Compulsively readable. I voted for Obama in 08 and 12. HRC in 16, and I think she would have been a decent president actually. I still believe that. We wouldn’t have seen progress but we wouldn’t have had the nonsense seen during Biden’s presidency. 2020 I voted Biden and that’s the last time I’ll ever vote for a Democrat, for reasons stated so plainly in this essay that I’m not going to try to top it other than to say that I’ve never felt as hated in my life as democrats made me feel from 2022-2024. I don’t even mean hatred like insults on the Internet or whatever. I mean the rage that these assholes took out on our country and our chance to live free and happy lives. The nonsense they injected into our workplaces, a space where we all agree to set aside differences and work together. It felt like seething rage. It felt like people who were so angry and so entitled that they could only destroy save the destruction was the point. Everything was revenge. Everything was an attack. They projected it all onto Trump, who’s imperfection actually acts like a shield. These people are still so emotionally divorced from their rage that I don’t know if they’ll ever have the guts to face the monsters they’ve become. They’re brain washed and almost like devouring mothers. They will save you or else!!!!
When Trump stood up and raised his fist and shouted “fight!!” I realized I couldn’t remember the last time I had seen something so inspiring, especially in our hyper-choreographed social-media world. It’s an inflection point because it broke the rhythm of the drawl. It was a skip in the soundtrack of destruction masquerading as progress and desecration spoken in pleasantries.
It was an Iwo Jima moment, as much as I dislike Trump, and the absolutely best way to handle it (I'd like to think I'd have done the same in that circumstance - it was absolutely about personal power). I'm not a 'cuck' and I didn't vote for either Trump or Harris but I do have mixed, rather than loathing feelings for what he's doing. The tariffs thing is just retarded and seems to be his new toy; Americans will quickly find they can't afford a guy whose response to losing bully attempts on other countries is to spike consumer goods more. But................'ethnic cleansing' Gaza is a horrible idea, but I'd like for the Gazans to experience the other side of the proposal for once; maybe just for a week or two. Totally support his 'trans' rights rollback except for no trans in the military - are there sound medical reasons for this? Like, no soldiering while transitioning, but what if it's all a done deal? Who cares if they're trans if they're able? Love the anti-DEI stuff but he's merely replacing one non-meritocracy with a bunch of ass-kissing loyalists. Love sending the illegals back where they came from but not American citizens. Love how he's destroying wokeness, waiting for the Christian Nationalist nutzis to take their place (really, we've only swapped one cult for another). But I'm with you, Justin. HRC would have been a good, if not necessarily great, president. We wouldn't have had Prez Biden (who I voted for, but only because ABT - Anybody But Trump. Harris was so bad I didn't vote for either, and I'm done with the Democrats until they fix the fascism in their mirrors.
Well, he took the 2020 Democratic primary. Joe Biden is on the Democratic voters. Kamala Harris, OTOH, was anointed at the DNC…no one asked Americans if they wanted a demonstrated loser to represent them across from a wildly popular, however sick and demented, challenger.
Reminds me of Dem voters putting Walter Mondale up against Reagan, re-running. Oy.
Bertrand Russell was another who hit the nail on the head about the underlying psychology of Progressive 'caring'. As I wrote here: There is a darker possible interpretation of the psychology of egalitarianism – the idea that it might be subconsciously driven by spite. Bertrand Russell hit this particular nail on the head: “If a philosophy is to bring happiness, it should be inspired by kindly feeling. Now Marx is not inspired by kindly feeling. Marx pretended that he wanted the happiness of the proletariat. What he really wanted was the unhappiness of the Bourgeois”. https://grahamcunningham.substack.com/p/stairway-to-equiheaven
I've often found the obscurantism is deliberate. Esoteric lexicons can be used to obscure a lack of profundity. Librarian does the exact opposite- when he interjects an obscure reference or Latin phrase it's precisely because he wants to draw the reader to a particular concept and make them think about it, rather than conceal. I had to look up cursus negotium. It made me think.
It's worth checking out the Isaiah Berlin virtual library. The Two Concepts of Nationalism interview is particularly interesting. Berlin is a fascinating figure in that the Liberal Consensus took his ideas and observations and drastically misapplied them. The Nun and the Mother concept was applied to culture, religion and all the other things which distinguish us as nations, and with the excuse of potential and supposedly inevitable future conflict used to deliberately remove differences. If we believed in different Gods, we must secularise. If our cultures were different, we should all march towards the same cultural destination- with shared global values. The recipe was material abundance replacing the spirituality of human culture. In the West, this led to a crisis of meaning, cultural relativism and the slow degradations of the institutions.
