I appreciate and agree with your essay, Sasha. If I may add, I think the majority of Americans now depend on local/state/federal welfare, healthcare and employment (eg teachers, professors, hospital staff, etc) and thus will vote for The (Democratic) Party that gives them the most (of other people’s) money. I am not sure this can be turned around until they have completely run out of other people’s money because the leeches outnumber the net tax contributors and the latter are diminishing at an exponential rate. Basically this shit is going to go belly up.
As usual, Sasha gets to the nub of it: "The path forward... is not to try to destroy the Left [but]... to build outside of it, a new America that other people want to be a part of. This new America will need culture because we all do."
In the "crisis stage" formulation of Neil Howe's fourth turning, a society re-invents/rediscovers/re-formulates its mythical self-concepts in ways that fit new externalities. And there are a lot of new externalities to fit right now. I really don't think we can see what this retooling will look and feel like yet. There are clues in the persons of deSantis and other competent and confident leaders who seem to have generated actual positive enthusiasm from their electorates, but they're just clues.
The coming of some new formulation of "who we are" - a formulation that will enable us to build successful new institutions - has really not appeared in recognizable form. Sasha's almost offhand observation about the role of culture in this new formulation deserves more attention. As a long-term observer of popular culture it will be interesting to see where Sasha observes its emergence in the years ahead. I don't know if she reads these comments but I would enjoy reading her take on some of the dissident-ish cultural work we're now seeing on the left. White Lotus is one example, but there are others. The sense that "something is wrong here" is starting to spread even into elite culture.
An excellent article. I agree that people like Biden, Hobbs and Fetterman never actually ran a campaign. Their Republican opponents weren’t running against them. They were running against the media which never debated them either and just constantly accused them of extremism. So now if Hobbs wins Arizona will continue to have an open border controlled by the cartels sending thousands of illegals and a huge amount of fentanyl into this country every day. And half the country is delighted about this? A country cannot exist without borders and we no longer have borders.
I don't know that the GOP won so much in 1980 because of Reagan so much that he was running against Jimmy Carter. Carter was elected in 1976 primarily because Gerald Ford was connected to Watergate and the recently concluded Vietnam War. He went around the country telling people he was "a born again Christian" when his beliefs were actually far more liberal than that of most who claim to be born again. I flew a Georgia man before the election and he told me that if Carter got in, the country would be in for it. He was right. Inflation went through the roof and Iranian students took over the US embassy in Tehran and held the embassy staff as prisoners until the day Reagan was inaugurated. I voted for Reagan in 1980 and would have in 1984 if the local Democrats in the courthouse in my county in Kentucky hadn't taken my name off the voter roll because of letters I'd written to the editor. Still, I don't think he was that great since all he really did was follow the New Deal initiatives of his hero, FDR (increased government spending, social programs, etc.) Although parts of the country enjoyed tremendous economic growth - the parts with massive military and government contracts - other parts didn't. I was living in Eastern Kentucky where unemployment among adults was high. When a new MacDonalds came in, the new employees weren't high school kids, they were women in their thirties and forties whose husbands had lost their jobs in the local steel mills and railroad yards. There were good jobs in the region but no thanks to the Reagan administration and they were limited (I was fortunate to have one of them.)
The current political scene amounts to one thing - Democrats control urban areas and certain black areas in the South. As long as blacks and Hispanics in those areas keep voting for Democrats, Republicans are going to have a hard time with the House. The Senate is different because Senate elections are staggered. They're basically a crap shoot. I don't have a clue what will happen in 2024, in part because we don't even know who's going to be running yet. Trump may drop dead of a heart attack between now and then - he may develop dementia and/or Alzheimer's like his father did. (Biden already has neurological issues.) DeSantis is a fair-haired boy right now but who knows what might happen with him? I do know one thing - the Democratic Party is corrupt and it's been Marxist since the 1960s when some of its current leadership were chanting "Ho, Ho, Ho Chi Minh, Ho Chi Minh is gonna win." (He didn't, he died before the South Vietnamese government collapsed.)
