The Next 2 Years

Now that the midterms have panned out as the predictions market expected, here’s what we can now expect:


Good Things:

  1. It was mostly GOPe cucks getting slaughtered, not Trumpist nationalists (e.g. Steve King stayed, though on a razor thin margin). At least this means that nationalism has real staying power.

  2. Cabinet picks and SCOTUS nominations will now glide through.

  3. May finally put these Based Black Guy/#Blexit fantasies to rest. (Just kidding).


Bad Things:

  1. Legislative gridlock means no immigration reform (GOP having spent their political capital on tax cuts and Obamacare).

  2. I assume the Wall is dead. (Sure, it’s not that relevant, but its symbolically powerful).

  3. More censorship (obv. no regulating Twitter like a utility now).

  4. Endless Trump investigations as House gains subpoena powers.

  5. Neocons may end up going off the reservation, bolstered by the CIA Democrats and an increasingly cornered Trump.


One more good thing is that the administration’s cold war on Iran and China will continue.

Indeed, it’s worth noting that many of the newly elected Democrats are well on board with the trade war on China.

This means that Russia is not going to be too isolated (stand together or fall separately) when US sanctions on Russia will be ramped up closer to the extreme levels provided for in already existing legislation.

I have always been skeptical about Europe and now there are even more reasons for that.

SWIFT kicked out Iranian banks on Nov 5, when the US sanctions went into effect. All that the EU managed in response was to mutter that it was “regrettable”, dousing any faint hopes that its willingness to resist US demands is more than just rhetorical. But what can you really expect when the US is the heart of a globe-spanning empire that can directly threaten European central bankers with prison for helping Iran avoid sanctions (as suggested in Soros-financed Project Syndicate, not on some marginal “conspiracy” site).


While I’m aware that you can’t judge Presidential elections on midterms results – after all, the GOP lost big in 1982, but Reagan won in a landslide two years later – it’s hard to be optimistic.

There are incipient signs of recession, which I think will begin at least months before the 2020 elections. (JPMorgan agrees).

That will cancel Trump’s advantage of incumbency.

Meanwhile, this will be after two years of House-initiated investigations, Trump’s senility will be even more obvious, there’s be more minorities, the Florida felons will be voting, and Trump’s nationalist base will be even more demoralized with no wall and no immigration reform in sight. And this is also not taking into account the risk of a neocon war or two.

I suspect almost anyone will beat Trump in 2020, short of the Dems wheeling out Hillary’s husk or an outright white genocide proponent.

Comments

  1. it’s hard to be optimistic.

    Not that hard.
    A recession will also make others suffer.
    Like Merkel’s Germany whose exports to America would decline. 🙂

  2. What is interesting to me is the way whites are splitting into two. The nationalist right tends to be composed of unimaginative practical types who are reasonably intelligent but rather mediocre (as seen on this site).

    Meanwhile, the death grip of science on the imagination of the West leads to accelerating defection of the white elite, as the more intelligent one is the less one is satisfied with mere unimaginative practically.

  3. German_reader says

    Like Merkel’s Germany whose exports to America would decline.

    I understand your reasoning (and share it to some extent), but it’s a sign of desperation that our only hope for political change seems to be a collapse of the present system. I know many on the German right are looking forward with a mixture of dread and anticipation to the moment when there’s an economic recession and Merkel’s house of cards collapses (possibly accompanied by large-scale blackouts due to an increasingly unreliable energy supply, and by “refugees” rioting in the streets), but it’s hard to feel optimistic about such a scenario.
    As for the US, looks bad, especially that loss by this Kobach fellow in Kansas who seemed like one of the few genuinely nationalist candidates. I wonder if there’ll eventually be serious talk of splitting up the US, even if that seems inconceivable now. But it’s hard to see on which regional basis something like this could happen (even many of the states in the western US which one still imagines as lily-white seem to be strongly affected by demographic change among the younger age cohorts).

  4. Trump behaving like his predecessors in relation to Russia should make everyone realise that it does not matter who is in charge: the default is cold war. The reason to change that is Russia could have helped with China.

    The military pressure should be on China, with the US getting the aid of Russia, but now China probably cannot be be stopped from overtaking the US, especially as the the US elite are paid off by China

    Also, European countries such as Poland loath and fear Russia, but not China. The Tectonic drift of the West was always going to be difficult to stop.

    https://www.zdnet.com/article/oracle-confirms-china-telecom-internet-traffic-misdirections/

  5. obwandiyag says

    If they censored liberals, you’d be all for it, hypocrites.

  6. accelerating defection of the white elite,

    It’s natural for people to complain online, and rate of people complaining does not necessarily match how people’s situation actually is – it can often even just reflect rising standards. Most bourgeois places around the world overall, feel like they are having a “golden age” right now when you’re actually in them.

  7. With due apologies to our American friends, for those of us who do not live in America, should we be worried about local elections in America? How does whether Democrats or Republican politicians win in the House of Representatives change our life?

    I understand having a more sympathetic president can make international situations more peaceful, as this relates more to foreign policy, than simply internal American policy. But I don’t see very much connection to us if Nancy Pelosi is the leader of House of Representatives instead of Paul Ryan. Even while I would be sympathetic to Paul Ryan’s policy in Congress if I was an American worker or businessman – I’m not working in America, and if America becomes a business paradise this could even suck our jobs (if we are not working in America) away. So it’s potentially bad news if America succeeded in its tax cuts. It might be better if they continue to fail in this area.

    Moreover, if more Latinos climbed over the non-built wall into America, this would be a problem if it means more MS-13 on your journey home, or alternatively benefit for Americans if it lowers labour costs. But if we don’t live in America, why does it matter if they have more MS-13 members to get past on their journey home?

  8. Most bourgeois places around the world overall, feel like they are having a “golden age” right now when you’re actually in them.

    To a certain extent this is true. In the past 10 years there has been an explosion of trendy cafes, restaurants, bars, art galleries, etc, seemingly across the world. And big cities seem to be more full of cool sophisticated people than ever before, and also, everyone seems to be travelling everywhere. There is some kind of mass movement of cool sophisticated people that maybe mirrors the migrations of the third world underclass.

    I often wonder where all these cool sophisticated people were hiding up till now!

    What prevents me from saying it’s a golden age is that beneath the surface there is massive job insecurity, an often toxic work atmosphere, cutthroat competition, incredibly long work hours and often second jobs, and a widespread sense of anxiety and depression.

    But my point is that this elite has “defected” from Western civilization – they dislike and are not loyal to it, they have abandoned it and often turned against it. They find it dull, uninspiring, and lacking in “vibrancy” and color – and this attitude dates from the ascendancy of a boring scientific world view and has its roots in a romantic rebellion against the mechanical stultification of the world.

  9. You do still have to take into account the increasing defections over time of whites from the Democrats. Much like how AfD and Lega gain continuously in the polls in Europe, it’s a snowball effect.

    The real question is whether the Democrats can import minorities quicker than whites become Republican.

  10. GOPe wanted to throw the election so the Dems could block Trump’s immigration agenda without GOPe getting the blame. If Trump had managed to keep the house while losing lots of GOPe i think most of the remainder would have caved and come over to his side allowing serious work to be done democratically on the wall, chain migration, enforcing the 1A on social media etc – but it doesn’t look like any of that is going to happen.

    With no officially funded wall Trump is going to need to be waging incessant guerrilla political warfare against the political establishment to keep his base for 2020.

    What he could do with is a massive swamp corruption investigation centered around the Clinton Foundation that ends up putting half of congress in jail.

    Also get some immigrants to throw rocks at US personnel guarding the border so the corps of engineers are forced to build linear defensive structures.

  11. 5. Neocons may end up going off the reservation, bolstered by the CIA Democrats and an increasingly cornered Trump.