In Islam, a backlash against forced secularisation led to an increase in aggression towards Western outlooks- removing the progress created by figures like Atatürk. Most modern Islamists claim Atatürk was anti-Islamic. It's more accurate to state he sought to modernise and erect a firewall between Islam as a faith and as a political ideology. Many Muslim countries recognise the need, where most Islamist (rather than Islamic) organisations have been banned I wish British politicians would recognise the same necessity.
This all ignored the fact that it was failed supernationalism (not nationalism) in the form of the wounds inflicted on national identity in the Treaty of Versailles which led directly to the yearning for a resurgence in the German people, as well as the rise of Hitler (or a figure like him). Trump is right about that one. Bilateralism can be good, but multilateralism tends to default to the lowest common denominator on the spectrum of magnanimity and vengeance.
Mixed up Bertrand Russel with Russel Brand in my head for a moment and read that quote in the latter’s voice. It kinda checked out, but was still funny to hear
Idk if I buy that about marx. If you read his letters and other correspondence he appears to have most hated the poor. Any kind of poor. He was a pretty shit marxist.
That’s Russell’s point; Marx only wanted to use the workers as a weapon against the middle class. He had no love for them, only a greater degree of hatred for others.
I didn't vote at all because Harris wanted price controls and when it comes down to it, ruining the American economy is a step too far. Now I'm secretly happy Trump is in office.
It has negative effects all over but every choice is a mix of negative and positive. But I didn't realize the degree to which the Democrats became the anti-white-male coalition. When I talked with someone from my hometown and they were openly sexist and racist against me and felt zero trepidation about it... well it brought back way too many memories I had contextualized differently.
Substack racists actually deradicalized me, weird as that sounds. They talk about non-whites the same as leftists talk about whites. Seeing the contrast switched my prior from "left good, right bad" to accepting what people say and do at face value. The left comes out looking very bad when you take them at face value without accepting their complicated justifications for their bigotries.
The shift in the undercurrent will happen most obviously among white progressives, still outwardly hating Trump even as they benefit from his dismantling of anti-white infrastructure. But minorities, especially men, see it just as clearly, and with little in the way of risk of social status, they will be more open to overtly switching to Trump.
I didn't vote either, not that it would have made any difference. My state is skewed very blue. However, I slightly prefer Trump because he explodes the heads of annoying people, he's entertaining and in most ways better policy wise.
The American liberal fascist doesn’t build prison complexes with armed guards or concerns themselves with getting the trains to run on time. They build mental prisons with propaganda guarded by apparatchiks armed with social media accounts. They also build inefficient DEI bureaucracies that ensure people are less safe and just a little bit less free every day, week, and month, until they are dumb, docile, obedient sheep, easily ruled and only modestly productive, but without any ambition. Utopia here we come!
Politics is a game of both ideologues and remoras. When the political tide shifts, the remoras switch parties. Notice the tech bros at the Trump inauguration.
ESG was a way to restrict competition and a distraction from the growing wealth gap -- not to mention inoculation against expensive lawsuits. With Trump actively pointing out that DEI IS discrimination, we can expect psychopathic MBAs to dump ESG like the Romanians dumped their dear leader.
I suspect that this usefulness of conservatives to the regime, which we can call 'Giulianism', is precisely why the Trumpkrieg is being tolerated and only sporadically #resisted. And it's not just low-level progs who benefit from it, it's the high-level institutional ones as well. When their pet radical orcs get out of hand and start doing them more harm than good, they need only sit on their hands in obedience to democratic processes while someone else spends political capital and incurs bad blood to control them, and then when it's time to rally them again they will be found suitably chastened and yet still on board with the high-low alliance.
The problem is that this makes conservatives 'useful idiots', or at best 'political janitors', who get to do the dirty work of cleaning up shitlib messes in order to prevent the regime inner party from ever being tempted to evolve in a reactionary direction. It's fun to watch the ceremonial archon actually getting to play basileus and settle some scores, and of course there are real benefits entailed for the American people (esp. in immigration control), but ultimately all that should matter to dissidents is whether effective steps are being taken to permanently break the power of the leftist governing clerisy. If the Trumpkrieg is blocked from these steps (e.g. as with the apparent funding freeze rescission; that 'accidental' locking of Medicaid funds after the OMB memo *specifically exempted them* was a shenanigan worthy of Sir Humphrey himself), and funneled into culture war crusades against trannies or whatever as the path of least resistance, then its end result will be to cut the fat from the regime and allow it to come back stronger.
