You are in the I didn't leave the left, the left left me phase of your life. The gate keeping position of we can't possibly entertain what you have to say because I think it's reprehensible and it won't play well with the general public is not a new phenomenon. Your typical position of if we just win some more elections and embrace true liberalism, we'll eventually turn them over to our side because facts don't care about your feelings. It's become very clear and apparent that the strategies of intolerance attributed by the left (For the 1000th time, it's not hypocrisy, it's hierarchy) is the way to go because negotiating with people who's life's mission is to undermine and subvert is by definition a dead end. I think what's become clear is that the Right recognizes the game for what it is, understanding that fighting back is a waste of time because of gatekeepers and disciplinarians of the conventional Republican sort, so accepting things for what they are and being unapologetically disdainful with anything on the Left is simply a nothing to lose strategy. As long as their are people who want to reign in others because anything not within the framework of the liberal center is out of the acceptable bounds, the shift will continue to snowball. They don't care anymore because they don't have to care anymore. It's become clear they have dropped the pretense of pretending to negotiate. At this point, it's do as I say because I said so and what are you going to do about it and a few silly elections is not going to change the trajectory. Remember the ethos, standing athwart history yelling stop. If you dissect that statement, it's a defeatist position of delaying an eventual inevitability. The right's entire raison d'etre is to push back but it doesn't possess the obsessiveness of the Left nor does it possess the will nor the focus to keep fighting (I just want to grill amiright?) The right in its current form just wants to be ruled by a benevolent state. The left wants absolute rule. And they are going to get it. The name of the game is entropy and that's not pessimism. It's a view of history that's spanned civilization over civilization. Irving Krystol (ex Troskyist) - Peter Hitchens (Another Ex-Troskyist) - Ronald Reagan (I didn't leave the left, the left left me!) - Donald Trump (Ex NY Democrat) - Even people like Dennis Prager, Bari Weiss, Dave Rubin, the list goes on and on. Starting to see a pattern here? Now, back to reality a run down:
Freedom of speech? Nope, not if you don't have the right politics. You will be shunned and removed from polite society and you might even lose access to your bank account and ability to transact
Freedom of assembly? Nice try. That's only reserved for state sanctioned protests. Those protests are not only permitted but are actually quite useful in intimidating the rest of the public into both doing as the left says and to change the actual policies in the left's favor
Human rights? Wait a few years and you'll be charged for defending yourself with a rifle. The left didn't get Kyle just yet but give it time and it'll happen eventually
Neutral Courts? Well that doesn't really work out now. If polite society doesn't deem your cause worthy, it won't be heard because of "latches". (The next Supreme Court lifetime appointee is now an explicit affirmative action hire with 1 year of experience on the federal bench and has multiple judgments overruled by appeals courts because it wasn't consistent with the Constitution but hey, don't worry. It's not like its a lifetime appointment or anything)
Family Rights? Well that's debatable because the teacher's union can decide what to teach your kids and what they will inevitably indoctrinate since the agenda is already set and trying to stop it is just going to make teacher's sneak it through. Graphic porn is available in libraries because hey who doesn't love a little progress
Cultural Norms? 50% marriages end in divorce. 50% of children today are born to single mothers. Pedophilia is now on the verge of a publicly appealing "minor attracted person). Children are now subject to sterilizing hormone injections by virtue of declaration for an ideological fashion trend by which is supported by the courts and threatened/enforced by child protected services (which in the 20th century would have been considered a crime against humanity)
You bring up some interesting points, but first I have correct the a misapprehension. I've never been part of the left, and therefore it is a misnomer to say that the left left me. I'm someone who read Burnham's "The Machiavellians" while people like Yarvin and Academic Agent were still in grade school, and all I seek to do is apply the principles of that book (supplemented with data and theories from Schumpeter, Weaver, Hayek, Sumner Haidt among others) to the present circumstances. Now some on the dissident right, particularly those of a neoreactionary bent, have taken an interest in Italian Elite theory, but unfortunately, they tend to confine their attention to those parts in "The Machiavellians" that align with their own convictions (mainly the so-called "anti-democratic" parts). But the Italian elite theorist were not "anti-democratic." They simply knew that democratic theory, as finds itself limned by classical liberals, is largely myth. But they were open to the possibility that it could be, under certain circumstances, a useful myth.
