppose. For the neocons, Trumpism is a mirror, revealing their lack of a soul and exposing the vampirism that animates them. For others, it is an uncomfortable calling home of the prudent into a disposition that has defined their lives but never defined their politics.

For lack of a better way of stating it, what we are seeing is the forming up of a new prudentialism, that in the fullness of time may be able to rehabilitate the term “conservative” but for now must settle for Trumpism or MAGA. It is not running around trainyards yelling stop. It is a great rolling back of the progressive project, not driven by superficial romanticism, but by prudent necessity. To make America great again, we must sweep away progressivism and its reckless implementations.


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Captain Willard
Captain Willard
1 month ago

When Dick Cheyney said “We (USA) create our own reality”, it was really no different from some Prog calling a man in a sundress a woman. Both accept no limits (classic hubris) and are fundamentally reckless. So it’s a Cloud-Dirt dialectic in another form. As some clever guy said “You can ignore Reality, but you cannot ignore the consequences of ignoring Reality”. If Prudence is anything, it’s about accepting Reality.

Wolf Barney
Wolf Barney
Reply to  Captain Willard
1 month ago

And Reality doesn’t go away even when you stop believing in it. One of the best lines ever. Thanks Zman.

NoName
NoName
Reply to  Wolf Barney
1 month ago

Z: The Covid vaccine is a great example of the recklessness of medicine. Even a little bit of prudence would have avoided this easily avoidable error… Reality doesn’t go away even when you stop believing in it… For anyone who hasn’t seen it yet, you simply must watch John Campbell’s new video, concerning USA deaths in the 25yo-44yo age range. Excess deaths in young adults https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DHpvhZFvUl4 The paper has been accepted by JAMA: https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle/2829783 https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/articlepdf/2829783/wrigleyfield_2025_ld_240295_1737666979.93197.pdf The youtube video has more than FOUR THOUSAND comments. John Campbell, in closing: “We need complete freedom to discuss why we are burying and cremating… Read more »

Jeffrey Zoar
Jeffrey Zoar
Reply to  Captain Willard
1 month ago

I think it was Karl Rove who said that. But it was probably because he heard somebody like Cheney say it.

Ivan
Ivan
Reply to  Jeffrey Zoar
1 month ago

Rove is a shrubite opportunist like Clitonista Carville without the irritating accent. Ayn Rand said the thing about reality, ignoring it and the consequences thereof, not rove.

Arthur Metcalf
Arthur Metcalf
Reply to  Jeffrey Zoar
1 month ago

It was Rove, but the reporter almost certainly massaged it to make it sound minatory. I’ve watched Rove talk for 25 years, and he doesn’t have that kind of cadence, vocabulary, nor depth of thought. He’s a campaign nuts and bolts guy with limited education, not Alexander Kojeve.

Captain Willard
Captain Willard
Reply to  Jeffrey Zoar
1 month ago

Thanks for the check Jeffrey…my memory is getting hazy.

Arthur Metcalf
Arthur Metcalf
Reply to  Captain Willard
1 month ago

Keep in mind that Rove has denied saying it, and the reporter who says he did is, well, a reporter, and one of the worst. I don’t know how you guys can listen to a nitwit like Rove for decades and think he’s capable of articulating a thought like that. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reality-based_community Edit: I mean, seriously — after the past 10 years and the past 10 days in Washington, there is no reason to believe any of these reporters any longer. Do you really think Karl Rove — Karl Rove! — said the following: “…solutions emerge from your judicious study of… Read more »

Last edited 1 month ago by Arthur Metcalf
nil son
nil son
Reply to  Jeffrey Zoar
1 month ago

The quote is generally attributed to Philip K. Dick, an acid-dropping schizophrenic science fiction author who had a better grasp on reality than any of today’s libtards and rinos.

ray
ray
Reply to  nil son
1 month ago

I recall PKD used amphetamines, not acid. Speed often is popular with writers because they can go 2 days sleepless and on Full Dilithium Drive, then crash, then do it all again. Hard on the bod but productive.

BTW Philip Kindred postulated that the Roman Empire never ended but is alive and well in America and the West.

TempoNick
TempoNick
Reply to  Captain Willard
1 month ago

I’ve often wondered if the ascendancy of the techno class is what is warping our reality. You can code a computer to do whatever you want it to do. To a lesser extent, the legal community can also fashion their own reality. I wonder if working in that kind of an environment has warped the reality of the powers of be. I wonder sometimes if they think they can restructure the world and the immutable laws of nature and physics with a couple of documents and a stroke of a pen, like lawyers do when they create a non-profit that… Read more »

karl von hungus
karl von hungus
Reply to  TempoNick
1 month ago

or video games that let you re-spawn your character if it is killed

Paintersforms
Paintersforms
Reply to  TempoNick
1 month ago

Coding, arguing— words and ideas. Idealism. Declaring reality. Let there be light.

rasqball
rasqball
Reply to  TempoNick
1 month ago

I have long been contemplating same: our “thought leaders” (!) are almost contemptuous of gravity, and have been for some time now. Most of these are Silly People Who Revel in Being Smart-Aleks, but there exists a “hardcore”, for whom this an occult (i.e., Gnostic) wonderment.

ray
ray
Reply to  rasqball
1 month ago

Gnosticism is quite alive and thriving in the Western world. So is Druidism, especially in the Isles and the U.S., hello Bohemian Grove.

America is a blatantly pagan nation littered with occult symbolism . . . the lingo of the elite.

Captain Willard
Captain Willard
Reply to  TempoNick
1 month ago

It’s funny Nick. The “Techno Class” stuff started firmly rooted in reality: Taylor time/motion studies, Ford’s assembly lines, Sloan’s organization methods, GNP accounting (Kuznets; yes, it gets misused but the intent was scientific), Six Sigma (recycled from Japanese Kaizen) etc. But at some point (maybe McNamara in Vietnam), it just became easier to make up the numbers and superimpose a political Narrative.

Jack Dobson
Jack Dobson
Reply to  Captain Willard
1 month ago

Affluence and abundance prepared the ground for living with delusion. The earlier innovations were at a time without a social safety net. Once the welfare state was in place and the peasants warm and fed and harmless, lying became the default since there would be no consequences for it. I think McNamara makes a good marker.

The Infant Phenomenon
The Infant Phenomenon
Reply to  TempoNick
1 month ago

Z-Man has explained that in this essay: egalitarianism, universalism, and the tabula rasa. The three legs of the “Enlightenment stool” Fools *believe* those superstitions. It warps them; probably permanently.

teotoon
teotoon
Reply to  The Infant Phenomenon
1 month ago

Need to include the disbelief of the true God accompanied by the belief in the Serpent.

CorkyAgain
CorkyAgain
Reply to  teotoon
1 month ago

To sharpen the focus and identify the philosophical position at work in that disbelief, let’s call it materialism : the denial of the vertical, spiritual dimension and restriction to the horizontal, worldly one.

Jack Dobson
Jack Dobson
Reply to  Captain Willard
1 month ago

Bush/Cheney most likely will be the last persons of that particular brand ever to occupy the White House. At the conclusion of Trump’s term it will have been twenty years since that cancer had a host.

