Let’s start with a little music:
The facts we hate
We’ll never meet
Walking down the road
Everybody yelling, “Hurry up, hurry up!”
But I’m waiting for you
I must go slow
I must not think bad thoughts
When is this world coming to?
Can’t speak for anyone else, but it’s tough avoiding bad thoughts these days. The larger question isn’t having bad thoughts, but whether you can express them. John Hayward, a/k/a Doc Zero, notices something important — the calls are coming from inside the house:
There is a part of the conservative sphere that has always felt populism is the ultimate sin, only the Left should be allowed to fight culture wars, and genuine conservative grassroots movements should be immediately run down with rhetorical lawn mowers.
There are different reasons why some conservatives gravitate to this way of thinking. Some are paid grifters. Some live deep inside the left-wing information sphere and inherit its prejudices, such as the notion cultural combat is toxic for conservatives but OK for lefties.
It’s always about the rice bowls. But there’s more:
For these timid elements of conservatism, the worst offense of the Right is questioning the motives of the Left. Nothing makes them spring into action against other conservatives faster than insinuations of bad faith or sinister motives against the Left.
Bad faith has been a growth industry on the port side since, I dunno, Rousseau maybe. It’s certainly not a recent development. Continuing on:
Run through the list of top issues: if you want border security, you must be a xenophobe. If you oppose abortion, you must be a blind religious fanatic or misogynist. If you want smaller government, you’re cruel and greedy. Question global warming? You’re a tool of Big Oil.
We are rat bastards, aren’t we? I must not think bad thoughts. But there’s more:
But as soon as any head of steam builds among grassroots conservatives for questioning the motives of the Left on similar grounds, the timid conservatives leap into action. Tut tut! That language is out of bounds! How dare you imply Lefty’s agenda is deliberately destructive!
They’ll tell you it’s paranoia and slander to talk about the destructive agenda of the Left even as hyperventilating lefties are busy laying out their agenda with hundreds of social media videos and vowing to destroy anyone who gets in their way.
I believe Mel Brooks had a number in Blazing Saddles about this, calling it the French Mistake. In modern parlance, that would be David French. But we’re not done:
Too much of the conservative commentariat is exactly that: commentators. They were comfortable remarking on the passing scene, not changing it. “Activism” was a dirty word, something the OTHER guys did. Tossing harmless Nerf footballs of theory around op-ed pages was good enough.
Change is hard and things are pretty cozy in the covens along the Potomac. And most of all, dudes wearing tricorner MAGA hats are not our kind, dear. We must not think bad thoughts. I’ve pulled a lot out of Hayward’s thread, but there’s even more. You should read it in full. But while his cri de coeur is compelling, it is clear our betters remain in their sinecures. And we’ll come back to that topic in the coming days.
See also: the defenestration of the Tea Party.
The bottled-up dissatisfaction from the absence of which led directly to Trump, for better and worse.
From Ace, John Hayward/Doc_Zero Has Thoughts on “Establishment” GOP Liberals Always Stabbing the Right in the Back”
Let me quote him. It’s mostly good stuff.
But he’s wrong on the fundamental issue.
It’s far worse than he thinks.
Hmm, did I screw up that link?
http://ace.mu.nu/archives/398632.php
The bottled-up dissatisfaction from the absence of which led directly to Trump, for better and worse.
And the bottles are in increasingly short supply.
Thanks, jdm. Ace is always worth a read.
“Populism” is just another word for “democracy.”
The dems got kicked to the curb by Reagan and the GOP in 1980. That was proof that Democracy worked. Trump and the GOP kick the dems to the curb in 2016 and that’s the GOP revealing an ugly, populist streak.
People seek social approval from their peer group. You can spend all day working for a conservative periodical or political party, but the people you work with are your colleagues. A person’s peers are the parents of their child’s classmates, all the way through college.
And the bottles are in increasingly short supply.
That’s because they’re all being filled with gasoline and corked with oily rags.