Perfect. I said the same thing on this weeks podcast, so much politics is just identifying where the benefit for onself is and follwing that trend. For the past two decades being a prog was the beneficial path for the self-serving but now the pendulum has swung and every young wannabe Gavin Newsome will go to the Right.
I don't think there will be a huge, open shift to the right among existing progressives. I think they will maintain their outward positions while acquiescing to Trump. They'll complain, but they won't fight back, because they realize on some level that they benefit.
Another great piece on our current “civilization”. I agree with your points about the educated left, I see it daily, as they are my Millennial sons and daughters. I pray that they will come to understand classic liberalism and morality that was elegantly argued between Hamilton, and Madison on one side, Jefferson and Monroe on the other. But I fear that the “pain point” of true change in thinking might have passed with the election of Trump. It has gotten better, will continue to and these “minds full of mush” (h/t Rush) will become the intellectually lazy beings they have been taught to be. A Harris victory could’ve gotten them to pain quicker, but I do thank God for Donald Trump. Apparently, Gen Z does seem to be more in tune with the natural skepticism of the world, reflected in the old National Lampoon magazine. Let’s hope they continue to be that way.
It seems like there's a definite subgroup of the liberal type that thrives and derives its energy from the feeling of being the rebel or the underdog. Hence all the talk about being the "resistance", political pop culture comparisons to marvel and star wars, etc.
But when it comes down to it, this means that A: they need something against which to rebel, and B: they'd much rather do so from a position of security and comfort, as their political convictions are about as shallow as whatever show they happen to be obsessing over. Hence the implicit acquiescence to better conditions you're now describing. Any thoughts?
We can split this multiple different ways that are all interesting on their own, too. The part of Mommy, the party of Daddy, the party of “fuck you, Mom!” and the party of Daddy”fuck you, Dad!”
I suspect that intrusive government and media has grown the “fuck you” factions to plurarities on their respective sides.
Great essay, Librarian. Even Progressives want money and power and the system under Biden was providing precious little of that. Plus, a crucial piece of their identity is that of being the resistance, the revolution; they are quite bad at ruling and everything since 2020 showed them that. They can never be Dad, they can only hate him.
The problem with revolutionaries is that they become the revolution, thus the revolution can't end until they do. Which is why after communist revolutions, the first thing the new leaders do after consolidating power is end the revolutionaries.
Really liked this one. I don't have anything to add other than you've succinctly put into words a lot of the thoughts I've had on the contradictory nature of progressive politics and added a sprinkle of hope.
Starting at the 'subway ride to work', this essay reads like a Chuck Palahniuk chapter from an updated version of Fight Club! it resonates deeply.
Also with regard to "It represents the unresolvable paradox of the individual attempting to distinguish himself in a system that valorizes the erosion of distinctions." you have captured the energy and essence of mimetic desire... people don't fight because they are different, but because they are the same, and need to distinguish themselves from one another causing rivalry and conflict. Globohomo, sowed the seeds of its own demise.
Trump and his allies are agents of chaos and they are also generally awful role models in terms of morality. You know who would despise Trump, etc.? Burke and Chesterton.
I'm not financially threatened by Trump and I'm not an insane ideologue. I think meritocracy is a crock. I believe in noblesse oblige. Yet I think Trump is a disastrous choice as president. So I do not think I fit into your categories.
You and I could have an interesting debate some day!
It would be fair to argue that Trump was an agent of chaos in 2016. I’d say that chaos was what was needed at the time. This time around, Trump is very much the harbinger of a new order, one which has been meticulously fashioned by more introspective and less public figures who have had years in the wilderness to plan its implementation. Trump is going for the heart this time, the financial and institutional infrastructure than makes progressivism possible. Post-liberalism is the future; what remains to be seen is the precise shape it takes, and I’m hopeful based on what I’m seeing.
You’re certainly not threatened financially by Trump; my essay argues quite the opposite, though I suspect his policies will benefit the downscale urban liberals more than those more established. Many people will consider him a disaster even as their circumstances under his leadership change for the better. At this point, frankly, he’s neither liked nor disliked based on anything he has done or will do. He’s a crowd symbol whose meaning varies inversely between two poles. But my contention is that however much a certain class of progressive hates him as a social ritual their revealed preferences show that they’re not really averse to his program.