There's a Daily Wire article up right now with excerpts from a Piers Morgan podcast I believe where Peterson analyzes Trump etc and if he should run in 24 at any rate I urge everyone to go read the comments from that article. . I'm in agreement with 99.9% of them. With the way the Dems have gamed the system with mail in voting and they have finally gotten the youth vote to turn out in big numbers for the Republicans to stand any chance in 24 and beyond they're going to have to run moderate and perfect candidates with zero baggage. Desantis/Sears or Nikki Haley that sort of thing there's just no way for candidates like Trump to win a general election anymore. Local elections maybe but not national
Republicans have a chance to be the party of moderation in all things. The power is there for them to take. But Republicans, long before Democrats, were the party of disconnect of the financially elite from the masses. I'm not sure how you get them to change that.
Nevada just got a republican governor. I think the first thing Lombardo should do is copy DeSantis in vote tabulation. Secondly, every other republican governor should shore up early, mail in voting to ensure no fraud.
As far as GA, republican kemp screwed trump. Fulton County is a cess pool of fraud. It AMAZES me the cameras caught this black woman bring a suitcase of ballots out from under a table after kicking out the monitors and people say WHAT FRAUD? My God.
Point being, unless Republicans care about the win first and honor second(who us ?ballot harvest? Shameful.) Then we won't win. Trump said it best "hand it to the democrats, they don't have any mitt romneys" meaning traitors.
Before the internet, entertainers and politicians were somewhat mysterious people. All we knew about them was from glowing profiles in newspapers and magazines. A few negatives would leak out in gossip columns and, once in a while, there would be some major scandal. We could tell they had a different moral code than we did; after all, few suburban housewives were on husband number five, but it seemed to be common in Hollywood. What we knew for the most part created a fantasy that they were glamorous, romantic and likable.
Then the internet came along and the facade fell apart. Beyond websites that printed nothing but gossip, celebrities themselves had no reservations about posting tweets that showed them to be petty, shallow and completely self-serving.
In some ways, the invisible candidates seem like a throwback to the time when we didn't really know that much about famous people and that ignorance was bliss. We could imagine they were much better people than they actually were. Maybe we prefer our candidates to stay in their basements so we can sustain a fantasy where they actually want to do a good job and help us, rather then selling us out in favor of their billionaire donors.
Sasha has put her finger on something but I don't think we are close to understanding it.
I live in a Texas county next door to Austin. It has been one of the fastest growing counties in the country. Used to be reliably red but has been moving purple. This election Republicans fielded some great local candidates, very qualified, some very popular and well known, they enjoyed quite a bit of Democrat crossover support and in some races the opponents included, a May 2022 high school graduate running for District Clerk, a county judge with 1.2M in federal tax liens as only the beginning of his integrity issues and an avowed progressive DA candidate who has no prosecutorial experience and has been a solo criminal defense attorney with zero experience running a large office of any kind..
Come the election, every Republican candidate lost and by a significant margin. The DA race especially, an over qualified well respected R candidate, 40 years of experience as prosecutor and judge, supported by every law enforcement agency in the county and many Democrats who were aghast at the opponent, lost and by a significant margin. He had beaucoup money and got incredible exposure.
An interesting fact is the Democrats running raised almost zero money and were hardly there. In the state rep race especially, the incumbent Democrat raised hardly any money, spent practically zilch. This was puzzling and worrisome to Republicans before the election. It was if they knew they didn't need to raise money.
If Republicans couldn't win a single race in this county or run even close races, fielding great candidates many of whom were incumbents, and who were not radical types, then I foresee a long wandering in the desert for Republicans. Until we truly know/understand what happened, and I don't think we are even close, it will not be clear how outcomes will be any different for the foreseeable future.