TempoNick
TempoNick
Reply to  Jack Dobson
1 month ago

Crippling USAID will have a lot to do with that. I had no idea these people pushing neocon ideas into the system work being funded by the US government. Crazy me, I thought it was Jewish billionaires funding it. However, as a friend of mine says, billionaires are the biggest welfare queens in this country. So, it figures that they would find a way to advance their prerogatives on our dime.

NoName
NoName
Reply to  TempoNick
1 month ago

TempoNick: “However, as a friend of mine says, billionaires are the biggest welfare queens in this country. So, it figures that they would find a way to advance their prerogatives on our dime.

The floodgates were intentionally opened on Black Monday, of 1987, by none other than (((Alan Greenspan))) himself, and Black Monday has haunted us through Sept 11th 2001, through the 2008 collapse, and on into the (((Bernanke/Yellen/Rubin/Summers/Mnuchin))) rape of the Treasury & the Federal Reserve.

None of these (((billionaires))) earned their money the old-fashioned way.

All of them were the beneficiaries of massive illicit “leaks” from the Fed.

NoName
NoName
Reply to  NoName
1 month ago

In a few weeks, (((Greenspan))) will be 99 years old; (((they))) probably have enough Adrenochrome-soaked Packed Red Blood Cells [PRBCs] to keep (((him))) going for another decade after that.

Old Sanhedrin never die; they just fade away…

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NoName
NoName
Reply to  NoName
1 month ago

comment image

BigJimSportCamper
BigJimSportCamper
Reply to  NoName
1 month ago

Jonathan Greenblatt.

The Infant Phenomenon
The Infant Phenomenon
Reply to  Captain Willard
1 month ago

“Pride goeth before destruction, and vanity before the fall.”

RealityRules
RealityRules
1 month ago

I respectfully and fundamentally disagree with this essay. To conserve is to preserve or save something. What is being preserved or conserved? They, we hope, are smashing something – destroying it. Well, they better be smashing and destroying it. Of course, at the same time they must be building something and something better. Conservation has nothing to do with any of this. The most critical part of the project is the reconstitution of the entire reason for any of this – the people and their well being. The entire thing hinges on mass deportation and restoration, not conservation, of the… Read more »

Filthie
Filthie
Member
Reply to  RealityRules
1 month ago

I will be interested in how your Orange Man deals with the lawfare and rogue activist-judges. A few have raised their ugly heads… and so far I haven’t heard of any resolutions about them…

TempoNick
TempoNick
Reply to  Filthie
1 month ago

You know what would put a stop to all of this monkey business? Defunding the judges that engage in this monkey business. Not all of them, just the activists.

Filthie
Filthie
Member
Reply to  TempoNick
1 month ago

Think so, Nick?

Dont get me wrong – I love what Trump, Elon and Big Balls are doing… (wish someone would do it here in Canada)… but, dammit…these guys gotta be PUNISHED. People have to see the system actually work.

It’s like a rattler in the back yard where the children play. You don’t put a bucket over the snake to isolate it and hopefully contain it… you kill the snake.

Theres a lot of people walking around Washington breathing freely – that shouldn’t…

The Infant Phenomenon
The Infant Phenomenon
Reply to  Filthie
1 month ago

Steve Bannon has lad it on the line:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g3bS1ekLzCw&ab_channel=GBNews

But you are right: It is not enough for the system to work; the system must be SEEN to work. Justice must be SEEN to be done.

Compsci
Compsci
Reply to  The Infant Phenomenon
1 month ago

The executions therefore with be televised…

karl von hungus
karl von hungus
Reply to  Compsci
1 month ago

is that a play on Gil Scott-Heron? 🙂

The Infant Phenomenon
The Infant Phenomenon
Reply to  TempoNick
1 month ago

The law requires the state attorneys-general in the complaint they have filed to post a bond in the amount that the court estimates the respondents might have to pay OR be damaged if the court should find in favor of the respondents. The law specifies that the United States does not have to post such a bond, but the state attorneys-general DO. That alone should render their complaint moot, since the bond would have to be posted in cash b/c nobody would underwrite a bond in the action at hand b/c it could run to scores of millions or even… Read more »

Jeffrey Zoar
Jeffrey Zoar
Reply to  The Infant Phenomenon
1 month ago

The court may issue a preliminary injunction or a temporary restraining order only if the movant gives security in an amount that the court considers proper to pay the costs and damages sustained by any party found to have been wrongfully enjoined or restrained. The United States, its officers, and its agencies are not required to give security

I am pretty sure Judge Engelmayer would rule that the proper amount was zero. I am guessing that in fact he already has.

Last edited 1 month ago by Jeffrey Zoar
teotoon
teotoon
Reply to  Jeffrey Zoar
1 month ago

IIRC, the criminals put the bond at $10,000 which is ludicrous.

teotoon
teotoon
Reply to  TempoNick
1 month ago

Lame Cherry, having read Sandburg’s history of Lincoln, put forward the the idea of using a Provost Marshall to go after, try,and punish these traitors. The High Collar CriminalsPresident Donald Trump is the EXECUTIVE in the Government branch. He has absolute authority to appoint anyone, and in numbers of cases without Congressional “advise and consent” to carry out his orders.DOGE is an audit platform. The President in having Elon Musk his representative, because the President is the one who is security cleared, is Constitutionally authorized to engage in this audit, and Mr. Musk and his team should be commended for… Read more »

Arthur Metcalf
Arthur Metcalf
Reply to  Filthie
1 month ago

That is Trump’s biggest test. I continue to believe he won’t cross the Rubicon and jail a judge. But if he doesn’t, there are over a hundred US district judges lined up to run his presidency for him. He should be able to see this now. History may have given us an opportunity, but the man who brought it about has a fatal flaw, which is his age and worldview. To do what is necessary would involve changing something deep about him as a showman and a businessman, and I don’t think he has the will to throw the old… Read more »

Jack Dobson
Jack Dobson
Reply to  Arthur Metcalf
1 month ago

I reject that it even amounts to crossing the Rubicon. Even more than the prosecutions, clawing back the money is something that would be expected, but, yes, it is viewed now as revolutionary, which is telling.

Tarl Cabot
Tarl Cabot
Reply to  Arthur Metcalf
1 month ago

Yesterday Trump said he would obey the judicial TROs that are attempting to stymie his efforts. If he is serious about that, it is probably the end of significant reform. It will almost certainly take two years, at least, for these issues to reach the Supreme Court in definitive fashion, and in any event he should not be confident in the votes of Roberts and Amy Two-Names (maybe not even Kavanaugh). In the meantime, the gears of leviathan will grind on. Prudence is all well and good, but wisdom is knowing when it’s time to go to the guns (metaphorically… Read more »

Hemid
Hemid
Reply to  Tarl Cabot
1 month ago

The justices he put on the court will never forgive him for making them “Trump judges.” They’ll always find a way to screw him in retaliation—to show off for their friends, basically. “He thinks he’s people!” Every one of them has done it already, Gorsuch most egregiously. The other Republican knives in Trump’s back have been inserted while “in character,” but in the big troon case, Gorsuch took it upon himself to generate a shocking plot twist. Trump has to tell them to eat shit—preemptively, openly. Only a fully coprophagia-compliant ruling would be constitutional, obviously, but only Thomas and Alito… Read more »

Jack Dobson
Jack Dobson
Reply to  Hemid
1 month ago

Very little save so-called birthright “citizenship” issue ever will be appealed that far, largely due to uncertainty. Trump will claim compliance and either not comply or do so maliciously, Eisen and Co. will crow and milk their donors, and it will proceed as is happening now.