You are quite correct (and in keeping with a developing right wing consensus, see https://becomingnoble.substack.com/p/meritocracy-is-not-a-good-thing) that meritocracy is a crock. Trump and Elon and Rufo are asking for it because the term still has resonance in the population as a whole, but the right is coming to understand what the managerial state has long understood, that personnel is policy. The elimination of DEI and other burdens will allow for a more organic system of loyalties to emerge that will open up opportunities for those currently excluded by such. I suspect that the Trump administration’s most enduring accomplishment will be the creation of an economic base not dependent on the credentialing power of universities and free of the ideological burdens of the Civil Rights regime (see Christopher Caldwell for an excellent breakdown of what I mean https://a.co/d/58AMQvT
You are also correct in your commitment to noblesse oblige. God has given you great success and wealth and your commitment to use it for the benefit of others is admirable and part of the tradition I hope to see ascendant once more. There’s not really much to debate on that score, save perhaps for the form such liberality takes. My prediction for the next 12 years (at least) is that you will continue to prosper and that you will find a number of opportunities for largesse among your neighbors and in the country as a whole, and under the leadership of the rightist ascendency, people will remember with bemused horror the feckless misrule of the departing uniparty regime.
Thanks for the answer. I had read and liked the essay by Johann Kurtz. We’ve somehow backed into a quasi- Calvinist pre-determination where many of the winners feel they deserve to win and the losers deserve to lose. That attitude, held by many wealthy people, is corrosive.
As for Trump’s policies so far I don’t see anything that could be described as “meticulous.” The leaked memos are confusing. From my POV, it all seems chaotic. Perhaps that’s on purpose. Or I’m missing some bigger picture that has yet to emerge.
The agencies that are being targeted, like USAID, were chosen ahead of time, and they’re being defunded in tandem with the removal of elements of the bureaucracy most likely to obstruct. My take is that his people have spent the last four years meticulously studying the logistics of the managerial apparatus and are hitting the all the most sensitive nodes simultaneously with the intention of interdicting funding to organizations that fund and employ the progressive base. I suspect the next big move after immigration will be an attack on the credentialing power of the universities, perhaps making a law banning the requiring of college degrees outside of certain fields, coupled with an executive order banning disparate impact as grounds for lawsuits, thus freeing companies to give potential hires independent tests for employment rather than relying on the proxy of the BA. As a college instructor this would no doubt be bad for my personal situation, but I think that as a whole it’s a positive development.
Yep, 2016 agent of chaos. Somebody noted over on X if I remember right that in 2016 he moved well out if his comfort zone.
Now however it's a hostile takeover of a broken failed business, tossing out the deadwood and rebuilding it better than ever, the game's in his ballpark now.
When I say Trump was a force for chaos, I mean that he upset pieties in an unpredictable way. The normal, stable situation was Reaganite orthodoxy. Trump destroyed that, but until now didn’t have a fully developed program to replace it.
Polite mannered men of high standing rightly dislike Trump for his oafish manners and behavior. But polite mannered men have not been able to protect this country or its people. So Trump shall do what they cannot or will not.
In my NE college city, the foul art of “contradicting oneself/containing multitudes” of the befuddled Bien Pensant is so ubiquitous that it hardly registers anymore. I love to see it well skewered.
Cognitive dissonance isn’t nearly uncomfortable enough to displace well rewarded self esteem. No actual complexity is required, but the appearance is nice to have.
Compulsively readable. I voted for Obama in 08 and 12. HRC in 16, and I think she would have been a decent president actually. I still believe that. We wouldn’t have seen progress but we wouldn’t have had the nonsense seen during Biden’s presidency. 2020 I voted Biden and that’s the last time I’ll ever vote for a Democrat, for reasons stated so plainly in this essay that I’m not going to try to top it other than to say that I’ve never felt as hated in my life as democrats made me feel from 2022-2024. I don’t even mean hatred like insults on the Internet or whatever. I mean the rage that these assholes took out on our country and our chance to live free and happy lives. The nonsense they injected into our workplaces, a space where we all agree to set aside differences and work together. It felt like seething rage. It felt like people who were so angry and so entitled that they could only destroy save the destruction was the point. Everything was revenge. Everything was an attack. They projected it all onto Trump, who’s imperfection actually acts like a shield. These people are still so emotionally divorced from their rage that I don’t know if they’ll ever have the guts to face the monsters they’ve become. They’re brain washed and almost like devouring mothers. They will save you or else!!!!