It's interesting that you begin by quoting -- of all people -- Ronald Reagan(!) in an essay about "The Man Who Wasn't There". Reagan was clearly going senile in his first term and Americans only got a glimpse of how far gone he was when he debated Mondale when he was running for reelection. He was propped up much like Biden is by the MSM (who dubbed him "The Great Communicator") and was trotted out to do what he did best - act.
When he acted we got things like Central American death squads, massacres, and murderous repression of left-wing movements. He is directly responsible for untold tens of thousands of dead and "disappeared" in that region. He somehow managed to dodge responsibility for Iran-Contra by playing the role of the affable old man watching TV with wife Nancy in their pajamas. Surely he was not made aware of the illegal scheme...
Then there was the crack cocaine epidemic, which, according to Gary Webb, was a CIA-run drug trafficking scheme that ravaged the country's inner cities to fund Nicaragua's Contra rebels, whom RR almost teary-eyed described as akin to America's founding fathers.
I could go on, but many of the problems we face today are the direct result of Reagan's policies and actions. For example, our border crisis wouldn't be what it is if not for the destruction of the legitimate aspirations of the people of Central America.
RR and Joe Biden are two sides of the same coin. The real power in this country is in the shadows and having such sock puppets works just fine for them to get what they want. People like Obama and Hillary are just true believers of the hidden agenda of war and population enslavement who are really good at double talk, so they're fine, too, as they represent these same powers. A lazy dummy like Dubya works great also.
I'm not sure anyone who isn't controllable will ever again sit in the White House. Of course, we should've know that since the assassinations of JFK and RFK.
Trump was an accident that won't be allowed to happen again - ever. The phony "pandemic" (SEE: Event 201) was concocted for multiple purposes, one of which was the implementing of widespread mail-in voting, specifically so that only "the right people" will be put in positions of power. Think about it: The way elections are traditionally monitored is by exit polling. That's obviously not possible with mail-in voting.
About the only way I see to challenge the power structure is by widespread civil disobedience. Given the sheep-like response to the "pandemic", I think it's safe to say that ain't gonna happen.
The destruction of America is pretty much complete. The illusion of America will continue to function a while longer, but only for a while.
As Frank Zappa said:
“The illusion of freedom will continue as long as it's profitable to continue the illusion. At the point where the illusion becomes too expensive to maintain, they will just take down the scenery, they will pull back the curtains, they will move the tables and chairs out of the way and you will see the brick wall at the back of the theater.”
While the Rose Garden campaign didn't work out for Carter, it seems to be doing quite well today.
This makes me wonder, is voter lethargy (vote by mail) a result of campaign lethargy (Biden isn't there) or is it the other way around. Which came first, the chicken or the chicken shit?
The Democrats already dominate what can be seen as a one-party state. They have control of most corporations, media, culture, universities, science labs, and public schools — although the Republicans are starting to overtake school boards — and if they can also control elections, that leaves little hope for the resistance.
It's funny Open secrets 2022 here is a list notice 6 out of the top 10 are GOP. How is that possible when you said corporation are controlled by the Democrats?
Rank Organization Total Contributions Total Hard Money Total Outside Money To Democrats To Republicans
1 Soros Fund Management $129,422,509 $2,459,796 $126,962,713 $129,422,509 $0
I appreciate and agree with your essay, Sasha. If I may add, I think the majority of Americans now depend on local/state/federal welfare, healthcare and employment (eg teachers, professors, hospital staff, etc) and thus will vote for The (Democratic) Party that gives them the most (of other people’s) money. I am not sure this can be turned around until they have completely run out of other people’s money because the leeches outnumber the net tax contributors and the latter are diminishing at an exponential rate. Basically this shit is going to go belly up.
Another well written, insightful work. Thank you.
As usual, Sasha gets to the nub of it: "The path forward... is not to try to destroy the Left [but]... to build outside of it, a new America that other people want to be a part of. This new America will need culture because we all do."
