Summary: Dan Phillips explains why the Left is winning. The Right is playing by an old playbook, written for the post-WWII era Baby Boomer era that ended many years ago. Until they change, they will continue to lose – and the Left will build a new America on the ruins of the America-that-once-was.
“A revolution is not a dinner party, or writing an essay, or painting a picture, or doing embroidery; it cannot be so refined, so leisurely and gentle, so temperate, kind, courteous, restrained and magnanimous.”
— Mao Zedong in ”Report on an Investigation of the Peasant Movement in Hunan”, March 1927.
Please Watch The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance
Excerpt from post by Dan Phillips at Traditional Right, July 2016.
Posted with his generous permission.
As a good traditional conservative, I like Westerns. If you watch a lot of Westerns you will eventually discern that many of them have a very similar theme. This theme is that the breed of men it took to tame the Wild West is different from the breed of men it took to civilize the West once it was more or less tamed. This is an important life lesson with real world application. Conservatives should watch more Westerns and less Fox News.
The outstanding example of this theme is the 1962 John Ford classic, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance
Ransom Stoddard, played by Jimmy Stewart, arrives in a small Western town after being robbed and beaten by the feared local outlaw, Liberty Valance. The story is told in retrospect, so we know that Stoddard goes on to become a United States Senator after the territory achieves statehood. Stoddard is a bookish lawyer and a decent man who is all about justice and the rules, but he is constitutionally ill-equipped to deal with the chaos and violence that Valance and his crew visit upon the town.
The film makes it very clear that Stoddard, unlike the cowardly local sheriff, is not without courage, but he has the kind of courage of his convictions that gets a decent man killed in the Wild West. He refuses to concede the reality that sometimes in the real world, principles have to give way to the way things actually are.
Stoddard, from the already civilized East, is attempting to act according to his “back East” values, despite the fact that he is no longer back East. A local who is quite handy with a gun, Tom Doniphon, played by John Wayne, sees what is going on with his sincere but hapless friend, and attempts to explain to him the way things work in his new environment. Men like Valance, Doniphon explains, aren’t impressed by his principles. They only understand force. This lesson is illustrated by the famous ending of the film, which I will not spoil. Stoddard goes on to thrive post-statehood in the more civilized environment for which his skill set and demeanor are better suited, while Doniphon lives out the rest of his life in lonely isolation, his temperament and skill set no longer needed.
The above theme is common in Westerns because history reveals it is based in truth. It is not a coincidence that some of the most famous Western lawmen were also former outlaws themselves (“Wild Bill” Hickok, “Doc” Holliday, Wyatt Earp, etc.).
I have previously made it clear that I believe there are some sincere conservative opponents of Donald Trump who are genuinely put off by his at times, shall we say, less than decorous and gentlemanly behavior. In an ideal world, traditionalist conservatives in particular, should value decency and decorum. I wholeheartedly agree with this, but our world is not ideal and Russell Kirk is not on the ballot, and I am not sure Russell Kirk would be the right man for the job at this time even if he was.
Through much interaction with both sides, I am convinced that one of the primary things that divides conservatives who oppose Trump from conservatives who support him is where they view our current situation as being on this uncivilized vs. civilized spectrum. Do we live in a civilized society that just needs fine-tuning, something that could be accomplished by a man of conviction and principle like Ransom Stoddard, or do we live in an uncivilized society that needs a gunfighter like Tom Doniphon to do what has to be done to tame the land first before we can worry about principles? By the standards of the film, are we pre-statehood or post-statehood?
It is not a reach, I believe, to view Ted Cruz and many of his diehard supporters (and Rand Paul and his supporters) as having a mindset a lot like Stoddard’s, concerned about principles and technicalities like the Constitutional process, checking all the conservative boxes, keeping the ideological flame, etc. but not realizing that we now live in an uncivilized and in many ways lawless (some have called the current state of our country anarcho-tyranny) country where such things are as useful as Stoddard’s law books were against Valance. While Trump and many of his supporters have a mindset a lot like Doniphon’s, realizing they need to do what it takes to secure the country against hostiles they recognize do not play by the rules.
———— Read the full post here. ————
Afterword by the editor
This goes to the heart of the Republican’s dillemma. Three years later, it looks prophetic. The Left has, again, gone full revolutionary. Here are a few examples.
- Their efforts to reverse the 2016 election have brought them into an alliance with their long-time foes – the Deep State – and for a second time tests the informal rule that Presidents will not be impeached for policy differences (the impeachment of Andrew Johnson was the first; he too was not convicted). Success would radically change our governing system in ways we cannot even imagine, both making the president beholden to Congress – and making elections contingent on acceptance by America’s elites.
- The Left’s efforts, aided by liberal judges, to restructure US society continue with no visible limits. The rights for transgenders and multi-genders movement is a battering ram against basic forms of traditions (judges declare millennia-long precedents, uniformally accepted a few years ago, to be unconsitutional).
- The Climate Hysteria, now abandoning even the pretense of being based on science, has become a battering ram against our political economy.
- Campus leftists have shown that leftists officials will give them almost free reign to use mild violence against their political opponents. Now Antifa is taking these tactics to the streets of America. A few journalists, such as Andy Ngo, document this – while most consider this news not fit for your to know.
Conservatives have been unable to muster an effective defense against any of these. For example, the climate “skeptics” have proven unable to organize or even coordinate their efforts. They tiny resources have been expended on fun projects while the alarmists gained the support of most key institutions in America.
More broadly, while the Left organizes to change America the Right has remained content to harvest the grifter economy. As we saw with Trump. Elected on promises to do great things for the broad middle class, he ran the standard GOP playbook. Tax cuts for the rich (with the resulting giant deficits). Deregulation for corporations, plus attacks on unions. More money for the military industrial complex (much of which they have burned in projects like the F-35).
So long as the Right’s politics remain like a dinner party discussion, entertaining but meaningless, they will continue to lose.
For More Information
Ideas! For some shopping ideas, see my recommended books and films at Amazon. Also, see Chapter One of a story about our future: “Ultra Violence: Tales from Venus.”
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