Sheep Without a Shepherd

A recent post elicited some black pills in the comments, so it seems like a good time to put the current state of dissident politics in perspective.

There’s a feeling in the air that the energy of 2016 has largely dissipated. Even staunch MAGApedes are wondering if they haven’t poured their faith into an empty sack. As a commenter said here the other day, there’s a growing suspicion that Trump is all talk and no action.

Trump may be all talk, but it’s remarkable that he’s still talking about his core campaign planks this far along. A standard Republican grifter would have abandoned all talk of immigration for the donor class’ agenda by now.

We find ourselves in a paradox. Everyone inside the system is too corrupt to reform it. Only an outsider can stand against the system, but he lacks the knowledge of its workings needed to achieve his goals.

In the midst of all the MAGA hype two years ago, level heads cautioned that the best Trump could do was buy us time. I was one of them, but it’s starting to look like I was wrong. It’s unlikely that we’d have seen alt-lite figures deplatformed, roaming AntiFa lynch mobs, or kids given life in prison for dumb mistakes under Jeb or even Hillary.

I’m not saying those two alternatives would have been preferable. Trump has goaded the Left into showing their hand too early. Facebook soccer moms and lifelong union Boomers are turning their backs on the Democrat party in disgust. Meanwhile, the fact that hatred of white people is the Coalition of the Fringes’ sole unifying principle is being discussed on national prime time news.

The accelerationists may have been right after all. If Trump couldn’t save the system from itself, it was unsalvageable to begin with. Right now it’s burning itself down in a frenzied attempt to take him down. A smart dissident movement would take advantage of the diversion to start gaining ground elsewhere.

As the evident lack of results has shown, we do not have a smart dissident movement–or to be more precise and more charitable to its members, we have multiple squabbling dissident movements with leaders who are by turns foolish, mercenary, and unserious.

Every major movement in history has had camp followers who rush to the front of the parade when they sense there’s profit to be had. These are largely venal misfits who, as Alex said, couldn’t make it within the establishment, so they prey on political outsiders’ need for leadership and direction.

What we’re seeing now as the enemy ups the ante and Buckley style disavowals fall on deaf ears is also entirely normal. We’ve reached the point where speaking out requires heroic virtue. The grifters are naturally being peeled off as the costs of resistance rise.

That’s a positive development. Disease co-opts and kills off compromised cells, but this triggers an immune response.

Think of this juncture as an intermediary period when the disease is advancing, and the antibodies haven’t shown up yet. Time has just about run out for the first crop of unserious leaders. You’ll know when the serious people take the field.

In the meantime, folks on the Right would do well to exercise more discernment regarding who they put their trust in. We’ve seen a whole slew of prospective leaders rise to the fore, only to stumble or lead their followers to destruction like proverbial pied pipers. The pattern is quite clear by now, so there’s no excuse not to recognize the signs of wolves in sheep’s clothing.

1. An unknown quantity, unaccomplished in media or of middling accomplishment in an unrelated field, commits a public violation of the Narrative that goes viral.
2. The new hotness starts making the rounds on YouTube, allegedly to discuss how he owned the libz, but in fact to promote his personal Master Theory of Everything.
3. The rising star’s big break comes when a major media outlet calls up a bench warmer from the C team to “debate” him. The up-and-comer’s place in the firmament is secured as he effortlessly humiliates Lefty.
4. And this is key: The newest dissident star suffers none of the depersoning, deplatforming, or demonetization that you or I would for giving the death cult a bloody lip.
5. The new dissident darling releases a book detailing his Master Theory of Everything. It features unusual content for someone marketed to nationalist populist traditionalists, to say the least.
6. If he doesn’t burn out, the new star lands a cushy gig at some “edgy” media startup or dissident think tank. There, he attempts to carry out Buckleyite gate keeping on the rest of the Right, which was the point all along.