Well, here we are. Happy New Year.
I thank all of you who’ve visited in recent weeks; there hasn’t been a whole lot to see here for some time now. My shoulder injury kept me off the keyboard for a while, but that’s not a problem any longer. Mainly it’s been that we have entered a new era of history here — and I’d already said most of what I had to say about the old era, and am still trying to understand what the new one will look like.
But here it is, New Year’s Day, and I can at least put down a few thoughts about what’s happened, and what I think might happen.
For starters, I’m still digesting the staggering audacity of the election heist. (If you really don’t think it was stolen, ask yourself: Can anyone seriously doubt that the other side would steal the election, if it thought it could do it and get away with it? And if the election actually had been stolen, how would would it look any different from what we’ve seen?)
The crime was done right before our eyes, as if daring us to do anything about it. A thing like that is much more than the thing itself: when power behaves this way it is, first and foremost, power’s way of chastening and humiliating you, of reminding you in the clearest possible terms that power can do what it wants. The right way to understand this rape of the recent election, then, is as the droit du seigneur, updated for our time.
The swaggering usurpation of our electoral wedding-night was followed by a suffocating blast from all media — what Curtis Yarvin, in this essay, refers to as the “Gigaphone”:
This active-denial system, the crowning achievement of 20th-century psychological warfare technology and the fundamental backbone of 21st-century democracy, is a kind of gigantic Paris-shelling railroad-gun bullhorn of pure proof by assertion.
At a certain caliber, assertion is no longer assertion. It is insistence. Increase the volume still further, and it becomes torture. The Gigaphone can indeed demonstrate the security of the election. Given arbitrary power—it can demonstrate anything.
The Gigaphone’s huge microwave dish hoses the unruly hobbit-mob with unendurable levels of red-hot contempt. With its throttle turned up to 11, the NYT’s headlines are ripped from the Rodong Sinmun, cat-lady middle-school teachers reading the New Yorker expect Waffen-SS paratroops to crash through their skylights, and the nation’s airports resound from lounge to lounge with the subtle sounds of TV Mille Collines. (All this is completely decentralized, of course. No one orders it—it just happens.)
The hobbit is simply embarrassed into compliance by his elven betters. The ideas he believes become a dangerous mental disease. This diagnosis is written into history. The sooner he gives up this nonsense, the better. To help convince him, we’ll make this idea quasi-illegal. The sooner he gives it up, the less his life will suffer. Eventually he can be fired for staying an idiot. Everyone will agree that he deserved it.
Some still hope that Trump will pull the rabbit out of the hat between now and Inauguration Day; that he will say the secret word and his armies of patriots will swing into action to secure the battle-theatre while an arcane Constitutional process plays out in Congress. I suppose that could happen, in some possible world, but I don’t think it will happen in this one. Sure, there will be rallies and demonstrations — a big one is planned for Wednesday in Washington — but I think it likely, I’m sad to say, that the legal efforts will fizzle, the Gigaphone will blare, and the moment will pass.
I do think the stolen election will create a deepening realization that things have changed; that the game as we have played it all our lives is over. Many will secede in their hearts, and will try to carry the American idea forward more locally — but it will be very difficult, will require a sustained effort and level of organization that we are now unaccustomed to, and many millions will just settle deeper into buglife.
As for COVID: I do not think that we will pull out of this pandemic. It’s too useful, and it has already conditioned us to live differently, and to choose safety and isolation over vigorous, authentic existence. All of our experiences are now curated, mediated, and delivered remotely. That’s a huge, sudden change that has enormous consequences, and opens many possibilities for those in power. While the vaccines may mitigate the problem, I expect that the effect will turn out not to be nearly as decisive as hoped: coverage will be gappy, new strains will appear, new flareups will happen whenever we loosen things up, and our year of training in self-isolation and timidity will tend to keep our new regime of restrictions on travel and assembly quite firmly in place. We’ll chafe a bit, but little by little we’re getting used to it all, and bit by bit we’ll forget what it was like to live and move more freely. (After all, what’s more important than staying safe?)
