NO MORE HALF MEASURES: PART I

THE ART OF LOSING

Kiss of Judas by Giotto. Scrovegni Chapel, Padua, Italy

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A fundamental fact of nature is that nothing remains static, that everything is in flux, that nothing escapes change. This reality is most self-evidently true in politics, where the landscape is ever-shifting. And yet this fact also applies at the macro level, at the civilizational scale; for this is an age of immense import, an upheaval away from the way things have always been. The conservative movement in particular has encountered this divergence, splitting between the status quo and the rapidly ascendant America First right-wing. This upheaval is reactionary in nature, as all political movements are, and it stems in large part from the impotence of the Republican establishment. Foreign hordes numbering in the tens of millions were permitted to take up residence, untold billions of dollars were sent overseas to nations that pretend to be our allies, and the culture was allowed to be morally degraded. Much of this has been done with the tacit or explicit support of the Republican Party. Or, if the party did not approve, then these actions were carried out under their hollow bluster and empty threats. Our civilizational inheritance has been squandered by the conservative movement, and in reaction, young men in particular are moving to a more radical set of beliefs and allegiances.

This rift within the conservative movement is by no means formally decided or defined, as the old guard is still deeply entrenched within the traditional power structures and the dissident right-wing is operating largely outside these frameworks. Yet, the America First movement’s star is visible to the naked eye, and, as it grows in power and influence, it is worthwhile to pause and trace out how the Right has come to this juncture and what may be learned from it. The first proposition that follows from this reflection is that the principal failure of the brand of conservatism that has defined the last half century, aside from its unbounded Zionism and manifold destructive policies, is its palpable weakness and seeming commitment to inaction, which has resulted in innumerable leftist victories. The second proposition that logically follows from this reflection is, one, that the New Right must not repeat these errors, for already the time grows short and the civilizational clock has just struck the eleventh hour, and two, it must be committed to total victory achieved through a policy of unbridled action. This essay will treat of the first proposition.

The failures of modern conservatism find their origin in the middle of the last century. Since that time, the Republican Party and the conservative movement have contented themselves with a policy of apathy. From the top down, they have been pleased to be a party and a people of political and cultural inaction. The character of these many millions of people and their leaders is marked by useless complaining, strongly worded letters and tweets in lieu of actually doing something, outrage that ultimately accomplishes nothing, comparison of how decent they are compared to the Left, which gives rise to a smug and unfounded faux moral superiority, and an unquestioning adherence to their so-called principles. Their principles. And what are their principles? “Change, but slowly!” is one. “If you fight like the Left, you’ll be no better than them!” is another. “That [action] the Left committed was bad, and no one on their side said anything. Could you imagine if we did that? They’d eat us alive!” is yet another. Most noxious of all, however, is the fusion of two related maxims: first, We have no loyalty to people on our side who do not behave like Christians, who say mean words or do unpleasant things, because we must be the ones setting the standard; and second, We will never deviate from our principles, no matter how badly we are losing, because at least we are not the Left. Together, these form a moralistic code that prizes self-congratulation over victory and restraint over results, and which functions less as a guide to action than as an excuse for perpetual defeat.

Leftist victory after leftist victory, and the Republican Party prides and congratulates itself on its apathy, as though adherence to the rule of law will save them from an enemy that cares for nothing of the sort.

These cowards and their policy of abject weakness and procedural restraint have resulted in an onslaught of signal victories for the Left for the last seventy years or more. The academy in the 1960s was overtaken by leftist militants and ideologues and have remained captured; divorce was made popular, given justification, and then codified into law; abortion was legalized; the homosexual lifestyle was normalized; broad obscenity bans for media were lifted; the disastrous Hart-Cellar Act was passed that flooded this nation with Third World and non-European “immigrants,” and all of that was in the 20th century alone. Then came the 21st, which brought the full decriminalization of homosexuality and then later the federal recognition of homosexual marriage, the rise of transgenderism and gender identity that was foisted onto the youth, and with the advent of the internet came the mainstream production and consumption of pornography. To give an exhaustive list of leftist victories would be redundant; let it be enough that the Right has for the last seventy years been terribly outdone by the Left.