Compsci
Compsci
Reply to  Arthur Metcalf
1 month ago

Is it ever necessary to “jail” a judge? Or is the key here to restore the original understanding of the judiciary as the organ of *opinion* and the executive as the organ of *enforcement*. I do admit however, there needs to be some oversight in which to replace judges whose “expiration date” has been reached. To this effect, lifetime appointments need to be eliminated in favor of term limits. This should restore a balance and churn the judiciary in order to meet societal changes—but not the immediate passions of the “mob”.

Dutchboy
Dutchboy
Reply to  Arthur Metcalf
1 month ago

He can just ignore their rulings. They have no power to enforce them. I think Vance has already hinted at this.

Last edited 1 month ago by Dutchboy
The Wild Geese Howard
The Wild Geese Howard
Reply to  Dutchboy
1 month ago

One would think the Trump team would be very aware of the dozens of non-compliance precedents set by Biden.

That would also supply a simple, boilerplate answer for media pests.

“Ask your boy Biden about that, duh.”

The Infant Phenomenon
The Infant Phenomenon
Reply to  Arthur Metcalf
1 month ago

I know what you mean, but you are forgetting–apparently–that they actually SHOT the man, and he has *not* forgotten that. He *knows* what that means: He–personally–is in a fight to the death. Not only his own death, but the ruination of his entire family and their imprisonment or death. He *knows* that, you may be sure. Remember: They SHOT him.

Ride-By Shooter
Ride-By Shooter
Reply to  Filthie
1 month ago

I will be interested in how your Orange Man deals with the lawfare and rogue activist-judges

It’s really quite simple. Step one is to trace out the implications of a rigged 2020 election. Since fraud vitiates whatever is dependent upon fraud, it follows immediately that Biden was a fake president, a mere imposter. Therefore Donald J. Trump is the 46th president of the USA, not the 47th as simpletons believe. It follows from this that every judge installed while the Biden cabal occupied the WH is illegitimate. And that’s not all.

Last edited 1 month ago by Ride-By Shooter
Ostei Kozelskii
Member
Reply to  Ride-By Shooter
1 month ago

Not a bad idea. Prove the 2020 election was actually a coup d’etat, vacate that election and every act Biden undertook.

Ride-By Shooter
Ride-By Shooter
Reply to  Ostei Kozelskii
1 month ago

Afaik, for four long years Congress did not transmit a single bill to any president, as required by I.7.2 of the Con. The same clause gives the president 10 days to return a bill to Congress unsigned or else it becomes law, except in case of the adjournment of a Congress. So far, there’s no Con law snare here. The present Congress, however, could argue that the prior two Congresses transmitted bills to the White House during the years 2021 through Jan 20 2025, and that upon DJT taking the oath of office, those bills can be considered transmitted as… Read more »

Last edited 1 month ago by Ride-By Shooter
Steve
Steve
Reply to  Ride-By Shooter
1 month ago

Re: unsigned, unreturned bills, yes, sort of. All those 11th hour bills that passed just before they adjourned would have been pocket vetoed, since Congress was not in session on the deadline.

rasqball
rasqball
Reply to  Filthie
1 month ago

Time for The Culling of the Kritarchs?

These are not hard men – in fact, many of them are gals! – and will besmirch their britches if leaned upon…

Ivan
Ivan
Reply to  RealityRules
1 month ago

The project must then extend to the fabric of society to include, among others, catholic and Lutheran services that brought somalis, Haitians and the other diversity to majority white populated areas like maine, minnesota, north dakota, etc. The project must also extend to the role state, county, city, school board, etc has played in the malfeasance.

Ostei Kozelskii
Member
Reply to  Ivan
1 month ago

What that means is elucidating the fact that white people have been their own worst enemies.

Race treason must have dire consequences for the traitors, far worse than the consequences their policies had on the hapless, innocent whites outside their ambit.

Epaminondas
Member
Reply to  Ivan
1 month ago

Even worse. Turns out these church groups were taking money from USAID.

3g4me
3g4me
Reply to  Ivan
1 month ago

Worcester, Massachusetts just declared itself a trannie sanctuary city. Its population in 2020 was 51.8% White. When I visited there in 1980 with a cousin looking at colleges, it was 94% White. People are entirely too ignorant of just how late in the game it is; barring radical action, Whites will be 50% of AINO in 2030 and disappear a few decades thereafter (exponential effect of racial birth and death rates.

Maxda
Maxda
Reply to  3g4me
1 month ago

By the end of the 80s it had a pretty rough Puerto Rican hood.

Worcester could have been a great small to mid sized city. Took a lot of work to prevent it.

3g4me
3g4me
Reply to  Maxda
1 month ago

Yeah, it was a White working class city in the old days. Then Massachusetts added a swarm of Puerto ricans and mixed-race Portuguese.

Jack Dobson
Jack Dobson
Reply to  RealityRules
1 month ago

Excellent comment. Musk showing the corrupt, dark underbelly of the beast has been an amazing moment. He and Trump at best are preserving our people in the currently deracinated state. Our goal has to be restoration.

Member
Reply to  Jack Dobson
1 month ago

Most importantly, Musk is showing the President that his old CivNat faith in the institutions of government is not only wrong, but dangerous. Confronting Trump with proof of the rotten corpse at the heart of his idealized America will shock him and push him to more radical solutions than he imagined were necessary. Destroying Trump’s illusions even beyond what they were when he was nearly killed last summer is vital to turning him into a revolutionary historic figure. Having Joe Dirt and a solid group of loyalist advisers amplifying that message and pushing Trump to action, not empty bluster will… Read more »

Jack Dobson
Jack Dobson
Reply to  Pickle Rick
1 month ago

Trump has transitioned to a revolutionary figure even now. He’s overseeing the attempted destruction of the Administrative State whether he realizes it or not. And I have started to think he fully comprehends he is not reanimating a corpse that died a deserved death long ago. Whether he succeeds is another matter, but I have started to think he may. This was supposed to be a Thermidorian Reaction and has blown well past that mission. Let’s hope he gets the military fully under control ASAP because it is still in the grips of ideologues and thieves capable of a full-blown,… Read more »

Last edited 1 month ago by Jack Dobson
Compsci
Compsci
Reply to  Jack Dobson
1 month ago

“Trump more or less is Lenin at this point even if he wanted to be Stalin.”

Very astute observation. It seems—putting the cart before the horse here—the man who follows Trump will determine all that Trump may accomplish.

Last edited 1 month ago by Compsci
Ostei Kozelskii
Member
Reply to  Jack Dobson
1 month ago

He has already started moving, if only symbolically, against the military. Hence, he has forbade the celebration of ethnic and racial “months” in the military. If nothing else, Trump’s heart is assuredly in the right place.