With the corruption of our institutions and descent into oligarchy now plainly in view, the cleverer and more resourceful among us will find ways to live well among the crumbling structures of the West. The rest will become, in their penurious isolation, increasingly dependent upon government largesse, like a great and docile mass of yeast: subsisting on Netflix, pornography, and soma. Rising all around them will be a sophisticated panopticon to monitor their homes and communications. (You getting all this, Alexa?)
There will almost certainly be some sort of “black swan” to dominate the news this year, but it is of course in the nature of black swans that you don’t know what they’ll be in advance, so I’ll say no more about that.
But — and this is important! — many of us will begin to think in new ways, because it will be completely obvious — we will know, at last, in our guts — that the old order of the Republic is dead. That means that there will be great opportunities for bold and daring people.
In short, then: “interesting times”. One has the sense that history is balanced on the edge of a knife. I’m reminded of Woody Allen’s words from long ago:
More than any time in history, mankind faces a crossroads. One path leads to despair and utter hopelessness, the other to total extinction. Let us pray that we have the wisdom to choose correctly.
I won’t close with that, of course. While I admit this post has been a grim summary of what are, to be sure, somber times, there is never any reason to despair. (As chessplayers like to say, “nobody ever won a game by resigning”.) All of us who are lucky enough to be alive here and now have many, many blessings, and though of course there’s a struggle ahead, and much uncertainty, there’s no reason not to be thankful, determined, and even cheerful.
But if we are ever to find our way back to sunny uplands, we need to think hard, and frankly, about where we are, how on earth we got here, and where, exactly, we want to go. We need to understand what to hold on to — and why! — and what to let go. That’s what I hope to do here, with your help, going forward.
27 Comments
Well said, Malcolm.
While I too am trying to assimilate the open theft of the election and contemplate whatever it is that’s just replaced our Republic, the simple truth is that I already know what I need to do. I just don’t want to go first.
I’m betting there are an awful lot of people waiting for someone else to go first.
What’s really incredible is that mainline conservative outlets like the National Review, or pantywaists like Rod Dreher, believe wholeheartedly that Trump lost the election.
NR has been covering it for weeks, and based on what the courts have been doing, Trump’s team haven’t offered a shred of real evidence, leaving people watching the court proceedings to conclude Trump’s team have absolutely nothing.
I find all of this very exhausting and demoralizing.
I am aware of the glaring statistical anomalies, hundreds of witnesses as well as video evidence, and yet judges Trump appointed are saying Trump’s team isn’t offering any real proof.
What the hell is going on here?
I won’t even get into the rumors from Trump supporters of hijacked servers and the wild talk from Lin Wood.
If Trump and his people have hard evidence and servers, why not present it?
What exactly are they waiting for? What special moment? Why the endless rumors and leaks and games.
It all looks weak.
I feel like we are all being played for suckers by all sides.
This whole fiasco, the last 4 years in particular, really is like being caught in a lousy B movie with horrible writing and even worse direction.
I want a refund.
I want to make something clear in case my first comment wasn’t.
I am in general agreement with Malcolm’s column, as well as the sentiments of the first commenter.
But why does all of this have to look so ridiculous and one dimensional.
America really has become clown world on steroids.
Another Dave, doesn’t the explanation you give prove NR’s and RD’s point? If the Trump team had good evidence they would be supplying it in court. The fact that they haven’t suggests that the evidence isn’t there.
Yes, it’s pure Clown World. Everyone seems determined to cover himself in something that is not glory, as if that were the only way to ‘win’.
Stolen by any means necessary. Stolen and shoved in our faces by everyone useful to their purpose.
The piece(s) by Spandrel about biological Leninism are pounding away with truth. God help us.
Jason- yes, it is disconcerting.
Then again, there are literally hundreds of witnesses willing to testify, as well as experts showing how the the machines can be hacked and statistical anomalies that can’t be reasonably explained.
I said I don’t understand why Trump won’t present the evidence. It looks horrible and amateurish on his part.
I’ve seen some of the testimony and video evidence. It’s legit, and yet no presentation in court. Judges throwing out case after case.
I want to trust the Trump team, but despite all their talk on Twitter, something is not adding up.
Where is this server they have supposedly been sitting on for weeks?
Even the supposed good guys are looking like clowns.
