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the de-evolution of the west

friday, april 26th, 2024

It has been said that intellectuals can reduce a city of stone to sand. Unfortunately, this is especially true as today’s “thinking class” wages all-hands-on deck warfare against Western Civilization. The most prominent of these attacks is the Diversity, Inclusion and Equity (DIE) movement but DIE is not, however, the only assault. Less obvious, but of no less importance, is how “scholars” now attack Western Civilization by celebrating, “indigenous” cultures that had largely been replaced by Western Civilization. These enemies are not romantics wanting to “return to nature” by living off the grid sans modern conveniences. Rather, the enemies of Western Civilization want it replaced.

Nothing gets you in trouble quite like the truth.

This animus toward Western Civilization invites reverting to the Dark Ages of Europe. If, after all, any cultural practice is as valid as any other, why spend billions on modern medicine? Hire witch doctors and save a fortune.

This civilizational de-evolution is hardly hypothetical. Over a million Americans now identify themselves as “pagan” or “witches” along with others holding “new age” beliefs that resemble pre-modern spirituality. Salem, MA has become famous as “Witch City” whose annual witch-themed events draw huge crowds. According to a recent Pew survey, 28% of Americans answered “none” when asked their religion. Large numbers of Latinos, especially younger immigrants, embrace brujeria -- a religion that pre-dates Christianity. Read about it in Brujeria: The Magic and Power of Witches of Color.

Americans praising pagan rituals and so on are hardly misguided, according to some academics. For these professors, these “primitive” beliefs as equal or even superior to Western Civilization. Nor are these admirers anthropologists who might sympathetically depict the traditions of the Arctic-dwelling Intuits. Rather, they champion these pre-modern cultures. As one article in Science, circulation of over one million, put it, “Faced with the profound challenges of a rapidly changing environment, society needs other ways of knowing to illuminate a different way forward. Thanks to the leadership of Indigenous scholars and allied collaborators, Indigenous knowledge is receiving long overdue recognition for its potential to provide solutions for the mutual thriving of lands and cultures. An urgent question is how institutions can appropriately support (and not hinder) Indigenous science’s key role in creating a sustainable future.” That is, seek advice on solving contemporary American problems from people surviving in the rain forest.

This is hardly inconsequential rhetoric. According to the Science article, a 2022 White House conference called for “elevating” the knowledge of indigenous people on such topics as land management all the while noting our misguided attempts to erase them physically and through forced assimilation. Indeed, thanks to National Science Foundation funding, some 54 indigenous scholars at the University of Massachusetts (Amherst) will tackle the worldwide problems of climate disruption, hunger, and sustaining native culture.

According to these experts, “The goal is to identify and advance models of ethical and effective integration of Indigenous and Western sciences by creating mutually respectful and reciprocal relationships between them.” Western and non-western “science” are thus co-equal in solving the world’s pressing problems.

Meanwhile, the American Museum of Natural History, a prestigious research institution, has just spent $19 million dollars on a new exhibition featuring the Tling, an Alaskan native population. The displays feature shaman masks and philosophies of spiritual healing. These shamans are described as “doctors” not witch doctors or faith healers. Though their creation myths and self-reported history are folklore, Museum curators treat these accounts as verified fact. Picture these curators putting on an exhibition that asserted that the Bible was literally true -- creationism. Remarkably, the museum experts feel no need to warn visitors that a distinction exists between folklore and demonstrated scientific fact.

This blurring of myth and scientific fact reflects an ideological agenda. The government agencies sponsoring the museum hope to “increase diversity of voices and perspectives” that will, hopefully, enhance cultural understanding. Just how obscuring the distinction between fact and an invented reality helps anyone is ignored. Rather, the message is that when it comes to truth, there is no need for scientific verification if “the truth” is offered by indigenous people. We now possess our own “truths,” so just pick your truth and be happy.

Finally, there is the celebration of the contribution of indigenous people featured at the 2024 DAVOS meeting, the conclave of the world’s most powerful political and economic leaders. In fact, listening to the people from the rain forest and similar backward areas was a central feature of the conference. Thankfully for those who might have eaten and drank too much, Chieftess Putanny Yawanawá of the Amazonian Yawanawá tribe cured the attendees’ discomfort with a shamanic ceremony. These many indigenous experts spoke on the balance of nature and economies plus offering cutting-edge technologies incorporating Indigenous knowledge. Davos 2024 also launched the “The Indigenous Peoples’ Knowledge and Leadership Network,” which will bring together indigenous experts and representatives across the World Economic Forum’s 10 centres (six) of impact, as a space to foster greater public-private cooperation through Indigenous knowledge.” Note the capitalization of “Indigenous” as a sign of respect.

