Ideas Whose Time Has Come. Part II: China Rising, the Death of Democracy, the New Nationalism, Corona, and Catholic Wisdom

A bit less than a year ago, I put up a blog post (Ideas Whose Time Has Come. Part I: The Middle Kingdom, Democracy, Globalism, and Islam) dealing with ideas and their impact on history -- especially on current events, which, after all, are history in the making.  Here's a brief summary with a few comments added:    

• China has, historically, generally minded its own business. The same can't be said for Europe or the U.S.
• The European powers have given up on traditional empires (the ones sustained by military might) but we have not as yet.
• Empires are becoming more primarily economic in character, and China is showing great skill in this area.
• Accusations against Trump for treason may signal the replacement of democracy by what amounts to gang warfare. (Politics has totally replaced principles.)
• Attempts to “spread democracy” inevitably run up against national character.
• Communism has evolved into globalism as the political “theory of everything”. Whereas communism has been shown to morph based on national character, globalism has yet to show any signs of doing this (or of being capable of doing so). (One could say that communism, at least in theory, chose to ignore national character, whereas globalism is actively opposed to it, i.e. to the idea that such a thing even exists and that it's important.)
• America had the (alleged) good fortune to start out as a more or less cultural blank slate, which made it an ideal experimental laboratory for secular humanism, AKA “democracy”. But human nature nonetheless got in the way. (Where flesh-and-blood people are concerned, there are no blank slates. Those only exist for ideologues and Utopian “thinkers”, who invariably become tyrants when they are given any power, because “the people” simply refuse to cooperate.)
• Democracy is already fragile enough (as the Founding Fathers realized). Trying to “spread” it is doomed to failure in the long run (and sometimes in the short run). (A good question for debate is whether democracy is, or approximates, the “natural political state” of mankind. If one looks at history, it's clear that democracy in any real sense is a rare bird – seldom found anywhere, and never found in most places even unto the present day. It's more likely that monarchy (either explicit or implicit) is a more natural state; it's certainly the most common historically.)
• We are, in effect, living in a post-democratic society where power has the upper hand. (What this implies is that “voting” is, more often than not, a cruel hoax. As Joseph Sobran once said, if it were important they wouldn't let you vote on it.) (Elections don't need to be rigged at the point of voting; they are rigged way before that point in terms of who is allowed to campaign for the nomination and who gets nominated. The actual election merely provides an imprimatur by the captive citizenry on something that the ruling elite have already decided.)
• Islam is the grass-roots movement of our time, and is directly opposed to both democracy and globalism. Its weapons include mass migration, fertility, militancy, and faith. (Note that Islam is not opposed to empire, but the empire they seek is strictly theocratic.)
• The sources of energy for militant Islam include economic colonialism (by the West), memories of traditional colonialism (by Europe), and the existence of Israel (which was established by the West in Muslim territory).
• “If there's a new Cold War being fought, it's between two international movements – 'democracy', which means globalism, and Islam. And, by the way, between secularism and religion.”

So, just based on the above points, let's think about what has changed and what hasn't in 11 short months:

