As many long-time readers and Twitter/X mutuals may know, I was (and still am, in many ways) an old school NRx-style neoreactionary. Now, while many on the broader dissident Right may think of NRxers as just nerdy esoterics who don’t like democracy, it is actually quite a bit deeper and more involved than that. Indeed, I would say that one of the defining features of NRx is that it seeks to understand power. It studies how power is obtained, how power is understood, how power is used – and also how it is not. The rest – not liking democracy, etc. – flows from this. Like it or not, but politics of whatever type – from monarchical court intrigues to the smoke-filled back rooms of supposed “democracies” – runs on power and how it is networked. People who understand this are generally much more successful in political wrangling than are those who don’t.

With this in mind, lately I’ve been reading End Times: Elites, Counter-Elites, and the Path of Political Disintegration, by Peter Turchin. I’ve been following the works of Turchin (and other cliodynamicists such as Jack Goldstone and Sergei Nefedov) for over a decade and like to tell myself, at least, that I was instrumental in mainstreaming Turchin’s demographic-structural theory and allied concepts into the dissident Right’s intellectual ecosphere. In the above-referenced work, Turchin addresses the DST effects of elites, and especially intraelite competition and elite overproduction, how these destabilise polities, create the immiseration of the commons, and contribute to the collapse of their societies.

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So the Next Big Thing recently happened, which is the US bombing of Iran, now nearing two weeks in duration at the time of this writing. This war has generated quite a bit of sound and fury among the Very Online Commentariat, as well as a rift in the broad Right. Conventional MAGA types (i.e. Team Catturd) generally support the bombings, while the groyper set (i.e. Team Señor Nicolás Fuentes) oppose it. Sadly, it has sucked the air out of the room for other, more important, issues such as immigration policy.

Personally, I am not even that sold on this war. I think it’s a questionable venture, to say the least, and I’m not really convinced it was all that well-planned by those who initiated it. On the other hand, I am old enough to have seen decades of Iranian-backed Islamic terrorism all around the world that has deliberately targeted civilians, so I’m not exactly sad to see the “Islamic Republic’s” leadership get decapitated and their war-making infrastructure annihilated. Nevertheless, in the main I tend to think this war is a NeoCon-inspired venture designed to suck Trump into a politically dangerous situation which they can then use to lose the midterm elections should it go south on us – which is what the Establishment GOPers want – and then blame it on immigration enforcement (since obviously, losing a sandbox war wouldn’t be politically devastating or anything). I’m not persuaded in favour of this war but am adopting a “wait and see” attitude towards it while hoping that Ol’ Donny Trump wiggles his way out of this jam.

Ah well, nevertheless.

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Recently, I’ve been reading an interesting book about 18th century political philosophy entitled The Royalist Revolution: Monarchy and the American Founding. In this work the author, Eric Nelson, guides the reader through the various aspects of the great inter-whiggish debates that roiled the American colonies prior to independence, and which then continued afterwards. One of the main premises is that a major faction within this debate – and indeed the one which ended up prevailing in the end – understood the relationship between colonies and mother country to be founded upon the king of Britain’s personal proprietorship over the colonies. This Patriot position was opposed by the Loyalist position which saw the colonies as existing under the laws and rule of Parliament.

Now this might seem strange to generations of Americans who grew up learning in school that the American revolutionaries fought against the great tyrant King George III who was set upon grinding the American colonies under his bootheel of oppression. That view would be quite surprising to many of the participants on the Patriot side, many of whom actually appealed to King George, both publicly and in private correspondence, to exercise kingly prerogative and overturn the various duties, laws, and taxes which Parliament had laid upon the colonies. This, indeed, was the crux of the Patriot argument, which is that because the colonies were originally founded under the personal demesne of the British King, they remained so even despite the temporary abolishment of the monarchy after the execution of Charles I in 1649. In the interregnum between that and the Glorious Revolution and restoration of a stable monarchy that was accepted by all classes as legitimate in 1688, Parliament had illegitimately usurped authority over the colonies. Because it was Parliament which was laying the Intolerable Acts and all the other complaints which the Americans had, it was Parliament against whom they wished to be protected.