It is tempting to dismiss this fascination with “indigenous knowledge” as clever virtue signaling. But it should be taken seriously. Over time and institutional financial support, the verbiage can grow in the next version of DIE. Nor does focus on “indigenous knowledge” enhance Western Civilization’s diversity. It is a rival, since the indigenous “way of knowing” explicitly rejects modern science in favor of an incoherent hodgepodge of folk tales, multicolored noisy ceremonies, and “advice” that is opinion totally beyond empirical proof. World leaders are paying fortunes to hear this babble, but how many of them would trust their physical well-being to African shamans? Probably none but those who follow the money, may see big bucks in what is celebrated at prestigious forums such as DAVOS. Will universities now hire “Indigenous” consultants, and they now hire DIE functionaries?

The comparison with DIE is instructive. Three decades ago, who would have predicted that many American students at elite universities would now believe that science was just the “white way” of seeking knowledge, and oppressed people should embrace their “own knowledge,” not empirically tested (White) evidence? Or that wealth should depend on skin color, not personal accomplishment? Crazy ideas can infiltrate society, even dominate public discourse, as the current state of American higher education demonstrates,

Celebrating such “knowledge” invites de-evolution, a return to the Dark Age or worse. To quote Thomas Hobbes, life would be solitary, brutish, and short. Yes, who is to say what is the “best” society, but for those who want to reject Western Civilization, there are countless sites on our planet that would accommodate them. The 2025 DAVOS conclave should be held among the Korowai tribe in New Guinea attendees can see for themselves the benefits of ending Western Civilization.

History and merely observing today’s world shows that Western Civilization is not the default human condition. It may, in fact, be the exception, and it is certainly not permanent once established. It is fragile and not everyone wants it. Countless intellectuals are railing against it, and they should be taken seriously. Few Americans, and millions of those besieging our Southern border, want to live on a pile of sand.

A Day In The Life.

Up at 6a on Friday, I went thru my finger stick to check my BSL (Blood Sugar Level) and recorded it on my Diabetes 2 chart, made coffee, took two 50mg Tramadol and a 300mg Gabapentin for Sciatica pain, fired-up the Win-7 Pentium HP desktop to let 32 million lines of code load, had a couple smokes in the 67° garage and checked the leftover errands list.

It was a not-so-balmy 46° outside, so I did fire-up the condo furnace and garage heater, had some wonderful Kona Coffee, then scanned the news and weather sites, and tuned into the "Chris Stigall Show LIVE" (CS Show) from 6-9a, and then the "Chris Plante Show LIVE" (CP Show) 9-12noon, and finally to the Rob Carson Show LIVE (RC Show) 12-3p.

You didn't "find" God; He wasn't lost. He found you.

The ***BREAKING NEWS*** of Israel's retaliatory missile strike against Iran and Iraq, came over the TV last night, and continues this morning, with all kinds of "expert idiots" over-analyzing the event. Good for Israel! WIPE THE FILTHY MUZZIES(SPIT!) OUT, ISRAEL!

Today is the 249th Anniversary of the Battles of Lexington and Concord, leading to our American Revolution War, against Great Britain. We whooped their asses, and again in the War of 1812.

I left at 10:45 for the 11:30 Dr's app't, and was on my way back by noon, made another quick stop at the New Eastern Market for some goodies, got home by 1p, unpacked and had some lunch. My Sciatica pain was telling me not to do too much walking today. Heh. Sherry arrived by 2, and we left for Flinchbaugh's Orchard & Market for even MORE GOODIES! Heh. My 'fridge runneth over. We had our usual good time together, and she left at 5 before traffic got crazy. I had some dinner, watched the news and History's "UnXplained" and some of the Discovery's "Gold Rush -- Whitewater" until 11:30. Lights out.