Compsci
Compsci
Reply to  Ostei Kozelskii
1 month ago

We need to start getting rid of the Generals at the top. One by one won’t do it quick enough. The one back door solution is to shrink the command structure from 40+ (4-star) to a dozen or so. He could then handle the dozen left—if necessary—in his term. There’s reason many—if not most—of the military coups start among the colonel level.

Redneck 0311
Redneck 0311
Reply to  Pickle Rick
1 month ago

What DOGE needs is a simple website, at minimumlisting such info as:

Each Instance of suspected abuse

Agency responsible

Full description of abuse and consequences, if known

Individual(s) most responsible for abuse

Approximate $ amount of each line item of abuse

Narrative detailing actions the agency had taken to
Hide or obfuscate said abuse

Having such factual data at hand and current will go a long way toward validating his effort, and will further enrage the progressives.

I’m surprised such a chronicle hasn’t already been established.

Ostei Kozelskii
Member
Reply to  RealityRules
1 month ago

You’re certainly right about one thing–there is very little in contemporary AINO worth conserving. Therefore, literal conservatism would not only be otiose, it would be pernicious. What is required is destructive reaction and reconstruction.

ray
ray
Reply to  Ostei Kozelskii
1 month ago

looking up ‘otiose’. . .

Danny
Danny
Reply to  ray
1 month ago

otiose – that word be ray-shist

ray
ray
Reply to  Danny
1 month ago

:O)

3g4me
3g4me
Reply to  RealityRules
1 month ago

Hear, hear. If I had a buck for every recent internet comment telling people to ‘legalize’ their status, or that ‘murka loves ‘legal’ immigrants, I could pay for a few months of groceries. Trump doesn’t have to worry about getting re-elected, but he’s yet to touch the immigration system overall. And we’ve heard almost nothing from Stephen Miller of late, whether about faux ‘refugees’ or the approximately 1.5 million ‘legal’ third-world immigrants per year. Yes, money matters, but demographics matter more. F**k the magic dirt and magic papers and gyrating magic negroes at the big sportsbowl – I want a… Read more »

c matt
c matt
Reply to  3g4me
1 month ago

DOGE took direct aim at the funding for illegals with USAID. Best way to stop it in its tracks (no $$$, no caravans, no NY 4 star hotels). Need more of that, and sad to hear Trump will cave to the TROs. Money feeds the demographics.

3g4me
3g4me
Reply to  c matt
1 month ago

There is NO difference between the ‘legals’ and the ‘illegals’ except two damned letters. Magic papers do not change genetics nor culture.

The Infant Phenomenon
The Infant Phenomenon
Reply to  RealityRules
1 month ago

I’m afraid you don’t grasp what conservatism is. You seem to confuse it with Conservative, Inc. But they are only grifters, who have been schooled–not educated–beyond their innate intellectual capabilities. You can tell that when any one of them mentions “conservative ideology,” which is a true oxymoron, since ideology is as far from conservatism as the east is from the west. Conservatives are grounded in custom, tradition, law, religion, and Nature; that is all. Ideology is utterly foreign to conservatism.

Last edited 1 month ago by The Infant Phenomenon
pyrrhus
pyrrhus
1 month ago

Virtually no one in human history, before the 20th century, believed any of the propositions put forth by the “progressives”…e.g.Egalitarianism is disproven every day everywhere, and ditto the notion that women can perform men’s tasks as well as men, and vice versa, etc…Lenin pushed them as a way of undermining established society, but cracked down on feminism when he attained power… The reality is that most politicians don’t have an ideology, they are just grifters, stealing vast amounts of government money for themselves and their followers..What’s being uncovered by DOGE is that the theft of government money is in the… Read more »

Wolf Barney
Wolf Barney
Reply to  pyrrhus
1 month ago

Yes, politicians are grifters, but they do subscribe to universalist egalitarian ideology. It’s the ruling principle. Stray from it and be destroyed. Steve King is an example.

Ostei Kozelskii
Member
Reply to  Wolf Barney
1 month ago

Correct. It is entirely possible to be both a grifter and a dyed-in-the-wool, anti-white Leftist. I’d say around 75% of Congressthings are.

Hemid
Hemid
Reply to  pyrrhus
1 month ago

Before I understood that all economics is equally fake and talking about it can only help the bad guys, I used to hypothesize that we’ve been in an unprecedented depression for at least half a century and the entire positive side of US GDP is (to simplify) “Democrats paying their voters,” counted repeatedly. I never expected normal people to find out what I was talking about. It should be important—a mind-altering revelation. But we have those every day! Then we forget what we’ve seen and resent anyone who points back at it. USAID, still intact, has been made Old News.… Read more »

Jeffrey Zoar
Jeffrey Zoar
Reply to  Hemid
1 month ago

As far as anyone who subscribes to normie TV news is concerned, USAID is just another conspiracy theory. But normie TV news was defeated in 2024.

Arshad Ali
Arshad Ali
1 month ago

“The Covid vaccine is a great example of the recklessness of medicine. Even a little bit of prudence would have avoided this easily avoidable error.” You’re being way too charitable. This was deliberate criminal behavior, as is so much else in US big business. Likewise for the military-industrial complex, whose dynamic seems to shape foreign policy. But returning to pharma, drugs are often rushed to market based on flawed and rigged testing. Call it recklessness if you will but I say the bosses are aware that there may well be detrimental side effects (assuming the drug even does anything to… Read more »

Phineas McSneed
Phineas McSneed
Reply to  Arshad Ali
1 month ago

I disagree with the statement for a different reason. They couldn’t exercise prudence in rolling out the vax because the reason for doing it so quickly had nothing to do with vaccinating people. The purpose was to serve as an off-ramp for lockdowns and masking. They scared everyone so hard and so many independent agents became true believers in the ‘deadly pandemic’ narrative that it was all runaway positive feedback loops. Pretending like the vax was a miracle was the only way they could stop the narrative-driven monster they created.

Hun
Hun
Reply to  Arshad Ali
1 month ago

I agree. The vaxx is definitely something that should be attributed to malice. Worse, malice at many levels, including the lowest level – the doctors getting paid based on vaxxing volume. Selling their trusting patients for a few shekels.

Compsci
Compsci
Reply to  Hun
1 month ago

The salient point here, I believe, is that doctors have been shown to be human—not gods—and our heretofore faith in them misguided. The majority of physicians, albeit licensed to prescribe and treat, were little better than the average patient to understand contagious disease. This is why I’ve termed them technicians rather than “scientists”. Too many decades of TV medical shows created their god-like persona. Covid scamdemic destroyed such. That’s why JFK jr is needed to restore/reaffirm balance.

