A reader comments:
You seem to be taking the present situation pretty hard. I think you will find that, as Trump was unable to implement his agenda due to the “swamp” that the same effect also works on the Democrats. The country is too big and the Constitution puts too many blocks in the road for massive changes that you envision. The big challenge to the country occurred in 2008 when the GOP alone was blamed for the meltdown and the most left wing Democrat assumed the office of POTUS with a filibuster proof Senate and full control of congress. The people rose up and gave the GOP full control again. I don’t think the Democrats are going to be anywhere near as powerful this time around.
I answer:
This is a misread of my reaction to the establishment’s theft of the election. Longtime followers of this blog know I’ve been calling out the GOP’s complicity since before Trump ran for office. Right after he was elected I gave him a < 1% chance of success.
The main reason is that the Swamp is a crooked police precinct, and the GOPe are just the good cops to the Dmes’ bad cops. They’re not going to help the new chief clean up the corruption. The silence of hacks like Mitch McConnell, Nimrata Haley, and Brian Kemp speaks volumes.
Far from depressing me, both parties dropping their masks has me excited. It gives us a rare chance to cast off our own blinders and return to a sane society ordered toward God, family, and the good.
At this turning point in history, Classical Liberalism has failed. We’re living in the ruins it was fated to crumble into.
Now, I agree that establishment puppet pals Harris and Biden will most likely fail in implementing their agenda–but not because of any checks imposed by the GOP or the Constitution. Which Constitution would that be, anyway: the one that allowed slavery, the one that denied women the vote, or the one that enshrined infanticide as a human right?
Recent history tells us that the pretenders are doomed to fail simply because Democrats can’t govern.
Bill Clinton’s legacy is banging an intern in the Oval Office. Obama failed to enact any of his campaign promises, with the partial exception of a botched attempt at health care reform. Take careful not that the only reason a shell of the ACA remains is because the Republican Senate blocked a full repeal.
The truth is, the GOP were never going to betray their paymasters. Trump was never going to save the Republic. A system of government is not synonymous with the nation of people it governs. The United States fell a long time ago. The American nation still has a chance at salvation, and we’re being given one of those precious chances right now.
A perusal of Scripture shows that God’s M.O. is to offer a rebellious people multiple chances to repent between periods of escalating chastisement.
And boy, do we deserve chastisement!
The populist moment that swept the world in 2016 was the previous invitation to mend our ways. Instead, we largely squandered that olive branch to follow grifters hawking lifestyle brands and dig deeper into Red v Blue political theater. Bread and circuses.
Now the populist movement is spent, with little to show for itself. The leaders who rode the wave have either moved on to other things or are being made examples of. Trump is currently hanging on by his fingernails to avoid the latter fate. The party he supposedly leads is nowhere in sight.
Plenty of online pundits will tell you that national populism failed due to the lack of some wonkish plan or the overwhelming power of globalism. The historically proven truth is that victory comes only from God, and He gives it to those who serve Him.
Yes, the proximate end of politics is building up and maintaining the conditions necessary for public order. Low crime, low taxes, and even a secure border aren’t ends in themselves, though. The ultimate end of political action is to facilitate the consecration of the temporal order to God.
God made everything. He therefore has sovereign claim of ownership to everything. He allots his property to us as gifts which we are morally bound to return in better shape than we found them. See the Parable of the Talents.
What did for the populists wasn’t a failure to know what they wanted. It was a more fundamental failure to understand why they wanted it.
And contrary to Classical Liberalism’s claims, there is a right answer.
I shed no tears for a movement that ultimately wanted the same creature comforts that drive small-souled bugmen, but was more honest about why it wanted to live in homogeneous neighborhoods. Trumpism failed because it never managed to counter the prevailing false Death Cult morality with the right morality.
Most of the people currently declaring the end of the world are disappointed Trump didn’t take us back to 1988. Yes, a functioning economy, clean streets, and good video games are nice to have. But if they’re distracting you from growing in virtue, you’d do well to let them go.
Our enemies are most likely going to gain total power over us. Despairing over that turn of events bespeaks disordered attachment to worldly things. Now, we’re not Buddhists. It is licit for Christians to love created goods. But, we are to love them only for God’s sake, not as ends in themselves. Getting that relationship wrong is called idolatry, and it’s the main reason we’ve reached this point.
Said point, by the way, has the makings of an Optimate moment. Our only hope is to reorient society away from fixation on freedom as an end in itself and toward the true and the good.
Instead of holing up for the apocalypse, use the Death Cult’s oppression as an invitation to humble and purify yourself and simplify your life. Like a muscle, virtue is strengthened through exercise against increasing resistance. Now is the perfect time to cultivate courage, wisdom, and charity.
That’s the whole point, really. The Death Cult only has as much power as God allows, and He’s allowing it to break our vices, especially the errors of Modernity.
The best action you can take right now is to ruthlessly identify and weed out anything in your life that’s obstructing God’s grace. Cut it out with the porn, already. Go to church. Get right with anybody who’s got a beef with you. Pray–not primarily that God will give victory to the GOP–but that He will give you victory over your sins.
If you do this, and you come out the other side of Clown World holier than before, you can rightly thank Joe Biden’s handlers for a gift that’s precious above rubies.
And if that’s too lofty for you, the insanity doesn’t stop until we as a people repent, so you may as well start going through the motions. Who knows? Faking it may just lead you to making it.
Either way, a necessary first step to conquering vice is to stop cooperating with grave intrinsic evil.
