Summary: It is amazing to see the lack of analysis about the current waves of political change sweeping America. Let’s guess about possible revolutionary futures. They are all dark.
“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.”
— Words from one who knows about these things. From Mao tse-tung’s ”Report on an Investigation of the Peasant Movement in Hunan”, March 1927.
Why the Left is winning.
The Left has carefully worked for decades to build the foundation for the 2020 revolution (foolishly, I did not see this). The gained dominance in key institutions, such as education, academics, the press, many NGOs. The press gives them information dominance, an immense influence on people’s thinking. Their dominance in education allowed them to create today’s world – the old-fashioned way. Powerfully, irreversibly.
“Give me a child until he is seven and I will give you the man.”
— Jesuit motto attributed to Francis Xavier.
Lots of sloppy columnists say this is like the 1965 – 1975 riots and bombings by the Left. While that foreshadows the 2020 revolution, the Left’s institution power is far greater today. See the obeisance – and funding – by so many major corporations. The Left’s influence in the news media is far greater. But there is a more important difference.
“What he had learned from all his experience of fighting was that nearly always there are those who want to fight and those who do not but feel they cannot avoid it. …It did not occur to him now …that most of his rabbits were still outside; that those who were with him were fewer than those on the other side ….This sort of thing does not count among fighting rabbits. Ferocity and aggression are everything. What Woundwort knew was that those beyond the wall were afraid of him and that on this account he had the advantage.“
— Wise words from Richard Adams’ great book, Watership Down
The Leftist crusades, such as the Campus Rape Epidemic, Me Too, and Black Lives Matter, are irresistible. Few dare oppose them, let alone criticize them. All the energy today is on the Left.
An even more powerful advantage is that the Left is smart and learning. They have activists inside the government.
The Portland Wall of Moms and Dads with Leafblowers (blowing back the tear gas) are brilliant (details here). Burning the flag excites the Left, but has little mass appeal. Let’s fool the proles by wrapping ourselves in the flag! This is what a learning movement looks like (unlike America’s Right).
The flag waving is a propaganda move for the cameras. They are discussing on Reddit & other places new ways to “change” public perception on the riots. This is a group that beats people carrying flags, burns US flags, & chants for abolishment of the US. pic.twitter.com/FipxGJUxNS
— Andy Ngô (@MrAndyNgo) July 22, 2020
About the counter-revolution
There is much muttering on the Right about the Left over-reaching, and the Right’s coming counter-revolution. So far there is no evidence of any energy on the Right equivalent to the Left’s. Conservatives like William Lind look to the waiting hordes of conservative white Christian men, ready to rise and fight the Left. Perhaps they are hiding, organizing, and planning – but I doubt it.
Revolutions and counter-revolutions are done by the young. There are many young conservatives. Isolated, alienated, lacking any motivating ideology or goals. But they do have values, values very different than their Boomer parents and grandparents. Anti-liberal values brought forth by the ruin of the Boomers’ dreams. But today they are weak. Should someone come along and give them goals, something to strive for, pride and organization – them America might change. Their clash with the Left, neither valuing the Constitution or America’s culture, might bring down the remains of the America-that-once-was.
When the revolution changes leaders
Almost all the major public policy changes in America have been bipartisan. The decision of the Left and Right to open America’s borders guaranteed radical changes in every aspect of America. the Right was, as always, seeking greater profits for the plutocracy. The Left more wisely understood that this was an irresistible tool to reshape America. The next generation will prove the validity of their insight, as demographics brings them victory.
But the Left’s leaders did not see the implications of their success. As usual in our America. the Left sees the Right clearly – and the Right clearly sees the Left. Patrick Buchanan explains the almost inevitable future for the Left: “Rising Diversity Is Joe Biden’s Worry, Too.” Open borders, votes for felons, citizenship for illegal immigrants – anything to gain votes. But the current generation of elderly white Democrats are the last of their kind. The young upper-class whites hoping to inherit their power are delusional. A new generation of People of Color, fueled by affirmative action (now even racism and sexism), will inherit the Left and all its accumulated power. They will have their own values and dreams, drastically different than today’s elderly white leaders.
What does our future look like?
“The worse, the better.”