Now while I'll admit the reality of something that could be broadly described as civilizational entropy, I think one has to be careful not to translate one's tendency toward pessimism into a rationalization of defeatism. In life, it seems to me one does the best one can with the cards one is dealt, even if those cards turns out to be a particularly lousy. There is a path, however narrow and improbable, toward at least buying some time before the our civilization collapses into the great humanitarian crisis of human history. And getting this extra time could be a big deal, because it might open up possibilities of growth toward a more vibrant, aristocracy-based right-wing. But getting this extra time involves the formation of a braod coaltion between "conservatives," disaffected liberals, and independents—something that is already happening and will continue to happen as long as the left monopolizes so much power to itself. And yes, this broad coalition is an unwieldy combination—a marriage of convenience, not of temperament or common interests. But it provides us with the best chance we have currently, and allowing it to develop is better than just giving up. Now if the coalition that forms is large enough (and it might be), then there is possibility, however remote, of creating enough of a mandate to enable a purge of our institutions of the leftists embedded therein. And while that won't cure the disease from this point onwards, it can buy enough time for a more effective and aristocratic right-wing to develop.
The current dissident right is simply one big mess. It's largely made up of intellectuals (i.e., the most useless people on the planet) and therefore can achieve nothing to the good. What is needed is the formation of a genuine "nobility"—a natural aristocracy that is made up of people who, by temperament and capability, are actuality fit to rule a large commonwealth. The denizens of the current right are sadly lacking in this kind of nobility (in terms of both understanding and conduct), and a right-wing without nobility is either impotent or dangerous.
I understand what you are saying and I've taken in a lot of what you said. I would like to counter with a few points. One, pessimism as a temporary state is not bad because the phenomenon of hitting rock bottom sometimes provides a sense of clarity and urgency necessary in order to find the energy to do what must be done. It also matches the crusade psychology to combat the left because conservatives in their nature are more pragmatic and people pleasers (the right is busy compromising while the left is going 100 mph and not conceding an inch). Two, the strategy of broad coalition is not going to work because that has been the typical strategy for the past 100 years. The liberal ratchet is real and these broad coalitions is what makes it so effective. The "classical" liberals are just going to be the latest generation of neocons. Conquests law #2: Any organization that is not explicitly right wing will become left wing aka entropy. The tenets of liberalism which are the reason why conservatives are actually so ineffective and take on a losing ethos of delaying the inevitable is precisely because they want to adopt these ideas of "inclusion" or "diversity" which are simply just tools created by the left in order to gain power. They don't really care about these things they just know how useful it is to convert people. The right trying to play on the left's frame is the current state of the right for over half a century and it's had nothing but more losses. Again, the right is nothing but a delay mechanism for what were leftist policies 10 years prior. It's purpose and the strategy that is the typical we need to win some elections or some aristocrats is just to make these ideas and policies more palatable to the wider public. There is no actual strength or conviction to simply reject these things. And with the speed to which things are accelerating, you now have David French types advocating for Drag Queen story hour for children (none of this was a thing until about 5 years ago which makes this "right" adoption par for the course). Maybe the right needs to stop gate keeping out of fear of the "dangerous" because it certainly hasn't done enough gate keeping to prevent children from being mutilated over some perverse ideology. Pure individualism. Oh btw, the SC Justice can't define a woman and effectively conceded that she will defer judgment to the "experts". If you didn't notice what that was an admission of was, she will be the organ of whatever technocrat group will make up whatever research study to guide her decision regardless of its basis in reality. Talk about controlled opposition. And it won't stop there. If you think they will stop at using abstractions to redefine the nature of woman, wait till they redefine what it means to be a child. There are plenty of predators who are waiting in the wings to be the next protected class.