Here is the “autopsy” conducted by the RNC after Romney’s loss to Obama in 2012: https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/624581-rnc-autopsy
It was supposed to be the road map the GOP would use to win the 2016 presidential election.
It is a historical document. It wants explicit outreach to minorities and women using a quota-style system. It is light on social conservatism, heavy on “chamber of commerce” conservatism.
Trump broke all of the rules of the road map developed by the RNC and he won. This is the sin that many #nevertrumper Republicans will never forgive Trump for. He showed them to be fools. The #nevertrumpers have fully accepted the Left’s worldview.
The change in The Dispatch folks has been my biggest disappointment. Hayes and Goldberg and French are sharp minds and have been instructive voices for conservatism in the past.
Shortly after the election Goldberg wrote (I believe in one of his G-Files) “I’m glad Biden won.” (quoting from memory)
and that’s when I was done with them… if they can’t even get that one correct, they are useless to the Right…
C’mon Jeff! no… more… mean… twits!
Populism is the amber that is going to freeze the hard right over on the non-winning side of the political spectrum. The American first-past-the-post system eventually puts lame horses out into the back pastures of irrelevance.
Where is the next majority? The shuffling going on below the Trump tempests roiling the Republican surface is the sound of new and younger contenders getting ready for 2023, an entirely new horserace. A lot of contenders sense that a younger Republican candidate in 2024 could be the next president by projecting a suburban friendly and comforting persona coupled with a commitment to put American interests first and not let them get cosmopolitanized by elites distant from the real America. This is about market positioning and messaging by a personality that has successfully graduated from anger management.
Who might the next Republican candidate be? Look for someone like recently elected Virginia governor Glen Youngkin, a suburban appealing former private equity titan from the global-spanning Carlyle Group. Another would be David McCormick, former CEO of mega hedge fund Bridgewater, who is running for US senator from Pennsylvania, home of some of the most strategically important suburbs in America. Both of these individuals are well situated in the commanding heights of the top .05% of the wealth distribution. If money threads the needle to the top job in the USA, these guys or others like them will be right in the middle of the competitive mix in 2023 and the 2024 electoral seasons. In this scenario, Donald Trump is more of a placeholder than a contender.
As Mitch McConnell’s remarked recently that he was watching the results coming out of the House January 6 committee with great interest because the American people have a right to know, there is a large underground of well-moneyed Republicans who have a big interest in Liz Cheney doing a thorough job making Trump and that wing of rabble rousers radioactive to any future American presidential majority. Paves the way for a candidate smoothly representing the big money.
American democracy 2022
“Division, disarray mark Macomb County GOP convention”
https://michiganadvance.com/2022/04/12/division-disarray-mark-macomb-county-gop-convention/
Reliably, Emery comes with the “Surrender Dorothy” narrative.
^ The Democratic Party is a book of many good (but also too many bad) ideas, run by people who couldn’t run a free bar at an Irish wedding, many of whom are genuinely and literally too old to remember the date when they last had a good idea themselves.
Most people did not vote for Joe Biden…..They voted against Trump. A middle of the road republican will win hands down.
The post isn’t about 2024. It’s about the disconnect between the conservative base and those who purport to represent it. And middle of the road Republicans are central to the disconnect.
“The post isn’t about 2024. It’s about the disconnect between the conservative base and those who purport to represent it.”
Reddit can solve this in a week or two.
The Neo-Cons have fully accepted their corporate financiers worldview.
They always have done what Big Corp has told them to do; they still are. Big Corp has bought into the “woke” campaign, because they have decided it’s what’s best for their bottom line and stock prices.
So predictably, the Neo-cons in office are playing along while giving lip service to their deluded, boomer constituency.
The good news is, a sizeable percentage of the upcoming generation is suddenly realizing everything they learned in government school is bullshit, and they are rejecting business as usual. We don’t need 100%, we don’t even need 50%. If we have 25% of Gen X and Millennials on board, the dissident American revolution is possible.
Most people did not vote for Joe Biden…..