    But then again, if cornered, Trump is liable to start using his bully pulpit to move the Overton window. If there’s nothing to lose, why not? If he can break the taboo on White identity politics, it’s game over.

  12. The military pressure should be on China

    Bannon’s comments in that clip might suggest it would be more useful to put military pressure on Wall St.

  13. Spisarevski says

    If they censored liberals, you’d be all for it, hypocrites.

    As evidenced by all the liberals that are censored here.

    Online communities with freedom of speech naturally drift to the far right, i.e. 4chan.
    Who, whom? is a Bolshevik principle.
    A libshit can come and debate people on /pol/ or in the comments of Karlin’s or Sailer’s blogs, while right wingers are routinely banned from plebbit, facebook and twitter.

    A subhuman can’t really understand why free speech is valuable by itself. So don’t worry about it.

  14. GOPe wanted to throw the election so the Dems could block Trump’s immigration agenda without GOPe getting the blame.

    Agree. Did Steve King get any help at all from the Party while his opponent was being showered with shekels?

  15. i wouldn’t – once genetic reality is accepted most trad “right wing” arguments become logically arguable propositions which can easily withstand open debate

    (online this has been proven beyond a doubt over the last two years with liberals giving up trying to debate the alt-right in favor of censorship whack-a-mole)

  16. i didn’t see tbh

    (i’d have thought they’d want some plausible deniability so i wouldn’t be surprised if he got some just much less than his opponent but i don’t know for sure)

  17. “There are incipient signs of recession, which I think will begin at least months before the 2020 elections. (JPMorgan agrees).”

    I agree, AK, that voters may punish DJT in 2020 if the economy is bad. What I wouldn’t give for “the man in the street” to understand basic economics. Since the end of WWII there have been, I think, twelve “business cycles,” i.e. twelve cycles of boom-and-bust. A boom always follows a bust and vice versa. Doesn’t matter who is president.

    There’s a lot government can do to sabotage the economy, to include excessive taxation, regulation and interest-rates, bad trade-deals and poorly managed wars (of choice). Other than provide the kind of legal & physical infrastructure that we associate with government, negotiate trade-deals that are beneficial, or at least fair, for the U.S. and, of course, eliminating bad regulations, there’s not a lot government can do to improve the economy. To the extent that the economy is doing well most of the credit goes to entrepreneurs, investors, consumers and everyone who buys U.S. exports.

    Attention voters: If the economy is bad in 2020, or if it’s just a case of you as an individual being unemployed, it’s almost certainly not DJT’s fault. Most of the agenda of the Left is pure evil wrapped up in social justice-y sounding language.

  18. The real question is whether the Democrats can import minorities quicker than whites become Republican.

    Precisely.

  19. off-topic but kyle bass’ forehead is like a natural wonder

  20. AnonFromTN says

    What he could do with is a massive swamp corruption investigation centered around the Clinton Foundation that ends up putting half of congress in jail.

    That would have been nice, but it isn’t realistic. Really honest corruption investigation of this kind would not only put half of Congress into jail, but also half of CIA, FBI, Pentagon, DJ, and more than 90% of DNC. While nobody would cry over DNC (there is enough crap around to replace it), threatened corrupt officials in the CIA, FBI, and Pentagon would simply organize physical elimination of Trump (like JFK), so that Pence stops the investigation and the swamp remains in control, as before.

    Likely legislative gridlock would be actually a good thing: judging by the legislation enacted lately, with Congress like this, who needs enemies? However, the most nonsensical pieces of legislation (like sanctions) have the support of Dems and Reps alike, so the worst is likely to sail through this divided Congress and further damage our country.

    That’s the main problem with “democratic” elections in any country with the concentration of huge wealth in very few hands: the swine at the trough (politicians) might change, but the masters filling that trough remain the same.

  21. Boswald Bollocksworth says

    Recessions are fundamentally unpredictable. Markets usually detect them first, at which point they plunge. If you think there’s going to be a recession, you need to put skin in the game and take a short position on the S&P 500, or equivalent, toward the end of 2019.

  22. Weeell with Dems ruling USA sooner or later someone there could be insane enough to send troops to defend democracy against those nationalists in Hungary and POland.

  23. I’m pretty satisfied given that my predictions were broadly correct (GOP gains in the Senate, House would be narrowly controlled by whoever won, modest Dem gains in state races), even though I got some of the details wrong.

    Some important details to consider:

    1. Trumpian populism/nationalism is now the dominant force in the Republican Party. The previously Democratic Midwest/Rust Belt states—the ones most receptive to Trump’s agenda—were where the GOP was strongest last night:

    Ohio: cleaned up. Held the governorship, legislature, and all House seats, and only lost to Sherrod Brown by six points (he was elected in the 2006 Democratic wave by thirteen points).

    Indiana: won bigly against Joe Donnelly.

    Iowa: lost two House seats, but held the governorship and legislature.

    Wisconsin: lost the governorship, but by a whisker, and only after the Dems poured an insane amount of money into the race. Held the legislature and all their House seats (great DSA hope Randy Bryce lost by a wide margin).

    Michigan: lost the governorship and two House seats but held the legislature, and lost to Debbie Stabenow by only five points (she won by 20 points in 2012 and 15 points in 2006).

    Minnesota: lost two House seats but gained two more, held onto the state Senate.

    Pennsylvania: held the state legislature despite big Dem statewide wins.

    Missouri: YUGE win against Claire McCaskill.

    New York: the state as a whole is a lost cause, but the GOP did well in upstate (which is part of the Rust Belt), only losing two of their upstate seats (all but one of their upstate seats went blue during the Dem wave elections of 2006-2009).

    Illinois: same as New York; held onto working-class downstate seats in the face of a blue tidal wave statewide.

    The GOP also did well in Florida, which shocked me, and they held the line in Georgia and Texas. Their losses were mainly concentrated in Sun Belt and blue state suburbs, owing to both demographic displacement and the fact that suburbicuck voters are pro-immigrant, pro-free trade, and love to virtue-signal against “racism” (see: Kansas). The suburban strivers in Arizona and Texas view themselves as petty feudal lords and are against any policy agenda that makes it harder for them to stiff their illegal alien gardeners.

    It’s clear that the GOP needs to go full steam on the Trump agenda. This election flushed a lot of cucks out of the system and made it obvious that nationalism is what the base wants. The Tea Party libertarians need to go; they are electoral poison (see: Scott Walker, Dave Brat etc. going down to defeat). A nationalist GOP will win bigly in 2020, particularly since the Dems will probably run a Kamala Harris- or Cory Booker-type with bland centrist politics.

    The GOP also needs to cut its losses in the West and focus on turning the Rust Belt red. The Western states have always been pro-free trade/pro-immigrant, going back to the 19th century, and they’re not going to change their minds now, especially with La Raza rising in demographic power. Nevada and Colorado are not purple states anymore; they’re blue states. 2016 proved that a populist platform will win over the Midwest while maintaining enough support in Western red states to keep them in the GOP column, and since you need only one more vote than the other guy to win a state, it doesn’t matter if Trump’s margins are slightly lower in Texas or Arizona.

    1. The House Democrats are going to explode into civil war. The neoliberal/Clinton/Obama wing and the DSA/Sanders/Ocasio-Cortez wing are already at loggerheads. The latter will want to move forward on their whackadoodle Abolish ICE gimmedat agenda and the former will want to putter around on Russiagate and foreign interventionism. The fact that the Dem majority is so narrow means that Pelosi will have a real hard time keeping her caucus under control. Trump can (and should) use this to his advantage by playing both sides against each other.
  24. Bannon thinks it is the same thing, The elite and even the upper middle class have a foreign ally. This domestic capitalist conspiracy’s enemy is the ethnic majority. Being anti-white is self serving for the white elite.

  25. I don’t mind this scenario anymore because I am convinced that the FRG will crash even harder in the next decades thanks to a combination of trends*.