When Trump stood up and raised his fist and shouted “fight!!” I realized I couldn’t remember the last time I had seen something so inspiring, especially in our hyper-choreographed social-media world. It’s an inflection point because it broke the rhythm of the drawl. It was a skip in the soundtrack of destruction masquerading as progress and desecration spoken in pleasantries.
I am thankful for your self-awareness and willingness to change
Love “rhythm of the drawl”… spot on
Contempt, first. And then when the despicables refuse to bend the knee, rage. Ferocious rage.
This a good, and accurate,take.
Breaking the rhythm of that drawl is so fucking necessary!
It was an Iwo Jima moment, as much as I dislike Trump, and the absolutely best way to handle it (I'd like to think I'd have done the same in that circumstance - it was absolutely about personal power). I'm not a 'cuck' and I didn't vote for either Trump or Harris but I do have mixed, rather than loathing feelings for what he's doing. The tariffs thing is just retarded and seems to be his new toy; Americans will quickly find they can't afford a guy whose response to losing bully attempts on other countries is to spike consumer goods more. But................'ethnic cleansing' Gaza is a horrible idea, but I'd like for the Gazans to experience the other side of the proposal for once; maybe just for a week or two. Totally support his 'trans' rights rollback except for no trans in the military - are there sound medical reasons for this? Like, no soldiering while transitioning, but what if it's all a done deal? Who cares if they're trans if they're able? Love the anti-DEI stuff but he's merely replacing one non-meritocracy with a bunch of ass-kissing loyalists. Love sending the illegals back where they came from but not American citizens. Love how he's destroying wokeness, waiting for the Christian Nationalist nutzis to take their place (really, we've only swapped one cult for another). But I'm with you, Justin. HRC would have been a good, if not necessarily great, president. We wouldn't have had Prez Biden (who I voted for, but only because ABT - Anybody But Trump. Harris was so bad I didn't vote for either, and I'm done with the Democrats until they fix the fascism in their mirrors.
Sigh. The day they announced Biden was the day I just knew they actually still wanted Trump around. He is orange herring they love, and need.
Well, he took the 2020 Democratic primary. Joe Biden is on the Democratic voters. Kamala Harris, OTOH, was anointed at the DNC…no one asked Americans if they wanted a demonstrated loser to represent them across from a wildly popular, however sick and demented, challenger.
Reminds me of Dem voters putting Walter Mondale up against Reagan, re-running. Oy.
Bertrand Russell was another who hit the nail on the head about the underlying psychology of Progressive 'caring'. As I wrote here: There is a darker possible interpretation of the psychology of egalitarianism – the idea that it might be subconsciously driven by spite. Bertrand Russell hit this particular nail on the head: “If a philosophy is to bring happiness, it should be inspired by kindly feeling. Now Marx is not inspired by kindly feeling. Marx pretended that he wanted the happiness of the proletariat. What he really wanted was the unhappiness of the Bourgeois”. https://grahamcunningham.substack.com/p/stairway-to-equiheaven
Russell's History of Western Philosophy is great.
Yes it is.... philosophy without the tortuous unreadable sentences.
I've often found the obscurantism is deliberate. Esoteric lexicons can be used to obscure a lack of profundity. Librarian does the exact opposite- when he interjects an obscure reference or Latin phrase it's precisely because he wants to draw the reader to a particular concept and make them think about it, rather than conceal. I had to look up cursus negotium. It made me think.
It's worth checking out the Isaiah Berlin virtual library. The Two Concepts of Nationalism interview is particularly interesting. Berlin is a fascinating figure in that the Liberal Consensus took his ideas and observations and drastically misapplied them. The Nun and the Mother concept was applied to culture, religion and all the other things which distinguish us as nations, and with the excuse of potential and supposedly inevitable future conflict used to deliberately remove differences. If we believed in different Gods, we must secularise. If our cultures were different, we should all march towards the same cultural destination- with shared global values. The recipe was material abundance replacing the spirituality of human culture. In the West, this led to a crisis of meaning, cultural relativism and the slow degradations of the institutions.
In Islam, a backlash against forced secularisation led to an increase in aggression towards Western outlooks- removing the progress created by figures like Atatürk. Most modern Islamists claim Atatürk was anti-Islamic. It's more accurate to state he sought to modernise and erect a firewall between Islam as a faith and as a political ideology. Many Muslim countries recognise the need, where most Islamist (rather than Islamic) organisations have been banned I wish British politicians would recognise the same necessity.