Alzaebo
Alzaebo
Reply to  Arshad Ali
1 month ago

What made it implacable and inexorable is that it was not a public health response. What it was, was a military response on a deadman switch. That switch, that built-in set of responses, was a corollary to a nuclear deadman switch. Once tripped, a whole bunch of other pre-programmed switches started tripping in a perfectly inhumane bureaucratic procedure. What used to be a minor concern of government, “public health”, has now become a ‘matter of national security’: “biodefense”. Regardless of the origin, by animals or by enemy, the same preset responses were poised. Thanks to international security arrangements, those responses… Read more »

Last edited 1 month ago by Alzaebo
The Infant Phenomenon
The Infant Phenomenon
Reply to  Alzaebo
1 month ago

“Thanks to international security arrangements, those responses marched worldwide.” Not sure what you mean by “worldwide,” but the things you describe did not happen in a single Southern state as far as I know. Not GA or SC or FL or AL or AR or TN to my certain knowledge. The governor of GA asked for “two weeks to flatten the curve” after which he said it was all over. The “news” media went berserk, but he ignored them and so did everybody else. The governor of SC just declared everybody in SC to be “essential” and appears on TV… Read more »

Dutchboy
Dutchboy
Reply to  Arshad Ali
1 month ago

Pharma does its own testing and then gets approval from the bureaucrats who hope to be (or once were) Pharma employees. What could go wrong?

Dutchboy
Dutchboy
1 month ago

Diehard support for Israel does not strike me as prudent.

c matt
c matt
Reply to  Dutchboy
1 month ago

Depends. It can get you the Presidency. But yes, there is that whole soul for Wales thing.

Alzaebo
Alzaebo
Reply to  c matt
1 month ago

When you need a lever, get the biggest fulcrum you can.

karl von hungus
karl von hungus
1 month ago

there is an engineering maxim that illustrates the thesis of this post:

test, don’t guess

so much of modern life is predicated on “guessing”. all the net zero stuff in europe is a perfect example. they have destroyed their economies based on unproven *opinions*. over and over i see statements that are pure speculation presented with certitude, whether it’s in the field of medicine, immigration, etc.

The Wild Geese Howard
The Wild Geese Howard
Reply to  karl von hungus
1 month ago

Same goes for all the DIE junk.

There is literally zero supporting data. All they do is keep repeating the chants.

Mycale
Mycale
1 month ago

If progressivism means that 94% of job hires are DEI, and a mass censorship regime is put into place to stop people from talking about things Democrats don’t like, and perverts like Sam Brinton are in charge, and the green new deal is passed under the guise of “inflation reduction”, and transgenders are showing off their fake breasts on the White House lawn, then I don’t want it, and I suspect most Americans don’t either. The “Biden” administration was brutal and basically made Trump’s actions now a necessity.

Last edited 1 month ago by Mycale
ProZNoV
ProZNoV
1 month ago

Judge Nap, ultimate libertarian and boomer, is having a fit over recent events by the executive.

“He can just have Congress pass bills to change all this.

Embarassing. Deluded.

george 1
george 1
Reply to  ProZNoV
1 month ago

The good Judge is a proponent of the U.S. Constitution. Most of us are in favor of the concepts. He is correct on some of his pronouncements concerning the U.S. Government and this administration. He fails to understand that the system is completely broken and utterly out of control.

A revolution must occur to right the ship. Trump is trying to lead a peaceful revolution. I hope is is able to pull it off.

Filthie
Filthie
Member
Reply to  george 1
1 month ago

The ol’ bugger is having a meltdown over what is going on with the Gaza Strip right now… and I can’t say I blame him. Macgregor is chitting his pants with rage too.
Those two guys make a lot of sense sometimes…

george 1
george 1
Reply to  Filthie
1 month ago

Oh yes. Both of them have the correct picture of Gaza. They know mass murder when they see it.

G Lordon Giddy
G Lordon Giddy
Reply to  george 1
1 month ago

Judge Nap overall does a good job but you are right he thinks in terms of libertarianism.
However Trump by being Netanyahoo’s BFF may be stepping in a pile of Dung with the Gaza project that could take his presidency down.
The good judge is right about that.

pyrrhus
pyrrhus
Reply to  ProZNoV
1 month ago

Judge Nap really said that? I agree that executive orders which aren’t limited to the Executive branch of government aren’t Constitutional, but within that branch, they are totally legit….

Arthur Metcalf
Arthur Metcalf
Reply to  pyrrhus
1 month ago

I like Judge Nap. Unfortunately, this issue has touched an old nerve in him, which he should let die, which is the battle over the executive versus legislative branches in the US. I’m guessing this goes back to GW Bush and bad feelings from those years for both of them over the “unitary executive” theory pushed by Addington, Yoo, and others. That’s a nice debate to have during certain historical eras when the document over which you’re arguing is still regnant. As it no longer is, it’s a bit like watching old men argue over an instruction manual for a… Read more »

Hemid
Hemid
Reply to  pyrrhus
1 month ago

Looking for a way to blame the innocent citizenry, rather than the monsters preying on them, for the American government becoming ever less libertarian (except about faggotry), fans of the regime have sited all legitimate avenues of change in congress/legislation—where movement toward libertarianism has been made institutionally impossible.

You voted for this! You people re-elect them at a rate of 95%! Stop punching yourself!

“We elected Trump to stop the punching.”

“Fascism!”

Libertarians are evil fucks.

Tom K
Tom K
Reply to  ProZNoV
1 month ago

I like it when he squeals. Squeal like a pig, boy!

Ostei Kozelskii
Member
Reply to  Tom K
1 month ago

comment image

Jack Dobson
Jack Dobson
Reply to  ProZNoV
1 month ago

Nap is a pervert and a clown. What he presents as reason and analysis always is a pretext for getting some fresh boy meat in some convoluted manner. The scariest thing is to think he actually believes law and the U.S. Constitution are a thing at this point (he’s too smart to believe it, so see the first full sentence).

Compsci
Compsci
Reply to  Jack Dobson
1 month ago

Too harsh. What you forget is that the judge rarely—if ever—is pontificating by himself. His guests are, in their own light, quite informative and authoritative. So they are all perverts and clowns?

Jack Dobson
Jack Dobson
Reply to  Compsci
1 month ago

To be fair, and I trust you even when I disagree you, I haven’t watched him in a long time, so his guests probably are as you describe. I still cannot stand the guy.

Compsci
Compsci
Reply to  ProZNoV
1 month ago

The “good judge” is *not* deluded. He simply has an opinion of the events that differ. One can watch his channel without much problem even on this side of the divide. I advise one do. My retort to the above criticism is that Trump knows exactly what he is doing. EO’s are designed to push the process into the courts as quickly as possible. Congress simply cannot, or will not, act in the timeframe needed to effect change. Trump has been there once before, and was burned.

3g4me
3g4me
Reply to  ProZNoV
1 month ago

Never trust a pederast.

Jeffrey Zoar
Jeffrey Zoar
1 month ago

In terms of a voting base, who the pundits call Trumpists or maga are basically the same people who supported Goldwater, and they haven’t changed since that time, aside from some dying and some being born. But still essentially the same group of people. Who were later called the Tea Party. And are now called MAGA. And along the way were deceived by some pols who claimed or pretended to be “conservative.” But remaining the same bloc. At its core, it is nothing new. What is new is successfully electing a president who actually makes what appears to be a… Read more »

Evil Sandmich
Evil Sandmich
Reply to  Jeffrey Zoar
1 month ago

It’s as Z referenced though: Trumpism is a placeholder for what comes afterwards.