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Recently, I’ve been meditating on the place that reading holds, both in my own life and in our modern society as a whole. Personally, I like to read. I wish I had more time to do it but sadly find such time increasingly lacking (especially given the way “real life” has been over the past few months). Yet, I try to squeeze it in when I can. Over the years, I’ve seen my reading preferences change as I’ve moved to the Real Right. Less “general” history and fiction, more “deeper” history, philosophy, etc. I view reading not only as enjoyable, but also as a conscious work of personal improvement. Books (and articles and substacks and…) are a means of gathering knowledge, which may then be further analysed, broken down, and rebuilt into an ever-deepening worldview supported by this evolving knowledge base.

It’s troubling to me to contemplate the general decline of intellectualism in the United States and across the western world that has obtained for over sixty years. By this, I do not refer to education of whatever type – if anything that has increased to absurd proportions. But more education does not equal more intellectual capacity. Even as the number of degrees multiplies, the actual ability of a larger and larger share of the population to actual consider ideas has diminished. And that is really at the root of genuine intellectualism – ideas, understanding them, applying them, generating them. It goes far beyond just memorising some facts or names or whatever and regurgitating them on command.

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Last week, on January 7, an incident occurred in Minneapolis, Minnesota which set the internet commentary world ablaze. A professional left-wing activist, 37-year-old Renee Good, was shot and killed by an ICE agent as she attempted to run over him with her vehicle. Good, billed as a “legal observer,” had been harassing ICE agents who were involved in local enforcement actions, blocking traffic, taunting federal agents, and otherwise trying to interfere with their duties. And then, in what video evidence pretty much shows was a deliberate attempt, she tried to run an agent over with her car, hitting him with her bumper…but then getting shot for her troubles.

Predictably, the anti-ICE Left was outraged. They became even more so after the narrative they originally attempted to build – that Renee Good was just a scared, lost mother trying to drop her kid off at school and get away from the Mean Orange Man’s Fascist Hordes – evapourated in light of decisive video evidence. Nevertheless, myself and many others in the Real Right expected that Minneapolis was going to become the epicenter for yet another series of George Floyd-style riots as the Left utilised the opportunity to bully the Trump administration into compliance and contrition as they did back in 2020. I mean, the playbook was right there – push and push and push until the dog bites back and then use that as an excuse to run wild, scare the normies into submission, and force the ratchet further left.

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Recently, our family traveled to Johnstown, Pennsylvania to be with my father-in-law when he was in the hospital there because of a major medical issue. During this time, I had the opportunity to observe the city firsthand. I hate to admit, but what I saw was both unimpressive and a bit depressing. Johnstown is very definitely a city that has seen better days. Certainly, it has many beautiful buildings dating back to its prime, days when American architectural choices demonstrated much more grandeur than they do now, back when ours was a culture full of confidence and self-assurance. But just as evident are the many empty homes and buildings, many former factories or other industrial-style edifices now sitting barren, or housing charities of one kind or another, or even the occasional church. Everything is dingy looking, almost as if to say that the town has given up, that it no longer has the drive to keep up appearances.

Johnstown is emblematic of what decades of globalism – both external and imported – have done to the Rust Belt, and to America as a whole.

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A few weeks ago, I gave the Republican Party some unsolicited advice about what they should do if they want to get back into the saddle and start winning elections again after this year’s string of off-season/special election losses. Essentially it boiled down to using power to fight the Democrats while giving your own client base the things that it wants. In other words, what people throughout history, in every era, in every type of political system from the most despotic to the most egalitarian, would recognise as basic political acumen. The Democrats, despite their complete disconnection from several basic facets of reality, understand this principle and apply it effectively. The Republicans, on the other hand, are absolutely abysmal at doing anything for their putative base, almost as if they don’t want to dirty their hands with something as tawdry and plebeian as “giving the voters what they want.” As a group, they will routinely use “democracy” as an excuse to not actually do democracy. My advice was (in theory) predicated on Republicans actually wanting to win, but given their behaviour, both recently and at other times when they’ve accidentally been given power by the voters, I don’t think we can take that as a given.

The Republican Party, both nationally and the state level, has been handed once more the opportunity to fundamentally alter the direction of this country in a way favourable to restoring some sanity, in the very least. Yet, they refuse to take it. When standing at the precipice, they will never fail to choose the cowardly path of going back to the camp. They’re simply not a serious political party anymore.