    *Aging of the German population will reach a critical level – who will pay for pensions?/constant increase of foreign population which is more demanding than the German population/Energiewende which makes the electricity supply more expensive and less reliable/decline of the education systems like in Berlin and Baden-Württemberg /federal EUrope and end of the German state becomes a near-future goal of the German elites/etc.

    a collapse of the present system

    That is how many big changes happened in Germany with the most recent case being the collapse of the DDR/GDR. Without that, there would be still two German states.

  26. US economy is already slowing down but things will pick up again by 2020. Republicans wasted political capital not repealing Obamacare, whites don’t get a real tax cut if they have to pay more for healthcare to subsidise blacks.

  27. German_reader says

    That is how many big changes happened in Germany with the most recent case being the collapse of the DDR/GDR.

    Yes, but East Germans had a “better” Germany to look to (even if that was an illusion in hindsight), that made change much easier.
    I agree with you about the general trends, if there isn’t change in the next few years, it’s over. Bleak prospects in any case.

  28. Felix Keverich says

    While I’m aware that you can’t judge Presidential elections on midterms results – after all, the GOP lost big in 1982, but Reagan won in a landslide two years later – it’s hard to be optimistic.

    Why do you even care about Trump’s reelection? The dude proved himself to be utterly useless for Russia, and white Americans as well. The only people benefitting from Trump presidency thus far are Jewish oligarchs in America (tax cuts) and Zionist Jews in Israel.

    My biggest takeaway from this election is that GOP is fading in the South-West, fast. I didn’t expect Dems to be that competive in Arizona and Texas – this is clearly a product of changing demographics. Both Georgia and Arizona could go blue as soon as 2020, which would produce a real tectonic shift in US politics.

  29. AnonFromTN says

    What makes you think that Dems are any better than Reps? The saddest thing in the US politics is that not particularly bright Trump is more reasonable than ~90% of senators and representatives. I know, looking for reasonable people in DC is like looking for a speck of gold in a pile of shit, but still.

  30. “GOPe wanted to throw the election so the Dems could block Trump’s immigration agenda without GOPe getting the blame. If Trump had managed to keep the house while losing lots of GOPe i think most of the remainder would have caved and come over to his side allowing serious work to be done democratically on the wall, chain migration, enforcing the 1A on social media etc – but it doesn’t look like any of that is going to happen.”

    Why can’t the President just leave the military right where it is at the border with those rolls of barbed wire???? Bulgaria and even Hungary’s wall only consists of rolls of barbed wire with police to ensure no one tries to slip under it…

    He can do the Executive Order on birthright citizenship and let the Supreme Court sort it out…he can’t wholly stop chain migration but he can put a dent in it by slowing down the process until the next Presidental election and hopefully another more conservative GOP house can vote on it…

  31. “The real question is whether the Democrats can import minorities quicker than whites become Republican.”

    OR many former Republicans begin migrating to a 3rd party. Independents are growing. I think in the future the Democratics will be a wholly minority party while whites become divided between Republicans and Independent (or some unforeseen other party springs up)…

  32. Anarcho-Supremacist says

    ” and Trump’s nationalist base will be even more demoralized with no wall and no immigration reform in sight.”

    They came out in droves last night. It was mainly the never Trumpers that lost.

  33. Anarcho-Supremacist says

    I wounder how many Easterners regret “Reunification”

  34. Be more specific, else be called out on that horseshit you just wrote there. What exactly is being more “imaginative” about, give some examples, same applies to “unimaginative”.

  35. My biggest takeaway from this election is that GOP is fading in the South-West, fast.

    And gaining in the Midwest. Ohio is no longer a swing state but a red state. It is worth more electoral votes than Nevada + Colorado (who have gone from swing states to blue states).

    Both Georgia and Arizona could go blue as soon as 2020

    Doubtful. This was the Democrats’ best chance in those states. Keep in mind this is the election after a new president came to power. The president’s party typically loses this election. The “Blue wave” has been small. The Democrats actually lost seats in the Senate and the scale of the loses is such that they will almost certainly fail to take the Senate in 2020. So the courts are secure for two years, and even if a Democrat becomes president in 2020 there will be either no appointments for the next two years, it it will have to be some moderate whom Republican senators can agree to (so, an improvement over Ginsburg if she retires or dies in 2020-2022).

    Democrats will now have about 230 seats in the House. In contrast, Republicans got 242 seats in the analogous election under Obama – and Obama was far more popular than Trump.

    The only likely significant loss will be Florida, due to felons now getting the right to vote. But Trump would have won in 2016 even without Florida.

  36. I would like to think that you are displaying sophisticated irony, in which case you are more amusing and more clever than I thought, but I suspect your question is sincere.

    Before I answer you, please clarify if you are bring sincere.

  37. Ali Choudhury says

    I don’t see how this is a great result for Trump. He already had a Senate majority and had no issues getting his appointees through. His behaviour has been a big turn-off to moderate suburban women, they don’t seem to care about the economy being in the best shape it has been for decades. Reagan, Clinton and Obama all lost House seats two years in when job conditions were far less benign.

  38. Stop avoiding, give some examples of real people that are supposedly doing imaginative things.

  39. Off topic but it seems that Croatia is on a way to establish hate crime laws more seriously due to current migration stuff

    https://www.24sata.hr/news/za-sirenje-laznih-vijesti-suci-daju-kaznu-do-30-dana-zatvora-598834

    Ovisno o slučajevima, policija huškače može prijaviti i za javno poticanje na nasilje i mržnju. Ono se odnosi na napade na ljude po rasnoj, vjerskoj, nacionalnoj, etničkoj pripadnosti, jeziku, podrijetlu, boji kože, spola, opredjeljenja, identiteta, invaliditeta ili bilo koje druge osobine. Za to je također predviđena zatvorska kazna do tri godine. Ako je to organizirala grupa od tri ili više ljudi, mogu dobiti do pet godina iza rešetaka.

    It says, public calls on violence will be punished for three years in prison, this could be typical not really enforced EE law, but could be also used for silencing any type of grumbling.

  40. He already had a Senate majority

    Did he?

    Just because the GOP had a small majority in the Senate, it did not mean that he did have a majority there.

  41. Ok. To keep it concrete, a typical display of lack of imagination might be someone asking me to explain what is imaginative, which is like Data asking what are emotions.

    Imaginative things are beautiful architecture, a sense of poetry, sensitivity to the beauties of nature.

    If you reprogram your neural networks with the appropriate software, you may understand these things.

    Or get a cat. Worked for Data.

  42. Why can’t the President just leave the military right where it is at the border with those rolls of barbed wire????

    yes i’m hoping that is the kind of thing he’ll do

    i’m not black-pilled on things getting done – it would just be better if the people we’re fighting weren’t so hell-bent on destroying white America they could see where their behavior is leading.

  43. #metoo

  44. John Burns, Gettysburg Partisan says

    Anatoly, nooooo! Don’t base your opinion on 2020 on a midterm. My gosh, no. Midterms don’t mean crap.

    Look, what Trump has to do is win 3/5ths of Virginia, NC, Ohio, Florida, and Pennsylvania. If you win 3/5ths of those states, it is VERY difficult to lose. Last time he got 4 of those 5, with an icing on the cake consisting of Michigan and Wisconsin.

    Virginia is almost certainly out, but Ohio is all but a lock and North Carolina is probably safe too. Pennsylvania, Florida, and Wisconsin are all toss-ups – but toss-ups that Trump won before. Also, he’s pretty popular in Michigan and should win that state once again.

    Minnesota’s results last night were the only ones that bummed me a bit. Minnesota has been trending towards the GOP in the last few Presidential elections. Clinton only won 9 counties (high-population ones, of course). I have some optimism that Trump could win Minnesota. That would make a nice little bonus.

