The Great Leveling

 

My previous post (“The Long Game”, June 13) dealt with the ruling elite's campaign to turn the U.S. into a new and improved version of the Soviet Union – “new and improved” for a number of reasons, including:

1. Universal surveillance. The KGB of old could only dream of what our rulers already have at their disposal – GPS tracking, social media (the great seductress), and data bases (FBI, IRS, Social Security, health insurance, facial recognition, banking and credit cards, as well as any number of “non-governmental” and “non-profit” data collection centers). And it's not as if those in charge constantly track every movement and transaction of every citizen, but they could if the need arises. Clearly, the ultimate tool of control for any totalitarian state is universal surveillance (one dystopian film showed a TV in every room – it broadcast propaganda and spied on the inhabitants at the same time). I've always said that one reason the Soviet Union collapsed of its own weight was that half the population was employed in spying on the other half. But that was a relatively crude, ham-handed operation. If they had had the automation, artificial intelligence, and analytic capability that we now have, they'd still be in business. (As a side note, I love these news reports of some crime which include “security footage” which typically shows a pretty lousy, low-resolution picture of the “perp” – as if we didn't have image capability way in advance of any of this! But this is very much the same strategy we always used during the Cold War – show the “other side” what we have in the way of technology, but never show them the most advanced stuff. Let them think they're ahead.)

2. Public education – which uses much of the same technology, on top of good old, tried-and-true brainwashing and propaganda (sometimes termed “socialization”). The process is much less painful, and less likely to result in pushback, when it's started at a very young age (with or without the consent of the parents).

3. Communications media and “entertainment” – another arm of the propaganda apparatus, again a quantum improvement over the relatively crude resources of the Soviet Union, e.g. film, radio, newspapers, posters, and very limited television.

4. “Games and circuses” as a form of mass anesthesia, along with a vast array of new and ever more powerful drugs (all the Russians had was vodka).

5. Most importantly of all – the shift from fear as the prime motivator to techniques based on the pleasure principle – sex, addiction, entertainment, sloth, gluttony, as well as envy and hero worship (this time a cultural phenomenon, including professional athletes, rather than the more typical Soviet worship of military heroes and cosmonauts – although, to their credit, they did consider master chess players to be heroes as well).

So if the totalitarian revolutions of old were invariably bloody and took a great death toll, the ongoing revolution of our time is more about appealing to primitive drives and impulses, and what amounts to mind control. Add super-powerful drugs and even mind control isn't that challenging – or perhaps we should call it “no-mind control”.

But my emphasis in the previous post was on this country, by and large, although I did mention Davos and related conclaves as the fountainhead of these ideas and strategies, including the abolition of property rights and of property altogether. But again, the plan is to pull this off in as non-violent and subliminal a way as possible (under normal circumstances, allowing for the occasional riot during election season). Simply talk people out of their rights, or of caring about them – offer them something better, like the all-hallowed “security”, and some of its features like a guaranteed income and the plethora of new “rights” that dominates our public dialogue. What's significant about this is that these new “rights” will eventually take the place of all of our traditional rights, like the ones mentioned in the Constitution. This is already well underway. These will be the “rights” of a defeated, anaesthetized, passive, dependent populace – totally unlike the citizenry of the Founding Fathers' day. But again, to quote one of the Davos speakers, “You'll own nothing, and you'll like it.”

But the U.S. is not, after all, “an island, entire of itself”. It shares a planet with countless other countries, nationalities, kingdoms, creeds, tribes – where do they fit in with all this? First we have to think about globalism as a concept, and as a fact. Where, and when, did it begin? Well, when you consider that globalism, collectivism, and secular humanism are highly correlated if not identical, you might ask where, and when, humanism became dominant in a government, and I would say the French Revolution is as good a place as any to start – and yet that event was highly inspired by the American Revolution, which may not have been explicitly secular, and was certainly not anarchistic, but which nonetheless bore the seeds of humanism. And a bit less than a hundred years later, Karl Marx appeared on the scene with Das Kapital. (And in the meantime, we had the widespread revolutions of 1848 in Europe, and the Paris Commune of 1871.) So the collectivist/totalitarian idea was born (or, let's say, grew to full size, since there had been minor, local collectivist movements up to that point, especially – note! – in the United States, almost always connected to a religious movement or cult – but they were voluntary, unlike the collectivism that stems from humanist politics).

And it hardly needs mentioning that major collectivist and totalitarian movements were almost invariably secular, and usually explicitly anti-religion, since religion – especially of the monotheistic type – naturally tends toward hierarchies. This is why “organized religion” and humanism/collectivism/totalitarianism are natural enemies and will ever remain so. It's ultimately about the world view, and the idea of the nature of mankind and of life in general.

So the globalist agenda, which, I would say, is centered in Western Europe with the American ruling elite as a subsidiary (since we're still a bit cranky about these things, and not as likely to rush into complete socialism as are the Europeans) is dedicated to not only humanism in the classical sense, but to a radical form of humanism which I'll call “leveling”, and which is to be accomplished by means of collectivism and totalitarianism, not just for one country but, ultimately, for the entire world. (Note that there was a debate in the early years of the Soviet Union as to whether to devote more resources to promoting international communism or to perfecting the Soviet version. As I recall, the local version won out as a starting point, with the international version being fully supported but not having priority – “first things first”, if you will. Note also that Trotsky disagreed, and wound up in exile where he could still not escape assassination by Soviet agents.)

And after all, if all men (oops, humans) are created (oops, I mean “evolved through random mutation and natural selection”) equal, then it makes perfect sense that all should enjoy the exact same “rights” (the new kind, not the old kind), and enjoy them to the same exact degree. There is nothing new about this, since when the Soviets collectivized agriculture it was declared to be “fair”, because no one would have any advantages over anyone else – not in terms of land, money, housing or any other resources. (The Chinese under Mao copied this idea almost exactly. If a poor farmer rented a shabby room to some laborer, he was declared to be a “landlord” and was thus subject to arrest.)

But even Russia in the old days was not an entirely peasant society. There was a huge industrial work force as well, and the military. So how does one achieve perfect equality, or “fairness”, when there are so many people with different skills performing a great variety of tasks at many skill levels? You simply declare that no one has any property rights, or property, and that no one is getting paid for their labor. You eat in the government cafeteria, you sleep in the government dormitory, your clothes are doled out to you by the government, and any tools you require are loaned to you, one day at a time, by the government. (And by the way, your children, if you have any, are taken care of by “experts”.) And as to your skills or lack thereof, the government will match you with the most appropriate job. Problem solved! So “equal rights” became, more often than not, equal misery – but at least it was fair!

Or was it? Well – a certain modicum of supervision had to be established, and political officers had to be sent out to every village and town (and military unit) in order to keep people thinking properly and staying with the program. And so these apparatchiks constituted a slightly higher class of citizens, in a way – but don't you dare ever point this out! They were loyal supporters of the revolution, and heroes (I mean, look at all the medals they got to wear). And they only enjoyed a slight degree of inequality for the sake of overall equality. Right, comrade?

And, as I pointed out previously, the elimination of the middle class is, and always was, the sine qua non of any revolution, so at best they could have been kept around in a more servile capacity until they had handed off all of their functions to “the people”. And there is nothing fictitious about this – it happened in Russia, and in China, and in any number of smaller (but in some cases even more radical) countries. And if it could happen there, it can happen here – and in fact is already happening, to a significant degree. (Note that, among other things, the middle class is the “cash cow” which supports the federal budget. So what happens when they disappear? Where's the money going to come from? Don't expect this to dawn on any of our utopian thinkers until it's too late.)

