Amerika

Too much discussion on the Right focuses on why we seem to usually lose as history curves steadily toward the Left. Too few mention that we are already in collapse and this curve to the Left consists of those trying to make peace with their doom instead of resisting it.

Conservatives tend to ask what we did wrong, and how we could appeal to more people, which gets the usual answer from the consultant class that suggests conservatives should adopt more Leftist policies as our own. This backfires because the people who like Leftism will simply vote for full Leftism instead of turning conservative.

Consequently conservatives only win elections after the Left has already trashed things. This produces the “duopoly,” where Leftists implement Leftist policies which then fail, and conservatives come in to clean up and end up preserving all those Leftist policies in the process.

No wonder they call us the “stupid party”!

Conservatives lose not because our ideas are worse but because we are on the defensive. We are the ones defending the idea of civilization; the Left are the ones who want individualism, or “me first and someone else pays for externalities” at the expense of civilization.

This means that our side always gets blamed for anything that is going wrong, while the Left gets to portray themselves as having “new” (if 5k-year-old ideas are “new”) notions that will magically solve everything and bring about Utopia. This fools most of the people most of the time.

Our only real recourse is to become “revolutionary,” that is to turn against the current system and propose a different one instead. This clashes with the consultants and conservative political establishment which want to keep the status quo without risky radical changes.

In other words, conservatism suffers from something like inflammation in the body. We are under attack and have swelled up in response, making a bigger target and doing damage while we do, instead of pointing out that we are not defending the liberalized system that exists today.

We see people fleeing conservatism to traditionalism and anarcho-capitalism for this reason. They do not want to defend the calcified, liberalized, and dysfunctional present system; they want something that drops most of what we have now in favor of minimal function which is elusive to us in the current era.

To get past this stumbling block we have to remove the Leftist parts of modern conservatism. That means embracing dangerous ideas like hierarchy, Darwinism, capitalism, eugenics, and ending class warfare. That scares people, so they retreat into the safe-but-ineffectual “Christian libertarianism” of modern conservatism.

In doing so, they make themselves unlikely to succeed, since they are offering yet another shade of liberalism instead of an alternative.

The Left wins for a simple reason, which is that they have mass appeal and trust. Leftists trust each other to work toward the same plan; this allows them to stop being careerists and me-firsters for long enough to collaborate. They form a hivemind and do the same thing at the same time, which turns out to be very effective.

Conservatives cannot do the same because we are divided. Not only are we defending many different areas, like trying to stop a loss of culture while trying to avoid socialism, but we are seduced by the individualism of the Left. Instead of having our eyes on the long-term goal, we are too often working on our own interests like hobbies.

For example, conservatives tend to fragment on any issue. The Left repeats nearly identical tropes and talking points; every conservative has his or her own take on Trump, China, unions, or any other issue. Most of these tropes are wildly divergent because that is how you get ahead as a writer, being unique.

This individualism comes from despair. No one who is happy is an individualist, which means a “me first before anything else” type of person. Happy people are focused on goals and are not self-obsessed. Sad people are defensively self-obsessed as a way of having something to focus on other than the circumstances of their sadness.

Conservatives come from the “don’t touch my stuff” variety of individualist. They want to make names for themselves, so they refuse to agree; they want to get paid well and be famous, so they attack each other. Every public conservative has their own view and their own areas of concern. There is no unity, and there is no trust.

On the other hand, being a Leftist is easy. Repeat the dogma, and put your own spin on it if you want, but only after you repeat it. Repeat the dogma. Do not be afraid to be repetitive; your audience loves repetition. Hammer out the message then adorn it a little. It is insincere but effective.

Conservatives screwed up by trying to adopt Leftist ideas instead of Leftist methods. We might try what works for them: we all repeat the same message at the same time until the normies get saturated in it and start repeating it. It is more important that we save our civilization than that we get our fifteen minutes of fame individually and separately.

Tags: conservatism, conservatism inc., conservatives, leftism