The internal operating state of affairs on the Right, namely the appearance of action with none of the substance, is partially responsible for these external cultural and political losses to the Left. One need only look to the House Oversight Committee to see the appetite for inaction and bluster on the Right. When controlled by Republicans, it performatively conducts hearings that make for good clips on YouTube or C-SPAN, or, if they are lucky, Twitter highlights, but that ultimately produce no real change, lead to no legal remedy, and ultimately end with no accountability for the offending party, The talking heads and public intellectuals of the Right are equally whitewashed tombs, for they love to shout and bray about facts and logic, but never do they urge action based on those facts or follow logic to its often dangerous conclusions. They will show in lurid detail to the viewer how badly he is getting victimized, but never what may be done about it.

This policy of inaction is not a new one. George Lincoln Rockwell bemoaned this very phenomenon in his 1963 autobiographical book This Time the World, where he reflected on what he described as his fatal misjudgment of the Right’s human character. He wrote that he had “reckoned without any knowledge of the human content of the ‘right-wing’,” discovering by bitter experience that, from wealthy donors to the “scared little people” attending endless, pitiful “conservative” and “100% American” meetings, the movement consisted “90% of cowards… and hobbyists.” These were people, he observed, who derived "a perverted, masochistic pleasure in telling each other forever how we are all being raped by the 'you know whos,' but who, under no condition, would risk their two cars, landscaped homes, or juicy jobs to do something about it.” Whatever one makes of Rockwell or his politics, his diagnosis of mainstream conservatism’s aversion to risk, sacrifice, and action was already clear by the early 1960s and has remained disturbingly accurate ever since.

The gradual progress that the radical Left was able to make from 1950 to 2000 was due in large part not to their own efficiency, loyalty, or tactics, but rather because they encountered little to no resistance where it mattered. So it was that they were able to win victory after victory, albeit incrementally. Anecdotally, it is said as a point of pride in today’s conservative circles that the reason there aren’t conservatives protesting or rioting in the street for one reason or another is because “we are the ones with jobs.” Leftist victory after leftist victory, and the Republican Party prides and congratulates itself on its apathy, as though adherence to the rule of law will save them from an enemy that cares for nothing of the sort.

But what does the Republican Party and the modern establishment conservative movement care about? A deadly intoxicant called feeling. The feeling of moral superiority, that they are somehow better and more principled than their leftist counterparts, is the drug that they have prostituted themselves to acquire. These people freely spend the currency of victory in order that they may, in like manner to an addict, obtain this feeling. This is why they are comfortable with losing politically and culturally over and over and over again, for so long as they can look in the mirror and say with confidence, “At least I am not the Left; they are so unprincipled and ungodly, whereas I am a conservative™,” then it matters not whether they are losing or winning. They may even outright acknowledge that they are losing, but their loss is somehow acceptable. This is the policy of cowards.

The Left has taken a sledgehammer to the foundations of our civilization, and in response the Right has done nothing. Action in response to this destruction is an abhorrence to them. The Left plays by no rules, has no standards, and believes in but one principle, and that is victory at all cost. The Right, in contradistinction, clings overmuch to its standards and principles at the expense of action, as though somehow being self-righteously impotent translates into the salvation of civilization and culture. While the Left has mobilized to destroy the foundations of this and other countries, the Right stands idly by, remarking that what is happening is ruinous but refusing to do anything about it. They pride themselves on their principles, yet, if their principles have led to the destruction of their country, then of what use were the principles?

If weeds are allowed to grow unchecked in a garden, one does not blame the weeds simply behaving according to their nature. Rather, one faults the gardener.

It could be argued that the principles were simply misapplied, that they were good principles but simply not executed properly. This argument works if the conservative principles were sound at the outset. That is, whether their original premises were true. But they were not. And immoral principles have thus led to a wicked conclusion. It is not, of course, an unsound principle to conserve the moral, judicial, and cultural order. It is, however, a poor principle when slow (read: no) action becomes the policy and useless muttering the rule.