    At any rate, I think he’ll be fine.

    Barring economic cataclysm or a serious primary challenge, American Presidents get re-elected. Plain and simple.

  45. If you believe Trump or “trumpist” candidates are genuinely nationalist, then you need to have your brain examined.

  46. John Burns, Gettysburg Partisan says

    Most of the Republicans who lost here in Pennsylvania legislative races were in the southeast and in a few “politically moderate” suburbs around Pittsburgh.

    Although it is imperative for the GOP to retain some electoral presence in the densely-populated greater Philadelphia region, most of the ones who lost yesterday were real losers, so I’m actually happy with most of their defeats.

    The GOP also gained a few rural or Rust Belt seats that had belonged to Democrats for decades.

    Statewide races in PA usually go Democrat and last night was in that category.

    Sadly one loser was anti-third world scum Congressman Lou Barletta. Barletta lost to Bob Casey Jr, who, despite being a turd, is the son of a very popular PA politician. Casey Jr keeps his nose clean, so to speak, and has limited negative public image.

    Many may try to argue that Gov. Tom Wolf’s win over Scott Wagner is a repudiation of Trumpism. This is false. Wagner is not a Trump clone. He is simply a jackass. I didn’t even vote for him. His absolutely terrible campaign, in conjunction with a softness on the homosexuals and trannies, annoyed me into casting a write-in for another Republican.

  47. John Burns, Gettysburg Partisan says

    blah blah blah

    They’re more genuinely “nationalist” than the Bushites. Anyone who disputes this has no brain!

  48. Trump pushing back against accusations of racism. He all but called a black girl a racist. Maybe its nothing. It seems refreshing.

    Q Hi, Mr. President. Yamiche Alcindor with PBS NewsHour. On the campaign trail, you called yourself a nationalist. Some people saw that as emboldening white nationalists. Now people are also saying —

    THE PRESIDENT: I don’t know why you’d say that. That’s such a racist question.

    Q There are some people that say that now the Republican Party is seen as supporting white nationalists because of your rhetoric. What do you make of that?

    THE PRESIDENT: Oh, I don’t believe that. I don’t believe that.

    I don’t believe — well, I don’t know. Why do I have my highest poll numbers ever with African Americans? Why do I have among the highest poll numbers with African Americans? I mean, why do I have my highest poll numbers? That’s such a racist question.

    Honestly, I mean, I know you have it written down, and you’re going to tell me. Let me tell you: It’s a racist question.

    Q And Mr. President —

    THE PRESIDENT: I love — and you know what the word is? I love our country. I do. You call — you have nationalists. You have globalists. I also love the world and I don’t mind helping the world, but we have to straighten out our country first. We have a lot of problems.

    Q And —

    THE PRESIDENT: Excuse me. But to say that — what you said is so insulting to me. It’s a very terrible thing that you said.

  49. UrbaneFrancoOntarian says

    Because a Democratic USA would fight against nationalists around the globe… right now Trump is turning a blind eye to Eastern Europe, and Italy.

    The nationalist movement should plant roots everywhere possible in Europe, because they will be put down by the next Democrat president.

  50. UrbaneFrancoOntarian says

    It makes sense if you think about it. I’m an engineer, a field known for high intelligence but lack of imagination. Based on logic alone, it’s crystal clear that the radical leftist agenda is BS. “Why are white people evil?” “What do you mean by white people?” “Are Sicilians white?” “How about Syrians?” “So it’s more of a ‘Western’ people are evil then?” on and on this goes.

    I’ve done that, when you actually QUESTION somebody like that and make them flesh out their beliefs, they are astoundingly ignorant and just not thinking straight. To a logical person, it’s nonsensical. If everybody was like a white male engineer (most aren’t geeks btw, it’s sort of a redneck/suburban mix), almost none of this “stuff” would be going on, it would be a given.

    Of course, most people like that are contented to just get a job at some engineering firm, make a good amount of money, settle down on a nice house in the suburbs or exurbs, and call it a life. Not great for political movements. That guy is not going to throw his life away for anything. These guys aren’t the ones who create society, but they are very useful at upholding it. I find that this sort of person is generally always white and male.

    The success of the dissident right is online. It’s hard to argue against things like biology, race, demographics etc. when people truly feel like they’re not censored. It’s why the elites are censoring it so hard. Unz will eventually go down too.

    Unfortunately the allure of the “exciting” life is very strong to everyone else, especially women. However, this is demographically disastrous as those people have very few children. Over time you may see a swing towards the right and unimaginative side.

    I’m not optimistic about the future though. Minorities, combined with the toxic agenda being pushed in schools, will absolutely try to destroy whites once they are in power. To give “us” a taste of “our” own medicine. (Again logic comes into play, “we” were not alive for most of the atrocities – but most aren’t logical).

    Sorry for the long and rambling comment, but your comment caused some self reflection.

  51. for-the-record says

    People often comment that US power is inevitably declining. Unfortunately, I don’t see it that way, at least if one looks at its ability to intimidate the rest of the world into doing what it wants. Just the most recent example:

    ZHUHAI, China (Reuters) – A Chinese state firm on Wednesday ruled out selling passenger planes to Iran to help the Islamic Republic revive fleet renewal plans, while a Russian executive suggested Moscow would be wary of putting its own programs at risk of U.S. retaliation.

    And this:

    The US has warned ports and insurance companies to avoid dealing with Iranian ships, as new sanctions are slapped on Tehran by Washington.

    The US State Department described Iranian ships as a “floating liability” due to the tough new economic penalties on Tehran.

    These include steps aimed at cutting Iran’s sales of oil – the country’s main export – “to zero” in a bid to curtail the influence of the regime and its reach in the Middle East.

    Brian Hook, the State Department’s special representative on Iran policy, said that the US sanctions extended to insurers and underwriters.

    “Knowingly providing these services to sanctioned Iranian shipping companies will result in the imposition of US sanctions,” Hook told reporters.

    “From the Suez Canal to the Strait of Malacca and all choke points in between, Iranian tankers are now a floating liability,” he said.

    Iranian shipping companies will likely be forced to rely on domestic insurers but it’s doubtful that they could cover losses stretching into the millions or billions of dollars in a major calamity.

    “Should there be an accident involving an Iranian tanker, there is simply no way these Iranian insurance companies can cover the loss,” Hook said.

    But he did say that the US did not want incidents, particularly in the Gulf waters where tensions have been running high between the two navies.

    “We sincerely hope there will be no accidents, but accidents are a very real possibility, given Iran’s record,” Hook said.

  52. Minnesota will go Trump, maybe New Hampshire will flip next time too.

  53. reiner Tor says

    China is still not strong enough, and the rest (like Russia) will never be strong enough.

    On the other hand, Russia has promised to buy some Iranian oil. Not enough (why only 100,000 bpd? why not a million?), but a step in the good direction.

    https://www.google.ch/amp/s/www.wsj.com/amp/articles/russia-is-surprise-beneficiary-of-iranian-oil-ban-1541609785

    (It’s behind a paywall, but the google link should bypass it. If not, just do your own search.)

    The problem is the cuckiness of Russia’s elites. The Russian commenters think that a tough stance would inevitably involve a military attack on Ukraine, but there are so many other things that could be done.

  54. reiner Tor says

    Both China and Russia are hoping against hope that the hostile policies will just go away, and then they can be back as respected members of the US-led international order.

  55. architecture
    poetry
    muh western elites

    Ah, you were joking then.

  56. for-the-record says

    China is still not strong enough

    Not strong enough to buy Iranian aircraft?

    Also, the idea that the focus on Iran (and China) is going to provide some “relief” to Russia is absurd, in my opinion. The more the US sees that it can dictate to the world without negative consequences, the easier it will be to take further draconian measures against Russia (and anyone else who meets the Empire’s disapproval).

  57. reiner Tor says

    The Chinese are still reliant on American technology.