TempoNick
TempoNick
Reply to  Jeffrey Zoar
1 month ago

You forgot the Reagan voter who essentially has the same dna.

Alzaebo
Alzaebo
Reply to  Jeffrey Zoar
1 month ago

Neither Republican nor Democrat, MAGA is an authentic third party.

The Infant Phenomenon
The Infant Phenomenon
Reply to  Jeffrey Zoar
1 month ago

Shrewd observations all.

Peter Piper
Peter Piper
1 month ago

Ten guys on a task: you have-a joker, a slacker, a whiner, a critic, the boss, the company spy/toady, the new kid, a token other, and 2 grimly efficient men who do all the work

Danny
Danny
Reply to  Peter Piper
1 month ago

Where I used to work we had three efficient “men”. However, it was me and two women – we produced the core of the department output.

Last edited 1 month ago by Danny
RealityRules
RealityRules
1 month ago

The Oligarchs are already showing cracks in their coalition: https://www.theamericanconservative.com/musk-led-consortium-bids-on-openai/ This is going to be wild. What is also interesting about this is the other lines that this division breaks down upon. One of those lines is a stake in the future. Altman, Robois, Karp, Harari … … are all pillow biting fudge packers. So is Thiel. Musk is a heterosexual advocate for eugenic natalism. Luckey is a typical Silicon Valley guy talking both sides of his mouth. This article is interesting and revealing. (https://www.tabletmag.com/feature/american-vulcan-palmer-luckey-anduril) He talks all about the essential well-being of one country that isn’t his and then… Read more »

3g4me
3g4me
Reply to  RealityRules
1 month ago

The tech guys really are a strange bunch. As you note, a bunch of pederast soiboys, a Jew married to a Han, and a guy who wants to live on Mars and has an admittedly cute son he names ‘X’ with a woman who hates the word mother (“X says Claire, but he doesn’t say ‘mama’… like, maybe he can sense my distaste for the word ‘mother.’).

rasqball
rasqball
Reply to  3g4me
1 month ago

You have no idea
Just how strange a “bunch” that is:
(Use ’em or lose ’em.)

ArthurinCali
1 month ago

One of the greatest things to happen by Trump entering politics was how it revealed so many figures on the faux-Right. Pretenders outing themselves across the board as merely playing their roles on the stage of Conservative Inc. For many, this was an epiphany moment realizing a lot of these folks were charlatans selling a version of Conservative Coca-Cola and didn’t want anything to actually get better or change.

Jack Dobson
Jack Dobson
Reply to  ArthurinCali
1 month ago

Deleted.

Last edited 1 month ago by Jack Dobson
Arthur Metcalf
Arthur Metcalf
Reply to  Jack Dobson
1 month ago

I disagree. He actually believed that he was politically viable as a Supreme Court nominee during Trump’s first term, and was pissed that he never made any of the lists. He didn’t expect to be named, but he wanted to be included in the pantheon for posterity. He certainly would be a great SC judge, but your comment is about him being “too smart to believe” something, and I have good reason to believe that no, sometimes, Judge Nap is not as smart or in tune as he thinks. If he was smart and experienced in that world, he’d know… Read more »

Jack Dobson
Jack Dobson
Reply to  Arthur Metcalf
1 month ago

“Smart” may have been incorrect. Substitute “naive.” And to the extent it even matters at this point, we need radical justices rather than people who think the Constitution can be ghost danced back to reality, as if that even would be a good thing. Nap would have been a terrible justice on that score alone.

ray
ray
1 month ago

Prudence, yes. ‘the intense belief that they are commanded by history or history’s God to impose this ideology on the people of the world’ They are holy apostles, caretakers, guardians of the Prog Precepts constituting their religion, typically since youth — Glory Years for the Booms and Xers that they thirst to re-live. They lack the inner fortitude to change spiritually and politically as they mature physically. ‘In fairness, it is even more difficult for the old school lefties, because for them, politics defines their life’ Yep. They replace God with their own wills, essentially. I knew these folks in… Read more »

Jack Dobson
Jack Dobson
Reply to  ray
1 month ago

Truth is no impediment at all for them, to the degree they think it exists or matters. In the American context, this weird strain of progressivism has been with it since its start. The grotesque and massive theft now exposed also always was there.

Last edited 1 month ago by Jack Dobson
Compsci
Compsci
Reply to  Jack Dobson
1 month ago

This brings to mind a sage insight from Z-man some time ago. Something to the effect that all political struggle we discuss boils down to “getting rid of the crazies” among us. I have yet to observe anything to contradict that insight. As has been said, “…all the rest is commentary…”.

Ostei Kozelskii
Member
Reply to  Compsci
1 month ago

Alas, the graveyards are far too small to house all the crazies. Perhaps a Muskmobile could whisk them to the moon for sanitary deposit.

Jack Dobson
Jack Dobson
Reply to  Ostei Kozelskii
1 month ago

Rocket test meat puppets. Yes, the time has come. The dummies previously used in cars were not biodegradable, which may help with the sale.

Ride-By Shooter
Ride-By Shooter
Reply to  ray
1 month ago

They [progs] replace God with their own wills, essentially Notice what they have in common with you. They have retained your great faith in the primacy of willpower over the law and order of existence. Like you they are also egoists. Both you and the progs belong to a school of crude, barbarous primitivism. Your quarrel with them is about in whom the power resides, not about whether not egoism and willpowerism are wrong. their spirit is luciferian, opposing the Christian ideal where Christ personifies Truth  Jesus failed to satisfy important requirements expected of Israel’s maschiach. After the national narcissist… Read more »

Frank Zip
Frank Zip
1 month ago

And how exactly does prudence play into Open AI and Trump’s apparent acquiescence to Marc Andreessen, Peter Thiel, Zuckerberg, et al? Prudence is the last thing these tycoons of our wonderful futuristic world want while they build their god machines.

Ostei Kozelskii
Member
1 month ago

I would argue Leftism, since the second half of the 60s, didn’t become unhinged after the “necessities” of the Cold War fell into desuetude. It was always unhinged. However, with the defeat of global communism, conservatism–for what it was worth–lost its raison d’etre. Conservatives wept because they had no worlds left to conquer. They felt they had no purpose. And rather than honestly appraise the postmodern Left, recognize it for the evil it was, and combat it just as vigorously as they did the commies, they surreptitiously joined hands with the Leftists and dug their greasy hamfists into the massive… Read more »

Boris
Reply to  Ostei Kozelskii
1 month ago

Ostei – I said this before here and so I’ll say it again: the West LOST the Cold War and the Left, Commies, Progressives, whatever you want to call them, won and captured the Anglosphere and W Europe and have been moving steadily eastward recapturing most of the former CW communist countries to where they are now on the doorstep of their former crown jewel, Russia. I would argue (again) that the communists lost Russia, but won the most of the world, and it gnaws on them to no end that they lost Russia, which explains the vehement hatred of… Read more »

Ostei Kozelskii
Member
Reply to  Boris
1 month ago

Today’s Leftist elites are not Das Kapital-quoting Marxists. They are–although most of them don’t understand quite how–the intellectual descendants of Foucault, Derrida, Lyotard, Barthes, etc.