This all ignored the fact that it was failed supernationalism (not nationalism) in the form of the wounds inflicted on national identity in the Treaty of Versailles which led directly to the yearning for a resurgence in the German people, as well as the rise of Hitler (or a figure like him). Trump is right about that one. Bilateralism can be good, but multilateralism tends to default to the lowest common denominator on the spectrum of magnanimity and vengeance.
Mixed up Bertrand Russel with Russel Brand in my head for a moment and read that quote in the latter’s voice. It kinda checked out, but was still funny to hear
Idk if I buy that about marx. If you read his letters and other correspondence he appears to have most hated the poor. Any kind of poor. He was a pretty shit marxist.
That’s Russell’s point; Marx only wanted to use the workers as a weapon against the middle class. He had no love for them, only a greater degree of hatred for others.
There is an excellent and quite frightening book called Marx & Satan by a Romanian dissident called Richard Wurmbrand. Well worth reading.
Marx was a satanist: he hated people.
I didn't vote at all because Harris wanted price controls and when it comes down to it, ruining the American economy is a step too far. Now I'm secretly happy Trump is in office.
It has negative effects all over but every choice is a mix of negative and positive. But I didn't realize the degree to which the Democrats became the anti-white-male coalition. When I talked with someone from my hometown and they were openly sexist and racist against me and felt zero trepidation about it... well it brought back way too many memories I had contextualized differently.
Substack racists actually deradicalized me, weird as that sounds. They talk about non-whites the same as leftists talk about whites. Seeing the contrast switched my prior from "left good, right bad" to accepting what people say and do at face value. The left comes out looking very bad when you take them at face value without accepting their complicated justifications for their bigotries.
The shift in the undercurrent will happen most obviously among white progressives, still outwardly hating Trump even as they benefit from his dismantling of anti-white infrastructure. But minorities, especially men, see it just as clearly, and with little in the way of risk of social status, they will be more open to overtly switching to Trump.
I didn't vote either, not that it would have made any difference. My state is skewed very blue. However, I slightly prefer Trump because he explodes the heads of annoying people, he's entertaining and in most ways better policy wise.
The American liberal fascist doesn’t build prison complexes with armed guards or concerns themselves with getting the trains to run on time. They build mental prisons with propaganda guarded by apparatchiks armed with social media accounts. They also build inefficient DEI bureaucracies that ensure people are less safe and just a little bit less free every day, week, and month, until they are dumb, docile, obedient sheep, easily ruled and only modestly productive, but without any ambition. Utopia here we come!
Sounds a lot like the plot of Brave New World
Politics is a game of both ideologues and remoras. When the political tide shifts, the remoras switch parties. Notice the tech bros at the Trump inauguration.
ESG was a way to restrict competition and a distraction from the growing wealth gap -- not to mention inoculation against expensive lawsuits. With Trump actively pointing out that DEI IS discrimination, we can expect psychopathic MBAs to dump ESG like the Romanians dumped their dear leader.
I suspect the heavy and arrogant hand of managerialism brought itself down too hard, too many times, on Big Tech, and they saw a way out and took it.
I suspect that this usefulness of conservatives to the regime, which we can call 'Giulianism', is precisely why the Trumpkrieg is being tolerated and only sporadically #resisted. And it's not just low-level progs who benefit from it, it's the high-level institutional ones as well. When their pet radical orcs get out of hand and start doing them more harm than good, they need only sit on their hands in obedience to democratic processes while someone else spends political capital and incurs bad blood to control them, and then when it's time to rally them again they will be found suitably chastened and yet still on board with the high-low alliance.
The problem is that this makes conservatives 'useful idiots', or at best 'political janitors', who get to do the dirty work of cleaning up shitlib messes in order to prevent the regime inner party from ever being tempted to evolve in a reactionary direction. It's fun to watch the ceremonial archon actually getting to play basileus and settle some scores, and of course there are real benefits entailed for the American people (esp. in immigration control), but ultimately all that should matter to dissidents is whether effective steps are being taken to permanently break the power of the leftist governing clerisy. If the Trumpkrieg is blocked from these steps (e.g. as with the apparent funding freeze rescission; that 'accidental' locking of Medicaid funds after the OMB memo *specifically exempted them* was a shenanigan worthy of Sir Humphrey himself), and funneled into culture war crusades against trannies or whatever as the path of least resistance, then its end result will be to cut the fat from the regime and allow it to come back stronger.
Excellent observation
Perfect. I said the same thing on this weeks podcast, so much politics is just identifying where the benefit for onself is and follwing that trend. For the past two decades being a prog was the beneficial path for the self-serving but now the pendulum has swung and every young wannabe Gavin Newsome will go to the Right.