— One of the most powerful revolutionary insights, ever. Attributed to the Russian revolutionary socialist, Nikolay Chernyshevsky (1928 – 1889).
We need not guess about the consequences of rule by the Left. See the near-terminal decay and third-world like crime rate in many of the cities they run (see here and here). Their current policies are designed to destroy the America-that-once-was and allow them to build on the ruins. They are quite open about it in their writings for the faithful.
As for the further future, like all ideologues – the Left has dreams and abstract theories. We are the lab rats for their experiments in social engineering. Their revolution is the opposite of the Glorious Revolution in England and the American Revolution, careful and incremental changes made by cool considerate men.
Rule by the Right would require an epiphany among conservatives. I cannot imagine what that might be, or its results. All we know is that neither Left nor Right loves the Constitution.
The good news ending
Color me an optimist and dreamer, but I am confident that the collapse of the Second Republic (built on the Constitution) will lead to a new stability. Probably an autocracy run by the Left, Right, or something news. We will be subjects, consoling ourselves by awarding ourselves the exalted status of victims. Our rulers will laugh, but allow us our foolish beliefs.
But remember, whatever happens will require our cooperation. By inaction, if nothing else. We can make our future. We are responsible for our future.
Contest
I will send a copy of Rome’s Last Citizen
A copy also goes to whoever suggests a new masthead for this website. “Helping to reignite the spirit of a nation grown cold” shows a hopeful spirit I no longer have.
For More Information
Ideas! See my recommended books and films at Amazon. For something different, see “The Swallow – a story of the WWII Night Witches.”
I highly recommend Martin van Creveld’s new book, Seeing into the Future: A Short History of Prediction
If you liked this post, like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter. For more information about this vital issue see my posts about fear, about the Constitution, and especially these posts …
- Our institutions are hollow because we don’t love them.
- After Independence Day, look to America after the Republic.
- We have become cowards. We can become brave again.
- We gave our rulers the greatest gift that we can give.
- The Founders’ error dooms our Republic, but not the next.
- Fireworks for the mind on this July 4.
- The Boomers see the ruin of their dreams.
Look to the past to see our future
The Founders looked to the Roman Republic for ideas and inspiration. In this time of peril, we too can do so. See two books about the people who were the poles of the forces that could have saved the Republic, but instead destroyed it.
Caesar – a biography by Christian Meier
Rome’s Last Citizen
I think that many fear losing what they have should they fight back. If they can keep their corporate jobs, their McMansions, their SUVs, the vacations to Disneyworld, Las Vegas and Hawaii, then many will submit to the new order. Instability means they could lose everything, so they will accept a dictatorship (left or right), not so different than what exists in China, with its shiny skyscrapers and surging economy.
The problem for them, as you pointed out, is that the the old leftists will be purged and replaced by a new order, based on race. They won’t be allowed to keep their jobs, houses, cars or money. Others flat out dismiss the idea of the country falling as absurd, expecting that a President Biden can clap his hands and make it all stop, and we can then return to our consumerist ways.
Frank,
I agree. This is why change occurs despite the opposition of the majority, and why so many are surprised when it happens.
There’s a scene in the book The War Of The Worlds by H G Wells where the narrator encounters the artilleryman he met earlier in the book, and the artilleryman tells him bluntly, that the war with Martians is lost.
[…He looked at me, “Aren’t you satisfied that it is up with humanity? I am. We’re down; we’re beat.”
I stared. Strange as it may seem I had not arrived at this fact – a fact perfectly obvious as soon as he spoke. I had still held a vague hope; rather, I had kept a lifelong habit of mind. He repeated his words. “We’re beat.” They carried absolute conviction. ]
Frank is not wrong that a lot of people are thinking about how they might be able to ingratiate themselves under their new Left overlords. But a lot of what’s happening is that people have simply clung to lifelong habits of mind, and they can’t – or won’t understand that it really is different this time. You can say that it’s amazing to see the lack of analysis, and you aren’t wrong, but an honest analysis would lead to conclusions that a lot of people simply couldn’t live with. When the artilleryman looked the guy in the face and said “We’re beat”, it was a huge shock and revelation, and the guy had to see the Martians completely destroy all opposition in their path or he could never have accepted it.
