State of the nation
Radicalized, disenfranchised, post-Constitutional, post-Republic, teetering on the ragged, jagged edge of Apocalypse.
Who Radicalized the Right?
In the process of steamrolling normal people, the Left may have created the very “fascists” they claim to be against.The term “far-right” is applied far too liberally these days, but the Right has doubtless moved away from conservatism and toward a more radical form of politics. There aren’t too many defectors from Donald Trump’s camp who feel the man is too extreme. Rather, the argument from Trump’s right is that he is not disciplined enough to—as the online Right likes to say—“crush our enemies.” Whether Trump, Ron DeSantis, or some other figure is the Republicans’ nominee in 2024, the frontrunner will not win the hearts of the base by appealing to what conservatives are pleased to call “principle” and speaking in a trans-Atlantic accent. That person will do it by showing he is strong and can be a protector to half the nation.
Of course, the whole purpose of constitutions is to limit power. In a constitutional system like ours, one is not supposed to be motivated by crushing one’s enemies. This has never been the inclination or aim of conservatives, who do not share the Left’s aversion to limits on political power. But things have changed. What happens when one side has no regard for the constitution or the limits of power?
The other side had damned well better recognize what has happened, acknowledge frankly that those they once thought of as “Our Fellow Countrymen” have morphed into an implacable, slavering, ruthless Enemy, and deal with them in accordance with that bleak reality if they hope to get through the inevitable conflict with even a pitiful tittle of their former liberties and rights still intact, that’s what.
The goodwill of the conservative has been mercilessly abused, and he is searching for shelter from the obscene freak show of anarchy and disorder that has descended upon his country.
Joe Biden is but the vessel of the deranged, domineering spirit behind the corruption. This malign force is not the beneficent liberalism of the founders, who cherished freedom of speech, religion, and opinion and, of course, the right to bear arms, and its implicit right of revolution. It is a tyrannical will that asserts total ownership of everything, proudly celebrates evil by calling it good, treats decent people like terrorists, exalts criminals and the insane, snatches children from their parents, and requires submission to itself—in mind and body—for citizens to earn bread.
On top of it all, the means of democratic recourse appear to be slipping. Our elections are a Third World sham, and millions of foreigners with no right to be here live in the country without fear of removal. Their numbers are rapidly growing under the explicit protection of an administration whose party, in between giving lectures on the rule of law, brags about replacing and disenfranchising the country’s natives.
The country is changing fast. A decade ago, the Left said, “We just want gays to be able to marry,” and now they say, “We just want to parade our depraved fetishes in public and sexualize children.”
Faced with all of this, a Caesar who promises to sweep away the trash begins to look appealing to many.
Appealing, hell. In times as fraught and parlous as these, countenancing the rise of a Caesar can quickly become a matter of sheer survival, quite literally so.
Especially when those on the other side are disingenuous, like our leftists, and appeal to principles they do not themselves believe in to get their way. No, the Left doesn’t care about constitutionalism, democracy, liberalism, or any of the high phrases that pepper their pompous speeches. Like a communist Popular Front, these are just words they use to put a benign face on tyranny, and blackmail their opponents into unilateral disarmament.
Forgive me, but for the life of me I can’t recall the last time I heard any Leftist even mention any of those things in passing, much less “pepper(ing) their speeches” with them. Well, excepting “democracy,” as in the “Our Sacred Democracy” bullshit, I suppose. Which mention was as transparently insincere and false as it was convenient for them in the moment, a mere tactic and nothing whatsoever more.
Most on the Right have awoken to this, which is why, outside of a handful of naïve but sincere conservatives, few went out of their way to condemn Trump when he apparently called to suspend the Constitution.
Okay, maybe it’s just me and my fading memory, but I really can’t recall Trump ever having issued any such call, either “apparently” or explicitly.
This may not be a “principled” way of thinking, as some conservatives understand it, but it is not an unreasonable approach in times of such enmity and trouble. The increasingly medieval nature of American politics has left many feeling that a faith in what used to be called principle is outdated and foolish.
When one’s opponents have declared themselves his enemies, nakedly and unequivocally, and regard “principles” not as a quality to be admired but as a weakness to be exploited, insistence on clinging to those principles is the exclusive province of a soon-to-be-subjugated fool.
In a stable, secure nation at peace internally, principles are fine and noble things, a source of pride and strength…provided those principles are shared in common amongst a clear majority of its populace. In a faltering, decaying nation, riven by strife, beset by rampant crime and corruption, however, a mulish adherence to principle can be not only a source of weakness, it can be downright dangerous.
The two dominant factions now resemble hostile nations living under one government while speaking completely foreign languages.
NOW you’re getting it. Because that is precisely where we are now.
Consequently, politics has become a struggle for survival in which, because of universal suffrage, all are conscripted. The inconsequential noise of mutual recrimination leads many to tune out, but to do so, to remain unallied, is to let oneself be trampled.
This is a sad state of affairs, but it is reality.
Yep. We don’t have to like it—SHOULDN’T like it, in fact. But like it or no, we DO have to face up to it, without flinching, dissembling, or further ado. Who “radicalized” us? Who gives a damn? That’s a dead issue at this late date, of no import and well behind us. The only thing that matters now is whether we retain the gumption to embrace that radicalization, and exact a heavy price from the rat-bastards for what they’ve done to us.
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