Although your pessimism may prove correct, I just don't believe there's any certainty to it. People forget how difficult it is to make predictions about the future. Who in 1912 could've seen the next thirty years? Only congenital pessimists who had been predicted bad things for the previous thirty years. If you keep predicting bad things, at some point you will be correct, the only question is whether you get the timing right—but that's a very pertinent question. Another pertinent question is whether Conquest's law #2 is always right. It's certainly been true for a long time but it can't be true forever—if for no other reason than if we go too far to the left, our civilization will collapse, and that will be the end of Conquest's law. The ultimate success of the left equals its ultimate failure, because far left policies are not compatible with the survival of an advanced civilization. The larger question is: can we get through this cycle without going through an absolute catastrophe? Whatever the answer to that question ultimately is, I think we should at least make the attempt to avoid the complete catastrophe, because as we come nearer to this catastrophe, it may wake up some people (hence the "disaffected" liberal trope) to what is really going on. Let's face it: a lot of the stuff the left is doing is not really all that popular.
I think some people only see things from an immediate standpoint rather than look at how things will metastasize. Burnham for one recognized the direction of how governments were adapting and organizing and what that would lead to in the future (he was wrong on the outcomes but he understood what it would mean for society) as well as people like Carlyle who saw what was happening during his era and predicted the utter chaos and destruction of the 1900s. It's hand picking but it's not really pessimistic to understand that self delusion and utopian beliefs are always couched in self interest in some form of another as that is part of the human condition. To say that that is not moral or optimal is not relevant because power and sovereignty will always be conserved and those who have power do so at the expense of others. That is just a function of both nature and human nature and it's the basis on how organisms operate in any given environment.
As far as not all that popular, the implication that popularity in a democracy is what drives policy is silly at best. It may have been that way in the early 1900s but today policy is conducted by special interests and bureaucracies behind the scenes. Referendums do not exist in America, nor does Congress have much power if at all left. The function of formal government is to pass spending bills on budget where both parties simply decide how much they are going to spend and further bloat the bureaucracies even further which feeds back to more control and more resources. It doesn't have to collapse, it just needs to beat people into submission. The latest generation of new leaders from places like Yale Law School are already on board with the woke agenda and have openly denounced free speech with roughly 60% of the student body rejecting it outright. Every corporation has completely transformed their institutions with these DEI commissars who slowly but surely will begin to have influence over the upper management (everything can be interpreted in some leftist paradigm and it will soon come for them). This stuff is insidious and the Right is not going to have to do what is necessary because it's not in the Rights nature to do anything drastic or discomforting. That's why this is effectively the transition from one religious ethos to a successor religion. I don't say that lightly but I recognize the institutional shift, the elite alignment, the propaganda material outreach, and the establishment asymmetry that has occurred many times in the past. And the times that it has been documented, the side that was descending always gave way to the ascendant because the descendent had lost all self confidence (which is basically what the Right is - negotiating it's surrender). The assumption that this election in Nov is going to change anything is silly as well. What will the GOP do with a majority in the Congress? Block the Biden agenda? Biden does everything by executive branch fiat which is basically just serving as a cover for what the gov't is going to do anyway in service of the Democratic party aka the ruling class.
One does not have to be pessimistic to recognize the mechanics in place are not conducive for an opposition to mount any resistance. In order for a successful revolution to occur, a defective set of elites must decide to make a charge. The latest hope was Trump. That does not inspire much confidence regardless of if his heart was in the right place. DeSantis? He'll be like Julian the last pagan emperor of Rome in the 4th century. The Right needs to really relearn its reason for existence because it has degraded into nothing more than a heel in the professional wrestling that is the reality Truman show of American politics.
The military needs to be purged of its left-wing general first. That's of course a tall order. And the religious fundamentalists we have nowadays are often rather sentimental in their general temperament. They're hardly in the same league as Cromwell's ironsides.
