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I, like the rest of the country, feel like nothing good will come of the election. However, I feel this way for a slightly different reason than your average person, and probably closer to the average Mottezian.
I actually don't really care too much who is president. Either one of them would IMO do a good enough job. I mostly care whether the president impacts my everyday life or causes nuclear war. However, though it isn't his fault directly, having Trump in charge would impact my everyday life negatively, mostly because it would fuel another 4 years of incessant leftist whining all around me, from all my friends and family, along with people starting to (erroneously, IMO) see and declare that racism and sexism is everywhere again. It'll start causing fights between me and my wife again. My workplace and all local institutions will start making statements about how they're standing up to Trump and racism. Under Biden, I have truly enjoyed some nice peace and respite from politics.
However, I find this state of affairs to be very irritating. It feels like the left, or at least the leftists in my life, are taking an infantile tactic: we better win or we'll whine and complain for 4 years. I don't respect sore losers, and moreover, I don't like the fact that there is no path forward for the right.
Scott said this back in 2016:
Scott was absolutely correct here in how it played out. But what option does this leave the non leftists with? If the Democrat wins, then the currents move left. We get leftism enshrined into law over the next 4 years, because to the victor go the spoils. If the Republican wins, then the undercurrents move left, and more and more people get radicalized towards the left.
Is there a way for the currents to move right without the undercurrents moving left? Or is Trump just uniquely bad at making that happen? I'm tempted to say that this is just the fact that Trump is a polarizing figure, but at the same time, all the leftists I know scream bloody murder whenever a Republican is in command. They were infantile under George W Bush. And though I wasn't around then, I know many people who are still salty over Reagan and act like he was the worst.
…
If you thought it was bad before, Russell Berman has a piece at The Atlantic with an even worse scenario: "How Democrats Could Disqualify Trump If the Supreme Court Doesn’t":
[Emphasis added]
Just picture what happens if Trump wins in November, but a Democrat Congress refuses to certify in January and gives it to Biden instead — totally not an "insurrection," just "defending Our Democracy". Sure, maybe the lefties around you won't "whine and complain for 4 years"… or maybe they'll be complaining about how "racism and sexism is everywhere again" as demonstrated by Trump winning the vote despite being an illegitimate candidate, and what a perilous state Our Democracy is in that Congress had to resort to such extreme measures after the courts failed to do their job, and so on. While, meanwhile, there's certainly going to be even more unhappiness on the Right.
(Though, really, I'm coming around to preferring an outcome like this. Because if this doesn't get Republican voters to accept that "Our Democracy" is fundamentally rigged against them and that voting is pointless, I don't know what will.)
My first reaction is to say no, there aren't any actual options for non-leftists, we're doomed, all hope is lost, etc., etc. Though, when I express such views online, at best I get people going on at me about how "that's the depression talking" and so on. (And when I push those people for what they consider options, it's mostly of the "vote harder, debate harder, 'own the libs with facts and logic' harder, and somehow overcome all of the left's institutional, cultural, and rhetorical advantages through sheer excellence" sort.) More often, it's lectures about how "despair is a sin" (here, the "solutions" tend to be waiting for Divine Providence to eventually deliver), or even just denunciations as a shill ("are you getting paid for this demoralization op in shekels or yuan?") or a traitor ("getting killed by leftists is the real right-wing victory").
So, in the spirit of trying to be more optimistic — like my therapists keep telling me — I'll limit it to saying there are no options for non-leftists within "the rules of the game" as currently constituted (and so thoroughly rigged against us). As for options "outside the game," well, I don't think I can discuss those here without eating a ban. Thus, I'll vaguely gesture toward Sun-Tzu's comments about not fighting where your enemy is strong and you are weak, but where you are strong and the enemy is weak.
They do not have the votes to do this. Sure, some democrats will vote against certifying the election, possibly even most, but there will be enough defectors that democrats would need a very large majority to do it.
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If Trump is unfit for office wouldn’t that be a constitutional way of approaching it?
Leaving aside whether it’s justified or proper or anything like that for congressional Dems to do that, it’s plainly not an insurrection unless lefties also try to occupy a building via force.
Also conservatives have a structural advantage in the senate and electoral college because our system is biased against population density, but if you want to believe GOP voters should think voting is pointless then I guess that’s one hell of a self-fulfilling prophecy.
If elections are so rigged against the GOP why does it control so many states and remain competitive in national elections?