• China has upped the ante not only in direct economic terms, but in having unleashed (accidentally or otherwise) a world-wide pandemic that, among other things, has mesmerized our leadership into, basically, shutting down what had been a booming economy (and China's main competitor economically). In other words, they (China) have succeeded beyond their wildest dreams. But a note of caution here – as I said to someone the other day, China has tremendous investments in the U.S. and holds the lion's share of our national debt, so all of that goes into the dumpster if our economy fails to recover from this attack. Either they've pushed this thing too far, or they're willing, for whatever reason, to take the hit. Time will tell. In any case, it has put China into the global driver's seat for the first time ever, and they must be feeling kind of giddy about that. (So much for being satisfied with being the Middle Kingdom.)
• We haven't heard the word “treason” much lately out of the Gang of Four, i.e. Pelosi, Schumer, Schiff, and Nadler – and Impeachment 2.0 has been put on hold, apparently for the duration of the pandemic. But worry not, they're gathering “evidence”, and building up a head of steam, and when the time is right they'll be back for another round. Thus, the “gang war” model is alive and well.
• “Spreading democracy” is on hold right now, even though bombing the Third World back to the Stone Age isn't. These are the throes of a dying empire, and it's sadly typical. Let's just say that the rest of the world won't miss us when we're gone.
• The globalists, on the other hand, have a new lease on life, and this applies whether we're talking about the domestic or foreign (European) variety. They are not letting this crisis go to waste by any means. They are increasing the powers of central government by many quanta. Prohibitions, dictated shutdowns, arrests of those deemed uncooperative, martial law (or its equivalent) are the order of the day. And the economic consequences, interestingly enough, don't seem to even be on radar. We have only to remember that totalitarianism inevitably leaves poverty in its wake, and that is, in fact, part of the program. An impoverished people is a dependent people – dependent on government largess and willing to submit, and grovel, and do just about anything to merely stay alive. I would say that this pandemic ranks right up there with the Great Depression and World War II as a means for the ruling elite to consolidate the gains they've been working so hard to achieve all these years. And this holds true whether the pandemic was their idea or not. If it was, then OK... if not, then it was serendipity. The end result is the same.
• And, to the extent that the globalist agenda includes reducing the U.S. to a vassal state at best – as a source of raw materials and military manpower – this process is also well underway. (One can argue that the European model of their military being our military was formulated when we agreed to jump into World War I. When they found out how easily seduced we were, that became a permanent piece of their long-term planning. So it's not a new idea; it's a bit over 100 years old, in fact.) And, we have turned into a technocracy, i.e. a system where the “experts” – the people with all the models, all the data, and the coveted scientific imprimatur – have the final say on everything. (This is also nothing new; it began with FDR's “Brain Trust” and re-emerged as JFK's “best and brightest”.) But what should not be overlooked in all of this is that those experts are all, without exception, employees of the ruling elite; they are not free, independent, and objective agents, but are at the service of whoever is really in charge, i.e. not politicians, who are more tools than initiators. They do serve a purpose, however, as the “face” of science, objectivity, reason, data, statistics, models, etc., and they provide ammunition for those who contend that “politics” has to make way, and hopefully disappear from the scene. (This is certainly true in that once we have a dictatorship of the elite, politics is no longer needed. There are many people who will celebrate this fact; I wouldn't be totally against it myself, I have to admit. If democracy is an illusion, then politics is unnecessary and so are politicians.)
• Militant Islam continues to make trouble and cause indigestion for the globalists. If the globalists are playing the long game, then Islam is playing an even longer game (possibly exceeded only by China). The question of who the last man standing will be has become more relevant than ever in these times. The globalists have the wealth... we have the military (which is at the service of the globalists)... China has the economic clout that comes from being the most populous country in world history... but Islam has what none of the others has, namely the dream of a caliphate... an empire, but of a theocratic sort, subject only to God. The globalists believe in no higher power than money, we mouth words about faith but on any given day couldn't care less... and China is explicitly and militantly godless. It would be highly ironic if a ragtag but very large group of people whose only distinctive attribute is belief in a higher power managed to subdue not only the U.S. but also the globalists, and – at some time in the future – meet China on equal terms. We don't normally think of the Muslims as experts in the long game, but notice how often they refer back to the Crusades – they even refer to us as “Franks”. That's 1000 years, folks. So, if you want to talk about long memories, they aren't doing too badly.

But hold on. Lest we get too carried away with this model, it bears mentioning that nationalistic impulses are also alive and well in Eastern Europe, Latin America, and certain segments of the U.S. population (highly correlated with support for Donald Trump, no surprise). And by nationalism I don't mean militant nationalism, AKA imperialism or empire building, AKA neoconservatism. This is more akin to good, old-fashioned patriotism – belief in and loyalty to one's family, tribe, ethnic group, race, religion, language, and culture, as well as a tendency to want to mind our own business and escape foreign entanglements. It is a true grass-roots movement for the simple reason that it opposes virtually all forms of cultural warfare on the part of the elite, which means that it opposes the agenda of the vast bulk of what are termed the “media”, as well as “entertainment”, anti-traditional art forms, soulless architecture, musical anarchy, gender chaos, economic exploitation, and any other form of reducing the individual to a number, a unit, or a statistic – the slouch toward dystopia, if you will. In other words, they oppose forced conformity in the name of “diversity” as well as discrimination against any form of true diversity. They oppose being ruled by committees... by bureaucrats... by officials... by people who are, in truth, much less human than they are. They're against “programs” whose main goal is to exterminate all that makes individuals and small groups interesting and worth honoring and preserving. They're also opposed to imposition of deadening uniformity in areas such as culture and education, and prefer, rather, to celebrate all of the many and variegated fruits of human life, and to allow each demographic to celebrate its identity and express pride without being shamed and harassed by social enforcers. And they are, as a result, engaged in an existential struggle with the globalists, international business and finance, all of the various forms of cultural leveling (and cultural genocide), and especially with the propaganda apparatus that seeks to shame and condemn people whose values differ from the approved ones (or, some would say, people who have any values at all – blind conformity, submission, and slavery hardly qualifying to be termed “values”).