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As we all know, the Republicans appear to have taken quite a drubbing in last Tuesday’s off year elections. Among other things, they lost the slate of statewide races in Virginia from the governourship on down; they also lost New Jersey’s election for governour, as well as the mayorship of New York City, which went to the newly crowned bugaboo of the American Right, Zohran Mamdani. Granted, these losses were disappointing. However, my personal opinion is that they were not particularly surprising and therefore these results are not actually as bad for the Republicans as many commentators have been saying.

After all, Virginia has been trending Blue for a while and the GOP nominated what was possibly the worst candidate available to try to hold onto the chief executive office in the current political climate. Likewise, New Jersey (while generally moving Right in recent elections) is still very much a Blue state, and New York City is, well, New York City. Anyone who thought Curtis Sliwa had a prayer there probably falls for scams on Facebook, too. So no, I’m not really convinced that last Tuesday was this apocalyptic disaster for the GOP.

However.

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There are few things that demonstrate someone’s charactre and true loyalties more than when they are suddenly put on the spot and have to make a quick decision about something. Certainly, for left-wingers this was put on display six weeks ago when Charlie Kirk was assassinated and we saw a flood of commies showing their true colours. More recently, we saw it again – except for people supposedly on the Right – with the leak of several group chats involving Young Republicans, via the response to these chats by various prominent voices on the Right. Granted, the participants in these chats were (admittedly) being pretty edgy in some of the things they were joking about, so one can understand why there might be controversy over these things, even if you personally believe (as I do) that jokes are just that – jokes. Now, you might be thinking that I’m writing this to criticise these YRs. I am not. Instead, my purpose here is to call out the type of ConInc retard who consistently runs interference for the Left while throwing their own side under the bus and who jumped all over this as a chance to gatekeep.

This was a test of both loyalty and intelligence – and there are a great number of so-called right-wing “thought leaders” who failed it on both counts. The opportunity was there for people to take a stand against the Left and they failed to do so. The fact that they can’t admit to understanding the distinction between sophomoric jokes on the one hand and established politicians in major states literally saying they want to kill their political opponents and their kids on the other hand, well, this speaks volumes.

These fools believe they are “acting on principle.” They are not. Often, these politicians and influences are bought and paid for, so their principles would revolve around whoever is cutting them a check. Even in those cases where they are countersignaling those further to the Right than themselves out of some genuine though misguided sense of moral propriety, these people are not truly “principled” in any sort of way that matters. Simply put, being a “principled loser” is not principled. If you purposefully seek to undercut your own side to try to conform to the ideals of or for the benefit of the other side, you are not principled, you are merely insipid and untrustworthy. Truly being principled means at least trying to put yourself into a position where you can act on those things that you believe to be right and necessary in the political and social spheres. Failing this, your “principles” are simply gas escaping from your mouth.

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I am back from a month-long hiatus made necessary by a lot of busy-ness in real life. As fun as touching grass may be, it’s now time to get back in the saddle.

Just a little over a month ago in Charlotte, North Carolina, the nation and the world were treated to yet another spectacle that has becoming far too common over the past few decades. Iryna Zarutska, a 23-year-old refugee from the Ukraine war was riding the light rail, minding her own business when she was attacked from behind and stabbed in the neck by a repeat-offender black career criminal. Certainly, this is FAR FROM the only story of this type that we have seen in recent months. Some commenters tried to criticise the fact that she was riding alone. Yet in a sense, she couldn’t have been expected to anticipate the attack since in most of the world you can ride public transportation without having some groid randomly puncture your neck out of nowhere.

The Left tried to ignore the story – seriously, there was practically zero interaction with this story by the MSM and other left-wing outlets for nearly two weeks until it broke free and got out onto social media, where it blew up. Since then, they’ve been trying to poo-poo it – it’s really about the mental health crisis, or the pressures caused by white racism, or whatever else – whatever can be done to distract away from the ramifications of per capita crime stats and whatnot. Our side, however, should definitely not let this story drop out of the public consciousness. As with other similar cases, the Left seems to be very invested in advancing the cause of random, unpredictable, and unpunishable criminality.

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