Up at 7:30a on Saturday, it was a warm 53°, rainy heavily overcast morning, but I upped the heat anyway, just to take the chill off. While the Kona 'Hapa' Coffee was brewing, I had a couple smokes in the garage. By 10a, the sky cleared, turning to blue and the day became sunny and warm. Nice. Damn, the FORMULA 1 LENOVO CHINESE GRAND PRIX is at 03:00 (3:00 AM) Sunday 0-DARK-THIRTY), so I won't be watching the live broadcast, but will catch the 30-min highlights or full replay on F1-TV, later in the day. I had an Apple/Raisin Fritter (PA Dutch) for breakfast, scanned the news headlines, and listened to some "CS Show" Podcasts, and at 12, left for some errands.

After getting back home, I unloaded some stuff, and my R/S Sciatica back/hip/leg pain struck hard, I took 2 more 50mg Tramadol, a 500mg Bayer Aspirin and laid down on the LR couch, and missed neighbor Carl's party.. I woke-up around dusk, closed down the condo, had some dinner, and watched Discovery's "Homestead Rescue" until 11:30, and unplugged.

I woke-up Sunday morning at 8a, a cloudy, cool 42°, made the new Monarch Coffee Co's Kona 'Hapa' Coffee, and a few smokes in the garage. With my 3rd mug of Kona, I scanned the news headlines from numerous sources. "Can Chicago protect the people going to the convention?" NO. [Funny read; go for it.] "The deadly Bird Flu H5N1 has been found in Raw Milk, but pastuerized milk is OK". I don't drink raw milk, and I sure don't trust the WHO/FDA/CDC/NIH etc, either. And there was a ***FROST WARNING*** posted for tonight. Heh.

Les, my electrician showed-up at 1p, and we headed over to Home Depot, and found a solar light fixture for my front lamp post, to finally *fix* the damned electrical shorting of the cut/nicked underground lamp post wires, which have been plaguing me for 3yrs. I'm free from the lamp post horror show! Time to get on with life!

'The Orthodox rabbi at Columbia University and Barnard College sent a message recommending Jewish students leave campus and go home, as anti-Israel agitators have continued an "encampment" on campus and participants were caught on camera espousing full-on support for terrorism and supporting violence towards Jewish students. Columbia president faces call to 'immediately resign,' as university leadership 'clearly lost control of its campus'." Un-fricking-believable that this crap is happening in America.

Les was finished around 4p, I rook out the recycle bin to the curb, filled-in the 2 trenches for new and existing wires in the front garden, and paid Les for his time. I still had a load of laundry to fold upstairs from 1p, so after that was done, I opened a bottle of BUTTER Chardonnay, and relaxed while talking to Sherry. She has dental surgery on Tuesday, and we'll just have to see how she does, before planning any get-together this week. I still think that "teeth are overrated". Heh.

I had some dinner, watched Motor Trend's "Full Custom Garage" and History's "Cars/Candy/Food etc That Built America" until midnight, and called it a day.

Up at 7:45a on Monday, to a clear, blue sky, nippy 42° morning, I upped the heat, made coffee, fired-up the desktop and scanned news news sites' headlines. I checked the day's 'to-do list', and all I have is the usual trip south to Dallastown to DeVon's Cleaners, for a drop-off/pick-up; no need for Weis Market this week. So I tuned into the "CS Show LIVE" for a short while, thn switched-over to the "CP Show LIVE", lounged around until 12 and left for points south.

Traffic was (miraculously) light, even with construction chokepoints all over the area, so I made good time, until I stopped at Weis Market (OK, I lied) to get a few paltry things: 5pts of Haágen Dasz Ice Cream (assorted Coffee, Strawberry, Cookies 'N Cream), 4 six-paks of Gold Peak Sugar Free Iced Tea, and 3 1½lb tubs of Kerrygold Irish Butter... $77.84. Amazing. Home, unloaded and stuff put away by 2p, I resumed listening to the "RC Show LIVE" until 3, I had a leftover 6" Philly Cheese Steak sandwich, and chips. I filled-in more of the front garden trenches, but the dirt clods were so big and wet, I left them in the open to dry out, so I could more easily smash and return them to pliable dirt.

I skipped dinner, watched thew evening news on FNC and NEWSMAX, then watched History's "The UnXplained" until 12:30a, and quit for the night.

Up at 8:15a on Tuesday -- PA State Election Day -- I upped the heat, made Kona Coffee, and scanned the news sites. It was a sunny, high-overcast, 49° morning, forecast to hit the low-70s. Cousin Tom had emailed me to take over his PA State postings on FR, as he's involved with the York County Election Office, today and tomorrow, in PA State Elections. No problem; glad to help out.