And this is a struggle that has a definite David-and-Goliath aspect to it. You have people like George Soros, globalist extraordinaire, whose strategy is to subvert and suppress all expressions of national, regional, and local pride and identity, whenever and in whatever form it may occur, and to support collaborators among our politicians. His is a grass-roots campaign as well (by design), and complements perfectly the top-down political, social, and financial strategies of the more conventional globalists. The result is that the average citizen finds himself in a kind of vice; he is oppressed and dictated to from above, but at the same time cannot trust the very ground on which he stands, because it has been contaminated by unclean, diseased, and deadly elements.

And yet there is still resistance, just as there is resistance to government dictates when it comes to the pandemic. The human spirit remains alive and well, even in the darkest hours. People see, with varying degrees of clarity, that the end of all of this is not only physical, social, and economic slavery, but also the death of the spirit, and they react.

On the home front, do we have any reason to hope? Well, Donald Trump is not the perfect nationalist by any means, and cannot be accused of any sort of doctrinaire conservatism, but he is fairly consistent in his speeches when it comes to taking more pride in being a citizen of the U.S. than in being a “world citizen”, which was Obama's trope. He is resisting the efforts of the globalists to some extent when it comes to things like trade, currency, economics, and intellectual property. But there's not much he can do about the world banking system, which is completely out of the hands of the U.S. government, which has come to play a subsidiary role. And as much as he talks about cutting back on our “contribution” to the globalist war against Islam, he's finding that it's impossible to reduce it to any significant degree without causing a riot among our “allies” (not to mention Congress). And he's also finding it impossible to reduce our military presence even in countries that we consider allies. The U.S. military is their military, in effect – and they wouldn't have it any other way.

Another way of putting it is that the subservience of the U.S. government, including its military, to the globalist ruling elite has become so established, so set in stone, that it's virtually impossible for us to extricate ourselves – to pull ourselves back up and assert our sovereignty. We can dig in our heels in a token way, but that only makes our pitiful position more obvious. This situation, I would say, is hopeless for the time being, and the current pandemic has only served to aggravate matters.

But again, the human spirit is not bound and in fetters, and in this there is at least some small hope. In an ironic kind of way, we can even take comfort in the observation that the Muslim world, which became comatose as the result of World War I, has come surging back onto the world stage in a most dramatic fashion, albeit with the help of considerable oil wealth, but also because they are believers. The part of their brain labeled “faith” has not been surgically removed or deadened by all of the blandishments, tricks, and temptations proffered by the “decadent” West. As such, Islam is the only major player on the world stage that is overtly and militantly opposed to globalism. If they can do it, why can't we? But if the key is faith, then we have a long way to go.

Plus, we have resources at our disposal which are virtually unknown in today's political and economic world, and the one that comes most readily to mind is Catholic social teaching, and the concept with perhaps the most power to oppose current trends is that of subsidiarity. This (to quote Wiki) “an organizing principle that matters ought to be handled by the smallest, lowest or least centralized competent authority. Political decisions should be taken at a local level if possible, rather than by a central authority.” This is not a new concept by any means, and it has been taught by a number of popes and written about quite extensively over the years along with what I would call its sister concept, namely distributism. The relevance of this concept to the current situation should be obvious. The response to the corona virus pandemic has occurred not only at the federal level but at state and local levels as well – in many cases with greater effectiveness than the federal-level response, albeit with the same level of opposition. Governors and mayors are exercising powers no one knew they even had; in fact, they may not have known it either until someone reminded them. (Or, they may simply be assuming powers that were not granted them by the electorate, on an emergency basis.) What's good about all of this is that it has awakened people to the possibilities and options of greater self-rule – of government that is responsive not to an abstract, faceless mass of humanity but to real people on the local and regional level, with all of the needs, wants, and values that are characteristic of those regions and locales. It is actually a return to the situation which was nearly universal in pre-Progressive times, before Washington moved in with its ham-handed diktats and reduced state and local officials to mere bureaucrats and clerks. It is, one might say, a dramatic reversal of the usual rule that crises inevitably enhance the power of the central government while leaving all others impotent. This crisis has exposed literally fatal flaws in federal policy, and created a gap (of credibility and action) which state and local governments are only to happy to move in and occupy, often in direct defiance of the federal government. 