Very demoralizing.
You are all expressing what, I think, at least half the nation are feeling (and I certainly am): a sense of bewilderment, of suddenly realizing that even the few things we still thought we could sort of believe in no longer seem real; that there is no account of civic and social reality that we can really trust; that there are no premises, no matter how basic, or ancient, or “self-evident”, that are not called into question; that “the best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity”; that the center truly cannot hold, and things really are falling apart.
One looks back on times as recent as even a year ago with wistful nostalgia, and a feeling that we were all a little bit naïve. It’s a sickening, dizzying feeling.
This is why I have hardly written anything here for several months. The only way forward is, I think, to back up a bit and try to re-establish our understanding on some sort of first principles.
Malcolm, speaking of not writing, after the election I dared not write much at all. Still processing and keeping it to myself. I had weeks of little sleep, jaws clenching closed even during the night to the point I took Excedrin to relieve the pain. Even cracked a tooth from the clenching during the night. I maxed out my bp meds and my Xanax allotment and I still couldn’t and can’t yet unbosom myself in print. I doubt it would be appreciated.
Robert, that doesn’t sound healthy.
Deep breath, man! We aren’t dead — and people have had to deal with far worse times than this.
Every day is still a gift. Chin up!
Trump: Election was a fraud. (12/20)
Trump: Nobel Prize is rigged. (2018-19)
Trump: Popular vote was fraud. (2016)
Trump: Iowa caucuses were fraud. (2016)
Trump: Scot of the Year award was rigged. (2012)
Trump: Emmys are rigged. (2005-12)
Trump: Report that casino has $ trouble a fraud. (1990, just before bankruptcy)
Trump: Casino contract he lost was rigged. (1989)
Trump: NFL verdict was rigged. (1986)
Trump: NFL refusal to sell him franchise was rigged. (1985)
Trump is a malignant narcissist, and CANNOT admit a loss under any circumstances. Screaming “fraud!” has always been his escape route to avoid the psychologically damaging admission of defeat.
Martin- Sorry, but the evidence of wide scale voter fraud is quite real.
I’m just not sure why the Trump team is holding it’s fire.
I have no doubt an intense factional struggle is taking place behind the scenes, and as frustrating as the lack of clarity looks to me, there may be good reasons for what Trump’s team is doing.
Nonetheless, it looks amateurish from the outside.
As far as Trump being a narcissist, I’m sure he is, but the forces aligned against him are far worse, and have done far worse and gotten away with it, in some cases, for decades.
I agree with Malcolm that it feels like we are in a collective free fall right now, with no soft landing in sight.
On top of the election fiasco we have economically ruinous lockdowns and governors and mayors blatantly violating their own mandates with no repercussions.
I comfort myself knowing my grandparents lived through far worse during the Depression and WWII, and they met those challenges with equanimity and stoic strength.
Further back in time we all have ancestors that lived through plagues and horrendous wars without any of the comforts we take for granted.
This is a bewildering time, but move forward we must.
Martin,
Yes, Trump is a narcissist, and some of the accusations of “rigging” he’s made in the past may have been petulance, and nothing more.
Is there some other point you’re trying to make?
I see two possible outcomes:
(1) As told by the news media, 2021 begins with Trump as the world’s biggest idiot/fraud/imposter and ends with him as President, with a few months of silence in between during which all previous articles go 404.
(2) Trump goes away, but with all elections rigged, the ruling uniparty must resolve its internal disputes by other means. A few, then scores, then thousands of dead bodies float down the Potomac and litter the beaches of Chesapeake Bay, with little or no media coverage of these “suicides”.
Another Dave, votes, evidence, witnesses, judges, etc. don’t matter because we are no longer a nation of laws. It’s all raw power from here on, as in, who can send a 50-man SWAT team to whose house at 3 AM.
Malcolm, Trump calling this election a fraud only makes his previous accusations more credible. Who doesn’t think the Emmys are rigged? If a Jew says Biden’s victory was as real as the Holocaust, I’ll take that as evidence the Holocaust never happened.
I’ve been incommunicado with my liberal acquaintances since the election. They probably think I’m pouting.