I don't think there will be a huge, open shift to the right among existing progressives. I think they will maintain their outward positions while acquiescing to Trump. They'll complain, but they won't fight back, because they realize on some level that they benefit.
They are on X right now spouting dumb platitudes from the right side of history… but there’s little energy and certainty no originality.
Another great piece on our current “civilization”. I agree with your points about the educated left, I see it daily, as they are my Millennial sons and daughters. I pray that they will come to understand classic liberalism and morality that was elegantly argued between Hamilton, and Madison on one side, Jefferson and Monroe on the other. But I fear that the “pain point” of true change in thinking might have passed with the election of Trump. It has gotten better, will continue to and these “minds full of mush” (h/t Rush) will become the intellectually lazy beings they have been taught to be. A Harris victory could’ve gotten them to pain quicker, but I do thank God for Donald Trump. Apparently, Gen Z does seem to be more in tune with the natural skepticism of the world, reflected in the old National Lampoon magazine. Let’s hope they continue to be that way.
It seems like there's a definite subgroup of the liberal type that thrives and derives its energy from the feeling of being the rebel or the underdog. Hence all the talk about being the "resistance", political pop culture comparisons to marvel and star wars, etc.
But when it comes down to it, this means that A: they need something against which to rebel, and B: they'd much rather do so from a position of security and comfort, as their political convictions are about as shallow as whatever show they happen to be obsessing over. Hence the implicit acquiescence to better conditions you're now describing. Any thoughts?
Someone else said it best, "they can never be dad; they can only hate him."
Samuel Johnson: “The first Whig was the Devil.”
We can split this multiple different ways that are all interesting on their own, too. The part of Mommy, the party of Daddy, the party of “fuck you, Mom!” and the party of Daddy”fuck you, Dad!”
I suspect that intrusive government and media has grown the “fuck you” factions to plurarities on their respective sides.
The Return of the Yuppies.
Great essay, Librarian. Even Progressives want money and power and the system under Biden was providing precious little of that. Plus, a crucial piece of their identity is that of being the resistance, the revolution; they are quite bad at ruling and everything since 2020 showed them that. They can never be Dad, they can only hate him.
The problem with revolutionaries is that they become the revolution, thus the revolution can't end until they do. Which is why after communist revolutions, the first thing the new leaders do after consolidating power is end the revolutionaries.
Really liked this one. I don't have anything to add other than you've succinctly put into words a lot of the thoughts I've had on the contradictory nature of progressive politics and added a sprinkle of hope.
Thank you kindly.
That Dalrymple quote is a gem.
I'm glad you decided to take up writing, on Substack.
Here is to a lasting conservative revolution bringing back positive, strong, dignified, virtuous masculine energy to America.
Is it wrong I thought this article was funny and read it in the Trump voice? It was great.
Starting at the 'subway ride to work', this essay reads like a Chuck Palahniuk chapter from an updated version of Fight Club! it resonates deeply.
Also with regard to "It represents the unresolvable paradox of the individual attempting to distinguish himself in a system that valorizes the erosion of distinctions." you have captured the energy and essence of mimetic desire... people don't fight because they are different, but because they are the same, and need to distinguish themselves from one another causing rivalry and conflict. Globohomo, sowed the seeds of its own demise.
Librarian, I think what you miss is this:
Trump and his allies are agents of chaos and they are also generally awful role models in terms of morality. You know who would despise Trump, etc.? Burke and Chesterton.
I'm not financially threatened by Trump and I'm not an insane ideologue. I think meritocracy is a crock. I believe in noblesse oblige. Yet I think Trump is a disastrous choice as president. So I do not think I fit into your categories.
You and I could have an interesting debate some day!
It would be fair to argue that Trump was an agent of chaos in 2016. I’d say that chaos was what was needed at the time. This time around, Trump is very much the harbinger of a new order, one which has been meticulously fashioned by more introspective and less public figures who have had years in the wilderness to plan its implementation. Trump is going for the heart this time, the financial and institutional infrastructure than makes progressivism possible. Post-liberalism is the future; what remains to be seen is the precise shape it takes, and I’m hopeful based on what I’m seeing.
You’re certainly not threatened financially by Trump; my essay argues quite the opposite, though I suspect his policies will benefit the downscale urban liberals more than those more established. Many people will consider him a disaster even as their circumstances under his leadership change for the better. At this point, frankly, he’s neither liked nor disliked based on anything he has done or will do. He’s a crowd symbol whose meaning varies inversely between two poles. But my contention is that however much a certain class of progressive hates him as a social ritual their revealed preferences show that they’re not really averse to his program.