After voting in the PA Primary, I worked in the front gardens, trying to get the huge, once-frozen dirt clods broken-up into pliable topsoil, and back into the now abandoned lamp post wire/conduit trench. I took a break for a late lunch, had Black Olive Spiral Pasta, Potato Salad, Gold Peak Sugar Free Tea, and got a 2hr snooze on the LR couch. I watched the evening news, switched over to History's "Curse of Oak Island" and ""Mystery of Skinwalker Ranch" until 12-midnight. Lights out.

Awake at 7:15a, to a partly cloudy, 'balmy' 57° morning and forecast to hit the low-70s. I upped the heat, made coffee, fired-up the desktop, tuned into the "CS Show LIVE", and scanned the news sites. I has some Bacon, Egg & Cheese Toast and plenty of Kona Coffee. Mmmmmmmmmm, good.

MTG agrees that DJT will be murdered in jail, if he is sentenced, even with his SS Detail. The anti-Semitism is so bad here at colleges and universities, that the National Guard is needed to protect America's Jewish students. Get your asses back to your classes, radical, hate-Israel, un-American scumbags! Huh? The US Green Energy transition is in its demise? This JP Morgan idiot says the economy is "booming"? Bidet&Co are jacking-up the Capital Gains Tax to 44.6%, highest in 100yrs. The UN criminal scumbags want to grant the Hamas murderers -- remember the Oct 7th massacre in Israel? -- full membership as a "state", in that corrupt body of assholes. A taxpayer-funded Virginia High School is hosting a "drag brunch", before a showing of the vulgar LGBTQ musical “Kinky Boots” (no, I didn't look that one up). Hundreds of college campuses are plagued by the mentally-ill hate-Israel scumbags. I say, KILL THEM ALL! And on and on and on and on it goes. The news sucks, as usual.

The "CP Show LIVE" came on at 9, and I only had one errand to do early afternoon, so I lounged around until then. T-storm cells passed thru the area, dropping rain on the lawnmower crew guys, trying to get lawns cut and fertilized, and weeds eradicated, as the crew from Tru-Green did; what a comedy seeing all those people and machinery whizzing around, almost crashing into each other. Heh. I skipped lunch and left at 12:30p to get some errands done.

First stop was Kohls, to return an Amazon package. I was there w/ Sherry months ago, so I had to ask directions in that 'super store' layout, to the CS Dept. And that took me right thru ACRES of womens' bras... I'VE NEVER SEEN THAT MANY BRAS IN MY LIFE! Yes, I got 'distracted' once or twice; heh. Next stop was Rite Aid, and I got thru that one easily; no bras.

Back home by 1p, I tuned into the "RC Show LIVE", and relaxed. I was searching for "47-minute IDF video of Oct 7th massacre", and the assholes at Google cut my InterNet connection. Dead. I tried 4 browsers --Opera, Chrome, Brave and Pale Moon -- and nothing worked. Google-NSA kept cutting me off from a Net Connection, all afternoon.

The demonKKKrats -- aka the "current American Left" -- are CAIR-loving, Jew-Haters, radical fundamentalists, open-border Marxists, child-raping perverts, and anyone with a functioning brain, can see it. Deport the subhuman, lowlife foreign student scumbags! The country is careening toward something very dark. We can't be apathetic about that batcrap crazy cabal of loons, even though the demonKKKrat party is peeingt their pants, over the Bidet&Co mess that is on display, every day. Heh; let them stew in their own juices.

Finally, the Net "returned" and was usable for the rest of the evening. I had a Chicken Salad Sandwich on a Roll, and Red Skin Potato Salad, and watched the evening news. Discovery's "Expedition Unknown" was on all evening, so I stayed with the new episodes until 12:30a, and unplugged for the night.

Up at 7:15a on Thursday, a heavily-overcast, 40° morning. I upped the heat to 74°, made Kona Coffee, tuned into the "CS Show LIVE", and scanned the news sites' headlines. By 10a, the DJIA was down -700pts, HASDAQ down -216pts, and the S&P 500 at -60pts. Under Biden, home prices are up 32.5% and conforming 30Y mortgage rates are UP 160%. Swell; nice job Bidet&Co. Assholes.