You are in the I didn't leave the left, the left left me phase of your life. The gate keeping position of we can't possibly entertain what you have to say because I think it's reprehensible and it won't play well with the general public is not a new phenomenon. Your typical position of if we just win some more elections and embrace true liberalism, we'll eventually turn them over to our side because facts don't care about your feelings. It's become very clear and apparent that the strategies of intolerance attributed by the left (For the 1000th time, it's not hypocrisy, it's hierarchy) is the way to go because negotiating with people who's life's mission is to undermine and subvert is by definition a dead end. I think what's become clear is that the Right recognizes the game for what it is, understanding that fighting back is a waste of time because of gatekeepers and disciplinarians of the conventional Republican sort, so accepting things for what they are and being unapologetically disdainful with anything on the Left is simply a nothing to lose strategy. As long as their are people who want to reign in others because anything not within the framework of the liberal center is out of the acceptable bounds, the shift will continue to snowball. They don't care anymore because they don't have to care anymore. It's become clear they have dropped the pretense of pretending to negotiate. At this point, it's do as I say because I said so and what are you going to do about it and a few silly elections is not going to change the trajectory. Remember the ethos, standing athwart history yelling stop. If you dissect that statement, it's a defeatist position of delaying an eventual inevitability. The right's entire raison d'etre is to push back but it doesn't possess the obsessiveness of the Left nor does it possess the will nor the focus to keep fighting (I just want to grill amiright?) The right in its current form just wants to be ruled by a benevolent state. The left wants absolute rule. And they are going to get it. The name of the game is entropy and that's not pessimism. It's a view of history that's spanned civilization over civilization. Irving Krystol (ex Troskyist) - Peter Hitchens (Another Ex-Troskyist) - Ronald Reagan (I didn't leave the left, the left left me!) - Donald Trump (Ex NY Democrat) - Even people like Dennis Prager, Bari Weiss, Dave Rubin, the list goes on and on. Starting to see a pattern here? Now, back to reality a run down:
Freedom of speech? Nope, not if you don't have the right politics. You will be shunned and removed from polite society and you might even lose access to your bank account and ability to transact
Freedom of assembly? Nice try. That's only reserved for state sanctioned protests. Those protests are not only permitted but are actually quite useful in intimidating the rest of the public into both doing as the left says and to change the actual policies in the left's favor
Human rights? Wait a few years and you'll be charged for defending yourself with a rifle. The left didn't get Kyle just yet but give it time and it'll happen eventually
Neutral Courts? Well that doesn't really work out now. If polite society doesn't deem your cause worthy, it won't be heard because of "latches". (The next Supreme Court lifetime appointee is now an explicit affirmative action hire with 1 year of experience on the federal bench and has multiple judgments overruled by appeals courts because it wasn't consistent with the Constitution but hey, don't worry. It's not like its a lifetime appointment or anything)
Family Rights? Well that's debatable because the teacher's union can decide what to teach your kids and what they will inevitably indoctrinate since the agenda is already set and trying to stop it is just going to make teacher's sneak it through. Graphic porn is available in libraries because hey who doesn't love a little progress
Cultural Norms? 50% marriages end in divorce. 50% of children today are born to single mothers. Pedophilia is now on the verge of a publicly appealing "minor attracted person). Children are now subject to sterilizing hormone injections by virtue of declaration for an ideological fashion trend by which is supported by the courts and threatened/enforced by child protected services (which in the 20th century would have been considered a crime against humanity)
You bring up some interesting points, but first I have correct the a misapprehension. I've never been part of the left, and therefore it is a misnomer to say that the left left me. I'm someone who read Burnham's "The Machiavellians" while people like Yarvin and Academic Agent were still in grade school, and all I seek to do is apply the principles of that book (supplemented with data and theories from Schumpeter, Weaver, Hayek, Sumner Haidt among others) to the present circumstances. Now some on the dissident right, particularly those of a neoreactionary bent, have taken an interest in Italian Elite theory, but unfortunately, they tend to confine their attention to those parts in "The Machiavellians" that align with their own convictions (mainly the so-called "anti-democratic" parts). But the Italian elite theorist were not "anti-democratic." They simply knew that democratic theory, as finds itself limned by classical liberals, is largely myth. But they were open to the possibility that it could be, under certain circumstances, a useful myth.