You are quite correct (and in keeping with a developing right wing consensus, see https://becomingnoble.substack.com/p/meritocracy-is-not-a-good-thing) that meritocracy is a crock. Trump and Elon and Rufo are asking for it because the term still has resonance in the population as a whole, but the right is coming to understand what the managerial state has long understood, that personnel is policy. The elimination of DEI and other burdens will allow for a more organic system of loyalties to emerge that will open up opportunities for those currently excluded by such. I suspect that the Trump administration’s most enduring accomplishment will be the creation of an economic base not dependent on the credentialing power of universities and free of the ideological burdens of the Civil Rights regime (see Christopher Caldwell for an excellent breakdown of what I mean https://a.co/d/58AMQvT
You are also correct in your commitment to noblesse oblige. God has given you great success and wealth and your commitment to use it for the benefit of others is admirable and part of the tradition I hope to see ascendant once more. There’s not really much to debate on that score, save perhaps for the form such liberality takes. My prediction for the next 12 years (at least) is that you will continue to prosper and that you will find a number of opportunities for largesse among your neighbors and in the country as a whole, and under the leadership of the rightist ascendency, people will remember with bemused horror the feckless misrule of the departing uniparty regime.
Thanks for the answer. I had read and liked the essay by Johann Kurtz. We’ve somehow backed into a quasi- Calvinist pre-determination where many of the winners feel they deserve to win and the losers deserve to lose. That attitude, held by many wealthy people, is corrosive.
As for Trump’s policies so far I don’t see anything that could be described as “meticulous.” The leaked memos are confusing. From my POV, it all seems chaotic. Perhaps that’s on purpose. Or I’m missing some bigger picture that has yet to emerge.
The agencies that are being targeted, like USAID, were chosen ahead of time, and they’re being defunded in tandem with the removal of elements of the bureaucracy most likely to obstruct. My take is that his people have spent the last four years meticulously studying the logistics of the managerial apparatus and are hitting the all the most sensitive nodes simultaneously with the intention of interdicting funding to organizations that fund and employ the progressive base. I suspect the next big move after immigration will be an attack on the credentialing power of the universities, perhaps making a law banning the requiring of college degrees outside of certain fields, coupled with an executive order banning disparate impact as grounds for lawsuits, thus freeing companies to give potential hires independent tests for employment rather than relying on the proxy of the BA. As a college instructor this would no doubt be bad for my personal situation, but I think that as a whole it’s a positive development.
I agree this looks very much like a well-planned and, increasingly, well-orchestrated attempt at regime change.
Yep, 2016 agent of chaos. Somebody noted over on X if I remember right that in 2016 he moved well out if his comfort zone.
Now however it's a hostile takeover of a broken failed business, tossing out the deadwood and rebuilding it better than ever, the game's in his ballpark now.
wait til you learn that DEI is an unequivocal meritocracy initiative, whoa mindblown
What till you learn saying something doesn’t make it true
like anyone cares what grape soda has to say, you look smart
do you use all those semicolons to make it look like you went to college
That’s what you think people learn in college? Is that why you can’t use punctuation?
no I agree with vonnegut that you’re trying to show off and failing
When I say Trump was a force for chaos, I mean that he upset pieties in an unpredictable way. The normal, stable situation was Reaganite orthodoxy. Trump destroyed that, but until now didn’t have a fully developed program to replace it.
Polite mannered men of high standing rightly dislike Trump for his oafish manners and behavior. But polite mannered men have not been able to protect this country or its people. So Trump shall do what they cannot or will not.
yes now is the time for the undereducated to have their revenge
In my NE college city, the foul art of “contradicting oneself/containing multitudes” of the befuddled Bien Pensant is so ubiquitous that it hardly registers anymore. I love to see it well skewered.
It must be trying for them to have to twist like they do.
Perhaps, but I fear they don’t actually feel it as twisting. My friends who fall into this category I suppose imagine that it marks them as complex.
Perhaps they’re simply too deep to maintain sincere convictions. It happens.
Cognitive dissonance isn’t nearly uncomfortable enough to displace well rewarded self esteem. No actual complexity is required, but the appearance is nice to have.
Perhaps much like the following:
One fine day in the middle of the night
Two dead men got up to fight
Back to back they faced each other
Drew their swords
And shot each other.