And to use The War Of The Worlds as an object lesson, there was a brief window when the Martians were first crawling out of their cylinder, before they got their weapons and machines set up, when some well placed HE would likely have ended the war right then and there. No one thought to do it. In the book, reaction times and communications were awfully slow, and anyway, no one could really imagine the danger they were in. In the 1953 movie, there’s a scene where the Marines have moved in and are preparing for the battle. The tough Marine Colonel tells the General “My orders are not go into action unless they move out of the shelter of that gully.” Hate to tell you this, Colonel, but when they come out of that gully, it’s going to be a lifetime too late.
I think on the Right there’s a conviction that the money will always come in, and they can’t imagine an enemy who really will crush them. They’re acting kind of weird these days, and maybe it’s starting to sink in fir at least some of them. These Martians have been given an extravagant amount of time to set up their fighting machines. And apathy was most definitely a factor in that. I had a guy recently telling me about the steely eyed Minuteman types with their ARs and I had a WOTW moment. I wanted to grab him by the collar, shake him, and say “Take my word for it. This type of defense is useless against that kind of power!”
Was with you right up until the end.
AR-15s are only useless against the Left, because Right isn’t serious about pulling the trigger (and, frankly, never really was). Too many LARPers, not enough actual warriors.
Revolutions don’t tell you who is right or who is wrong, but they do tell you how many rebels there are and how many are ready to die. The Left simply has a great many more of both and that’s why they look poised for victory.
Dragnet,
“and how many are ready to die. The Left simply has a great many more of both and that’s why they look poised for victory.”
If this is a real violent revolution – which I doubt – it is in its earliest stages. Far to soon to make such confident wild guesses – about either side.
My guess (guess!) is, as I have said for a decade – we are in the process of regime change. I’m skeptical that it will have mass violence, but the new regime (whether Left or Right) will settle Americans into subjects mild and meek.
We are already quite domesticated.
Not being mild and meek means losing the good paying job, the house, the SUV’s, etc. I saw it at work. Corporate will throw their support behind whatever the Left deems to be current. As a worker bee, you have two choices: vocally support the policies or remain silent. Opposing will cost you your job.
Frank,
Revolutions are made by those willing to risk their “lives, fortunes, and sacred honor.” True in 1776 as well as in the hundred 4gw’s since WW2.
The Founders were confident we were and would remain such a people. Time will tell.
For a first-hand account of this phenomenon, read “The Fall of the Third Republic,” by William Shirer. Wonderfully written by someone who knew all the players and the dynamics that undid France–before a shot was fired in WWII.
Godfree,
“For a first-hand account of this phenomenon”
I don’t understand. What phenomenon? What is the similarity of the events leading to the 1940 invasion of France by Germany with 2020 America?
I work for a left wing NGO and everything you say is true. I’ve known these days were coming for some years now. I stayed at first because I’m pushing 60 and changing jobs is extremely hard not only because of my age — family depending on me, social isolation (partly actually engineered by my charming employers), and etc. etc. Anyway, I think in war time the strategy and tactics of the old are deviousness. Perhaps there are more.
I’m actively thinking and reading right now figuring how a rapidly aging Christian woman “embedded” among them could morally fight back against them. I’d love to hear suggestions from you and your readers.
Nell,
“I’d love to hear suggestions from you and your readers.”
Me, too. I’ve written about this unraveling for 17 years. Now I’m out of ideas.
Everything starts with problem identification. So far most Americans are fat and happy, watching these events as if they were a TV drama. I doubt that there is much time left to begin the process of revival – esp since both Left and Right have turned against us.
“I’m actively thinking and reading right now figuring how a rapidly aging Christian woman “embedded ” among them could morally fight back against them.”
First suggestion, initially, always be recruiting (even though, at this point, it is far from clear what the form of that alternative will be). When you are dealing with issues of certainty, arrogance, determinism etc. offer them your own self-reflections on these qualities within yourself. If their defensiveness is not overwhelming you may end in a situation where at least temporarily you have discovered a joint commonality to potentially build on.
In the future, if Covid continues, one institutional base of the more radical factions of the Left, may begin to weaken and presently arrogant/financially secure adjuncts/Profs may then become open to a more in-depth examination of important cultural issues which they had previously simply dismissed as irrelevant to what they consider to be the more core issues like economic redistribution.