Now, it would be too simplistic to claim that the U.S. is nothing more than a “test case” for globalism. There are plenty of nations far more socialistic, and collectivized, than ours. But the U.S. is the sine qua non. Globalism can only go so far, and will eventually fail, unless the U.S. is fully committed to the idea and acts accordingly. And this has to do with our remaining economic power and influence (even though we're bankrupt and in hopeless debt) as well as our usefulness as a scapegoat. The globalist narrative – quite explicit at times – is that the U.S. is, in fact, the Great Satan, and that if it weren't for our imperialism, aggression, threats, and pushing our weight around, the world would be a much better place. So the U.S. has to be subjected to the globalist agenda through diplomatic and economic incentives, but it also has to have a ring put in its nose so it can be humbled, and pacified, and led around by its masters in Brussels, Davos, Martha's Vineyard, etc.  (A major piece of this humbling process, by the way, is the increasing tolerance -- nay, encouragement in some cases -- of crime, up to and including murder, in many of our large cities -- the ones in which the mayors, district attorneys, prosecutors, and judges have been replaced by globalist pod people.)

So while one can claim that globalism, in applied terms (the philosophical basis having been firmly established generations earlier), originated with the League of Nations (the “beta version” if you will) and really blossomed with the establishment of the U.N., and while the U.S. was the prime mover in each case, it has been taken over by visionaries and utopians who owe no allegiance to any nation. They are the true “rootless cosmopolitans”, but this is their strength since they are not held back by any traditional ideas, values, customs, or loyalties, so they can devote all of their energies to one thing, which is to do away with nations and nationalities, as well as with ethnic, racial, and religious loyalties – not to mention a sense of place, or belonging.  (A "world citizen" is a citizen of nowhere, in other words.)  The idea is that to belong to the grand collective is enough, or ought to be – and if anyone disagrees, we have many means of reeducation at our disposal.

Another way of putting it is that the American Empire (economic, social, political, military, diplomatic, geographic) is gradually being taken over by the Global Empire, the way a young, ambitious son will take over the family business from a doddering, aging parent. (We see this playing out quite literally at present.) The globalists are already busily expropriating our best resources and the best of what we have created, leaving the rest behind to rot on the vine, if you will. (Consider that among the losers in this whole process are the labor unions – ironic, since they have always been the darlings of the old Left and have been its unstinting supporters. Union members who wander off the reservation and start supporting Trump are called sell-outs, traitors, and worse. But he sees what is going on, even if the union leadership doesn't – or, more likely, doesn't care.) (And recall that, in my previous post, I pointed out that union labor is properly considered middle class, which means it has that target on its back as well.)

But wait a minute – all well and good if we're talking about Western Europe and the U.S., along with other English-speaking countries like Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. They can form an empire to their hearts' content, but it can hardly be called “global”, since the bulk of humanity is not involved. Well, consider, for one thing, the new colonialism – not military this time, but economic – which has put sub-Saharan Africa firmly into globalist hands, and is a major factor in East and Southeast Asia as well – not to mention military occupations of varying degrees in the Middle East. And consider also that Eastern European countries, still fresh from throwing off the Soviet yoke, are eager to join the club, except for holdouts like Hungary which still believe in national sovereignty.

Then you have Latin America, which is also a victim of the new colonialism, especially the “non-European” countries. By this time we're talking about most of the world except for Russia, China, and the other two BRIC nations, India and Brazil. The battle lines are most obvious in the war in Ukraine, which is basically the globalists, as represented by the U.S., NATO, and the E.U., against Russia. China is an interesting case, because although they are officially our economic “rival” if not a declared enemy, they have managed to take over large chunks of the American economy -- with the full blessing of the ruling elite, or at least their benign neglect. So is there a battle line running through the U.S. between the globalist faction and China? If there is, our home-grown globalists don't seem to be taking it very seriously. If the marriage of the U.S. to the global empire brings with it a fat dowry, and the Chinese are taking possession of more of that dowry every day, you'd think this would be a basis for a major confrontation – and yet I don't sense that one is happening, or even likely. And yet the globalists are not just going to walk away and leave the U.S. to the mercies of China, are they? Unless... a deal has already been worked out, the way the old time Mafia dons would divvy up a city.  But then why can't they work out a deal with Russia as well? I guess you call these growing pains on the road to a globalist Utopia.

But back to the Great Leveling. Let's say that, as an interim goal, the target average household income in the U.S. should be equal to that in Western Europe, i.e. in the E.U. This would not shake the economic foundations of any of the nations involved (although the E.U. did suffer some inconveniences when the financially incompetent Southern European countries were yoked to more sober Northern Europe).  (In fact, many Americans would be far better off if this were enacted!)

But thinking ahead – and don't forget the drive right here in the U.S. for a “guaranteed annual income”. Where is that going to come from? Well, from people who have a higher income than the guaranteed one, of course. So this would be a leveling process, but not radically different from the one already in force by way of the income tax and welfare systems, just turned up a few notches. (Note that the “poverty line” is also the income level at which people don't have to pay income taxes.)

But what if this were to be applied on a truly global basis? What if the median income in, say, Burundi was mandated to be equal to the median income in Luxembourg? Any chance that would create some economic upheavals? And yet it's the logical reductio ad absurdum of utopian thinking – the kind of thinking that attracts “itchy ears” in places like Davos and Ivy League faculty lounges. But again, it's not really “income” we're talking about, is it? Because those same idealists want to do away with money, i.e. currency, altogether. It's more about standard of living, or quality of life – and how one goes about equalizing that among billions of people without undreamed-of coercion is beyond me. But the current administration is making a significant start by letting millions of immigrants into the country to share in our so-called prosperity. So their standard of living increases dramatically, while for the rest of us it's slowly eroding. This is, if you will, an exercise in global leveling, and it's already happening right here.

But even the globalists are patient, in their own way. They're playing the long game – but then so is China, and so is Russia (or trying to, at least). Each generation will have to judge its own accomplishments while setting the stage for what follows, just as one presidential administration in the U.S. spends enormous amounts of time and energy on its “legacy”, and on paving the way for even more of... whatever... by those who follow.

The only thing that refuses to die in all of this is the globalist dream – and that will hold much of humanity in chains until something better comes along (something, perhaps, more – gasp! – traditional, like a newfound respect for eternal verities like race, ethnicity, tribe, family, gender, culture, and religion – and sense of place).

Plus, there has never been a truly global world empire, outside of science-fiction novels. There have been great empires, certainly – and one recalls Rome, the Ottomans, the British, the Soviets, and many more both ancient and modern – but they have all collapsed of their own weight, or have been over-extended, or have been pecked away at by rivals or local rebellions. Or – they have rotted from within, when the levels of competence that were required to build the empire were no longer there to even sustain it (this, by the way, being a major reason for our shift from being our own empire to being a part of the global empire).

Here we run into human nature, as usual (unless they want to change the human genome – well, I'm sure they're working on it) – can a global empire fare any better in the long run? Perhaps we expect it to be run by aliens from another world, with super-sized brains. Well, dream on. Our salvation is not in men, or in aliens either.

The Long Game

 

The conventional wisdom among the conservative commentariat regarding Biden's open borders policy (which is, in effect, a no-borders policy) is that it's all about (1) adding more Democrat voters to the voter rolls; and (2) enjoying cheap, i.e. below union scale, labor. And this is certainly what it looks like on the surface. But consider this:

1. If it's all about jobs, why aren't there countless job recruiters setting up shop right at the border? I mean, even the least skilled immigrant can be taught how to operate a leaf blower in five minutes. Is it possible that our business sector sees the “new immigrants” as being either unemployable or potential troublemakers, and thus not worth the bother? (What happens when a guy who works at a chicken factory tries to break into an Army base?) Or have they just adopted a wait-and-see attitude? Let the government support these people for a few months, or a few years, then hire the cream of the crop.

2. If it's all about votes, then we have to consider the very real possibility that our electoral system is already deeply flawed and rife with corruption, and that it may not be long before the people in charge won't even bother counting votes any more. They'll just announce the winner, and anyone who objects will be threatened with jail time. (They'll be called “election deniers”.  Welcome to the Soviet Union!) So, basically, the notion of “more voters” doesn't really mean anything – or, very soon, won't.

