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There is an endless litany of arguments against democracy and you probably know them all, already. Yes, I know the US is a republic, but spiritually it's a democracy; we believe that our rulers are granted legitimacy because they are manifestations of our voice
A thing can be spiritually true even if it's not literally true, (or symbolically true, or directionally true) Did Washington cut down a cherry tree? Who cares, spiritually true. Is Michelle Obama a male transvestite? Who cares, spiritually true (also yes) https://twitter.com/TheRISEofROD/status/1332897350390575104
Mencken said "democracy is grounded upon so childish a complex of fallacies that they must be protected by a rigid system of taboos, else even half-wits would argue it to pieces. Its first concern must be to penalize the free play of ideas"
The difficulty in arguing against suffrage-based governance is not in building a logically sound argument against it, it's in breaking the conditioning, the system of taboos that keeps you believing in it
Consent of the governed doesn't work, because the governers quickly figure out how to manufacture consent. The same people who read Zizek and grasp that news media exists to control you also believe that BLM is some kind of organic uprising of the human spirit
When consent is a precondition for authority, authority will learn to manipulate people into consent.
I don't know if words alone can break the conditioning that causes you to trust news media; I think that break has to come from some crisis in your own experience. You have to catch them in a lie and realize that it's not an accident or a one-off https://twitter.com/0x49fa98/status/1027597626504400896
What I want to do is break you out of your amnesia. Every time they lie to you, you just go right back to trusting them. Who's they? The media, the mavens of culture and politics, the people who decide what's true. https://twitter.com/0x49fa98/status/1281386778889519105
I need you to realize that every single word printed in "respectable" news outlets is a lie, because it is grounded in a hostile belief system.
As Moldbug said, the presidential election is an argument about who gets to wear the Ronald McDonald suit. But despite the little executive power the president has, do you think McDonald's would be half as successful if their mascot were Azathoth, the hideous devourer?
The dark satanic mills of the bureaucracy are going to keep turning no matter who you elect. Voting makes you feel powerful in the way that playing the lottery makes you feel rich. These teachings insulate you from the psychic pain of losing. Small comfort, that.
Trump was never the fascist that we wanted him to be, or that his enemies said he was. But for the first time ever in my adult life, a politician made noises that appealed to me specifically. That's very powerful, because more than half of the president's job is ceremonial
Trump isn't important because of what he will or will not do in office (though more the latter), he's important because of his symbolic value as a repudiation of a certain type of person, the type of person who principally composes our governing class
Trump is a rejection of the sanctities that we hate, and they will come out and say it: "trump is a racist/sexist/etc." That doesn't mean he hates women or blacks, it means he doesn't worship their gods. THAT is what we voted for
And that's also what they hate about him – not any action he took, not his "lies," not his "incompetence" – it's that he doesn't affirm their sacred symbols.
The bureacracy works a little less well with Trump in charge, I think we can all admit that. It's not a bad thing necessarily, since the principal objectives of the bureacracy include total demographic replacement of the american people and turning everyone gay
The reason Trump is such a good signal is that he is polarizing. If you think you are "conservative" but you reject Trump, it shows where your loyalties really lie: with the above system and its terrible velocity
People who object to Trump's "tone" or his manners don't get it at all, those are his primary appeal. He's not some slick PMC grown in a vat to control you. If you think you're too good for Trump, because he sends the wrong class signal, again, that is the point
You want your figurehead to throw the exosemantic gang signs of the educated class (you want to go comfortably into the night) but that is EXACTLY what we are rejecting, because that class and its manners are inextricably tangled with a moral theory that mandates our destruction
Call it a motte and bailey if that helps. It goes way beyond social justice, (or wokism, as we say now), it's the cluster of beliefs where you say "basic human decency" and what you mean is chopping eight year old's dicks off https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/07/07/social-justice-and-words-words-words/
The highly visible people who want these things dwell entirely in the motte. They say "moderate" things and present as slightly left centrists, and they provide no obstruction to the sexual and racial mystery cult that is eating the world https://twitter.com/0x49fa98/status/1268540787446427649
In the name of "basic human decency" they demand to open the borders, disenfranchise the American founding stock, and promote all forms of perversion and sexual immorality. This didn't start in 2015 or 2019 or any such thing, that's just when a bunch of left moderates noticed it
I don't expect to change anyone's mind with this. A circle I've been trying to square for the last four years is that I believe democracy is wicked and also that a particular president matters and is good.
The resolution to this paradox is that show is bad but that participating in the show in a way that disrupts its semiotic flows is good https://twitter.com/0x49fa98/status/1305584588014735360
A popular film can change the moral landscape of the whole country. One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest was a major force in closing the insane asylums and releasing the crazies into the world. The content of the national politics show matters at least as much https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One_Flew_Over_the_Cuckoo%27s_Nest_(film)
Having Donald Trump in the white house is important, because he represents (and reifies!) our ability to think outside of the institutions that manufacture our consent.
At the same time, there is no more fitting symbol of the new left than Joe Biden, a sclerotic, demented white man who literally doesn't know what year it is, acting as a trojan horse for a half indian woman pretending to be black, who will sell the shirt off your back to the CCP
I don't know who's going to be sitting in the white house next year. As in all things, I hope for the best and prepare for the worst. But I know that we need a symbol like Trump if we are ever going to overcome the spiritual shackles of democracy