    I agree with what you write, it’s incredibly stupid and shortsighted to let the Borg get away with this. It’s also very dangerous, because eventually the Borg will overplay its hand and there could be a military confrontation.

    It’s basically the choosing cowardice over a trade war type situation.

  58. for-the-record says

    It’s also very dangerous, because eventually the Borg will overplay its hand and there could be a military confrontation.

    Personally, it’s not only the risk of a military confrontation that is worrisome, it is also that the rest of the world will simply get used to accepting orders.

  59. Guillaume Tell says

    The problem is the cuckiness of Russia’s elites.

    Agreed.

    An interesting parallel can legitimately be made between Russia and France: historically, both nations have had hostile (“cucked”) elites; in fact, even foreign elites.

    During the last decades of the French “Ancien Régime”, there was a virulent debate between the proponents of Romanitas and those of Germanity. Clovis, all of all kings (the first one) was truly a foreigner. And during the 1789 revolution, the elites were accused by the revolutionaries of being just that: Germanic foreigners. This is also where the infamous “sang impur” (impure blood) words in the Marseillaise — when you think of it, a totally HBD-woke anthem — come from.

    The archetype of the hostile/cucked French elite is Bishop Cauchon, the head of the Sorbonne who went full-English, and had the leading role in getting ultimate national héroïne, Jeanne, condemn to be burnt alive. Nowadays, French elites celebrate “peace” on November 11th (1918 V-day) and December 2nd (Austerlitz), whereas the English elites rightfully recognize Trafalgar for what it is: an unqualified English victory.

    I believe than an often-overlooked element in the planetary success of the “eternal Anglo” over the past triplet of centuries, is that the English elites have been historically nationalistic during most of the considered period. It’s only since the 1960s that this state of affairs has started to change. In Russian and France on the other hand, it has been the normal state of affairs for immemorial time.

  60. reiner Tor says

    Well, I also don’t like it because the US government (which is ruled by demented oligarchs) is going to be the one World Government, and such a government (not even nominally answerable to most of its subject peoples…) will inevitably get detached from reality. In fact, it’s already happening at least since the end of the Cold War (and arguably since 1945, when the US already became the strongest power in the world, with the USSR still a relatively distant second).

    The result is what we call the increasingly oppressive globohomo soft dictatorship spreading everywhere. I’m not sure a Chinese or Russian world hegemon would be more benevolent, but as long as the US is the strongest power, I want its opposition to be as strong as possible.

  61. reiner Tor says

    the English elites have been historically nationalistic during most of the considered period

    They identified with the state which was of them, by them, for them.

  62. Guillaume Tell says

    [The Anglo elite] identified with the state which was of them, by them, for them.

    This is true too.

    I believe that geographic insularity is a contributing factor too. It is not limited to the case of literal islands: one can also easily observe it in metaphorically insular regions such as the small mountain nations, with which I am quite familiar 😉

    By the way I was not passing a moral judgment onto the Anglo elite; just noticing the historical record and why, in my view, they defeated the French in the modern-world-defining Seven Years’ War.

  63. I mostly agree.

    I just think it’s unfortunate. Engineering is necessary and good, but for a culture to become entirely about “engineering” is death.

    The crazy stuff on the Left is because white elites can’t find anything to feed their imaginative side in a culture that has become entirely about engineering – so they defect.

  64. anonymous coward says

    Both China and Russia are hoping against hope that the hostile policies will just go away, and then they can be back as respected members of the US-led international order.

    Three points:

    a) The USA (and the USA-occupied EU) are clearly insane. Insanity will not last long under any circumstances, so waiting is only rational.

    b) There is no ‘US-led international order’. The belief that some sort of ‘international order’ can exist, and that, moreover, it can be ‘led’, is part of the insanity in point a).

    c) China and Russia were never respected members of the insane club. (China and Russia had their own spells of insanity at one point, but they weren’t part of a club, it was a solitary affair.)

  65. Thorfinnsson says

    Trump will win in 2020. Book it. Willing to make a bet with anyone here.

    He is one of the most formidable politicians I’ve ever seen.

    We should all study him.

    Don’t forget that we are the future ruling class. But we won’t get to rule without hard work.

  66. America loved nationalists in Ukraine and the Baltics. Also they are close allies with Poland.

    I’m not sure about Hungary – but it could be that Orban is (a bit like Berlusconi) more Rusophile. In addition, it’s not necessarily seen as an important country for their interests.

  67. It is not absurd because it reduces Washington’s ability to focus on them.

    The more the US sees that it can dictate to the world without negative consequences

    That was already true in the last decades.

  68. The problem is the cuckiness of Russia’s elites.

    It is a problem, but not the problem.

    After all, the rest is hardly better.

    Chinese are opportunists who thought that they could delay conflict with America until they were ready.
    They bow to American sanctions despite being targeted by Washington too.

    https://twitter.com/ArtyomLukin/status/1055127866936094720

    Iranians are less opportunistic, but make other mistakes.

    On the other hand, Iran’s main hopes for sanctions relief are more connected to the EU than Russia. There is a strong belief in Tehran that Europeans will be able to offset the negative influence of US economic pressure on Iran. The EU wants to salvage as much of the nuclear deal as possible. Yet the strength of Tehran’s belief is hard to explain: Large EU companies have already pulled out of Iran. The EU officials Al-Monitor interviewed openly said that Tehran should not expect a lot from Brussels.

    Though Russian and Iranian officials have an on-again, off-again marriage of convenience, Iran’s general public and its elite strongly oppose any substantial deals with Moscow. Russia is not trusted or welcomed by Iranians and the countries have a long history of differences. A well-informed and respected Iranian expert on Tehran’s foreign policy told Al-Monitor on condition of anonymity that a Russian oil-for-products initiative would be difficult to implement.

    “A large part of Iranian society believes that giving our oil to Russia — especially at the discounted prices — is no better than agreeing to Trump’s demands,” he said.

    To allay these concerns, Iranian officials periodically argue that there are no plans to export Iran’s oil with the help of the Kremlin.

    Moscow seems to react to these statements with a wait-and-see approach. It is not in a hurry. The Kremlin recently sent a clear signal to Tehran that it is giving Iranian authorities time to persuade their public and critics among the Iranian elite that a deal with Moscow is in Iran’s best interests. Should they succeed, Moscow is ready to resume the oil-for-products deal in early 2019.

    https://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2018/10/russia-iran-oil.html

  69. reiner Tor says

    It is a problem, but not the problem.

    After all, the rest is hardly better.

    With the Iranians, the problem appears to be the public opinion, and besides all the historical baggage, it’s at least partly a result of Medvedev’s acquiescence to sanctions against Iran 2008-2012 (and probably Putin is also at least partly to be blamed for that).

    Regarding the Chinese, the complaint is about individual Chinese companies. Their managers and owners can hardly be blamed for trying to avoid Russia, I would do the same. The Chinese leadership is more to blame (they should’ve managed the incentives better), though until quite recently the US didn’t target them in any manner, so it wasn’t idiotic to try to keep a low profile and not help Russia too much. The equation is now changing, and apparently they are slow learners. No such excuse for Russian elites, who have at several decades of experience regarding the worthlessness of empty American promises and their chances of being accepted to the club.

  70. it’s at least partly a result of Medvedev’s acquiescence to sanctions against Iran 2008-2012 (and probably Putin is also at least partly to be blamed for that).

    Everyone else did the same, even the mighty PRC sold out Iran.

    China plays lap-dog in sanctions ploy
    By Peter Lee

    China’s plan to survive and thrive amid the Barack Obama administration’s Iran sanctions drive appears to be on track – albeit with more than a little public diplomatic cost and humiliation.

    China’s tactics have the potential to weaken sanctions at the national as well as the United Nations level. Therefore, Beijing may still earn the grudging gratitude of Iran – and even the United States, whose push to extend sanctions it has agreed to support.