On the contrary, I have drafted, re-drafted, thrown away and re-started, many an essay/letter/rant/explanation, but found I was unable to do so to my satisfaction.
So thanks Malcolm for this post, and for the comment-makers also: together it makes a pretty good concentrated summary of things as we face a new year. I have sent it to those libs – giving due credit – who may not have take the full dose of the blue pill.
Malcolm,
The point should be clear. There’s an old saying in Tennessee. I know it’s in Texas, probably in Tennessee. That says, fool me once, shame on…shame on you. Fool me…you can’t get fooled again.
There have only been a few PROVEN cases of fraud. For example, in PA, a couple people voted for Trump twice. But there is absolutely no evidence of any MASSIVE voter fraud that would change the results. And in court, where it matters, Giuliani and the other lawyers have been forced to admit they are not alleging fraud:
PA:
“This is not a fraud case”
“‘Are you claiming that there is any fraud in connection with these 592 disputed ballots?’ To which Goldstein replied: “To my knowledge at present, no.”
“Petitioners do not allege, and there is no evidence of, any fraud in connection with the challenged ballots.”
“The parties specifically stipulated in their comprehensive stipulation of facts that there exists no evidence of any fraud, misconduct, or any impropriety with respect to the challenged ballots. There is nothing in the record and nothing alleged that would lead to the conclusion that any of the challenged ballots were submitted by someone not qualified or entitled to vote in this election.”
That’s just Pennsylvania. See here for more: https://time.com/5914377/donald-trump-no-evidence-fraud/
I agree that Trump’s team have wasted 2 months NOT proving large scale fraud.
As I stated above, they have hundreds of witnesses and many experts that can show how fraud took place, as well as any number of Senators and Reps that believe Trump won, and yet… they refuse to make their case in any court.
Over the past couple of days I’ve grown increasingly disturbed by this.
Tens of millions who voted for Trump have been waiting patiently for nearly 2 damned months, and we are going to look like fools, and worse, if real, concrete evidence that Trump claims exists is not presented IN FULL before the public.
It is past time for him to put up or shut up, because he certainly hasn’t made a case in any court of law.
I despise Biden and the DNC, but I am fully prepared to deal with the reality of a Biden “presidency” if Trump would just let go of the steering wheel, unless he can prove conclusively that the election was stolen.
My anger is growing exponentially at both sides of the aisle.
I have taken it for granted for most of my adult life that our political culture was corrupted.
Trump forced the establishment to drop its mask and reveal themselves to millions of normies, many liberals included. He gave tens of millions some sliver of hope.
For this alone, he deserves everlasting credit.
I’m barely willing to wait until January 7th to see if he pulls a rabbit out of his hat, but if he fails to deliver real evidence by that date, then he deserves whatever abuse the
establishment has in store for him, and I say this as someone who believes the establishment has no legitimacy at all.
Enough with the innuendo and rumors and taunts and threats. Enough with Twitter BS.
Enough with the games from both sides of the wretched aisle.
A pox on all their houses.
Many thanks to Malcolm for letting some of us vent.
“Many thanks to Malcolm for letting some of us vent”. Yes. It is helping. Our MSM, TASS for all practical purposes, is now in overdrive claiming they are now “protecting democracy”. That is as obscene as anything the old USSR could conjure up. I’m glad to see some Rs preparing to object to the EC count in Congress. Dems and TASS are in high dudgeon over this. What short term memories both have. I hope many Rs follow through and let the doormat Rs choke on it.
I’m, frankly, tired of all this, But they’ve yet to produce evidence!
Actually there’s been a bunch except that, no body (notice that’s two words rather than just the one ‘nobody’?) Rule [as I recall] 901 for instance found here:
https://www.uscourts.gov/sites/default/files/Rules%20of%20Evidence.
(There’s an ‘easier to absorb’ exposition on the above stuff but as a very limited number of people have bothered themselves with these sorts of things …
https://corporate.findlaw.com/litigation-disputes/summary-of-the-rules-of-evidence.html
But then too we have ‘The Federalist Papers’ which, in the kindest way possible I would offer gives SCOTUS the easiest way out, which if I recall correctly – it’s been awhile – is 51. Most generally accepted as the concept known as “Federalism” which, in this one, singular instance Roberts et al apparently chooses (conveniently) that the so-called “Living Constitution” is anything but.