★ FROST ADVISORY! ★
• ... FROST ADVISORY IN EFFECT FROM 2 AM TO 8 AM EDT FRIDAY ...
• WHAT: Temperatures as low as 30 will result in frost formation.
• WHERE: Portions of central Pennsylvania.
• WHEN: From 2 AM to 8 AM EDT Friday.
• IMPACTS: Near-ground freezing temperatures could kill uncovered sensitive outdoor vegetation.
PRECAUTIONARY/PREPAREDNESS ACTIONS:
• Take steps now to protect tender plants and vegetation from the cold. Potted plants should be brought inside.

The vile, evil, Jew-hating, anti-Israel protests/riots/blockades continue unabated, and as I see it, there's 2 solutions. 1) Break skulls, send the subhuman pro-Hamas filth to the ERs by the tens-of-thousands. Put a serious medical HURT on them! OR 2) Ignore the scum-sucking lowlife filthies. They crave publicity and notoriety, and if the don't get it, their purpose will fall apart. I personally like #1 the best, but better to do #2 choice.

After lunch, I grabbed a couple hours on the LR couch, took a walk around the CHCA Complex, and buttoned-up the condo as temps began dropping after 7p. I skipped dinner, watched the news, and switched to Discovery's "Ghost Adventures" until midnight. Interesting show. Lights out.

Tomorrow starts a new week here in the "Journal", and I've got a Dr's appt on Monday, and my cleaning lady, JoAnne, is in on Tuesday, but after that, a clear week. I hope Sherry's doing better after her dental surgery.

A Perfect Example Of How Fast & Far America Has Fallen.

I wonder if there is ever a moment while DHS Secretary Mayorkas is claiming that America’s borders are entirely secure and blaming “climate change” for the influx of tens of millions of illegal aliens into the United States when he thinks, “Wow, I am really full of BS. I mean, it is simply amazing how much BS I shovel down the American people’s throats every single day.”

The notion that powerful people lie to the public is certainly not new. You can go back through the centuries and find essays, songs, drawings, and folktales that all attest to the timeless truth that every generation sees its “rulers” as an unworthy camarilla of cutthroats, liars, backstabbers, and thieves. Still, the lies being told today are just so brazen. Damaging tornado? That’s what we get for driving cars. Too many white mathematicians? Obviously another bout of “systemic racism” rearing its ugly head. Trump’s beating Biden in the polls? Duh -- that’s because America runs on “hate”!

Disney and other child-grooming companies keep telling us that the only way to protect America’s youth is to put them on puberty blockers and let them dance for skeevy adults. We used to call those skeevy adults “pedophiles,” but now the medical community insists that we treat them with more respect. I have trouble respecting a profession that wants me to respect child molesters. I also have trouble respecting a profession that pushes experimental “vaccines” on patients without their informed consent.

The fact that so few physicians have taken responsibility for their unscientific and unethical behavior during totalitarianism’s favorite overhyped pandemic feels like a giant whiff and strike three for medicine. Or maybe the white coats (“systemic racism” alert!) struck out four years ago when medical associations insisted that Antifa and BLM be allowed to burn down neighborhoods in the name of “social justice health,” while the rest of us were forced to stay inside and participate in the theatrical production of the “Great COVID Hoax.” A lot of MDs have BS degrees.

PINO Joe Biden tells listeners (when he’s not tripping over his own words or feet) that “white supremacy” is the “most dangerous terrorist threat” in America. Really? I’ve never met a dreaded “white supremacist.” I’ve never even seen the elusive creature from a distance! I do know generations of Americans who grew up learning the valuable lesson that a person should be judged by the content of his character and not the color of his skin. The day before yesterday, we celebrated those moral people as colorblind Americans who were creating an integrated America and a better world.

Then the Democrat Party decided that “integration” was racist and that only the forced segregation that comes from oxymoronic DEI edicts and other race-based sorting programs will do. Those who don’t obsess over the color of another person’s skin are now deemed the worst kinds of racists, while those who glorify race over every other feature of a person’s identity are applauded for their enlightenment! The Old Democrats fought first for slavery and then for segregation. The New Democrats fight for welfare-dependent slavery and segregation. Yet they congratulate themselves for somehow being on the forefront of both progress and civil rights. What unbelievable BS!

In order to understand the enemy, I read a lot of articles from legacy media institutions (i.e., corporate vehicles for State-approved propaganda). When you dive into the slop and dross that win Pulitzers, you’ve got to hold your nose and suspend your capacity for critical thinking. If you can convince your brain cells to play dead for a while, you realize that the more prestigious the publication, the more likely its writers are pod people still plugged into the Matrix.