They voted against Trump.FTFY fuckwad
Most likely the American justice system will settle up with Trump and over serious charges. There are powerful political forces on all sides in both the Washington ruling class and the Washington governing class that want to see this outcome. Except for Ron DeSantis who apparently also sees the Trumpian way as the path to strongman rule and president for life, most of the other Republicans aspire to win a regular presidential election and serve legitimate electoral terms within the great tradition of American republican government.
How large is the authoritarian rabble out there? Probably smaller than most think and unlikely to be able to overthrow constitutional order particularly after the federal courts convict and punish identified lawbreakers. Rudy Giuliani, Mark Meadows, John Eastman, and the others all have one more important historical role to play — recipients of the republic’s justice.
Reddit can solve this in a week or two.
What the hell are you talking about? Never mind, no one wants to know.
Comment boards will resolve — “the disconnect between the conservative base and those who purport to represent it.” 😉
^ oh, this is *much* more elucidating than that original comment.
Mr. D, adding half a dozen gin and tonics (or whatever his juice is) to his crushing stupidity make rAT’s pm screeds understandable only to him self.
I know it’s all fappery, Blaze. Every bit of it.
Fappery is exactly what it is.
Jeff Kouba wrote: “Shortly after the election Goldberg wrote (I believe in one of his G-Files) “I’m glad Biden won.” (quoting from memory) and that’s when I was done with them… if they can’t even get that one correct, they are useless to the Right.
Right-wing hostility to Goldberg, Hayes and French is partially explained by the fact that
they are a mirror to a lot of people, and they don’t like what they see.
^^
Gibberish all the way down.
This comment is Emery being his best Emery,
I get the daily bulletin from The Dispatch and listen to Jonah Golberg’s podcast maybe once a month.
I know, I should get a life.
Anyway, what strikes me about Goldberg & the whole David French branch of politics is that they have no audience. The Dispatch has less than a dozen full time employees and well south of 5 million $ /year in revenue, just enough to provide its content providers with nice, upper middle class incomes. They are Dante’s grains of spelt:
When departs
The fierce soul from the body, by itself
Thence torn asunder, to the seventh gulf
By Minos doom’d, into the wood it falls,
No place assign’d, but wheresoever chance
Hurls it, there sprouting, as a grain of spelt,
Maybe The Dispatch’s criticizing their own tribe is a positive example for folks in other political tribes too. A lot of people need to stop whining so much about “contrarians” and learn to value principled dissidents.
The people of The Dispatch have no tribe. Thus the reference to spelt, which Dante knew as wild, unhusbanded grain.
The party of Reagan now considers Reagan a RINO. Probably considered a “groomer” in some quarters as a well.
Reagan In Name Only….
Emery, a follower of the party of George Wallace and Bull Connor, is utterly ignorant of the “Party of Reagan.”
Take a look at who is aligned with each side and then rethink your comment.
Uh . . . it is the dems who still believe in racism, Emery. Pick up a newspaper some time.
From ‘City Upon a Hill’ to ‘Anti-Anti-Putin’…
^^more gibberish. It is literal nonsense, words strung together by a shattered mind, probably cribbed from the deranged gibbering found on a lefty website.
I think the hostility is that French, Goldberg and Hayes at least implicitly, conceive of social conservatives as a minority group that deserve tolerance and accommodation, rather than rightful rulers. I actually think if we could wrench our politics on this subject around to their point of view, we’d have a firm basis for compromise on a lot of issues. They aim to uphold everyone’s rights, and argue that it helps social conservatives, but people who want dominance, and think they’re entitled to it, don’t like that.
No one cares what you think, troll.
I doubt that you’ve ever read anything David French or Jonah Goldberg has written.
French’s problem is that he is a pharisee, he sees sin everywhere but in his own heart. Goldberg’s problem is that he identifies with is neighbors, the middle-managers of DC bureaucracies, more than people who are actually conservative.
French’s problem is that he is a pharisee, he sees sin everywhere but in his own heart. Goldberg’s problem is that he identifies with is neighbors, the middle-managers of DC bureaucracies, more than people who are actually conservative.
Exactly.