    When the sanctions drive was threatened by the fuel swap agreement between Iran, Turkey and Brazil (hereinafter the ITB swap) China gritted its teeth and, instead of supporting this dramatic and apparently genuine exercise in developing-world diplomacy, undercut it by acquiescing to Washington’s rushed riposte: the announcement that a draft sanctions resolution approved by the “Iran Six” would be circulated to the Security Council.

    To observers who expected China to champion the rights and interests of nations outside the Western bloc, it was not a pretty picture. The resolution announcement incensed Brazil and Turkey, two natural allies in China’s plans for a new, post-US world order.

    Iran’s reaction to China’s actions has been muted, even though Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki was reportedly thunderstruck when a Reuters correspondent told him about the resolution announcement on May 19 in Dushanbe, Tajikistan.

    http://www.atimes.com/atimes/China/LE25Ad02.html

    On the other hand, Russian involvement turned out to be essential for the success of Iran’s campaign in Syria.

    The Chinese leadership is more to blame (they should’ve managed the incentives better), though until quite recently the US didn’t target them in any manner, so it wasn’t idiotic to try to keep a low profile and not help Russia too much.

    It was foolish because the rise of the American Chinahawks in the last decade meant that the PRC was going to be targeted sooner than later and their old tricks would not work again.

    No such excuse for Russian elites, who have at several decades of experience regarding the worthlessness of empty American promises and their chances of being accepted to the club.

    Being accepted to the club was a fundamental goal of the post-Soviet Russian elites.
    It is not surprising that they do not want to let it go, even if they recognize that they cannot achieve it.

  71. I can try.

    The solution to the Problem is not Tumpism. It’s based on “back to old great days”. Those days are gone. The world has changed.

    Definitely isn’t “progtard-ism” either. Or whatever we see now.

    The solution requires a new, fresh, approach and we can not see it anywhere. New ideas…a new paradigm.

    If we continue, as more likely, along the, say, “Dem” route we’ll have some mixture of….anyway…we know what that’s likely to be. Call it Brave New World, whatever.
    If we continue, as less likely, along Trump route (nationalism) we’ll have proper regional wars with a high chance of M.A.D.

    We know what we don’t want.
    We do not now what we want. Or, better, we can not get what we want now. Won’t work……

    We need exceptional minds working hard on new ideas……….
    See any of that…… anywhere?

    Makes sense?

  72. You’re one of the few people here who grasp that nationalism leads to regional wars by logical necessity even though it has attractive features in our current situation, and that none of the choices we are faced with currently have any chance of success.

    Everyone thinks they have the answer. Its nice to admit for once that we do not.

  73. Yup.

    Well…..long story short: hard time(s) tend to force people to start really thinking. And among that mass, by statistical probability, there will be some exceptional people.

    Timing.

    I guess the first sign of that timing will be serious attempts to control Internet.

    So…we do what we can. Wait and see.
    If….if we recognize that, well, we do something.
    Otherwise, a smart man can always build and maintain his own “cubicle” within the paradigm.

    The only problem with the above is that it could be simply too late.

    We’ll see.

  74. He is one of the most formidable politicians I’ve ever seen.

    That’s absurd. He’s a fantastically bad politician, whose buffoonery is so repellent to voters that even in a booming economy, he can’t manage an approval rating of better than low 40s. He only still has a reasonable chance in 2020 because the Dems have become so openly anti-white and pro-open borders.

  75. Felix Keverich says

    Holy Fuck! Democrats actually won Arizona. Bye-bye, GOP.

    https://elections.huffingtonpost.com/2018/results/state/AZ

  76. Felix Keverich says

    I don’t understand Iranian thinking here. So, yes, Russia supported sanctions against Iran. In 2008. So what? The situation has changed since 2008, and when you’re a country like Iran you can’t afford to hold grudges.

    Russia is one of the few countries in world right now willing to buy Iranian oil (in exchange for Russian food and machinery via barter deal), and if Iranians decline that, it will be Iranian regime and people that will suffer.

  77. You really think his approval rating speaks to his buffoonery? Lyndon Johnson had a pretty high approval rating – he got the US committed to the quagmire of Vietnam. HW had a moderately high one – we all know what he did. W had the highest approval rating practically since Truman was inaugurated.

    No, it speaks to how bitter and divided the US has become, since it has become “enriched.” In general approval ratings reflect how afraid most people are to give their honest opinions, how many people mirror the culture, or have innately tribal politics. To say it was down to his behavior, would be to pretend that he could win high approval.

    Say what you like about Trump, he’s good at dealing with the press. Part of that’s talent and part of its acquired skill from his many years dealing with them. Not many politicians have ever had that skill. The Dems have mostly been fawned over. Reagan had skill from his many years speaking publicly at GE.

  78. It’s an interesting question how many years it will take the Dems to fissure. It may not be inevitable. Plenty of countries are dominated by one-party systems.

  79. Is our culture in any real way “entirely about engineering”? That might be an interesting reflection on Victorian Britain; rather less so on NYC. It seems rather like culture, as culture, has largely collapsed, while leaving engineering (“STEM”) standing alone a bit longer.

  80. Mainstream Western civilization has come to be defined as mostly about “engineering” (efficiency, management speak, etc). This has been the case for several decades.

    The white elite is no longer really a part of Western culture – they have turned against it and actively seek to destroy it.

    People who represent the old Western culture have a primarily engineering mindset – Steve Sailer, Karlin, Peter Frost, James Thompson, Lance Welton, etc. But these people are fringe and do not represent the cognitive elite.

    The 60s was probably the last chance the West has to fundamentally alter its direction, but by the 80s the old soulless engineering mindset returned with Reagan.

    The feeling that Western culture cannot alter its trajectory from within seems to lie behind the barely understood instinct of Western elites to open the floodgates to migrants.

    These trends cannot be arrested. They are larger than any of us. There is little to do but sit back and watch them play out.

    In the end the civilization that tried to destroy nature ended up being defeated by nature, which is what you’d expect.

  81. Your “east” vs “west” dichotomy model, is nonsense.

    So apparently “west” is “destroying nature” and east is supporting nature?

    Much of the existential project of modern Japan is to fighting against nature, which tries to make life as difficult as possible for them.

    People who represent the old Western culture have a primarily engineering mindset – Steve Sailer,

    Sailer is a writer and anecdotal blogger – you can see, there is no engineering training.

    soulless engineering mindset returned with Reagan.

    Reagan was a famous film actor. His popularity was because of his charisma and how he reduced “social engineering” in America (principally trying to reduce government size and intervention, although this was not consistent in all areas – e.g. his persecution of drugs).

  82. If Sr. Karlin represents the “old Western culture” I’m a monkey’s uncle. Or nephew, whatever. I wouldn’t say much about Sailer et al either, but they do represent the man in the street in certain of his moods, which is what makes them sometimes worth reading (Sailer more so than the others). I suppose that’s a part of the meaning you are going for and with that I don’t disagree.

    The white elite is no longer really a part of Western culture – they have turned against it and actively seek to destroy it.

    But surely this is itself the grand motif of Western culture in your view?

  83. I am curious, you seem seriously bothered by the East West dichotomy. It seems almost emotional for you.

    Obviously these are just broad characterizations based on historical circumstances. There are many exceptions and counter-currents in both cultures.

    But I notice that you frequently speak of the Russian or American character and are in a blog where everyone does so, yet this particular characterization seems alone to bother you.

    Why is that? What is it about this specifically I wonder?

  84. The grand motif of Western culture in my view was is man splitting himself off from nature and attempting to conquer it rather than cooperating with it.

    However, this eventually leads to a feeling of alienation and homelessness, at which point more intelligent and sensitive members of the culture turn against it and seek to destroy it, without even necessarily knowing why.