So if it's not about jobs, or votes, what is it about? It's about changing America permanently – an idea that at least some of the aforementioned commentariat are willing to entertain. But if that's the case, how? And why?

One thing that comes to mind is simply that these immigrants are, by and large, totally ignorant of American history, and of the basic ideas, ideals, and premises on which this country was founded. And the few that might have some inkling of these things simply don't care. They come from places that are, typically, ruled by a single strongman, who has life-and-death power over his hapless subjects... and the pity is, they see this as the natural order of things. (And an argument can be made that this IS the natural order of things, if we allow history and anthropology to have any say in the matter. By the standard of world history, “democracy” and “republican government” are freakish, fragile, and an exception to the rule – not to mention a hopeful plea against fallen human nature.) Also, they are not “political refugees” or “seeking protection from persecution”, except in very rare instances. They're simply seeking their fortune, as the old saying goes – thinking they can get a better deal here than they could where they came from. And the thing is, they're absolutely right! – at least for now, in the short run. But they don't know anything about the long game. If they see America as the “gold mountain” they haven't yet encountered the wide moat that separates them from said mountain (and no, I don't mean the Rio Grande – this moat really is nearly impossible to get across, because it divides the haves from the have-nots (and the never-will-haves)).

Another way of putting this, as I've said in previous posts, is that as water seeks its own level, people also seek their own economic level – or the one to which they aspire – or at least one which is superior to the one they are turning their backs on. And who can blame them? If life in a shabby apartment with ten other people, and a leaf-blower job, is better (in their eyes) than life in Guinea, well, so be it. (Apparently they're also perfectly content with moving to a completely different culture, with a new language, strange customs, new rules, and new economic realities. Or if they wind up regretting their decision – well, let's put it this way – how many wind up wading back across the Rio Grande? I rest my case.)

But consider this. These people have already been exploited. They've been charged exorbitant fees by the cartels for their transportation to entry points. Many have been abused. Women have been raped. And yet they show up – show up, in fact, praising Joe Biden for being so kind and generous as to let them in. They will vote for him at the earliest opportunity! But, since they've been exploited already, won't at least some of them wake up to that fact and be waiting in fear of encountering some new form of exploitation? I think that's a pretty good bet. When you're accustomed to being a victim, victimhood becomes a part of your identity and your way of relating to the world.

And yet they will stay. By the thousands and millions. And will, in fact, remake the country, starting with the fact that they don't share any of our traditional values, ideas, and ideals – and customs – and sense of identity. But what is in store for them (and for the rest of us)? This is where the long game comes into play, and it's being played by the “usual suspects”, i.e. the ruling elite, who exert iron-fisted control over our government from the presidency on down, and over the mainstream media, and our academic institutions, and pretty much everything else right down to the grass roots (did I mention public schools and libraries?).

So, given that these are the people who are in charge, and they are perfectly content with the country having no functioning borders, what do they want? First, consider that they are promoting totalitarianism (call it Marxism if you like) on all fronts and with a thousand voices – with academics in the lead, followed closely by the mainstream media, “entertainment”, social media, and all other cultural trendsetters right down to the most local level. They have created a propaganda machine for this purpose that surpasses anything the Soviets or the Nazis ever came up with or even dreamed about, the idea being to have (as much as possible) a “bloodless revolution” where no one actually gets hurt, but the world is remade before our eyes, and there's nothing we can do about it. (And this process is not only well under way, but is getting very close to being complete. In other words, the “long march through the institutions” is nearly at an end.) (Exercise: Name me one institution of any significance that has not succumbed to the siren song of “wokeness”. I'm waiting... )

So where does uncontrolled and unlimited immigration come into this? For one thing, given that the new immigrants don't share our (traditional) “values”, they are unlikely to object to, or be disappointed with, pretty much anything the government (federal, state, local) does. In other words, they are “toughened up” vis-a-vis relations with authority. They know that the best strategy is to keep one's head down and stay out of the way. And if they can make $1 more per hour here than they could in Tajikistan, they're satisfied, and feel that it was worth the trouble. So they become, if you will, the new proletariat – the new working (or non-working) class, with the difference that they are satisfied with their lot. They may be exploited – slaves, for all intents and purposes – but they won't mind, because they refuse to believe they've made a horrible mistake by leaving their village in Botswana. (Cognitive dissonance triumphs again!)

So they become, by and large, the new lower class – the bottom level of the American pyramid. But wait! What happens to the people who have, up until now, been on the bottom? What happens to all of their claims... their “rights”... the victim status they have become so accustomed to, and even profited from in a way? At the very least, they will have to get used to sharing whatever it is they've enjoyed for many generations now with the newcomers. They are going to have to share that pie, which – by the way – is getting progressively smaller, thanks in no small part to the money the government keeps flushing down the toilet marked “foreign aid”. And what are they going to think about all of this? And will it matter? After all, the newcomers are the ones with all the benefits and preferences, and our traditional lower class is going to have make way (and they already are, in “sanctuary cities”). Any chance this is going start creating indignation, protests, and violence? (It's ironic that people will be fighting for privileged status on the bottom rung of society – but that's what we've come to at this point in our history.)

So when you let millions of newcomers in, it tends to dilute, in a way, the influence of those who are already here -- the “traditional” lower class. They find they're outnumbered, and no one has any more patience with their complaints, because there are all these new people to deal with, and they have rights too (more than the old lower class does, in fact).

But let's turn now to another familiar victim class – namely, the middle class. “Victim” you say? Well, consider that the middle class has, historically, been the declared enemy of most totalitarian movements, and the governments they succeed in taking over, going all the way back to the French Revolution. This is always the case with communism, and is an article of faith in Marxism. The erosion of the American middle class has been underway for a couple of generations now, and the primary tools used against it have been taxation and inflation (to which I will add the gobbling up, by multinational corporations, of small businesses and family farms, the economic and psychological mainstays of the middle class). And we also have to include the ongoing propaganda and social pressure against “bourgeois” values and “family values”, and “squares”, and “conformists”, and people who are selfish enough to want to hold on to their own hard-earned income. That's just “hate”, right? And to this one might add what I'll call cultural erosion – attacks on morals, values, even the arts, not to mention public education. The cards have been stacked against the American middle class, I would say, since the mid-60s, when everything changed.  (Heck, the middle class has even been shamed into not reproducing!  There's a long-term plan for you.)

But the main point when it comes to the middle class is that doctrinaire collectivists don't think the middle class is even necessary – that it's an encumbrance, and the sooner we get rid of the “bourgeoisie” the better. Now, as I've said on other occasions, find me a successful advanced society that didn't, or doesn't, have a middle class. Soviet Russia had a kind of pseudo-middle class, consisting of government employees, who were, arguably, better off in some ways than the hapless peasants or the factory workers – but economically, they weren't much better off; they still had to stand in line for bread for hours each day. China under Mao did its best to eliminate its middle class (such as it was), but it came back with a vengeance when Mao's successors decided to give capitalism a try – you know, just a little bit – just a smidgen – and now they have more billionaires than the rest of the world combined, and are making major inroads into the American economy. And a new middle class has been created out of, basically, nothing, in order to keep the machine running. It's housed in countless high-rise apartment complexes in the large cities, while the countryside stands deserted.

And speaking of China – it's been noted that a considerable number of “new immigrants” (formerly “illegal immigrants”) are, in fact, Chinese – and overwhelmingly men of military age. Now think about it. China is, unlike us, serious about its borders. It's tough to get in, and it's tough to get out – and you can bet than any Chinese citizen who leaves the Middle Kingdom for any reason needs (1) permission to leave, and (2) permission to go wherever they're going, and (3) they must have a purpose (or maybe a mission) in mind. So these guys are all here with their government's permission and blessing. And what is their mission? Who knows? One thing you can bet on, they won't be walking around with leaf blowers or flipping burgers.

