John Hayward Profile picture
Feb 10 13 tweets 3 min read
The special privileges afforded to lefties - Dems flaunting the mask mandates they ruthlessly impose on children, Whoopi getting a two-week paid vacation for vicious on-air bigotry - are a key part of how totalitarian ideologies work. Party membership must have benefits.
These privileges must be flaunted. It is vital for the public to see that carrying a Party card confers special treatment and extraordinary benefits. Everyone must understand that the rules are different for Party members. Vulgar displays are sometimes needed to drive this home.
Totalitarianism is the politicization of everything. It's exhausting for the people who must live under its ever-growing, ever-changing rules. This is by design. An exhausted populace, worn down by perpetual fear of saying or doing the Wrong Thing, is easier to control.
But the totalitarian system must be managed by a ruling Party whose card-carrying members are immunized against the shifting maze of rules and taboos in which the public is trapped. The Ruling Class must walk above the maze in order to control the rats running within.
As a political party grows more totalitarian, its elites scoff at the notion of "leading by example." They regard the notion as frankly absurd. THEY need reliable energy, dependable transportation, armed protection, and the other things YOU must do without. THEY don't need masks.
Totalitarian elites would laugh out loud if told they should do all of the things they demand of the Little People, to lead by example. They would roar with mirth if told they should disarm their guards to prove they're serious about gun control, or rely solely on electric cars.
This is partly because the elites have no intention of suffering the way they intend for you to suffer, and party because their ego and ideology tell them Special People like themselves deserve special privileges - they're better than you, so OF COURSE they live better.
But it's also because totalitarianism can only thrive if there is a single ruling Party, and membership in that Party must confer privileges. Even the Little People must be taught to view the lowest echelon of Party members as special and privileged, living by different rules.
This is how the ruling totalitarian party recruits members. Look at every totalitarian party in history - from WW2 fascists, to modern China, to the Democrat Party in America - and you can see this dynamic in play. Join the Party and the rules are different for you.
Smart totalitarians understand there will always be sources of power and wealth that are not directly controlled by even the largest government, unless you embrace pure communism and degenerate into primitive savagery and starvation. Advanced societies inevitably create wealth.
In order to control the power and wealth that exists beyond State control, totalitarians use Party membership as a way to bring rich and influential people into the political fold. It becomes unthinkable for any rich or famous person to resist joining the Party.
The Party is the nimbus of influence and control that extends far beyond the State. The Party puts private capital and influence at the disposal of political elites, so they can wield power far beyond what is granted by law. You can see many examples of this in America today.
If you want all these rich, talented, influential people to join the Party, you must constantly send the message that Party membership has incredible perks - like insurance against Cancel Culture, and special exemptions from silly political superstitions like masking. /end

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More from @Doc_0

Feb 7
The Wuhan coronavirus arrived just as people across the free world were losing trust in the integrity and competence of their elites.

The pandemic response richly justified that loss of trust... but also gave the Ruling Class what it needed to strike back and subdue the masses.
After the endless pandemic debacles, people have less faith in "experts" and institutions than ever - but it doesn't matter. Your faith is no longer required. In the never-ending state of emergency, you are not allowed to disobey decrees or vote against those who enforce them.
You'll still be allowed to vote on some peripheral issues, swapping out a few politicians now and then for choices from a pre-screened, pre-approved stable of alternates, but you will not be able to vote against or disobey a growing core of untouchable bureaucracy.
Read 8 tweets
Feb 4
Everyone involved in giving the Olympics to Communist China should be bitterly ashamed of themselves as these tyrannical antics unfold. You whitewashed slavery and genocide. You put young athletes in an impossible position and made them instruments of propaganda.
You did more to undermine the cause of human rights and liberty around the world than anyone who isn't actually holding a smoking gun or the master's end of a leash. You're helping China and its ally Russia discredit the entire CONCEPT of human rights.
You gave a vicious authoritarian regime even more leverage over the politics and business of the free world, and they WILL make aggressive use of it. You've got American "news" networks parroting Communist propaganda. You're helping China get away with unleashing a pandemic.
Read 6 tweets
Feb 3
Hard to say the War Against Cancel Culture is succeeding at the moment. At least the battle has been joined. But Rogan isn't out of the woods yet, and the Left is doing fairly well at carving out exceptions for itself, like Whoopi getting a paid vacation instead of termination.
They'll keep ratcheting up the pressure against Joe Rogan, and more lefties will join in as the value of his scalp increases. Team Censorship is openly begging a few bigger names to step in, so it's not just fossilized hippies pulling their music from Spotify in protest.
That's the thing about cancellation: when the Left wants somebody gone, it's never really over. They can keep the crusade going more-or-less indefinitely, and as Woke goose-steppers gain more corporate influence, the tide is always one or two big sponsors away from turning.
Read 13 tweets
Jan 25
The Wuhan coronavirus pandemic uncorked a huge amount of authoritarian pressure that has been building among Western political elites for the past 30 years. At last, the hour of the Enlightened Despot had arrived!
The fantasy of enlightened authoritarianism has long thrived among the elite, a tradition stretching back to the intelligentsia embracing fascism and Stalinism, eugenics and Malthusian nightmares - every ideology that argues for absolute power guided by "scientific consensus."
You don't have to dig back to the World War era to see it. Look at the perpetual swooning over dictators like Castro, the never-ending romance with the notion of the Scientific Ruler who can Get Things Done because he doesn't have to worry about deplorables voting against him.
Read 15 tweets
Jan 25
It's a bit much to watch the Media Guild snigger and tell Pete Doocy to walk it off after four years of drama-queen shrieking that every hostile utterance from Trump was an existential threat to journalism itself.
If you want to talk about threats to journalism, Biden was veep to Barack Obama, who mastered the art of weaponizing government against his political enemies, very much including journalists. Biden is more likely to actually suppress journalism than Trump ever was.
And if you want to put these remarks in context, Biden is a flailing, desperate man who blows his stack at the 1% of "reporters" who actually bother to ask him tough questions about his disastrous policies, on the very rare occasions he takes questions at all.
Read 4 tweets
Jan 19
Watched "The Last Duel" last night, a sadly overlooked but excellent film that shows Ridley Scott is still more energetic and visionary than directors a third of his age when he's excited about the material, and still brings out the best in his cast. But I have a quibble...
I thought the movie suffered a bit by declaring absolute certitude about events that are still somewhat disputed by historians. It might have been better - more intriguing and haunting, less heavy-handed - if it didn't confidently announce what "The Truth" really was.
Striving to avoid spoilers, but I wonder if a younger Ridley Scott - whose landmark films often contained a dash of ambiguity, of unsolved mystery, inviting the audience to supply its own prologues and epilogues - might have trimmed or omitted Act Three of this movie.
Read 6 tweets

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