    Karlin is a minor example at best, but I think he’s a good example of the engineering mindset who sees only numbers. I don’t think he would deny that his primary objective is control of nature and the best way to approach the world us through numbers.

    This attitude is the old Western attitude.

  85. He’s a fantastically bad politician

    Come on, that’s too silly. You are in denial. Trump won the highest political office available, after a long hard-fought campaign, with zero previous experience in politics. And he did it pretty much all by himself. That fact alone makes him a fantastically great politician.

  86. Karlin is a minor example at best, but I think he’s a good example of the engineering mindset who sees only numbers.

    Does he? I think you’re underestimating his progress on the ongoing journey of which we blog-readers are spectators. There’s a reason he, of all the people you listed, is the only one consistently worth reading.

    But my objection was to

    People who represent the old Western culture have a primarily engineering mindset – Steve Sailer, Karlin, Peter Frost, James Thompson, Lance Welton, etc.

    It seems insufficiently grounded, as a statement.

    I would feel better if it were Nietzsche or Wagner you were discussing– or Francis Bacon, if you want to bring out your paradigm.

    Interestingly, etymologically related to “engineering” are the concepts (from Fr. “engin”)

    intelligence
    ruse; trickery; deception;
    invention; ingenuity; creativity;
    machine; device; contraption

    which is also related to “genius” through Latin “ingenium”. So here if you look hard enough you have the Wagnerian conception.

  87. It’s true that nationalism leads to regional wars. Unfortunately it’s also true that internationalism leads to regional and global wars as well. So it’s somewhat of a hard position the human race is in.

  88. I wonder if you would agree with me that in the US the increasing quality and availability of good food and decreasing quality of music is related, not entirely but partially, to the relative decline of Anglo cultural dominance as compared to Jewish cultural dominance. In a country like the US elite cultural choices trickle down to the masses rather than vice versa, as has sometimes been the case elsewhere.

  89. You should ignore us more, though. You pay far too much attention to us as it is and this can only be bad for your own national development.

    Though it is still, I suppose, not bad to keep a wary eye out.

  90. I should probably be a little clearer in my statements, it’s true. Perhaps some background into would flesh out my position.

    My understanding is that Western culture 500 years ago began a journey that finally culminated in the post war years as a culture primarily about engineering.

    However, the transformation was not instantaneous nor uniform – always, there was a counter-culture of poetry, myth, imagination, reacting and rebelling against the engineering strain or simply continuing older ways of thought in isolation.

    However, the counter culture was constantly losing and diminishing in strength, until it was finally overwhelmed perhaps sometime in the 80s.

    At this point sensitive and intelligent people began to defect en mass, leading to the crazy excesses of the modern Left.

    In reaction to this, the alt right is attempting to salvage the old engineering strain specifically – with things like Game being an attempt to bring the engineering mindset to romantic love, and IQ to bring that mindset to the complex world of human intelligence – but since the engineering strain had been dominant since perhaps the 18th century, and had crushed all opposition by the 80s, from the standpoint of 2018 I simply call it the old Western culture.

    But I agree this can be misleading and is too one-sided – the old Western culture cam just as well refer to the poetic and imaginative strain, which is very rich.

    Beyond this, the old Western culture also had mystical and naturalistic elements – in other words, it was far richer than my simplistic characterization.

    But for the purposes of immediate discussion simple shorthand are useful.

  91. Interesting, I was actually thinking recently about the significance of the rise in good craft and artisan food, which is an elite phenomenon.

    In my opinion, it represents a shift away from the old Puritan Anglo culture of asceticism for the purpose of accumulating wealth and creating technology, and a more joyous acceptance of life and the present.

    It represent a a diminution of the old eschatological culture – where we are rushing towards some future perfection that demands sacrifice.

    It is also a phenomenon among the elite which has rejected the dominant strain of Western culture and the primarily engineering mindset it had come to represent, which is why its taking place precisely among that section of the population that also welcomes immigrants, is anti white, and seems to be instinctively seeking the demise of the West.

    As for Jewish influence, my sense us that Jews are a major part of that old Puritan culture and are one of the last remaining strongholds of the eschatological world view in America, hence their greater motivation and dominance.

    So not so sure about Jewish influence being responsible here…

  92. I agree. There does not seem to be a permanent solution, and the world may be a dynamic system of cycles, constantly destroying itself and building itself back up, ad infinitum.

    Which isn’t so bad really. Most humans are caught in the web and blind actors – the few of us who can see the bigger picture can’t change anything, but we can also learn not to take it too seriously, and realize that from a total perspective, the system of cycles represent a perfection.

  93. My understanding is that Western culture 500 years ago began a journey that finally culminated in the post war years as a culture primarily about engineering.

    Why don’t you ever mention what specifically changed 500 years ago? What are you afraid of?

    I am guessing it was the Protestant Reformation that began in 1517 with Martin Luther’s 95 Theses.

    Yes or No?

  94. It was a complex phenomena – the Renaissance, the Reformation for sure, and shortly after, the Scientific Revolution.

  95. This then must be the pre-engineering period you are so nostalgic about:

    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merry_England

    That explains a lot about where your mind is at.

  96. The concept of Merry England originated in the Middle Ages, when Henry of Huntingdon around 1150 first coined the phrase Anglia plena jocis.[2] His theme was taken up in the following century by the encyclopedist Bartholomeus Anglicus, who claimed that “England is full of mirth and of game, and men oft-times able to mirth and game”.[3

    Interesting, the concept actually originated in the middle ages it was not just an interpretation of later ages. That means people at the time recognized how fortunate they were.

    Dmitry u reading this?

    Ronald Hutton’s study of churchwardens’ accounts[4] places the real consolidation of “Merry England” in the years between 1350 and 1520, with the newly elaborative annual festive round of the liturgical year, with candles and pageants, processions and games, boy bishops and decorated rood lofts.

    the rural community was clearly prepared to play hard, as well as work hard (even if much of the surviving evidence for this comes in the form of official censure, ecclesiastical or secular). The festival calendar provided some fifty holy days for seasonal and communal coming-together and merry-making.[8] Complaints against the rise in levels of drunkenness and crime on holidays, of flirting in church or on pilgrimage, of grievous bodily harm from the “abominable enough…foot-ball-game”[9] all testify (however indirectly) to a vital, if unofficial medieval existence

    Good times! What do you say Dmitry?

    Langland…also provided a vivid picture of, those who “drink all day in diverse taverns, and gossip and joke there”, of the field-workers who “sat down to drink their ale and sing songs – thinking to plough his field with a Hey-nonny-nonny”.[

    I thought the middle ages was supposed to be an age of joyless back breaking labor? Don’t we work so much less now?

    More legitimised recreation came in the form of archery, ice-skating, wrestling, hunting and hawking,[12] while there was also the medieval angler, who “atte the leest hath his holsom walke and mery at his ease”.[13] Above the town or village itself stood a semi-approved of layer of nomadic entertainers – minstrels, jugglers, mummers, morris-dancers, actors and jig-makers,[14] .

    Yep, really sounds like those poor people had it hard. So much better now.

  97. Anglia plena jocis – yes, may those happy days come again, when the current gloom of pointless striving is overcome.

    The old Catholic culture of Europe wasn’t so bad really.

    This should be my tag line from now on.

    Anglia plena jocis –

    AaronB

  98. AquariusAnon says

    I’m surprised how Stacey Abrams won all the core counties of Metro Atlanta, and that the white suburban districts GA 6th and 7th got flipped to the Democrats and the Republicans just winning by 900 or so votes, respectively.

    Also I’m surprised at how well the carpetbagger Bredesen did in the Nashville area. Even Williamson and Rutherford went 40% for him.

    Demographic change is real, both the increasing diversity and the influx of white liberal transplants who don’t respect southern culture.