In the "crisis stage" formulation of Neil Howe's fourth turning, a society re-invents/rediscovers/re-formulates its mythical self-concepts in ways that fit new externalities. And there are a lot of new externalities to fit right now. I really don't think we can see what this retooling will look and feel like yet. There are clues in the persons of deSantis and other competent and confident leaders who seem to have generated actual positive enthusiasm from their electorates, but they're just clues.
The coming of some new formulation of "who we are" - a formulation that will enable us to build successful new institutions - has really not appeared in recognizable form. Sasha's almost offhand observation about the role of culture in this new formulation deserves more attention. As a long-term observer of popular culture it will be interesting to see where Sasha observes its emergence in the years ahead. I don't know if she reads these comments but I would enjoy reading her take on some of the dissident-ish cultural work we're now seeing on the left. White Lotus is one example, but there are others. The sense that "something is wrong here" is starting to spread even into elite culture.
An excellent article. I agree that people like Biden, Hobbs and Fetterman never actually ran a campaign. Their Republican opponents weren’t running against them. They were running against the media which never debated them either and just constantly accused them of extremism. So now if Hobbs wins Arizona will continue to have an open border controlled by the cartels sending thousands of illegals and a huge amount of fentanyl into this country every day. And half the country is delighted about this? A country cannot exist without borders and we no longer have borders.
I don't know that the GOP won so much in 1980 because of Reagan so much that he was running against Jimmy Carter. Carter was elected in 1976 primarily because Gerald Ford was connected to Watergate and the recently concluded Vietnam War. He went around the country telling people he was "a born again Christian" when his beliefs were actually far more liberal than that of most who claim to be born again. I flew a Georgia man before the election and he told me that if Carter got in, the country would be in for it. He was right. Inflation went through the roof and Iranian students took over the US embassy in Tehran and held the embassy staff as prisoners until the day Reagan was inaugurated. I voted for Reagan in 1980 and would have in 1984 if the local Democrats in the courthouse in my county in Kentucky hadn't taken my name off the voter roll because of letters I'd written to the editor. Still, I don't think he was that great since all he really did was follow the New Deal initiatives of his hero, FDR (increased government spending, social programs, etc.) Although parts of the country enjoyed tremendous economic growth - the parts with massive military and government contracts - other parts didn't. I was living in Eastern Kentucky where unemployment among adults was high. When a new MacDonalds came in, the new employees weren't high school kids, they were women in their thirties and forties whose husbands had lost their jobs in the local steel mills and railroad yards. There were good jobs in the region but no thanks to the Reagan administration and they were limited (I was fortunate to have one of them.)
The current political scene amounts to one thing - Democrats control urban areas and certain black areas in the South. As long as blacks and Hispanics in those areas keep voting for Democrats, Republicans are going to have a hard time with the House. The Senate is different because Senate elections are staggered. They're basically a crap shoot. I don't have a clue what will happen in 2024, in part because we don't even know who's going to be running yet. Trump may drop dead of a heart attack between now and then - he may develop dementia and/or Alzheimer's like his father did. (Biden already has neurological issues.) DeSantis is a fair-haired boy right now but who knows what might happen with him? I do know one thing - the Democratic Party is corrupt and it's been Marxist since the 1960s when some of its current leadership were chanting "Ho, Ho, Ho Chi Minh, Ho Chi Minh is gonna win." (He didn't, he died before the South Vietnamese government collapsed.)
There's a Daily Wire article up right now with excerpts from a Piers Morgan podcast I believe where Peterson analyzes Trump etc and if he should run in 24 at any rate I urge everyone to go read the comments from that article. . I'm in agreement with 99.9% of them. With the way the Dems have gamed the system with mail in voting and they have finally gotten the youth vote to turn out in big numbers for the Republicans to stand any chance in 24 and beyond they're going to have to run moderate and perfect candidates with zero baggage. Desantis/Sears or Nikki Haley that sort of thing there's just no way for candidates like Trump to win a general election anymore. Local elections maybe but not national
Spot on Sasha.