What happened was that a notionally liberal empire–the USA–defeated a communist one–the USSR. Once this process was complete, the USA abandoned its notional liberalism and became an unhinged, postmodern Leftist polity. That is where we currently stand, although Trump is attempting to restore sanity and in the process chuck the pomo elites onto history’s slag-heap.

c matt
c matt
Reply to  Boris
1 month ago

Seems to me China is closer to a Chinese form of National Socialism than it is to communism right now.

Compsci
Compsci
Reply to  c matt
1 month ago

Yep, China tossed Marxism out after Mao. To be rich is glorious as they say. The opposite side of the coin is “fuck with the economy beyond set party boundaries and we shoot you in the head.”

G Lordon Giddy
G Lordon Giddy
1 month ago

I am not sure it was very prudent of Trump to tell the world that he was just going to ” take ” Gaza and plant the American empire there?
I see this as a possible fiasco on top of fiasco’s already created by GAE.
Not so sure Trump is going to represent prudence in the end? The jury is still out for me.

Zulu Juliet
Zulu Juliet
Reply to  G Lordon Giddy
1 month ago

Mr. Giddy, I agree. Trump and Prudent don’t work in word association. Trump’s Mouth and Prudent are antonyms.

How ever, his actions and direction, are indeed prudent and necessary.

Zulu Juliet
Zulu Juliet
1 month ago

One must wonder if career Republican seat warmers (that’s you, Susan Collins) ever had the thought “Is this good for the country and it the people?”, rather than “Is this good for me?”

One need not wonder about the Democrats. For them it’s all about the money or the mad religious beliefs.

No one protesting Trump out of prudent concern for the future of the Republic; All the protests are about money and his heresies against the degenerate public religion.

Alzaebo
Alzaebo
1 month ago

The thing about modern philosophies, whether govermental or corporate, is that they all seem to be based on first order thinking only. This is purely Mercantilist thinking. The only thought is the quick hit, the immediate profit, like Mob gangsters robbing diamond stores in Vegas. No thought as to the future, the greater public, or the quality of life down the road. The immediate quick return, even if for only a short run, is all that matters. I blame bureaucratic corporatism, as limited liablility corporations can morph, and change, moving from one product to another, a Blob by any other… Read more »

Last edited 1 month ago by Alzaebo
ChiefIlliniwek
ChiefIlliniwek
1 month ago

Just read this today. Devex is noticing the Trump effect!

https://www.devex.com/news/usaid-s-largest-partners-report-furloughs-for-thousands-of-staff-109325

Maybe someday the suburbs of DC will be bulldozed and replaced with tobacco fields??

Bartleby the Scrivner
Bartleby the Scrivner
1 month ago

In the 11th paragraph of this piece, Z compares desiring the “known”, instead of the “unknown”.

Hence prudence.

It reminds me of the scene in “Wall Street”, where Bud Fox asks Gordon Gecko why he has to break up his dads airline.

His reply; “Because it’s breakable!”

They do their insane actions because they can.

Last edited 1 month ago by Bartleby the Scrivner
Jack Dobson
Jack Dobson
1 month ago

European conservatism always meant “preservation.” America’s version is a meaningless checklist of things that do not even consider preservation to be necessarily a good thing; the term has become marketing for policies that are found on Column B of today’s menu; today’s Column A will be tomorrow’s Column B, to borrow from Dabney. In a sense, the non-ideological Trump may be America’s first conservative president save possibly Coolidge. So when we hiss “what is there left to conserve?” it is aimed more at him than to the shadow monkeys of Con, Inc., who seek not to preserve anything. This is… Read more »

Dutchboy
Dutchboy
Reply to  Jack Dobson
1 month ago

The old European conservatism was “Throne and Altar” conservatism. We don’t have kings and we don’t have an established Church, so we have nothing to conserve in the old European sense.

Jack Dobson
Jack Dobson
Reply to  Dutchboy
1 month ago

We have a people and a nation.

c matt
c matt
Reply to  Jack Dobson
1 month ago

A people and a nation need a king and Church to survive. Otherwise, it devolves into what we have now: A strip mall with nukes.

Ostei Kozelskii
Member
Reply to  Dutchboy
1 month ago

But we did have a unitary European culture. Alas, no more.

Ronehjr
Ronehjr
1 month ago

Trump has unqualifiedly supported Israel’s and America’s ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians. How is that in any way prudent?

Compsci
Compsci
Reply to  Ronehjr
1 month ago

Problem is, so has every other Arab country. The Palestinians have proven themselves unwelcome guests even with fellow Arabs.

Last edited 1 month ago by Compsci
BigJimSportCamper
BigJimSportCamper
Reply to  Compsci
1 month ago

The Jews have proven themselves unwelcome squatters.

Alzaebo
Alzaebo
Reply to  Compsci
1 month ago

No tears still for the Sudentenland Germans.
Palestinian is what one calls a person who was born and lives in the Palestine region, as that area used to be known. It was named, but not a state, just like Ukraine was not a country until 1991. (Or Nazareth was not a town, for that matter.)

‘Palestinians’ are a mixture of legacy population, related to the Jordanians across the river, and simply rebel Arabs under someone else’s rule (Ottoman, Hashemite, British, or Israeli.)

Ketchup-stained Griller
Ketchup-stained Griller
1 month ago

Ah Ah. Wouldn’t be prudent.

Ostei Kozelskii
Member
Reply to  Ketchup-stained Griller
1 month ago

comment image

Alzaebo
Alzaebo
1 month ago

To be charitable, let us take some credit. “…the radicalism at the heart of progressivism.”

Yessir, you bet, since the beginning: in the New Lands, we gave every idea a full and fair trial, because the good old ways had problems of their own.

You have to at least give us that. We couldn’t always foresee the results because we hadn’t tried a lot of this stuff before. White people were always the world’s explorers.

I blame us for nothing but boldness (well, and a bit of gullibility, like listening to…)

Last edited 1 month ago by Alzaebo
Thomas Mcleod
Thomas Mcleod
1 month ago

My old man calls MAGA the revenge of the John Birch Society. I don’t really know if he’s serious.

c matt
c matt
Reply to  Thomas Mcleod
1 month ago

Keep seeing a meme going around about “do you know someone you thought was crazy but now deserves an apology” – JBS should probably be on it, along with Ron Paul.

Gauss
Gauss
1 month ago

Egalitarianism, universalism, and the blank slate are the three legs of this ideological stool.

It’s more like the blank slate is the root from which egalitarianism and universalism spring. Pull that out of the ground and the rest will wither and die.

Marko
Marko
1 month ago

I think this is an excellent summation of the new political order. “Cloud People vs Dirt People”, “Anywheres vs Somewheres”, “Liberals vs Anti-Liberals” doesn’t quite work…but yes, it is Prudentialism (and skepticism) vs. those who either don’t question orthodoxy or are trying to exploit it.