Another guess about the immediate future is that a split is beginning to develop in the ranks of that portion of the left outside the mainstream Democratic party.
Someone like Matt Taibi is representative of this potential rupture, in his growing critique of the white skin privilege.identity politics/BLM narrative Maybe 30 to 40% of the commentariat on Naked Capitalism also appear to be somewhat sympathetic to his critique.
Wormwood,
I applaud your optimism, but disagree.
“Someone like Matt Taibi is representative of this potential rupture …. Maybe 30 to 40% of the commentariat on Naked Capitalism also appear to be somewhat sympathetic to his critique.”
These are what modern revolutionaries (ie, post-Mao) call “useful idiots” (see the origin of the term). Their support was useful in the early stages, but they are no longer needed now that a mass movement has begun – one in which they play no role. Few on the streets know of Taibbi, and have no interest in his erudite critiques. More importantly, they will fret and fume, but will never ever join an alliance against the Left – no matter what it does.
It’s like Bill Maher, who is horrified by what is happening but is also learning the hard way that he is no longer useful and is thus considered irrelevant.
A relative has a daughter who is attending online orientation for college. My relative is appalled by what is taught in that orientation class. Anyway, who needs pundits like Maher or Taibbi when they have complete and total control of the education system?
Frank,
“Who needs pundits like Maher or Taibbi when they have complete and total control of the education system?”
And dominance of the major media (conservative media is a ghetto, with little effect on much of public).
Military strategists have written for decades about the power of “information dominance.” Now we see it displayed by the Left in America.
Nell,
I’ve lowered my bar to what is effective opposition. Now I’m working on small stuff. On social media I highlight changes make a #NewAmerica – to awaken people, showing the cumulative effects of today’s events.
I also highlight the rising rates of violent crime by marking these stories #TooManyPolice.
Baby steps.
Thanks replies. Worm Wood, I’m already always on the lookout for openings to others in what I call the LLLE, the Local Left/Liberal Establishment, who might share my feelings. So far, zilch and it’s been years I’ve been looking. I’ve been doing a lot of reading on political philosophy and slowly realizing that I come from a liberal family, but philosophically and emotionally I’m actually a crunchy con and always have been. I’m looking these days more for escape routes to other crunchies.
I’m also pondering beginning a support group at church for people like me. I don’t know if others at church are in similar situations. It’s a more conservative branch of our denomination, most of the people are young, with children — they seem to have it much more together than DH & I, aging Boomers that we are. But the internet tells me that lots of people are feeling trapped and conflicted. I think a 12-step program is in order, which I pray leads to a movement for repentance and revival. If I can just get someone to give permission for face to face meetings!
Larry, I lowered my bar years ago as I learned to cope with how the 2008 Obama campaign effectively destroyed the peace movement, turning it into LGBTQ stuff 24/7 and eventually leading to nonsense like solemnly informing me that a man can be a woman. I know full well I’ll never be a man and the reverse is simply true. And … anyway, I’m refraining from an OT rant.
I eventually realized that the one big thing left that I could do for peace was the extremely hard but extremely small thing of quitting smoking, thereby depriving the MIC of laughably small amounts of tax money. If that’s not a baby step, I don’t know what is. I actually wrote a book, never published, scarcely shown, about the emotional and spiritual process I went through.
Is the rise of the left not equally a direct consequence of the anti social economic policies our governments have fostered over the past 60 years?
Real worker compensation peaked under Nixon, all subsequent gains have accrued to the financial and managerial elites. A policy of porous borders and ‘free trade’ further deprecated the power of labor, with a corresponding rise in the dependent class. The maltreatment of the workers was justified by the vacuous slogan of ‘enhancing shareholder value’. Perhaps the politicians were too well greased to remember that no one will put their life on the line for ‘shareholder value’.
Imho the 2008 crisis, which saw the banks rescued despite their egregious abuses of the mortgage sector while still leaving the homeowners defenseless was the last straw. Why would anyone defend this abusive system?