". . . might raise a generation of sociopaths."
I'm worried we already have.
Republicans have a chance to be the party of moderation in all things. The power is there for them to take. But Republicans, long before Democrats, were the party of disconnect of the financially elite from the masses. I'm not sure how you get them to change that.
Nevada just got a republican governor. I think the first thing Lombardo should do is copy DeSantis in vote tabulation. Secondly, every other republican governor should shore up early, mail in voting to ensure no fraud.
As far as GA, republican kemp screwed trump. Fulton County is a cess pool of fraud. It AMAZES me the cameras caught this black woman bring a suitcase of ballots out from under a table after kicking out the monitors and people say WHAT FRAUD? My God.
Point being, unless Republicans care about the win first and honor second(who us ?ballot harvest? Shameful.) Then we won't win. Trump said it best "hand it to the democrats, they don't have any mitt romneys" meaning traitors.
Before the internet, entertainers and politicians were somewhat mysterious people. All we knew about them was from glowing profiles in newspapers and magazines. A few negatives would leak out in gossip columns and, once in a while, there would be some major scandal. We could tell they had a different moral code than we did; after all, few suburban housewives were on husband number five, but it seemed to be common in Hollywood. What we knew for the most part created a fantasy that they were glamorous, romantic and likable.
Then the internet came along and the facade fell apart. Beyond websites that printed nothing but gossip, celebrities themselves had no reservations about posting tweets that showed them to be petty, shallow and completely self-serving.
In some ways, the invisible candidates seem like a throwback to the time when we didn't really know that much about famous people and that ignorance was bliss. We could imagine they were much better people than they actually were. Maybe we prefer our candidates to stay in their basements so we can sustain a fantasy where they actually want to do a good job and help us, rather then selling us out in favor of their billionaire donors.
Sasha has put her finger on something but I don't think we are close to understanding it.
I live in a Texas county next door to Austin. It has been one of the fastest growing counties in the country. Used to be reliably red but has been moving purple. This election Republicans fielded some great local candidates, very qualified, some very popular and well known, they enjoyed quite a bit of Democrat crossover support and in some races the opponents included, a May 2022 high school graduate running for District Clerk, a county judge with 1.2M in federal tax liens as only the beginning of his integrity issues and an avowed progressive DA candidate who has no prosecutorial experience and has been a solo criminal defense attorney with zero experience running a large office of any kind..
Come the election, every Republican candidate lost and by a significant margin. The DA race especially, an over qualified well respected R candidate, 40 years of experience as prosecutor and judge, supported by every law enforcement agency in the county and many Democrats who were aghast at the opponent, lost and by a significant margin. He had beaucoup money and got incredible exposure.
An interesting fact is the Democrats running raised almost zero money and were hardly there. In the state rep race especially, the incumbent Democrat raised hardly any money, spent practically zilch. This was puzzling and worrisome to Republicans before the election. It was if they knew they didn't need to raise money.
If Republicans couldn't win a single race in this county or run even close races, fielding great candidates many of whom were incumbents, and who were not radical types, then I foresee a long wandering in the desert for Republicans. Until we truly know/understand what happened, and I don't think we are even close, it will not be clear how outcomes will be any different for the foreseeable future.
Love your writing. I also love your walk off Music ❤️ you have great musical taste!
Newsom with his approval rating 32% is annoyingly present. How did he manage to get over 50% votes?
It's interesting that you begin by quoting -- of all people -- Ronald Reagan(!) in an essay about "The Man Who Wasn't There". Reagan was clearly going senile in his first term and Americans only got a glimpse of how far gone he was when he debated Mondale when he was running for reelection. He was propped up much like Biden is by the MSM (who dubbed him "The Great Communicator") and was trotted out to do what he did best - act.
