My editors at Right Now Oregon recently forwarded me a Truth Social post by Mr. Trump attacking our Alte Rechte Woke-Right Parasites with the comment, “Play stupid games, get slammed by Trump.” It is an apt summary of our current political theater, but it barely scratches the surface of the profound danger our people have allowed into their lives.
To understand the present moment, we must first recognize that the enthusiastic purveyors of modern “Drive-by Media” now firmly include the Alte Rechte—the Woke-Right polemicists who are rapidly becoming as institutionalized, predictable, and fundamentally unserious as the Woke-Left Bolsheviks they pretend to despise. Like the Europeans they either mock or worship with equal cynicism, our Woke-Right and Woke-Left commentators have grown rich by demonstrating to our people how to utterly infantilize yourself.
Sadly, our Elite Establishment – which absolutely now includes the Altes Rechte Woke-Right Commentariat – doesn’t see any reason to consider a simple, devastating fact: They – just as much as the madmen in Tehran – made the Parthian War currently being waged by Mr. Trump inevitable.
When you create a vacuum of competent, reality-based leadership, nature is offended because nature abhors a vacuum.
Enter the pragmatist.
If you want to see this dynamic in its purest, most disingenuous form, look no further than this post from Mr. Trump (specifically targeting Tucker Carlson, Candace Owens, Megyn Kelly, and Alex Jones). Mr. Trump dismissed his erstwhile allies as “Low IQs” who “think it is wonderful for Iran…to have a Nuclear Weapon.”
Now, really: Only an idiot would actually buy the garbage that Tucker Carlson, et al., want a nuclear-armed Iran. But Mr. Trump knows exactly what he is doing: He is treating them with the exact level of seriousness that their performative outrage warrants.
Mr. Trump is dealing with hand-flailing fools via the language of raw, unapologetic power. And raw, unapologetic power is inherently pragmatic.
And the only real problem I have with Mr. Trump is that he is too pragmatic.
Underlying that pragmatism is – without a doubt – a certain close identification of his own identity with the country. That association used to be a non-negotiable prerequisite to get elected President of the United States of America (or, at the very least, the ability to plausibly fake it). But this essential precondition for the realization of the Purpose of America – The maximization of Individual Autonomy in a manner not inconsistent with the Common Good – has, in recent decades, been abandoned by an Elite Establishment which was, in the immortal words of Ann Richards, “…born on third base and believed they’d hit a triple.”
In a country like America250, limned by (historically) unimaginable levels of peace, prosperity, and material comfort, we STILL see the recurrence of the ugliest parts of human nature: pride, greed, wrath, envy, lust, gluttony, and sloth.
This strongly implies that those characteristics are hard-wired into the human person—and the entire Tanakh[1] can easily be read as a non-supernatural primer on the pathological foolishness of our species.
For eminently understandable reasons, our Elite Establishment worships “consistency.” (To them, consistency is a “super precedent” that cannot be questioned—largely because it’s the tool by which they are able to justify pulling up the ladder once them and theirs have gotten into the treehouse.)
But to most of us, and not just those of us who have to keep an eye out for every loose knapsack in every bar from Bangkok to Buenos Aires, Mr. Trump’s cartoonish lack of “consistency” is a feature, not a bug.[2] Any group that would hide their fighters inside places of worship and violate a diplomatic compound is not a group that can be politely reasoned with.
The painful dissonance between Imperial Governance and Onanism was, yet again, brought to my mind recently on the Joe Rogan Podcast, featuring the comedic polemicist (is there any other kind?) and cartoon character, Duncan Trussell.
Mr. Trussell and Mr. Rogan were Really Quite Offended by the fact that Mr. Trump Had Betrayed Us by Dragging Us Into Yet Another War—as if the gas that gets Mr. Rogan’s and Mr. Trussell’s audiences to their shows emerges from some magical, cost-free portal from another dimension.
I get it: Petulant, Ill-Informed Opinion-Mongering is a wonderful (and lucrative) way to make a living. But one of the most disturbing byproducts of living in Imperial Splendor – and, make no mistake, every single American marinates every single day in Imperial Splendor – is that said “splendor” seems to be the most effective machine yet invented to deactivate our natural defenses against category errors.[3]
Iran is an odious and malignant free rider in world affairs, and it has been since 1979. A bunch of insane and murderous criminals lord over their own people…you know, kind of like much of our Elite Establishment.
Unfortunately for them, the degree to which the Parthians suck (and that level is astronomical) doesn’t justify Elite Establishment incompetence, no matter how many times they blame their failures on this President. Nor can it justify European unseriousness. Because the profound unseriousness of the European Elite Establishment, like so much of European culture, has been reduced to mere mimicry of our own Elite Establishment. Heavy is the head that wears the crown.
Which brings us, inevitably, to the scapegoat of choice for those who refuse to grapple with reality.
The only “unfair advantage” which differentiates Israel from the rest of the world is that the Jews have lived – and survived – for thousands of years in a world in which their culture was not the dominant force. Therefore, Jewish culture had to evolve (or was Intelligently Designed to contain, it makes no difference to my analysis) several characteristics, including an exquisite sensitivity to power, an ability to adapt and make themselves useful as auxiliaries, and a ruthless pragmatism of their own.[4]
No natural adaptation is “good” or “bad.” They just ARE.
So don’t blame “Da Jooz” for the fecklessness and incoherence of American Imperial Policy,[5] or even King Herod for taking advantage of Imperial Power to keep himself in power. To blame Jewish people because some of their leaders are opportunistic pragmatists is to indict ourselves. Our coddled, infantilized Elite Establishment traded that right away a long time ago—some for podcast clicks and performative isolationism, some for the exact opposite: performative isolationism and podcast clicks.[6]
If you want to truly understand “Why Mr. Trump?” or why the American Empire is currently staggering under the weight of its own category errors, I would suggest – as I often do – to look to Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar: “The fault, dear Mx. Elite Establishment, is not in your stars/but in yourselves, that you are underlings.”
But do not judge too harshly those,
who sell themselves for power, friends.
Lest you discover, in one another,
the mirror reflects your own ends.
[1] The first five Books of the Bible, or the only five books of the Bible, depending on which flavor of religion one subscribes to.
[2] I wish I could say “…because it brings to mind Ralph Waldo Emerson’s critique that ‘a foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds’,” but, seriously, who am I kidding?
[3] In philosophy, a category error (or category mistake) occurs when things belonging to a particular category are presented as if they belong to a different category, or when a property is ascribed to a thing that could not possibly possess it. In this context, it is the error of treating the fruits of imperial security (cheap gas, global trade, domestic tranquility) as if they belong to the category of naturally occurring phenomena that require no ugly imperial enforcement or geopolitical nose-holding to maintain.
[4] And before the ADL collapses onto their fainting couches, I have known, lived amongst, and loved many Jewish people – and stood shoulder-to-shoulder with many Children of the Levant – who were neither exquisitely sensitive, adaptable, useful, nor pragmatic. Does that makes you feel better?
[5] If you absolutely must blame Israel for something, blame her for the fact that I can only find truly good quality Schinken in Nahariya, amongst the Subbotniks who are about as Jewish as I am.
[6] If our Chattering Classes are to be believed, some of our leaders possess opportunistic pragmatism, too…but only the ones whom the Chattering Classes think it is more profitable – for the moment! – to criticize than cultivate.
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