Anyway, the prestigious pod people are absolutely blown away by how spectacular Dementia Joe’s economy is and cannot understand why any American would doubt that we’re living through a golden age of splendor. I think, “Hello, McFly! Anybody Home?” Have you not been inside a grocery store in Inflation Joe’s America? Everything costs twice as much as it did before mail-in ballot fraud catapulted his senile corpse into office. Have you not filled up a car with gasoline or paid a home energy bill lately? The “green energy” Nazis have jacked up the cost of fuels everywhere in their insane war on hydrocarbons. Even public transportation lackeys are feeling the pinch, as bankrupt cities that are hemorrhaging taxpayers desperately seek to keep municipal budgets afloat by doubling the price of sitting next to a urinating drunk on the subway (warning: they pinch, too).

Everything’s gotten so expensive in Touchy-Feely-Woke-and-Woozy Joe’s America that being just plain poor — as opposed to destitute — has become a privilege! Bidenomics means that “99 Cents Only” stores must go out of business nationwide. Nobody can make a buck in this miserable economy. Unless you crossed into the country illegally — then Democrats will give you more money than they provide struggling military families. If you’re here legally, though, you’re out of luck. When McDonald’s is selling twenty dollar “value meals,” chicken wings cost more than illegal drugs, and thrift stores are the most popular shopping spots in town, life feels a little Great Depression-y. Ooh, but don’t tell the geniuses at The New York Times or The Washington Post. To them, Biden Land is a magical place where middle class parents get to work multiple jobs just to make ends meet! How dreamy…in a dystopian BS kind of tragedy!

The boneheads at The Economist are always telling me (in some hoity-toity-posh-and-snobby accent, no less) that Americans have nothing to complain about because food and energy prices are so much worse in Europe. What kind of a-hole tells a person who’s being robbed to stop complaining because there are even worse robbers sticking it to the blokes on the other side of the pond? I don’t find remedial comfort from the knowledge that the criminals running Old Europe might be worse than the criminals destroying the New World here at home. I say, “Throw all the parasites out -- whether they feed on the people from the banks of the Potomac, Thames, Seine, or Spree!” The Bastille might lie in rubble, but I hear the Tower of London provides lovely lodgings this time of year. Oh, dear. Did I just commit a “hate crime” by gluing a few words together in a syntactically impermissible way? How dreadfully felonious of me. Somewhere there’s a self-hating Scot who secretly roots for Edward Longshanks over William Wallace during showings of Braveheart just itching to punish me for dabbling in free speech. To that, I say, “Shut it, ya bampot dobber!” Aye, what bollocky BS.

I don’t know. Maybe it’s just me. Maybe everything’s fine, and what I see as pervasive BS is really some imaginary MAGA bugaboo playing tricks in my head. On the other hand, here’s a two hour and twenty-three minute video of Joe Biden — supposedly the president of the United States — struggling to string words together and form cogent thoughts. Here’s an article about an Oregon professor who blames “climate change” on a “surplus” of “white nationalism.” (Spoiler Alert: if we have too much of something, I guess we have to eliminate some white people.) Here’s a Reuters article whining that “climate change” is having a harmful impact on “Indonesian Trans Sex Workers.” Here’s a whole brouhaha on Reddit in which “trans” activists are arguing “whether they should commit mass suicide or mass genocide to accomplish their political goals.” And here’s an NBC local news affiliate blaming New Jersey’s recent earthquake on man-made “climate change.”

Nah, I must be right on this one. We’re neck deep in nuclear-grade BS today.

Our Democracy™: The Democratic Weaponization of Government and the Need for Decentralization.

Reading Matt Taibbi’s summary how the Democrats weaponized the government against Donald Trump, starting before the election of 2016 and proceeding right up to the present moment, I am reminded once again that the issue is not democracy but “Our Democracy™.”

The Constitution aimed to limit the power and reach of government; its rival aims to make government triumph everywhere.

That is, the Democrats and their deep-state allies in the media and the myriad bureaucracies that actually run the country believe that democracy means “rule by Democrats.” As Taibbi puts it, “To ‘protect democracy,’ democracy is already being canceled. We just haven’t admitted the implications of this to ourselves yet.”

This is true. Hence the plethora of handwringing articles warning that Donald Trump is a “dictator”-in-waiting, a new Hitler, a refurbished Mussolini who, should he be reelected, will mobilize the military to impose his will on a hapless American populace. Taibbi quotes from a December 2023 “strategy memo” in which Biden’s puppeteers describe Trump as “an existential threat to democracy.”