So what we have is two simultaneous trends, which – even assuming the corona crisis will recede at some point – are locked in mortal combat, and will continue to be. And there is nothing at all new about this, except that the current crisis has brought it out in a dramatic fashion, as well as having shone a very bright light on who is involved, who is on what side, and what their motivations are. We have the “usual suspects” – those who describe themselves as “liberal” and “progressive” but who have demonstrated a startling degree of authoritarianism vis-a-vis the federal government, or let's say the federal government sans Trump... and the other side, which has developed a newfound respect for state and local authorities in some cases, and a newfound contempt for them in others, all the while feeling that Trump is on their side while everyone working for him is not. 

How often do we have to break a social/economic/political phenomenon down to the molecular level in order to do any analysis? Things used to be so simple. And yet we see that there are historical precedents for all of these trends – precedents which have been established for generations in many cases, way before the corona virus was a gleam in the eye of some germ warfare developer in Wuhan. Each side understands perfectly well what their respective positions represent, and therefore why they are worth fighting for. On the one side you have the “basket” (Hillary's word) containing, to a greater or lesser degree, all of the following:

• Lockdowns, shutdowns, prohibitions, fines, arrests
• Ramped-up surveillance
• Letting the wrong people out of jail and keeping the wrong people in jail
• Open borders in complete defiance of common sense and any of the traditional rules as to how to handle epidemics
• A police state
• Authoritarianism
• Totalitarianism
• No personal privacy for the individual or for non-victim groups
• Conventional medicine (and suppressing alternatives)
• Globalism
• Economical dictatorship and top-down control (traditionally known as a “command economy”)
• Treating the public like retarded, helpless children
• Class consciousness, expressed especially in despising rural and small-town people (men of the soil in “flyover country”)
• A ruling elite and their minions in the bureaucracy
• Liberals/progressives/Democrats
• Trump haters
• Democratic socialists
• Anti-religion
• Anti-tradition
• Anti-family
• Accusations of “hate” and “fascism”
• Deference to large, international corporations
• Deference to the mainstream media
• Censorship by the mainstream media and social media
• Deference to academia, “science”, and “experts”

Quite a mixed bag, right? But if you take it point by point it seems like the Soviet Union has come back to life with a vengeance. But then there's the other basket – the one Hillary was actually talking about, and which she vowed to oppose with every ounce of her being, and annihilate if possible:

• Individual freedom
• Small business
• Alternative medicine, and alternative points of view regarding the current crisis
• Treating people as adults
• Paleoconservatives and libertarians
• Nationalism
• Churchgoers
• Pro-Trumpers
• Skepticism re: the media, “entertainment”, academia
• Skepticism re: the claims of “science” and “experts” (especially when the story keeps changing on a daily basis)
• A newfound, or increased, interest in localism, especially when it comes to food
• Grass-roots economic activity
• Community spirit and mutual aid “off the grid”, including barter
• Integrity of borders, and actual requirements for immigration and citizenship (and voting, and benefits)
• The rule of law (when the law is not arbitrary and just a way of one gang exerting dominance over another)

That sounds a bit more like America in the 19^th Century. And please note who is left out of this equation, at least for now – the mainstream Republicans, who can't seem to make up their minds which team they're on. And this, of course, is due to their chronic ambivalence regarding Donald Trump, which I won't bother to detail here. They've been dithering about this for nearly five years now, and still haven't come up with anything. 

So, the question is – as the old union organizers' song put it – which side are you on? And I don't blame anybody for being uncertain. We are being challenged in ways unique to our entire history as a nation and society. It's easy to be complacent when times are good – but now we're getting a taste of how things have been for the mass of humanity down through history, and for a considerable portion even in this day (think Third World). And yet people did find a way, and found time to sit under their own vine and fig tree, even if when they went out into the world death lurked around every corner. This may, in fact, be a kind of awakening for all of us (not to be confused with “wokeness”, which is simply the latest form of opiate foisted upon the citizenry). Other crises have offered this benefit as well, although not everyone has taken up the offer. Our search for adventure is always in conflict with our desire for peace and quiet. Right now there is no peace and no quiet – and the hallowed “rule of law” has taken on a much darker tone. But there are opportunities here to find new strengths within ourselves; let's not let them go to waste.