But this is all realism – so annoying! – and it doesn't faze the idealists, those who dream of a “classless society”, which really means a vast army of slaves, but with them in charge. This is their dream – their ideal – that which they live for, and they have said as much, right out in public, in confabs like Davos (“You'll own nothing, and you'll like it.”). It's the ultimate goal of our ruling elite – continue to peck away at the middle class until it ceases to exist for all intents and purposes, and at the same time populate the lower class with countless new immigrants who, let's say, don't believe in “ideas” any further than their own immediate material well-being. And they will, in fact, be slaves – but happy, or at least not violently malcontented. (Drugs enter in here, as part of the plan – any relation to legalization of marijuana, maybe? Therapeutic psychedelics? Think “soma” as in Aldous Huxley's “Brave New World”.) And the Soviet Union is the best model for this. They had a ruling elite, government and business had merged and become one body, and everyone else was a worker bee.

Wait a minute! Doesn't that pretty much describe this country right now? Pretty much, except, again, for that pesky middle class which, among other things, believes in “American” values and ideals, and which – even more annoyingly! – persists in listening to Donald Trump. (Note that I consider “working class” people with steady jobs and decent incomes to be, for all intents and purposes, middle class, especially since white-collar salaries overlap, to a considerable degree, the incomes of skilled labor. Another way of putting it is that middle class people, regardless of occupation, are taxpayers, and lower class people are tax receivers.) And when Trump says “They're not after me, they're after you; I'm just in the way”, he is absolutely right. And if their hero should fall in defeat, that will be the end of the last, best hope for the real middle class – those who “cling” to traditional American values. All that will be left is policing up the battlefield, which the elite and its forces have already shown exemplary skill at (witness the January 6 prosecutions).

But hold on! Our conservative commentariat (them again!) are fond of saying that the “classless society” is an illusion, and an impossible dream... and that any attempts to create one have ended in catastrophe. Well... it depends on one's point of view. The Soviet Union lasted for 70-plus years, with all of its programs and its organizational structure remaining intact the entire time. And it was not terminated by means of revolution or conquest. In fact, American liberals are still mourning the demise of the USSR, and contend that it wouldn't have ended “if we'd just given it a chance”. (Seventy-plus years?? I'd say we gave it every possible chance.) And as for China, after the economic and social catastrophe under Mao, more sober heads prevailed, and what we have now is an awake (not woke, note) monster that is making daily inroads into our own economy and well as academics and social media.

So I guess, in a sense, totalitarianism, or collectivism, or communism, is a stage of development that a society can eventually grow out of – call it an adolescent tantrum, if you will. But the economic and social costs, not to mention the death toll, makes one wonder, couldn't they have just skipped that phase, and evolved in a different way? Why did Russia and the Iron Curtain countries have to endure all those years, and decades? But that would be to discount the revolutionary spirit which seems to be built into the human DNA – that, and the tendency for a new ruling elite to rise up and lay claim to the revolution and its results – or, in our case, for the ruling elite to actually create the revolution, in a top-down fashion, the way Mao's “Great Leap Forward” and “continuous revolution” were top-down phenomena. (Consider how the sporadic outbreaks of urban violence and rioting in the U.S. all seem to originate with wealthy sponsors, members of the ruling elite who have taken it upon themselves to take charge of the bottom-up dirty work while someone else takes on the top-down stuff, like elections for instance.)

But still, given the poor track record of totalitarian governments, you'd think our ruling elite would come up with something else – a third way, or something. But that would violate their most basic premise – that only they are worthy to rule, only they are wise, and only they have the will power to bring the fractious citizenry (AKA deplorables) under control. So they have to give it another try, because who knows, this time it might work! At least that's what the grizzled, dog-eared doctrinaire collectivists in Ivy League faculty lounges think. It will work, because it has to work. There is no other possibility. And no price is too high to pay for making it work by any and all means.

So... now we have the spectacle of another presidential race, with the entire apparatus of the federal government (and many state and local governments) lined up against one man, namely the former and would-be future president. When you consider what's at stake, and the odds, it seems impossible that he could actually win in November, even assuming we have an honest election. (As was said about an American politician some decades back, nobody likes him but the people.) And is Trump a perfect person? Heck, no. But he has become an unlikely hero – the last hope for a considerable portion of the population. Once he vanishes from the scene, who will be left to fend off the vultures? Some may try, but they won't have Trump's charisma, determination, or courage (or money). All they will have is their beliefs, their ideals, and their traditions, and it's hard to imagine those will suffice to withstand the onslaught. But time will tell.

The Power of Narrative

 

Well, it's “election season” once again – but really, is it ever not election season? Haven't we gotten to the point where every initiative, every policy, every program, every bill, every “task force”, every “investigation”, and so on, is aimed at the next election, whether for the presidency or for Congress? The American interest, i.e. the well-being of its citizens, has long since ceased to be a consideration, never mind “realism” (especially when applied to foreign policy) and “sustainability” (a favorite buzz word of the environmentalist faction). Even the environment, AKA “the planet”, takes, at best, second place when forced to compete with more pressing shorter-term considerations of power and money (environmental issues being, at least in theory, aimed beyond the lifetimes of the present generation, whereas power and money are all about “ME”, and succeeding generations can eat you-know-what). The planning horizon of our elected officials extends no further than the next election, and once that is accomplished the planning horizon instantly shifts to the election after that. In other words, the next campaign begins the day after the swearing-in ceremony. The long-term welfare of the citizenry, whether economic or in terms of health (which is, or should be, a subset of “the environment”, which is, in turn, a subset of “the planet”) never enters the minds of our so-called “leaders” from one year to the next, except as talking points – and yet they continue to campaign, and continue, incredibly, to be re-elected to an overwhelming extent. So, the question is – or should be – what sustains this clearly maladaptive, and some would even say suicidal, system, where – if we still have any faith in the electoral system – people persist in voting against their own best interests, and thus reinforce policies that have failed time and time again – sometimes spectacularly?

The old chestnut about doctors is that they “bury their mistakes”, so their mistakes don't get to comment on their competence, or lack thereof, on the Internet. Politicians, on the other hand, are like unto miracle workers. Not only do they not bury their mistakes, they parade them out in public, and in speeches, as successes – and a few people out there dare to speak up and argue, but the vast majority remain silent, whether out of despair or utter apathy. (But they still vote – which seems to mean that many people shuffle into the voting booth in a state of despair or apathy. So then why do they even bother? Read on... )

Well, number one, “voting” has always been styled as the premier privilege of the citizens of a democracy – the one essential thing, the sine qua non. Of course, as we all know, or should know, most of the dictatorships of the 20^th Century, and those that remain, had, and have, voting – after all, they were/are “people's republics”, right? The fact that their elections were a total sham was pointed out and ridiculed by the more enlightened, i.e. the American media and politicians – all while ignoring the chicanery that contaminated many of our own elections, both on the national and local level. If democracy in the “people's republics” was an illusion, then our own democracy was, at the very least, flawed, and in some case corrupted to an extent that rendered it meaningless and absurd in the “democratic” sense. And yet, it seemed that a flawed democracy, with an electoral system that was capable of being severely compromised, was better than nothing. In other words, the illusion of democracy was preferable to the stark realization that, in many cases, it was nothing but a sham and a cruel hoax.

But we still have to ask why, over time, ever since the earliest years of the Republic, the actions of elected officials have tended to contradict the intent of the people who voted them into office. Seek no further than the temptations of power, and the felt need to, once power is achieved, hold onto it at all costs, so the interests of the ordinary citizen are soon trumped by the interests of the rich and powerful, who take over control of elected officials the minute the ballots are counted. And there is nothing the least bit new or unique about this; it goes right back to our fallen human nature, and politicians are, after all, human – all too human much of the time. They seek power, presumably, in order to “do good”, but in no more than the twinkling of eye their Job One becomes holding onto the power they've been given by a trusting (say gullible, if you like) public.