When he acted we got things like Central American death squads, massacres, and murderous repression of left-wing movements. He is directly responsible for untold tens of thousands of dead and "disappeared" in that region. He somehow managed to dodge responsibility for Iran-Contra by playing the role of the affable old man watching TV with wife Nancy in their pajamas. Surely he was not made aware of the illegal scheme...
Then there was the crack cocaine epidemic, which, according to Gary Webb, was a CIA-run drug trafficking scheme that ravaged the country's inner cities to fund Nicaragua's Contra rebels, whom RR almost teary-eyed described as akin to America's founding fathers.
I could go on, but many of the problems we face today are the direct result of Reagan's policies and actions. For example, our border crisis wouldn't be what it is if not for the destruction of the legitimate aspirations of the people of Central America.
RR and Joe Biden are two sides of the same coin. The real power in this country is in the shadows and having such sock puppets works just fine for them to get what they want. People like Obama and Hillary are just true believers of the hidden agenda of war and population enslavement who are really good at double talk, so they're fine, too, as they represent these same powers. A lazy dummy like Dubya works great also.
I'm not sure anyone who isn't controllable will ever again sit in the White House. Of course, we should've know that since the assassinations of JFK and RFK.
Trump was an accident that won't be allowed to happen again - ever. The phony "pandemic" (SEE: Event 201) was concocted for multiple purposes, one of which was the implementing of widespread mail-in voting, specifically so that only "the right people" will be put in positions of power. Think about it: The way elections are traditionally monitored is by exit polling. That's obviously not possible with mail-in voting.
About the only way I see to challenge the power structure is by widespread civil disobedience. Given the sheep-like response to the "pandemic", I think it's safe to say that ain't gonna happen.
The destruction of America is pretty much complete. The illusion of America will continue to function a while longer, but only for a while.
As Frank Zappa said:
“The illusion of freedom will continue as long as it's profitable to continue the illusion. At the point where the illusion becomes too expensive to maintain, they will just take down the scenery, they will pull back the curtains, they will move the tables and chairs out of the way and you will see the brick wall at the back of the theater.”
Exceptional!
While the Rose Garden campaign didn't work out for Carter, it seems to be doing quite well today.
This makes me wonder, is voter lethargy (vote by mail) a result of campaign lethargy (Biden isn't there) or is it the other way around. Which came first, the chicken or the chicken shit?
The Democrats already dominate what can be seen as a one-party state. They have control of most corporations, media, culture, universities, science labs, and public schools — although the Republicans are starting to overtake school boards — and if they can also control elections, that leaves little hope for the resistance.
It's funny Open secrets 2022 here is a list notice 6 out of the top 10 are GOP. How is that possible when you said corporation are controlled by the Democrats?
Rank Organization Total Contributions Total Hard Money Total Outside Money To Democrats To Republicans
1 Soros Fund Management $129,422,509 $2,459,796 $126,962,713 $129,422,509 $0
2 Uline Inc $80,052,036 $3,171,021 $76,881,015 $3,653 $80,048,383
3 FTX.US $70,099,115 $1,693,168 $68,405,947 $44,984,218 $20,252,950
4 Citadel LLC $68,679,213 $1,604,213 $67,075,000 $58,312 $68,620,901
5 Susquehanna International Group $48,385,335 $148,685 $48,236,650 $40,003 $44,108,905
6 Blackstone Group $39,348,408 $4,728,338 $34,620,070 $2,358,500 $36,972,048
7 Newsweb Corp $35,784,000 $3,674,000 $32,110,000 $35,784,000 $0
8 Oracle Corp $33,148,183 $2,025,728 $31,122,455 $1,479,472 $31,663,205
9 Thiel Capital $32,970,272 $220,022 $32,750,250 $0 $32,970,272
10 Bloomberg LP $30,709,220 $1,604,292 $29,104,928 $30,388,104 $320,075