It sounds absurd. It is absurd. But, as I and many others have pointed out, that is the story we are being asked to swallow. This is the logic:

Trump is a “threat to democracy.”

Ergo, we must use “any means necessary” to keep him off the ballot.

Otherwise, people might vote for him, and that would be “bad for democracy.”

The arrogance of this gambit is breathtaking. It assumes, with Liz Cheneyesque smugness, that ordinary people cannot be entrusted with so important a task as electing their leaders. Only anointed saviors like Liz Cheney can do that. But alongside the arrogance of the we-have-to-destroy-democracy-in-order-to-save-it mindset is the chilling revelation of the extremes to which the people in power are willing to go in order to preserve their prerogatives. They will, for example, censor any opinion they do not like as “malinformation,” i.e., an opinion that might be true but is not consistent with The Narrative. It all adds up to what I have called “the Sovietization of America.”

What, as Lenin famously asked, is to be done?

I am not sure anything can be done. There is a good chance that Michael Anton is right. “They Can’t Let Him Back In,” he wrote in July 2022. “The people who really run the United States of America,” he noted, “have made it clear that they can’t and won’t, if they can help it, allow Donald Trump to be president again.”

Anton and Taibbi both outline some of the many things “they”—the agents of the deep state—will do, are in fact doing right now, to prevent this most awful of eventualities.

My crystal ball is cloudy. I do not know what is going to happen in November 2024. But let’s indulge in what Einstein calls a Gedankenexperiment. Let’s say Trump wins in November. Let’s say further that he somehow manages to evade his enemies and actually take office at noon on January 20, 2025. What should he do then?

Here is an incomplete list.

The overriding imperative, as I have argued before, must be to do everything possible to reduce the place of Washington in the metabolism of American political life. To this end, Trump should endeavor as far as possible to govern the country from outside of Washington. The first symbolic act should be to hold the inauguration someplace other than Washington. I do not insist that it be held in Mar-a-Lago, but why not?

As to specifics, on the first minute of the first day in office, Trump should take a page from Bill Clinton. He should fire every Democratic prosecutor. All of them. With immediate effect.

One of the first things the Clintons did was to fire the head of the IRS and put their own man in place. Trump should do the same. Ditto for the FBI. In 2017, Trump left Sally Yates, a left-wing Democrat, in effective charge of the DOJ. She was a disaster.

There are thousands of political appointments in the gift of the president. All Democrats and pajama-boy Republicans should be purged on day one by 12:02. All of them.

Washington is the headquarters of the enemy camp. It is not simply that it is overwhelmingly Democrat, though it is that. More important is the fact that it is a wholly owned subsidiary of the Party State. What do I mean by the Party State? I mean that hypertrophied faction that has gained control of the government of the country. It has a monopoly on virtually all the levers of power, cultural as well as political. It presides over a two-tier system of injustice in which its opponents are harassed, indicted, prosecuted, bankrupted, and jailed, even as malefactors in the protected party are quietly sent on their way with muted warnings or a gentle slap on the wrist.

In The Federalist, James Madison warned about the evils of faction. For most of its history, the United States escaped the worst abuses of that most toxic of political evils. Beginning perhaps with the advent of the ironically named “Great Society” in the mid-1960s, as Christopher Caldwell noted in his steely-eyed book The Age of Entitlement: America Since the 1960s, we have been living under a dual system. There is the Constitution, to which lip service is paid. Then there is what Caldwell calls the “rival” to the Constitution, the apparatus of entitlement. The Constitution aimed to limit the power and reach of government; its rival aims to make government triumph everywhere.

It took a while for this totalitarian system to mature and achieve full penetration. With initiatives like DEI, ceaseless, omnivorous surveillance, and the machinery of universal censorship, the Party State has come of age. It finally happened under the aegis of Barack Obama and is consolidating its hold on power further even now.

I read that thousands upon thousands of truckers, squadrons of police, and national and state guards from 27 states are headed to Texas to challenge the open border proclaimed by the Party State. Will that challenge loosen its grip on power? Would the reelection of Donald Trump? The former, after a little drama, will most likely be absorbed into the paralysis of bureaucratic non-action. Trump’s victory, assuming it comes about, will be Pyrrhic unless he battles the Leviathan head-on. To the extent that he remains a creature of Washington, however, he will fail.