Thread by @VDAREJamesK

I'm going to try to get a good month to finish my book Nationalists Without A Nation done and out before 2024. I also owe Greg Johnson a response for his critique of me here - counter-currents.com/2022/12/agains…, which I encourage you to read. But below are my key premises. I ask for input.

There's a systemic failure in democracy seen from classical times, cited by de Toqueville and in a more fundamental way by Evola. He called it the Regression of the Castes. We'd say it's the Weaponization of Misery. The Left wins because it fails and thus creates more of itself.

Even in a mental health system we could argue is created by and for leftists, leftists have more mental health disorders. They report higher rates of unhappiness. Yet they steamroll conservatives who have families, better sex lives, more stable marriages, more kids, etc.

Vanishingly small minorities that didn't even exist a few years ago dictate culture, while conservatives are mostly concerned with gatekeeping their own side. The mainstream Right assumes its eventual defeat. They make money through performative opposition, but do no more.

The grassroots - betrayed, leaderless, utterly unrepresented - seeks answers in "safe" conspiracy theories like QAnon, which tells them everything will be ok. Someone is coming to save them. America still wins in the end. But no one is. It's not radical - it's a sedative.

The so-called "far right" is more moderate than respectable people in Conservatism Inc. Most don't want Paul Ryan style cuts to Social Security and Medicare (Biden skillfully played on this in #SOTU2023). They want center-left economic policies, and center-right cultural policies

In 2016, Trump got this. Let's remember media couldn't decide whether he was a fascist or a moderate. The answer was kind of both. His common sense solutions are not something you could get in either party. That's what led him to victory and brought in new voters.

But as someone who worked long in Conservatism Inc, there's no market for this. You get people who are annoyed at campus leftism but end up as warriors for tax cuts for George Soros and Cold War nostalgia. You end up with a movement that's feckless, backward AND irrelevant.

Most people know they are being screwed by the System. But they don't know how to express this politically, except in a vague sense of (usually fake) rebellion. Democracy is an excellent system for preventing change, because it prevents accountability. We govern ourselves, right?

Swing voters are real. Most people want to believe in America and get along. They just don't get that leftists really do hate them. Trying to educate them on that makes you sound crazy. But they also get at some level that they are being screwed. Hence Obama-Trump voters and 2016

After 2017, to stop Trump, the System threw out the things that once defined America. Free speech, distrust of government dictating a political line, media collusion with spy agencies, outright repression - our system is no different than Russia's, except our values are worse.

This was something, frankly, I never thought I'd see. Companies outright stealing money and denying service. Law enforcement making stuff up. Conservatism Inc. enthusiastically backing it. It prevents a movement that might do something productive, instead of just Reagan nostalgia

Unfortunately, Trump governed as a normal conservative. He handed over the agenda to Paul Ryan and it all went downhill. The Alt Right/"Alt Light" split for pointless reasons. In some ways, this was necessary. But it was still a missed opportunity that won't come again.

The mass base for what was once the Alt Right is bigger than ever. Objectively, there's more support. But there are fewer ways of communicating with them. Also, some spokesmen and almost all politicians are off chasing tangents that just don't matter, be it balloons or the debt.

In 2020, the Left successfully used State Conquest to transform the country as utterly as South Africa was. The current System is structured, explicitly, as a repudiation of what came before. That's what's taught in government schools and bureaucracies, including the military.

White conservatives, not immigrants, aren't assimilated to mainstream culture. The mainstream American Right says we need to do more to save the System from the federal deficit, or government waste, or China, or Russia. But why? It's not ours. GOPers act like battered wives.

The System's ONLY purpose is to make life worse for white Americans and those few non-white Americans who still identify with the historic American nation. It's built explicitly on making things worse for you. If you are trying to save it, you're not just a fool, but a traitor.

More importantly, cultivating grievances won't promote healing, or tolerance, or unity. It's not supposed to. It promotes more anger, violence, and hatred. Surging crime, social atomization, and moral decay isn't System failure, but policies working as intended.

Yet Americans, especially whites, have been stripped of the vocabulary to describe what's happening to them. They feel morally unworthy to push back, or, if they do, they face opposition from the law, the media, and occasionally, the System's pet thugs. So we watch decline.

60 years of praying, waving American flags, and voting Republican failed. The Constitution has zero impact on the way this country is governed. Our entire society is built around making enough money to avoid the consequences of our System's stupid ideas that were forced on us.

So we have a radical message, that requires radical tactics which will result in... policies that are actually pretty moderate and which most people agree with and almost all live in accordance with, if they have the money. The biggest problem, of course, is the media, bc AJAB.

The two fundamental premises of liberal democracy are wrong. People are not a blank slate. People do not choose from a marketplace of ideas. Ideas are pushed from the top down. Most elections ratify decisions that have already been made. They'll never let 2016 happen again.

What's the solution? Yes build power at local level, look at activists who are working now, do what you can with what you have, etc, etc. But ultimately, it will require a radical new vision that will have to be built from ground up, not in theory, but practice. It will be tough.

We must build tribes, churches, and networks ideologically, spiritually, and economically outside a System that cannot be reformed and exists to make things worse. A weak population means a strong managerial elite. Our rulers gain nothing from a better life for the people.

In the critique, it's said I want to "think both very big and very small." That's correct. For a practical example of what I want, Orania in South Africa comes closest. But thousands of them, all ultimately building toward the dream of Western unity, which is our destiny.

It may sound grand or LARPy. But I mean it in the smallest, most practical sense. The ideal is grand - what must be done is pragmatic - land, businesses, loyalty, money, survival. These are necessities. They must be done NOW. Because things are getting bad out there.

We have one life. The culture offers us nothing. We owe it nothing but contempt. We have the people, the talent, the resources. It's just a question of doing what we can now. There's no contradiction between doing that while also striving towards the grandest vision.

There will be disappointments. No one is coming to save us, from the sky or from DC. Pragmatic stuff can be annoying - the grunt work of dealing with money, work, personal relations. But it must be done, and we must never give into despair. Inaction isn't an option.

If we don't get some glorious Imperium and total victory in this life? Well you built something cool with your friends that will outlast you. You'll have people that will remember you, and stories about yourself others will find worth telling over the fire. That's worth it.

Yet I think we will see it. Everything is possible. But only if we stop accepting the obligation to save our declared enemies from themselves. It's not our System. You owe it nothing. Democracy is a lie. Build your own world. It's being done. If you want it, you can find it.

I hope to see some of you out there around the fires, not just at conferences. Never give in to despair, never cease to demand what's yours by right, and if you face opposition, laugh in its face. That's the only thing you owe them. It's all ours, if we want it badly enough. /end