The tragedy is that we’ve had several opportunities to reform, but have let them slip. Bush’s idea after 9/11 was for America to go shopping, Obama’s after 2008 was to let the foxes repair the hen house, Trump’s electoral victory brought confusion, not policy.
The Bible cautions us that where there is no vision, the people perish. The country badly needs some.
Etudiandt,
It’s fun to see how people re-imagine reality to make it fir their preconceptions – and make it less disturbing.
The streets overflow with people speaking of structural racism and demanding to defund the police. The Left demands racial and gender quotas, which in effect are political limits tests (as we see in academia, conservative Blacks aren’t “real” Blacks.
This is a move for power. They’re winning.
Both Left andRight have turned against us, despising us for our passivity and gullibility. Logically so.
You might imagine an alternate reality, if it makes you happy.
You make a powerful point, the language and stated goals of the protests are very much society changing, not economic. It may have been initiated by economic issues, but clearly the aim now is political power.
Maybe AOC is our equivalent to Chavez, a wrecking would be reformer .Except the left does not need the military if the voters acquiesce in November.
etudiant,
“except the left does not need the military if”
I wonder if modern mobilization tools have transformed politics as nukes have transformed war between great powers. Everybody still talks about hordes of panzers crossing plains of Europe – but great powers carefully avoid conflicts that could escalate into real war (and go atomic).
Similarly, people talk about violent civil wars as if they are imminent. While societies are reshaped by modern mobilization tools, without the risk of burning to the ground in civil wars.
I’ll state that more strongly: while everybody talks about civil war (e.g., the Right strokes their guns and mutters about the Great Day When They Rise Up), society is drastically restructured by slower but equally efficacious means.
etudiant,
Follow-up note –
“Maybe AOC is our equivalent to Chavez”
That’s a powerful comparison. Cesar Chavez on the Left and Ronald Reagan on the Right were leaders in 1970s and 1980s America. Now we have AOC on the Left and Trump on the Right, clown leaders for political movements in ClownWorld America.
I think etudiant was referring to Hugo Chavez, not Cesar Chavez.
Crusher,
Thanks, I see that now!
But the then and now comparison leaped out at me.
The Leftists don’t realize they are working to introduce a dictatorship of the central banks, and immiseration of the masses, including themselves.
(foolishly, I did not see this). They have been saying this openly for a very long time.
The long march through the institutions is a slogan coined by Communist student activist Rudi Dutschke circa 1967.
The main influence on Dutschke’s thinking is the works of Italian communist Antonio Gramsci who, while imprisoned by Mussolini, wrote about cultural hegemony and the need for a “war of position” to establish the conditions for a revolutionary “war of maneuver”.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_long_march_through_the_institutions
Astakask,
Thanks for sharing this interesting history!
Here is my vision for winning this battle and it’s different than you’re thinking.
Instead of fighting it out today or this decade or whenever. Like minded people who identify with traditional Western Civ (ie Christianity, Justice/Law, free markets, etc) should feign retreat and leave North America temporarily for a century or so. Move to low tax free market nations or use flag theory and offshore/semi offshore jurisdictions to replicate the low reg low tax beginnings of the colonies. Accumulate wealth and watch from afar while planning a reconquest.
Allow the left and they’re philosophy to destroy itself over the next century. Don’t let your family get trapped in this coming nightmare of the second half of the 21st century America. At best the left will run itself bankrupt and destroy all purchasing power in the currency, eventually leading to a break in the dollar being used as the world reserve currency. Without demand for US Treasuries to capitalize the rest of the worlds banks and facilitate international payments, mass economic collapse would occur painfully and tragically and widespread violence would be a likely outcome. Regional alliances would form and create a fractured multi polar civil war conflict for North America most likely to resolve itself in some form or eventual fractured multi state peace but an ununified lower 48 that resembles nothing like the USA of today. Very sad really.
Once this peace between the factions is settled use our capital to buy property, business, and crucially support or ownership of institutions that lead to information dominance. Then re-teach the principals of Western Civ to the population who’s seen and lived thru 2-3 generations of hell the hard way and show them that it was the left that lead them into this destruction but there is another option. After their institutions have collapsed and civilization has devolved we can go back in and slowly rebuild.