    Beto also got a surprising amount of votes for Texas. Austin is done as a Texan city, with the US-Mexico border de facto pushed to the I-10 corridor.

    Georgia will be Virginia 2.0 next decade, with Atlanta as NoVa 2.0. Texas will succumb to demographic change, with Hispanics pushing in from the south and white liberal Californians parachuting into the big cities. Florida will turn deep blue when the white retiree boomers and the Miami Cubans still with memories of their Cuban childhoods or family stories start dying off.

    Charlotte and Raleigh are already Northern cities in all but name. Nashville looks like its just 1 or 2 decades behind Atlanta. Not good.

    All I can say is that the South is likely permanently done as a distinct nation with its own history controlling its own destiny.

  99. Hyperborean says

    I normally don’t think it is a good idea to entertain class-struggle fantasies, but sometimes I can empathise with the reasoning behind proposals to send detached intellectuals to work on a farm for a few years or similar tasks.

    In a way this is even stupider than your ‘West vs. East’ pseudo-historical ramblings.

  100. Is this an argument that medieval Englishmen must have been unhappy by virtue of being farmers? I’m not sure in general I take much to AaronB’s somewhat patronizing habit of fable, but I’m not sure either that the criticism holds good here.

  101. Hyperborean says

    Is this an argument that medieval Englishmen must have been unhappy by virtue of being farmers?

    No, merely that there is a tendency. And of course the stakeholders in the system would have an incentive to present peasants as happy in their propaganda.

    Whether they were happy or not, peasant lifestyle is not admirable, although given English historiography it is amusing to learn that many of the criticisms directed at Russian peasants apply just as well to English peasants.

    I am mostly miffed because it sounds like AaronB actually wants to return to that time.

    I am not so far removed from the countryside (less removed, I suspect, than AaronB) that I don’t know people, family and acquaintances, who endured rural poverty and none of them have expressed a desire to return it (it has in fact been the topic of a few lectures not to take things for granted).

  102. Hyperborean says

    I am not so far removed from the countryside (less removed, I suspect, than AaronB) that I don’t know people, family and acquaintances, who endured rural poverty and none of them have expressed a desire to return it (it has in fact been the topic of a few lectures not to take things for granted).

    In fact, most of my extended family ended up becoming devout communists and the rest really religious to cope.

  103. I wish I could be so sanguine about the Kobach loss but it is a bellwether of worse to come. Perhaps it’s just too close to home for me.

    The last time we had a female democratic governor she did all she could to tilt the demographics. This one will likely follow suit. She has immediately rolled back restrictions on degenerates adopting children so it looks grim.

    When you look at the demographics for our state, you must consider age. Our AARP members are of European heritage while the high school students are Central American.

    I don’t believe the census gets an accurate count because we have many many illegals.

    Kansas can flip forever blue sooner than Texas.

  104. They didn’t “recognise how fortunate they were”. This romance about a time when most people were peasants, living in evil conditions, without nutrition, heat, medicine, hygiene, and ability to leave the small portion of land of their master, and even could be killed by their master – is something absurd. To romanticize it because you like its aesthetics or cultural production – it’s the most ridiculous fantasy. Even life of masters in this time (despite their complete power over their subjects), was shit.

    And, for centuries it was terrible. Even life in the 19th century for most people was still not much better, but at least with emancipation they can begin to have some aspects of human treatment.

  105. You have certainly described well the modern propaganda that seeks to make us satisfied with our modern conditions, which are less free and happy than the Middle Ages. Stockholm syndrome is a real thing, Dmitry.

    In a related note, it’s interesting how modern movies about the Middle Ages always portray it as dirty, drab, colorless even among the upper classes, yet when you look at paintings from the Middle Ages itself everything is bursting with color and elegance, clothing is colorful and refined, etc.

    Yet we know that the Middle Ages had a love of heraldry and pageantry, colorful clothing and magnificent display – and it is precisely the modern industrial age that insists on being drab and colorless and slovenly, with boring buildings, because aesthetic interests are unrelated to technology.

    We know that drab colorless clothing came in with the 19th century and the industrial age.

    It’s sheer propaganda – but modern serfs can be consoled when they see the drab Muddle Ages lol 🙂

  106. even the mighty PRC sold out Iran.

    Yes, but then again, it’s not like the Iranians like the Chinese either. They accept that the Europeans participated in all this, because they know that the Europeans are American vassals, so they didn’t have high expectations of them.

    And the Chinese were correct from their own perspective to let the Americans do whatever they like, because that way they bought themselves five (actually, almost six) long years of peaceful development and acquiring American technologies. The Russians only enjoyed it for one and a half years after the 2012 UNSC sanctions. The Iranians probably understand it more easily than the Russian cucking.

    Russian involvement turned out to be essential for the success of Iran’s campaign in Syria.

    Humans don’t work that way. The Russians obviously got involved in it for their own reasons. Why would the Iranians start to trust them now?

    It was foolish because the rise of the American Chinahawks in the last decade meant that the PRC was going to be targeted sooner than later and their old tricks would not work again.

    They worked until literally this year. It wasn’t foolish to wait six years (or more) to confront the US, since time was on their side anyway, and in 2012 they were still much weaker than the US. (They still are, though the situation is a lot more favorable to them now than then.)

    Being accepted to the club was a fundamental goal of the post-Soviet Russian elites.
    It is not surprising that they do not want to let it go, even if they recognize that they cannot achieve it.

    It’s surprising that they keep pursuing an unattainable goal, especially if they also recognize it’s unattainable.

  107. Because there have been no periods of hardship and poverty since industrial times began.

    Returning to these times is not possible as a conscious choice, and I certainly am not attempting it. It would be possible as the result of some kind of catastrophe but that is out of our control.

    What I am trying to do is make a little more thoughtful about what is lacking in our times. We are certainly not doing very well, and many people in our culture especially at the highest levels seem to despise it and actively seek to destroy it.

    And this has been going on since the Romantic Revolution in the 18th century and is not a recent development at all.

    We are not going to lose our technology barring a catastrophe, but its worthwhile understanding why this modern period is do unsatisfying and makes so many who grew up in it seek to destroy it.

    This would involve working with the current technology regime not getting rid of it altogether.

  108. ..We are certainly not doing very well, and many people in our culture especially at the highest levels seem to despise it and actively seek to destroy it….

    Can’t say I agree with that.
    I’d change it into:

    Majority are certainly not doing very well, and many people in our culture especially at the highest levels seem to despise it and work hard to change it in order to enhance their own positions of wealth and power.

    Or….when you look at all this from a very simple perspective of “wealth” and “power” it can make sense and it is simple. Always has been.
    Wealth and power. Not necessarily in that order.

    Changing that would require………I don’t know what.
    Keeping that under some balance is, I think, what all this is all about.
    How to do that, though…….remains to be seen. Hopefully.

  109. I think that’s true of the business class at the very apex, but not so true of the intellectual class which has a genuine revulsion towards what Western culture had become and were expressing it as early as the 18th century.

    I don’t quite buy into materialist explanations of history so fully, although it’s certainly a factor.

    Balance is key – greedy ruthless power hungry people aren’t going anywhere and we have to share our world with them. We have to recognize their lifestyles and claims as legitimate and accommodate them – this I think will take the edge off their zeal and they will allow us some space to live our lives.

    Perhaps the moral zeal of Christianity and its successor communism so completely stigmatized the tendencies of such people that it led to the backlash we are seeing today.

    Instead of swinging to extremes of moral purity we should be human hearted (a Confucian term) and accept all of human nature and its weaknesses and fallibilities.

    Something like this was achieved somewhat under the Catholic culture of Medieval Europe – hence the freedom and joy and coexistence of drop outs and poets with extreme wealth getters and vain aristocrats.

    But the protestant revolution sought to completely crush the greedy power people and create a regime of moral purity, which was unstable.