And is this tendency worse in a “democracy” than it would be in a monarchy, or dictatorship? Well, no, because human nature is what it is – at all times and in all places. And after all, elected officials can, at least in theory, be voted out of office, although it's amazing how seldom this actually occurs (impeachment being ever rarer, and successful impeachment being the rarest of all). So they must be doing something right. Right? Or are we totally missing the point when it comes to our vaunted “democratic” system? If people supposedly vote, time and time again, “for their pocketbook”, or for some other concrete reason, and are invariably disappointed, and yet their voting behavior doesn't change... what is actually going on?

So, can we all agree that there's a disconnect here? We have “voters”, and “candidates” who turn into “politicians” but then are compelled to remain candidates until they decide to retire (or are forced to by some means). But as an arrangement, it very seldom pays off, at least for the hapless voter, i.e. the “average Joe”, “citizen”, whatever. It mostly pays off for the people behind the scenes who choose the candidates, support them, and then once they are in office call in their chits. So the notion of elected officials being “the people's choice” is a hoax in many if not most cases. Was it the “people's choice” when these candidates came out of nowhere and somehow ended up on the ballot? No, of course not – they were the product of a very selective and precise vetting process, the main criterion being: Will this person, once elected, remember who his “friends” are, and act accordingly? And the selection process has been developed and fine-tuned to dependably yield results that favor the people who are really in charge. And if an occasional “mistake” occurs – if an elected official decides to throw off the yoke and be their own man (or woman), well, we have ways of dealing with that sort of nonsense.  (On this topic, see a previous post, "Mayor Pete was the Wine that was Sold Before its Time", April 25, 2020.)

And once again, and as always, the hapless citizen is left wondering what the hell happened... why they have been exploited and betrayed once again, and for the umpteenth time. (Won't Charlie Brown ever be allowed to kick that damn football?) And yet their faith in the system, if one can call it that, persists – or maybe it's just habit, or, once again, despair.

Let's try and take a closer look at this almost universal phenomenon. Let us, for starters, think about voting, and the voting booth, and what actually happens when someone is face-to-face with that choice – with trembling hand holding a pen or pencil, or poised over a button on a screen or a voting machine lever. This is the real moment of truth. All of the propaganda, advertisements, speeches, broadcasts... the papers, magazines, TV, Internet, radio... fade into nothingness at this point and are replaced by an empty space, a void... but then what rises up to fill that void? It's the narrative.

Narrative – A way of presenting or understanding a situation or series of events that reflects and promotes a particular point of view or set of values.

Or – a particular way of explaining or understanding events;

Or – a story or account of events, experiences, or the like, whether true or fictitious;

Or – an explanation or interpretation of events in accordance with a particular theory, ideology, or point of view.

Note that these definitions (and there are many more along similar lines) tend to reflect the utter subjectivity of narrative, i.e. that it's not factual in the strict sense, but based to a large extent on pre-existing ideas, prejudices, biases, and premises – not to mention emotional needs, which, in my opinion, are actually the main “drivers”. And those emotional needs are based, in turn, on an array of events and influences that culminated in the mind set of that person, on that day, at that time, in that voting booth. For we are, after all, human – which means complex, and unstable, impulsive, reactive,,, in short, all that the Founding Fathers believed – naively, perhaps – could be overcome if people were only given the opportunity and the proper motivation. They were, if you will, optimistic about human nature. But has their optimism proven to be utter delusion and folly?

Even the simplest person is capable of having “deep thoughts” at times – and the most intellectual and presumably rational and objective person can be the prey of their emotions, which can cancel out all attempts at “realism”. And I'm not claiming that these “irrational” factors come into play in spite of reason, or of “the facts”; it's really the opposite. It's a more rare occasion when reason, and the facts, come into play in spite of what one might call the more primitive, or juvenile, factors. (In the developmental sense they could be termed “pre-reason” or “pre-logic” or “pre-conceptual”.)

One might say that the notion of the average citizen suddenly turning into an adult when they step into the voting booth is no more than wishful thinking. What is every bit as likely is that they will regress, and revert to an earlier stage of their emotional and intellectual development when they are confronted by that moment of truth.

So what, then, is this all-powerful narrative, and why does it have such an iron grip on us when we are faced with what should be an important decision – not only for the individual but as a basis for democracy itself?

To begin at the beginning – our perceptions of the way the world is (call it our “metaphysics” if you like) start being formed at birth, or even before. Babies are, basically, data-gathering machines. They absorb everything that they see, hear, taste, smell, feel – without prejudice or editing. One might say this is the most objective stage of life, simply because we haven't yet learned to select, or filter, the input.  We never think, or say, "That does not compute", because at that stage everything computes, which is as it should be.  And so a view of the world (their world, of course) is formed – primarily from sensations as opposed to thoughts “about” sensations. Toddlers have a pretty good idea of the way the world is – their world, at least. But they also start getting notions of how they would like the world to be, and the conflict between the two leads to frustration (which helps explain why the "terrible twos" are the way they are). How is this resolved? The way they would like the world to be has to be put on the shelf, after repeated tries and frustrations – but it never goes away. Our “inner child of the past” (the expression comes from a self-help book from some years back) persists, and builds up -- layer by layer -- wishes, hopes, dreams, and frustrations while we lead a parallel life “in the world”. Thus is formed the root of a narrative – the one with the earliest origins – to which we cling (thank you, Barack!) in some form, even if a vestigial form, for life.

And I would say that the great cry of the human person – the real “primal scream” -- is “It's not fair!”, or some variation thereof. And if this attitude, or premise, retains sufficient power into adulthood, it can influence our political thinking, not to mention our relationships, our choice of vocation, and so on. The urge to make the world “work” – to be the way we would like it to be – is compelling, but also infantile in a way. The missing element is willingness to compromise, and – on a more rarefied level – humility. Humility doesn't insist on “compromise”, or negotiation, or bargaining; it is an attitude of willingness to accept things as they are – at least tentatively -- because, who knows, there may be perfectly good reasons for the way things are that we are not privy to – but at the same time to work to make things better, ideally by starting “at home”, with ourselves. (Wasn't there a Beatles song that said, “You say you'll change the constitution, well, you know, we all want to change your head. You tell me it's the institution, well, you know, you'd better free your mind instead” ?)

Many teachers in many religious traditions have taught the value of humility over the millennia. One of the main barriers to developing humility, however, is that residual infantile “It's not fair!” attitude, and this flows quite seamlessly into one's personal politics, and thus collectively into politics in general. For what is any political idea, cause, or movement other than an attempt to make things “right” -- or "fair" -- or "equitable" – to re-fashion the world in the image that we would like to impose on it? There is nothing less humble, or less satisfied, than a political movement. “Conservatives” – the real kind, i.e. the ones who want to keep things just the way they are (vs. the way they were, or are alleged to have been, 100 or more years ago) -- are fighting battles against “change”, especially change for its own sake (which is the most typical variety). If only people would be satisfied with the way things are now! But what if the way things are now is more like the “continuous revolution” of Chairman Mao? Then it's no longer true conservatism, is it? And perhaps in our time there is no such thing, i.e. conservatism has become self-contradicting.

But it seems that we have skipped a few steps here. Go back to the toddler, who is forming a view of the world based on raw data, and not spending much time thinking about it, or interpreting, or conceptualizing. They are, in a way, living an unexamined life, which is perfectly acceptable at that stage. But then along comes speech, and then concepts and ideas, and (hopefully) some beginning of moral sense – and, perhaps most important of all, imagination, which can be defined as wanting that which doesn't even exist, but which we develop as an image or “wish system” by projecting from what is, i.e. from what we know. And at that point the “ought” starts to overpower the “is” – the toddler's alternative world of “like” and “want” starts to accrete names, and concepts, and connections. And this is also the point at which, thanks to language and our conceptual abilities, one is exposed to other people's world view – again, not only the view of things as they are (the metaphysical) but the view of things as they might be, or ought to be (which ultimately turns into the political). (Isn't politics, after all, the art of persuasion – of convincing people that they ought to think differently, or ought to want what they don't presently have – and of showing them the means by which they can supposedly obtain it (starting with the all-hallowed vote)?)  