Build power and slowly reunify the old USA. Once reestablished it is CRUCIAL that we go back to requiring some sort of property ownership to acquire voting rights otherwise it devolves again to same thing De Toqueville predicted long ago, ie once the people realize they can just vote for wealth redistribution that’s what you’ll continue to get. This requirement of some form of property ownership is the check and balance the founders put on the People. In their case they only assumed it would exist because it was practiced at their time and they couldn’t foresee universal male or female suffrage or popular votes for US Senate which came later by amendment. Just as Crucial the 10th Amendment must be enforced and the direct taxation of income by the federal government abolished. Popular voting will always favor the left and was something the Founders only used for House Reps at the signing of the Constitution for good reason.
One consideration to all this is would North America even be worth it. With Space travel at our door step and the vast wealth and resources to come from that exploration it’s like a new Columbian exchange and /era of colonization is about to happen anyway with vast wealth potential. Space colonization is the ultimate offshore jurisdiction and is the geopolitical equivalent of Vasco de Gama sailing around Africa to India. So will who controls North America really matter a century from now?
It’s also likely that after a century and 3-4 generations of inter racial mixing that the resulting ethnic makeup of North America is nothing like that of today or the early mid 20th century. I have family from Brazil and this happened there within a few generation the mixed race group became the majority within my parents own lifetime. Point of saying that is they might not share the same link to Western.Civ that we do now so why force it or re teach it to them using our capital if they trashed it the first time anyway. Let them self determine, is the physical land area really worth it anymore in a technological age?
At this point the left has won the nation and once the boomer generation starts dying off the voting keeps skewing left. We lost this battle 20-30 years ago not today and not ten years ago. The feigned retreat strategy allows them to implode on their own while we watch offshore while continuing to do business with North America and building capital to eventually use to re conquer the continent once their institutions and civilization has eaten itself from the inside out. But as I point out we should be looking further forward to Space and I’m not sure if North America is really worth such a long game.
I think the only thing that can save us from the destruction of our country that we are seeing now is a Carrington Event type CME that takes out the power grid for a decade or so. I’m not suggesting that’s a better option of course. Even if Trump is reelected we are living on borrowed time, the takeover by the left seems unstoppable and inevitable.
I can see Mexico laughing their ass off in a few years, we did them a solid by building their wall for them.
This article explains many things. That includes the reasons why professionals and experienced people have been very concerned about these trends and why ‘what is going on’ is such a dangerous road for us to be on. This is information that Pro’s knew was going on, but laid out for the layperson.
It also shows why the misrepresentation by the media and the downplaying (if not outright dismissal) of this ‘problem’ by those who publicly support the ‘idea’ is an even bigger problem.
Something that I really appreciate about this article is she mentions the concerted effort to ‘control’ the information flow. There is a LOT of intimidation and shutting down filming by anyone ‘not approved.’
If you know what that means, it’s not just a red flag. It’s sirens and flashing lights.
https://reason.com/2020/10/02/the-conservative-trans-woman-who-went-undercover-with-antifa-in-portland/
Also see a similar article in the NY Times about a photographer named Jeremy Lee Quinn who infiltrated the black bloc anarchists in half a dozen cities across the country for the past 4 months:
“Mr. Quinn discovered a thorny truth about the mayhem that unfolded in the wake of the police killing of George Floyd, an unarmed Black man in Minneapolis. It wasn’t mayhem at all.
While talking heads on television routinely described it as a spontaneous eruption of anger at racial injustice, it was strategically planned, facilitated and advertised on social media by anarchists who believed that their actions advanced the cause of racial justice. In some cities, they were a fringe element, quickly expelled by peaceful organizers. But in Washington, Portland and Seattle they have attracted a ‘cultlike energy,’ Mr. Quinn told me.
Don’t take just Mr. Quinn’s word for it. Take the word of the anarchists themselves, who lay out the strategy in Crimethinc, an anarchist publication: Black-clad figures break windows, set fires, vandalize police cars, then melt back into the crowd of peaceful protesters. When the police respond by brutalizing innocent demonstrators with tear gas, rubber bullets and rough arrests, the public’s disdain for law enforcement grows. It’s Asymmetric Warfare 101.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/30/opinion/anarchists-protests-black-lives-matter.html