Now while I'll admit the reality of something that could be broadly described as civilizational entropy, I think one has to be careful not to translate one's tendency toward pessimism into a rationalization of defeatism. In life, it seems to me one does the best one can with the cards one is dealt, even if those cards turns out to be a particularly lousy. There is a path, however narrow and improbable, toward at least buying some time before the our civilization collapses into the great humanitarian crisis of human history. And getting this extra time could be a big deal, because it might open up possibilities of growth toward a more vibrant, aristocracy-based right-wing. But getting this extra time involves the formation of a braod coaltion between "conservatives," disaffected liberals, and independents—something that is already happening and will continue to happen as long as the left monopolizes so much power to itself. And yes, this broad coalition is an unwieldy combination—a marriage of convenience, not of temperament or common interests. But it provides us with the best chance we have currently, and allowing it to develop is better than just giving up. Now if the coalition that forms is large enough (and it might be), then there is possibility, however remote, of creating enough of a mandate to enable a purge of our institutions of the leftists embedded therein. And while that won't cure the disease from this point onwards, it can buy enough time for a more effective and aristocratic right-wing to develop.
The current dissident right is simply one big mess. It's largely made up of intellectuals (i.e., the most useless people on the planet) and therefore can achieve nothing to the good. What is needed is the formation of a genuine "nobility"—a natural aristocracy that is made up of people who, by temperament and capability, are actuality fit to rule a large commonwealth. The denizens of the current right are sadly lacking in this kind of nobility (in terms of both understanding and conduct), and a right-wing without nobility is either impotent or dangerous.
I understand what you are saying and I've taken in a lot of what you said. I would like to counter with a few points. One, pessimism as a temporary state is not bad because the phenomenon of hitting rock bottom sometimes provides a sense of clarity and urgency necessary in order to find the energy to do what must be done. It also matches the crusade psychology to combat the left because conservatives in their nature are more pragmatic and people pleasers (the right is busy compromising while the left is going 100 mph and not conceding an inch). Two, the strategy of broad coalition is not going to work because that has been the typical strategy for the past 100 years. The liberal ratchet is real and these broad coalitions is what makes it so effective. The "classical" liberals are just going to be the latest generation of neocons. Conquests law #2: Any organization that is not explicitly right wing will become left wing aka entropy. The tenets of liberalism which are the reason why conservatives are actually so ineffective and take on a losing ethos of delaying the inevitable is precisely because they want to adopt these ideas of "inclusion" or "diversity" which are simply just tools created by the left in order to gain power. They don't really care about these things they just know how useful it is to convert people. The right trying to play on the left's frame is the current state of the right for over half a century and it's had nothing but more losses. Again, the right is nothing but a delay mechanism for what were leftist policies 10 years prior. It's purpose and the strategy that is the typical we need to win some elections or some aristocrats is just to make these ideas and policies more palatable to the wider public. There is no actual strength or conviction to simply reject these things. And with the speed to which things are accelerating, you now have David French types advocating for Drag Queen story hour for children (none of this was a thing until about 5 years ago which makes this "right" adoption par for the course). Maybe the right needs to stop gate keeping out of fear of the "dangerous" because it certainly hasn't done enough gate keeping to prevent children from being mutilated over some perverse ideology. Pure individualism. Oh btw, the SC Justice can't define a woman and effectively conceded that she will defer judgment to the "experts". If you didn't notice what that was an admission of was, she will be the organ of whatever technocrat group will make up whatever research study to guide her decision regardless of its basis in reality. Talk about controlled opposition. And it won't stop there. If you think they will stop at using abstractions to redefine the nature of woman, wait till they redefine what it means to be a child. There are plenty of predators who are waiting in the wings to be the next protected class.