The far far worse thing however is Republican Party Inc [LLC]. (Recall all those retirements post election day 2016?)
But in the unlikely event we make it, peacefully, to 2024
https://www.nationalreview.com/2020/10/this-time-roberts-sides-with-conservatives-to-blunt-election-rule-tinkering/
From Instapundit a while ago:
ROGER SIMON:” McConnell and GOP Senators Must Stop Deserting Their Constituents.
Do what they really want is business as usual?
Leader McConnell would seem to have more than a whiff of that.
But the rest do not have to go along. Do they need a reminder the Democrats protested the electoral college certification of the last three Republican presidents—-Trump in 2016 and George W. Bush in 2000 and 2004?
There’s nothing new in this, except maybe the search for the truth in what happened and the promise of a better tomorrow.
And that truth is bigger than Donald Trump, larger than life though he may sometimes be, much bigger.
It speaks to the nature of what we are as a functioning democratic republic. Can we actually have elections the majority of the public trusts? They clearly don’t trust this one.”
At least it’s some action in support of counterinsurgency.
Another Dave,
Not at all. There’s so much to vent about. But soon we do have to give some serious thought to what happens next, and why. I think it will be helpful to to get right back to first principles, to look again at the same questions that vexed the Founders. I’d like to do some of that here in the weeks and months ahead.
Several are complaining that Trump hasn’t put out this fraud info for all to see. Question: how can he do that if the mainstream media is totally against him and the courts are part of the “establishment” which would love to see him gone? What other venues could be used to get the evidence in front of the public? I have seen enough to convince me that the fraud occurred in a targeted fashion, from several angles—maybe not “widespread” depending on how that’s defined—but plenty sufficient to change the outcome pretty dramatically. But what venues would all of you suggest?
If Michael Yon is reaching this state Malcolm’s earlier posts expounding Go Local, Secure Local, Expand from there would seem it appears to me, to be sound advice.
https://www.captainsjournal.com/2021/01/03/with-whom-is-law-enforcement-aligned/
And actually: it’s the only way reasonably available.
I think things’re gonna get bad.
The genteel and soft spoken Kurt Schlichter has the right idea for a Monday morning:
https://townhall.com/columnists/kurtschlichter/2021/01/04/draft-n2582461
Let’s don’t unify.
Several of you say Trump has not proved his case in court and is holding back. He must be allowed to present in the first place. If a judge tosses the petition before any hearing there is no chance to make a case other than in the media. We have now a judiciary that is impotent to uphold the right.
Bill,
>Several of you say Trump has not proved his case in court and is holding back. He must be allowed to present in the first place.
Good grief, Trump’s lawyers had ample opportunity. Just read about the cases: https://time.com/5914377/donald-trump-no-evidence-fraud/
One example:
“In a state case concerning votes in Maricopa County, Ariz., Trump lawyers again dodged and weaved. On Nov. 12, the same day that the President himself was tweeting about hundreds of thousands of votes being stolen from him, a Trump campaign attorney Kory Langhofer told a judge, ‘We are not alleging fraud in this lawsuit. We are not alleging anyone stealing the election.'”
By contrast, look at John Fetterman, the lieutenant governor of Pennsylvania. He provides ACTUAL EXAMPLES of voter fraud, with names and everything:
PA Voter Fraud Case Number 1:
“Forty Fort man applied for a ballot for his deceased mother, detectives allege”
https://twitter.com/JohnFetterman/status/1345630033981931520
PA Voter Fraud Case Number 2:
“Charges filed in father-son voter fraud case in Chester County”
https://twitter.com/JohnFetterman/status/1345630337360130048?s=20
As Fetterman continues:
“In two months, no one has produced anything else. Not a one. I’ve openly challenged anyone to bring it forward. Crickets.”
No, I’m sorry, but what we are witnessing here is not voter fraud but a malignant narcissistic psychopath who is unable to admit that he lost. The ultimate sore loser. He invents phony stories to protect his ego and even gaslights himself into believing he won bigly.