Mike Tre
Mike Tre
1 month ago

Interesting that today’s Zman article speaks of prudence, while today’s Sailer article speaks of a list of wild fringe movements he associates with the right:

“One increasing possibility appears to be that newly self-confident right-wingers are getting into various kinds of New Age woo-woo, the occult, gnosticism, RFK Jr. junk science, paganism, Indian esotericism, Chinese numerology, health food fads, etc.”

Ostei Kozelskii
Member
Reply to  thezman
1 month ago

Sailer is the classic example of what you described in your article–a puppet of the Left who puts up Potemkin opposition to the Left in order to gull the rubes into believing they have representation in the Power Structure. If you’ve got a bit more gray matter than the average barnyard animal, you can see right through the shyster.

Hemid
Hemid
Reply to  Mike Tre
1 month ago

When a man’s mind sits unused it becomes womanly, occupied with gossip and status—defensive and inoffensive. People say Sailer’s late weakness is because he’s finally been let in the club or paid off or whatever, but that wouldn’t explain much. I suspect he’s developed some age-related hormonal problem. Appearing to have sold out is a symptom—along with outbursts of senile rage. Remember, the most reliable way to elicit one, for years, was to claim (before media permission was granted) that Biden is senile. He saw himself there. And yet— He’s been very prideful lately, especially that the fans who show… Read more »

c matt
c matt
Reply to  Mike Tre
1 month ago

Health food fads – yes, because being unable to pronounce the 15 ingredients in your peanut butter is the American way, dammit!

Lavrov
Lavrov
1 month ago

Robot history books will call it Zeemanism.

Danny
Danny
1 month ago

I just had a flashback to Blazing Saddles – the executioner at the gallows with the speech impediment. “Welcome to hanging house – not to worry everyone is equal in my eye.”

TomA
TomA
1 month ago

Return to prudence is Whitepilling and long overdue. How can each of us contribute to the momentum of this movement? It’s not enough to define the solution, there must also be implementation. And we should not rely solely on Trump and his team to pull the cart. Can there be a grassroots or crowdsourced tangible contribution? And if so, what?

Paintersforms
Paintersforms
1 month ago

I’m reminded of that book about the Scots. Maybe the author is just a master storyteller, idk. I don’t think Enlightenment is bad, but add Calvinism to it, and you get Progress! Maybe Calvin has been our problem all along. Z wrote about it not long ago. Who needs God if everything is predestined? If everything is predestined, why question or doubt— oneself above all? If God lets you down, who needs God? Aren’t you on your own, aren’t you forced to do God’s work? If modernity is, in some deep sense, the loss of religion, maybe we came to… Read more »

The Infant Phenomenon
The Infant Phenomenon
Reply to  Paintersforms
1 month ago

I’m no Calvinist, but what you have “just thrown out there” is certainly not Calvinism or even predestination.

Paintersforms
Paintersforms
Reply to  The Infant Phenomenon
1 month ago

Ok, I’m not either. Maybe I don’t understand it. But I do wonder about the relationship with God, whether He’s a hardliner or absent, and what that does to a person’s worldview. Either way, I imagine one feels compelled to do His work for Him. I can see that becoming playing God over time. And maybe more moderate types becoming deists.

Last edited 1 month ago by Paintersforms
Jack Boniface
Jack Boniface
Member
1 month ago

Alexander Vindman’s lies led to Trump’s first impeachment. He’s the epitome of how the neocons think now. He has a new book out in two weeks: “The Folly of Realism: How the West Deceived Itself About Russia and Betrayed Ukraine Hardcover.” Description: He “argues that America’s mistakes in Eastern Europe result from policymakers’ fixation on immediate, short-term problem-solving and misplaced hopes and fears. He proposes a new long-term, values-based approach that insists on the fundamentals of liberal democracy and a rules-based world order.”

Bartleby the Scrivner
Bartleby the Scrivner
Reply to  Jack Boniface
1 month ago

That guys head needs to be introduced to a 2×4.

Ostei Kozelskii
Member
Reply to  Bartleby the Scrivner
1 month ago

Yep. That’s the kind of world order I can get behind.

Jack Dobson
Jack Dobson
Reply to  Jack Boniface
1 month ago

Vinman and that ilk have become reactionaries and that type of nonsense is not coming back. Older British friends back in the day told me that there were people still thinking their empire would be restored as late as the Seventies. That’s sort of going on here.

Jeffrey Zoar
Jeffrey Zoar
Reply to  Jack Dobson
1 month ago

As a kid I had the distinct impression that it was that kind of attitude driving their Falklands response

Fremde Heers Ost
Fremde Heers Ost
Reply to  Jeffrey Zoar
1 month ago

Your impression was a Leftist one- the imperialist English who only act from evil motives, rather than a bunch of people protecting land held by their ethnic group. It’s normal behavior to protect your people and land but it’s white people so…

British people have been living on that island longer than Argentina or the US have existed.

Also the annoying hypocrisy of Spanish people living in the Americas whining about British colonialism on an island that had no original inhabitants.

Ostei Kozelskii
Member
Reply to  Jack Dobson
1 month ago

There were Russian intellectuals in the late 19th and early 20th centuries who genuinely feared the Mongols would recrudesce and slap a second Tatar yoke on the rodina.

Ride-By Shooter
Ride-By Shooter
1 month ago

To make America great again, we must sweep away progressivism and its reckless implementations. No one can sweep away progressivism and imprudence without repudiating two of the most important founding principles of the USA. These two are egalitarianism (announced in the DoI) and popular government (amplified greatly in the authority clause of the Con). Such repudiation would amount to repudiating the USA’s past, fast developing greatness, too, which is fine. That greatness was experienced on a road leading to extinction for the people in whose names the USA was imposed by Freemasonish fools. Devotion to that road has also nearly… Read more »

Vegetius
Vegetius
1 month ago

Trump as the avatar of prudence? This should have been saved for 4/1.

Ride-By Shooter
Ride-By Shooter
Reply to  Vegetius
1 month ago

Politics is paradox.

Ostei Kozelskii
Member
Reply to  Ride-By Shooter
1 month ago

Yes. Once you get past Trump’s bluster and bombast, you can see that prudence is a key component of his character.

Compsci
Compsci
Reply to  Ostei Kozelskii
1 month ago

Trump likes to “troll”. Problem is that too many people take him at his word like he’s divinely powerful. He’s just testing the waters and amusing himself. It’s a bit less here, because most commenting have a high level of intelligence. But boy, the Lefties out there…

trackback
1 month ago

[…] ZMan juggles some labels. […]

Tom K
Tom K
1 month ago

There was that song by the Beatles, “Dear Prudence” by, you guessed it, John Lennon, who also wrote “Imagine.” It’s all buttercups and unicorn farts. Throw Prudence out the window it’s so fuddy-duddy.

Otto
Otto
Reply to  Tom K
1 month ago

There’s a real story to that song which if you knew you would understand you have it exactly backwards. He’s singing to someone, “Prudence”, to come out into the real world.
Oops.

Tom K
Tom K
Reply to  Otto
1 month ago

Um yes, that. It’s John Lennon, lol. You’re missing the meta content. But in the end, it’s just a song so whatever.

Last edited 1 month ago by Tom K