Although your pessimism may prove correct, I just don't believe there's any certainty to it. People forget how difficult it is to make predictions about the future. Who in 1912 could've seen the next thirty years? Only congenital pessimists who had been predicted bad things for the previous thirty years. If you keep predicting bad things, at some point you will be correct, the only question is whether you get the timing right—but that's a very pertinent question. Another pertinent question is whether Conquest's law #2 is always right. It's certainly been true for a long time but it can't be true forever—if for no other reason than if we go too far to the left, our civilization will collapse, and that will be the end of Conquest's law. The ultimate success of the left equals its ultimate failure, because far left policies are not compatible with the survival of an advanced civilization. The larger question is: can we get through this cycle without going through an absolute catastrophe? Whatever the answer to that question ultimately is, I think we should at least make the attempt to avoid the complete catastrophe, because as we come nearer to this catastrophe, it may wake up some people (hence the "disaffected" liberal trope) to what is really going on. Let's face it: a lot of the stuff the left is doing is not really all that popular.
I think some people only see things from an immediate standpoint rather than look at how things will metastasize. Burnham for one recognized the direction of how governments were adapting and organizing and what that would lead to in the future (he was wrong on the outcomes but he understood what it would mean for society) as well as people like Carlyle who saw what was happening during his era and predicted the utter chaos and destruction of the 1900s. It's hand picking but it's not really pessimistic to understand that self delusion and utopian beliefs are always couched in self interest in some form of another as that is part of the human condition. To say that that is not moral or optimal is not relevant because power and sovereignty will always be conserved and those who have power do so at the expense of others. That is just a function of both nature and human nature and it's the basis on how organisms operate in any given environment.
As far as not all that popular, the implication that popularity in a democracy is what drives policy is silly at best. It may have been that way in the early 1900s but today policy is conducted by special interests and bureaucracies behind the scenes. Referendums do not exist in America, nor does Congress have much power if at all left. The function of formal government is to pass spending bills on budget where both parties simply decide how much they are going to spend and further bloat the bureaucracies even further which feeds back to more control and more resources. It doesn't have to collapse, it just needs to beat people into submission. The latest generation of new leaders from places like Yale Law School are already on board with the woke agenda and have openly denounced free speech with roughly 60% of the student body rejecting it outright. Every corporation has completely transformed their institutions with these DEI commissars who slowly but surely will begin to have influence over the upper management (everything can be interpreted in some leftist paradigm and it will soon come for them). This stuff is insidious and the Right is not going to have to do what is necessary because it's not in the Rights nature to do anything drastic or discomforting. That's why this is effectively the transition from one religious ethos to a successor religion. I don't say that lightly but I recognize the institutional shift, the elite alignment, the propaganda material outreach, and the establishment asymmetry that has occurred many times in the past. And the times that it has been documented, the side that was descending always gave way to the ascendant because the descendent had lost all self confidence (which is basically what the Right is - negotiating it's surrender). The assumption that this election in Nov is going to change anything is silly as well. What will the GOP do with a majority in the Congress? Block the Biden agenda? Biden does everything by executive branch fiat which is basically just serving as a cover for what the gov't is going to do anyway in service of the Democratic party aka the ruling class.
One does not have to be pessimistic to recognize the mechanics in place are not conducive for an opposition to mount any resistance. In order for a successful revolution to occur, a defective set of elites must decide to make a charge. The latest hope was Trump. That does not inspire much confidence regardless of if his heart was in the right place. DeSantis? He'll be like Julian the last pagan emperor of Rome in the 4th century. The Right needs to really relearn its reason for existence because it has degraded into nothing more than a heel in the professional wrestling that is the reality Truman show of American politics.
How about an alliance between the military,the Teamsters & the religious Fundamentalists?
It worked for General Peron.
Now all we need is an Evita!
The military needs to be purged of its left-wing general first. That's of course a tall order. And the religious fundamentalists we have nowadays are often rather sentimental in their general temperament. They're hardly in the same league as Cromwell's ironsides.