The immoral premise is inaction, and the conclusions that follows and continue to follow from that premise is the sweeping victories of the Left. It is a disgusting, unmanly, and ungodly thing to hand over one’s country to the enemy without even a shot being fired or the least sign of resistance. Did the denizens of central and southern Europe, whilst the Muslims were ravaging their land, say unto themselves in the midst of being conquered, “Woe is us, but at least we have not stooped to that level of barbarity and are thus morally better than the enemy?” Certainly not! They roused themselves to great feats of courage and set upon the enemy and destroyed him and routed him out of Christian lands. The rot in this country, the moral decadence, and the growth of iniquitous domestic policies have arisen because conservatives were weak. They preferred talk to action and the feeling of moral superiority to victory. If weeds are allowed to grow unchecked in a garden, one does not blame the weeds simply behaving according to their nature. Rather, one faults the gardener.

It may be said in objection to this true, albeit polemical, assertion that conservatives have been weak that Trump’s second term has proved just the opposite. The almost complete halt of illegal immigration at the southern border, the recent seizure of the Venezuelan president, and the full-throated support and backing of law enforcement would seem to suggest that slowly, gradually, conservatives have begun to embrace a policy of action. Yet just the opposite is true, and an excellent proof of the spinelessness of the Republicans is a brief examination of the last decade. When President Trump was running for his first term, functionally the entire Republican establishment came out as one to oppose him, saying that he was not a conservative, he had no principles, his policies were not the way that things had been done, and that he was a fraud. When he won, many establishment Republicans cozied up to him while helping to block or slow-walk his policies and leak their way into almost totally obstructing President Trump’s agenda. When faced with a man who represented the collective unconscious will of the American people, establishment Republicans chose to have an internal civil war to defend their long-held tradition of inaction and apathy.

The second Trump administration is certainly a step in the right direction, but it is nowhere near fully shaking off the slumber of apathy. Recently, even with the flurry of activity, there is a strong undercurrent of inaction. Attorney General Bondi loves her Fox News appearances but produces precious few tangible results. The Republicans have controlled the House, Senate, and the presidency for a year and have achieved relatively few victories. The stakes could not be higher, and yet still the action and accomplishments of this administration do not match the urgency of the moment. These observations are not meant as a criticism, but rather as an examination of where the conservative movement stands at the current time.

This is a time of transition. There are elements of the establishment Republican Party and conservative movement who understand that inaction must be no longer tolerated, which is why there is such a drastic difference between Trump’s first administration and his second. The collective will of the American people yearns for, nay demands, real action that produces real results. The era of satiating the masses by throwing them cheap political baubles or not fulfilling campaign promises is drawing to a close. Yet the seeming majority of the establishment would prefer to maintain the appearance of doing something, for one reason or another, instead of actually doing anything. This will not suffice. It is no longer tolerable that Governor Walz boasts that he will deploy the Minnesota National Guard to militarily resist ICE and is able to walk about as a free man. It is deplorable that the Somali community in Minneapolis, who should not be in this country in the first place, is allowed to embezzle billions of dollars from the federal and state governments and not be denaturalized and deported wholesale. Books could be filled with anecdotes of the Left getting away with murder and the Right doing little to nothing in response.

In conclusion, although there are perhaps many factors that explain the current cultural and political predicament, a principal cause has been the commitment to proceduralism and restraint in lieu of action on the part of the conservative movement. This has led to the Left pushing the cultural Overton window, until recently, leftward and achieving many political and legal victories. The Republican Party broadly and the conservative movement in particular have reached a crossroads, a choice between the same, tired principles that have led to this point and great acts that must be committed to save and preserve our civilization. The principal failure of traditional conservatism is that it has been weak. We must be weak no longer, for the eleventh hour is upon us.

This is the first part of a two part essay. Click here for the second part.