And who are these other people? Our “influencers”, as the current saying goes? Well, parents, for certain... but also other family members, friends, and neighbors – people we know and converse with. But then we have teachers (whose world view may or may not match that of our parents – increasingly the case in our time, since the public schools have fallen prey to “the long march through the institutions”), and books, television, the Internet, and so on – that vast array of sources of information, ideas, facts, fancies, propaganda, threats, rewards – greatly magnified by the communications media in our time.

How often have I heard or read complaints by “boomers” that things were so much simpler when we were kids, and there were only 3 TV channels (two commercial and one "educational"), and school books, and books from the local library, and magazines from news stands, and the radio, and that was pretty much it? The competition for “hearts and minds” was barely a fraction as intense as it is now, and it can be debated whether this is a net improvement or an invitation to confusion and, ultimately, chaos and despair. Can it be that the human organism was only meant to handle so much information – most of it not sense information in the natural or “primitive” sense, but only boiled-down, digitized, distorted remnants? Not even well-developed concepts, but sound bites? Are we not all victims of overload? And if we are, are we equipped with the discernment and ability to do something about it? My observations would seem to indicate that the answer is no, for most people and in most cases. As with so much in the way of technology, our reach exceeds our grasp. We create instantaneous monsters, if you will, but have no idea as how to control them, and thus become their victims.

So our narratives are born, and at an early age they bifurcate into the “is” and the “ought” – “reality” vs. “wishful thinking”. But hold on. Were all of our influencers, and sources, over the years purveyors of reality? Because what where they pushing? Their world view, but surely more of a hybrid of the two – the way things are and the way they ought to be. After all, stark reality – “just the facts, ma'am” (thank you, Jack Webb) can become awfully tedious and boring at times. After all, we are human beings – always restless, always striving, always curious. We are not dogs and cats, or cattle contentedly chewing their cuds in the field. It would be nice to be that existential – that “here and now”, and many of the hippie gurus, taking a cue from Eastern religions, recommended that state of mind as the best, and the one least likely to lead to frustration. And this is not to say that some time spent meditating – being “here and now” – is a bad thing; it's been highly recommended, again by wise men (and women) of many religious and philosophical orientations. But let's admit that plain contentment is a rare thing, and perhaps should remain so. (Or, to put it another way, it is perfectly suitable for the human race to include both contemplatives and “action” persons. In the proper proportions, they complement each other, and in some ultimate sense they couldn't get along without each other.)

For the rest of us, not satisfied with radical contentment or “here and now-ness” (or the cheap imitation induced by drugs and alcohol), we have to deal with our narratives, and each person's core narrative at any given time is likely to be a combination of reality (facts) and wishful thinking (fantasies). I had a chemistry teacher in high school who would always correct any student who said “I think...” He would say “you don't think, you fancy”. But isn't this it in a nutshell? And to the extent that a person is willing to – calmly and deliberately – pry apart the portions of their narrative that are “the way things are” vs. “the way things ought to be”... but wait! What's to keep “the way things are” from being every bit as fantastic (albeit unconsciously) as “the way things ought to be”? Isn't all of our thinking ultimately subjective and illusory? Is objectivity a myth, and don't we use our reasoning powers to, more often than not, simply shuffle various fantasies around and rationalize the ones we prefer on any given day?  Or, isn't there at least a continuum of some sort with the “actual” (things I'm pretty certain of, because they're tangible and observable) on one end and the “ideal” (things I know are not the case, but wouldn't it be nice if they were?) on the other?

And – does it even matter, ultimately? If our narrative, or world view, impacts our lives, our decisions, our relationships, on a daily basis, isn't it quibbling to talk about how “realistic” various pieces of it are? Because it's there. Over time, it's arguably the single largest influencer in our lives, or at least in our thinking about our lives.

It's almost like the old question, how can we live knowing that we will die? And there are many answers to that question, needless to say. But then, on a more personal, here-and-now level, how can we live knowing, or suspecting, that our every thought and action is based on, and conditioned by, something that was imposed on us (or, at least, suggested to us) by someone else – and that their every thought and action was, in turn, based on, and conditioned by... and so on. (Perhaps the first and only truly free-thinking human being was some cave man who accidently stumbled upon language. He was able to make it all up on his own, ex nihilo.)

But narratives are very seldom completely idiosyncratic. There are common, shared elements based on, first, the family, and then on the gradual widening world that each of us experiences – but there are central tendencies and groupings, otherwise there would be no political parties or causes. We would each be trapped in our own pseudo-factual world like patients in the back ward of a mental hospital (before they were all shut down, that is). So yes, the reference group (the one we don't choose, and later on the one, or ones, we do choose) has its agreed-upon narrative, which they promote, expand upon, and, in some cases, endlessly blather about, from the coffee house to the student union to the faculty lounge to Congress to TV and the Internet. (For a sampling of grass-roots narratives, I can recommend nothing better than that table of male senior citizens that one always finds at any McDonald's on a Saturday morning – or any other day of the week, most likely. They talk on endlessly, but it's clear that they share the same narrative, right down to the most minute detail. There is no real debate, in other words – just embellishment, and a friendly competition as to who feels most strongly about a given issue – or who can talk the loudest between gulps of lousy coffee.)

But this is also not to say that narratives are merely shared world views. That's precisely the point. They are unique in the same way fingerprints are – one set to a person, and no two people have the same set. But there are definite narrative clusters, if you will, the same way people naturally cluster into racial, ethnic, religious, and gender groups. After all, a key element in narrative formation is the culture one is born into; a good bit of it is, as I see it, pre-verbal or extra-verbal. People don't generally think much about their particular “culture” as young children; they just take it for granted along with everything else – religion, social class, customs, traditions, etc. In fact, I doubt if very many people, even upon achieving mature adulthood, think about how different – how radically different at times – their narrative is from others'. It's like the old saying, “Fish discover water last”. If you're immersed in something from the very beginnings of perception, you don't have to “discover” it; you're living it. In a very real sense, it is you and you are it. Whatever else we are, or become, builds on that; it's our foundation or groundwork, if you will.

But wait! – you might say. What about rebellious youth? What about the ones who, with every generation, decide that the old folks don't know anything, and they're going out on a quest for The Truth? Not only that, but how about all of these “influencers” who encourage, aid, and abet rebellion – thinking firstly about peer groups, but also teachers, the media, books, and so on? Doesn't that old narrative so carefully cultivated by Mom and Pop get tossed aside?

This might seem to be the case if we just look at the surface, or the symptoms. What I suspect, however, is that youthful rebellion is just that – youthful. The day comes when our youthful rebels will decide that it's just too much work, or the world isn't getting better despite all of their efforts... or that more immediate, material considerations need to be given more weight – you know, things like earning a living, as dull as that might seem. Notice that the ones who come to this realization first are invariably called “sell-outs” by the more hard-core types, but sooner or later pretty much everyone falls by the wayside in some way, except for the rare types like Bernie Sanders.

And it's not that the narratives they grew up with have survived intact, the way so many ancient Chinese customs survived Mao's Cultural Revolution. They may have gotten updated, refined, polished, rendered more “current”, more acceptable, but the roots survive. They are still their parents' children, in other words. A “rebel for life” is a rare thing – it happens, and there are many examples, but most people simply can't, or won't, entirely throw off that baggage – and in fact, there is no good reason for them to do so. They are behaving more like natural human beings than like any idealized “New Soviet Man” or member of “The Master Race”, who are expected to act in a robotic fashion and have no hidden agendas and, preferably, no individual personality at all.

To put it another way – imagine an ancient tree that has survived any number of storms, hurricanes, floods, diseases, injuries, even earthquakes. It's battle-scarred, but it's still the same tree. And narratives – the powerful ones, the ones based on what I call “the eternal verities” – race, religion, ethnic group, customs – have a staying power that transcends generations, and even transcends actual events – history, for example, and “social change” (which does not have the same depth as narratives, despite what activists would like).

If you look at current events, you see various narratives bubbling up – ones that were supposed to be long since done away with, precisely because they are based on the things that have always motivated people, both as individuals and in groups – things like, once again, race, religion, ethnicity – things that defined societies and even entire civilizations in the past, but which are now considered hopelessly atavistic and out of fashion. The question is, can any society, or civilization, survive the lack of these things, even if in implicit form? We seem to be experimenting with that possibility at present, with concepts like “diversity”, which is just another word for deracination, i.e. getting rid of things that actually create diversity. And yes, it's been tried before, with less-than-pleasant consequences, as witness Soviet Russia and Maoist China.

So now we come back, at long last, to poor old Joe Blow, Mr. Average, the plain citizen, etc. lurching into the voting booth. Is he really concerned with the latest polling numbers? Is he concerned with the “record” of the incumbent, or the many promises of the contender? And what about the myriad of “influencers” and talking heads in the media? They've been working full time for months, if not years, to talk Joe Blow into voting a certain way because, after all, he'll be so much better off if the follows their advice.

But no. The narrative rises up, like the monster from an old movie rising out of Tokyo Bay or New York harbor, to claim its own. And it's the narrative that tells him who to vote for, and his decision is based on which candidate seems to represent this narrative – which one is the best match, that is, with ideas, notions, and “fancies” that Joe Blow has been carrying around with him for years, and most likely decades. (I don't think that there's a political “consultant” alive who could systematically come up with a campaign that would appeal to the collective narratives of millions of voters. The best he can hope for is that his candidate will get lucky and appeal to enough of them to win.)

But why should this be such a hard nut to crack? The problem is that there is nothing simple about any given narrative, and the complexity of narratives in the aggregate is beyond measure. At the very least, we can say that the well-developed narrative has many facets, to be sure – many of them quite personal and biographical, if you will. “I promised my father on his deathbed that I would never vote for [a certain political party].” “My family/friends/associates/co-workers would disown me if I voted for [a certain candidate].” “If I voted for [a certain candidate] it would make me a traitor to my race/ethnic group/religion/gender.” “We (meaning family, ethnic group, social class, religion) always vote for [a given political party].” And so on. (Freud called this the superego. It's that thing that's stuck in your head that makes you do what you'd rather not do, and not do what you'd rather do. It's the “ought” to our “is”, if you will.)

Now, notice how fact-free all of this is? How non-reality based? That's the point. This is the burden, the baggage, that people carry around with them on a daily basis, but it only rises to the surface on Election Day.  This is why the pollsters are so often wrong, and hilariously so in some cases, because they (1) go by what people say when they are in a more “factual” or realistic mood; and (2) go by what people say even though they are thinking something quite different (a political poll is not a confessional, after all); and (3) assume that people know their own minds, i.e. don't get cold feet when they step into that voting booth, and substitute the narrative for all the ideas they've been ruminating on up to that point.

Loyalty – a deep-seated desire to remain faithful to all the many factors and influences in one's upbringing – is a powerful force, perhaps the most powerful in fact, since one can argue that without it civilization would never have even developed, and we would still not be living at anything larger than the small tribal level at best. (The smaller the reference group, the easier it is to enforce conformity, which is one reason why systems of central government imposed on a tribal culture tend to fail, and revert to chaos and violence. The village chief has power and commands respect, where the president or dictator in a far-away capital can only rule indirectly and by fear.)

So this would seem to be an answer – not the entire answer, but an important one – to the perennial question of why people vote the way they do. They aren't voting for the candidate or for his/her ideas as much as for a narrative of which that candidate is merely a passing and imperfect representative. And one interesting consequence of this idea is that the candidate may not be fully aware of the extent, or the depth, of the narrative that he or she represents. They may “fancy” that it's all about them, whereas they are, in truth, quite expendable. Or, they may at least imagine that people vote for ideas – preferably for the candidate's ideas. But that's wrong too. The narrative is much deeper than conscious ideas, and in fact (per our discussion of young children) deeper than the language that expresses those ideas. Primitive emotions come to the fore – traumas, pain, fear, frustration, etc. – and we might say that they unjustly influence the process (which is supposed be so rational, after all), but are they not the things that, over the course of a lifetime, have the most impact on our sense of the world and our place in it – our self-image and self-esteem? Don't they deserve a voice – a say in the matter? Perhaps rationality and realism are overestimated, and are, at best, secondary to these more basic drives – more superficial, more fleeting (witness how political loyalties can often change at the drop of a hat). Perhaps the notion of elections as popularity contests is not as off-base as we would like to believe. Maybe “popularity” is a better expression of the narrative than that which appears in all the polls and surveys. But if people vote that way, then can they really complain when, by the cold, clear light of day, they wind up with “buyer's regret”?  But it's still better than the “walk of shame” home from the polling place when they think “I sure hope Uncle Louie (of fond memory) didn't see me voting that way.”

Perhaps, in other words, we should be more willing to accept the results of a narrative-laden election. Why look down on people because of the way they vote – especially their deep motives, of which we know nothing? Democracy is, at least in theory, based on the assumption that people are entitled to vote because they are capable of understanding the issues. But human nature being what it is, perhaps this understanding is likely to be outweighed by something more basic and, yes, more complex. Does this mean that democracy is a fatally flawed system because it's based on an erroneous premise? A better question might be, even if it is flawed, are the alternatives any better? We seem to have long since settled that question in favor of sticking with the system we have. If it should one day crumble under its own weight, it may be for any number of reasons, but one might turn out to be the power of narrative and its ability to create contradictions to the extent that they would prove fatal. For one thing, as cultural distinctions – a key factor in narrative development – dissolve in the so-called “melting pot” (even though it is mythical to some extent), resulting in what E. Michael Jones calls deracination, the glue or connective tissue among narratives may deteriorate, and a kind of centrifugal force may make Americans (but not only them) increasingly isolated and, one might almost say, autistic in their own unique narratives. This may be the thing that, once and for all, exposes “E pluribus unum” as a myth.

Why are the Democrats Supporting Nikki Haley and not Trump?

Question du jour – why are the Democrats (which includes the mainstream media) supporting Nikki Haley? I mean, they expect to win in November, right?  So why do they care who the Republican nominee is? Some of it can be attributed to TDS (Trump Derangement Syndrome), which will always be with us... and of course they don't want Trump to have the “honor” of being nominated (for the 3^rd time) by the Republicans, even though they fear and despise the “MAGA terrorists”, i.e. Trump supporters within the Republican party (and those not in the party as well).

It's clear that they aren't playing the long game here. They're getting their jollies by piling on Trump and whoever consents to be his running mate (“I pity the fool...”), but think about this. If Haley winds up being the nominee – and the Dems are doing everything in their power to make certain that Trump can't be nominated – and then loses, the Republican party will survive (if only in the usual minority status). That is, the mainstream Republicans – the “acceptable opposition”, the ones who are always happy to “cross the aisle” and be second-class citizens to the Dems – will take over once and for all, with Trump and the MAGA crowd finally sent into exile and relegated to the ash heap of history.

That would be a perfectly acceptable outcome for the Democrats. Having the Republicans as a perpetual and obseqious minority – which they have been for much of the time in recent years – would feel like business as usual, and the so-called two-party system would survive, at least in theory.

But the Democrats don't want a two-party system – not really. In their heart of hearts, they want a one-party system on the Soviet model, i.e. no opposition at all, not even the acceptable kind. Nothing but unanimous votes in Congress (and eventually one TV network, one radio network, one newspaper (OK, the Soviets had 2)... not to mention, no elections!). So what is the best way to make this happen, or at least to get a head start? It would be to throw Haley under the bus and allow the Republicans to nominate Trump, and then see to it that he loses, at which point the Republicans (meaning all of them, even including the RINOs) could be declared dead and buried along with their MAGA minority.

Now, you might say that Trump and the Republicans lost in 2020, but recovered – and this in spite of the fact that he was the sitting president at the time, and it's rare for a sitting president to be defeated for a second term. But the Democrats and their allies in the media and elsewhere will, by November, have had 4 more years to not only continue to brand Trump as Hitler Incarnate, but also to brand his followers as terrorists and put many of them in jail (and him as well, perhaps) – this process being well under way right now, and proceeding at warp speed. “Our very democracy is at stake!” – cry the mainstream media with one voice.

So the contrasts are much more stark now than in 2020 or 2016 – and this is mainly because the Democrats and the media have declared this to be the case. So the strategy of supporting Haley makes sense in the short run, but in the long run the Dems would be better off if Trump ran again and lost, because from then on the Republicans would be required to hang their heads in shame (for “putting us through this again”) and be paraded around wearing dunce caps by the Red Guard, and be reduced to a bunch of vaporous ghosts (think of 100 Mitch McConnells) wandering aimlessly around Washington while the Democrats establish a people's republic.

(PS – the Dems show no signs of wanting to push Biden aside (or Harris either), despite rumors to that effect. A president who is content to follow orders and read, even if haltingly, from scripts, and a vice president who is satisfied with a portfolio of sinecures, is exactly what they want; it has worked for three years, and it will work for one plus four more.)

(And BTW, Nikki Haley is playing her own game here. She's staying in the race, at least in part (in my opinion) because she expects the Dems/media/courts to take Trump out well before the election, at which point she'll be the last, um, person standing. That's the short game. The medium game would be for her to save a lot of time and money by dropping out now – or at least appearing to – and then wait for Trump to be neutralized, at which point she can come back on stage and save the day like Mighty Mouse.)

It's going to be very interesting to see how these various games intersect over the next few months. In fact, the mainstream (non-MAGA) Republicans may even decide to nominate Trump (assuming he hasn't been disqualified) for the same reason that the Dems would favor this – to insure his defeat, and thus the resounding defeat of the MAGA wing, thus leaving the mainstream unchallenged in their slouch toward obscurity. I'm not sure if they're capable of this kind of subtlety – they are called “the stupid party”, after all – but it would certainly win them friends on the other side – or let's say enemies disguised as friends.

2024 -- Another annus horribilis?

2024 is looming, like one of those hurricanes out in the Atlantic that's not yet causing much damage, but just wait until it reaches land! I don't want to be just another alarmist (the field is much too crowded already), but I'm afraid that the Republican convention next year may make the Democratic convention of 1968 look like a tea party. (And the Republicans won't have a Mayor Daley to back them up – and I can't imagine the Milwaukee police department will be much help, since they've probably fallen prey to defunding and other forms of demoralizing and neutering.)

This is, of course, predicated on (1) Trump not being in jail at that point; (2) Trump still being in the race (or, Trump being in jail but still being in the race – hey, it could happen!); (3) The mainstream Republicans not having succeeded in keeping him out of the primaries; and (4) The mainstream Republicans accepting primary results that favor Trump, rather than declaring them null and void and going to a caucus, AKA “smoke-filled room”, system.

Note that the Colorado Supreme Court has already barred Trump from both the primaries and the general election, and they are likely to be followed by many other state supreme courts across the land – and in the Northern Mariana Islands, Guam, etc. (How exciting it is to keep an ex-president from running for president!  And just about anyone can play!) – but especially in states with high population levels (all you need is the West Coast and the Northeast). While Trump's base is justifiably outraged by this – as are a handful of commentators on Fox News – the Republican mainstream is strangely silent on the matter. Perhaps it's because they're glad to have someone else do the dirty work for them so they won't get in trouble with Trump's base, and/or they see it as an example of how easy it is to keep someone out of the primaries, as in “Hey, why didn't we think of that?” (Actually, they did, when it came to Ron Paul.) (OTOH, RFK Jr. has been subjected to a total media blackout, probably because, like Ron Paul, he has a lot of good ideas. But they can't make fun of him because of the family name – unlike Ross Perot, who at least had amusing ears.) To put it another way – I suspect that much of the Republican mainstream is secretly celebrating this, oblivious to the fact that if it can happen to Trump it can happen to any of them as well.

You can see the run-up increasing in intensity on a daily basis, primarily in the mainstream media but also in statements by Biden lackeys, certain academicians, certain “entertainers”... all reading from the same sheet of talking points, of which #1 is always “Trump is Hitler” (not “will be Hitler”, note, but he's already Hitler, in some kind of mysterious reincarnation phenomenon). The Ministry of Propaganda aside, what the Fox News folks call “lawfare” is also well underway, and is merely a seamless continuation of the impeachments while Trump was in office – with many of the same people calling the shots as during Trump's administration. Of course the “bloody shirt” that is constantly waved in the air is January 6 – a date that will live in infamy! – but it's far from the only weapon in their arsenal (heck, even the Russia collusion hoax is still alive and well in the fever dreams of many of them).

But behind it all – the thinly-concealed threat, if you will – is the very real possibility that the troops are already being organized to show up in force at primaries and at the convention – and yes, I mean the same folks who did all the burning and pillaging and vandalism back in 2020 (and who continue to do so at selected locations just to keep in practice). And this goes way beyond the time-honored “rent-a-mob” technique on the local level (often, depending on the issue, with Jesse Jackson and/or Al Sharpton parachuting in to add spice to the mix).  As in 2020, these so-called anarchists (totalitarians in disguise, I mean) will arrive from all over the country, brought in by plane, train, bus, and automobile, and with pockets full of cash from their billionaire sponsors, who – recalling a phrase from the war in Vietnam – believe that it's necessary to destroy the country in order to save it.

So what it really amounts to is a protection racket of sorts (remember the “long hot summer” threats of times past?). Keep Trump on the primary ballots and this is what will happen – and just try nominating him and putting him on the national ballot! Cities will burn! And the mainstream Republicans, ever the gentlemen (and gentlewomen), will, I expect, bow to mob rule and disown that troublemaker – i.e. Trump – once and for all, rather than just being passive-aggressive about it the way they were during his administration. And we'll wind up with some garden-variety neocon who won't ruffle the Democrats' feathers – Nikki Haley* being in the lead for that role at this point (and please note she's getting support from some Democrats simply for being the anti-Trump). And then, in turn, if the Republicans come up with another uninspiring, ho-hum candidate, that person will lose the election to Uncle Joe or whoever the Democrats have called up from the bench to replace him. (And – highly likely – the Trump base will simply sit out the election as a form of protest, thus giving Uncle Joe even more of a mandate than he would have had otherwise.)

So – bottom line – the protection racket will have worked. And no, it's not democracy or even a pale semblance thereof; it's strictly mob rule of the kind that can be found in many “banana republics” and other pseudo-democracies across the globe. But if this is what we've come to, well... some will call it karma, others will say it's the way empires decline and fall, and many of the citizenry – thoroughly demoralized already -- will just shrug and say (or think) “Eh, what do you expect?” Faith in government, anyone? I'm afraid that's already extinct at this point. Rule of law? The Colorado Supreme Court certainly doesn't have any use for it. There's just enough residual faith for some people to think that voting might actually make a difference; the rest of us are either cynical, or pessimistic, or just plain realistic – and if you can tell me the difference these days, please let me know.

* This just in – she failed to denounce slavery! Looks like the establishment has already administered the kill shot.