My argument isn't that Republicans can't win elections, its that their winning elections doesn't matter. As Yarvin once said, there's a difference between taking office and taking power. It doesn't matter if some Republicans get voted in, real power resides far more in the permanent bureaucracy, the "NGOcracy" non-profit networks, academia, and other such Left-captured institutions, which together have so many ways of blocking temporary, merely-elected GOP politicians, that it doesn't much matter who wins the election, because the Left wins either way.
And I had much more radical things in mind for "where the Right is strong" than the Senate and Electoral College.
Oh good. Even winning doesn’t matter.
Like I’m familiar with the points you’ve made and I’m a veteran of the Deep State, so I very much understand the bureaucratic dynamic, but also winning is still a lot better than losing if one cares about the GOP agenda.
How has "winning" through the standard channels secured value for, say, us Gun Culture people? We passed laws, which Blues simply ignored. We won repeatedly in the Supreme Court, and nothing actually changed. What did we do wrong, and what should we have done better?
Ironic to bring that up when the courts are deliberating over Trump’s bump stock ban right now.
I promise you things would be a lot worse without all those GOP-appointed judges upholding the 2nd amendment.
Sure, places like NY/CA/NJ are doing their best to fight back against freedoms, but consider that those states are places where the GOP doesn’t win very much.
The real loser of an issue despite the GOP winning is fiscal responsibility, not the 2nd amendment.
Ironic how? I'm aware that Trump is not perfect on 2A issues. I actually wrote an effort post in the old place, prior to his ban, arguing that the gun culture should accept restrictions on bump-stocks as something along the lines of a peace offering. I think subsequent events have invalidated that argument, but Trump is still the least-worst option available, even on 2A issues specifically.
The question is not whether things would be even worse if our enemies had even more power than they currently do. The question is whether the formal system can in fact provide impartial redress for our grievances. I think the evidence is pretty clear that it cannot. If in fact it cannot, further good-faith participation in that system is not advisable. At that point, we as a tribe should stop listening to arguments about how potentially-effective tactics are off-limits because they're against the rules, because the rules are a fiction.
The whole point of the Federal paradigm was supposed to be that winning locally in NC/CA/NJ shouldn't actually matter, because Federal law and Supreme Court decisions override state law and state preferences. That's how it worked when the federal law and Supreme Court decisions were Blue victories. We played the game by the rules, unquestionably "won", and now see that the rules don't actually appear to matter. If they don't matter for the Blues, which they evidently do not, they shouldn't matter for us either. And that means all the rules, from disrespect for federal law to support for organized political violence against tribal enemies.
I remember caring about the idea of fiscal responsibility, once upon a time. But again, there was no benefit to caring about this. Fiscal responsibility could not be established, and attempting to make it happen exclusively hurt us and benefited our enemies. The proper response is to get what can be got while the getting is good, and look for ways to stick the outgroup with as much of the consequences as possible.
I bring up the 2A issues because they are an extremely clear, entirely undeniable rebuttal to "moderate" arguments that the system should be respected. Under current conditions, respecting the system is consenting to your own victimization.
It seems common to me for people, especially moderates, to take the legitimacy of our existing socio-political system as a given. I think this tendency is dangerous. You do, in fact, need to convince people to cooperate with the system, or you will not have a system any more. There is no such thing as unaccountable power, there is only power whose accountability has been successfully occluded. Blue Tribe has been riding high for a very long time via strategies that seem, to me, to be fundamentally degenerate. I don't think they really have a plan B, and I don't think they really have enough time to make one. Whether Trump wins the election or not, social cohesion is not going to come back, and neither is respect for the rule of law or trust in institutions. All of these will continue to decline under all likely outcomes of this year's election, and the tech overhang is only going to get worse with time.
I guess I don’t understand your point.
Gun rights are clearly better off by a lot because the GOP won enough elections to appoint judges who recognize the individual right to bear arms. It has put super blue places on their back foot. Red states tend to have pretty good gun laws and so keeping the Feds from screwing with that is an ongoing victory.
Blue states trying to impose bans that will probably lose in court is the mirror image of Red states/counties saying they won’t enforce gun laws they consider unconstitutional. It’s par for the course and Red tribe is largely winning here (and in a way that doesn’t backfire, like winning on abortion does).
We’ve never had better gun rights in the modern era, with expanded right to carry and state reciprocity and no real chance anytime soon of a fed ban on sporting rifles and magazines, which we used to have in the glorious 90s.
The present state of gun rights exists because of GOP victories. It seems clear a future where the GOP gives up on winning election will not be good for gun rights.
This seems to clearly contradict the original point that winning doesn’t or won’t matter (the instant the left could it would at least take us back to the 90s). But yes, it was funny that Trump actually did support some gun regulation (which might get overturned!),in the same way it would be if he had a tax increase.
So I’m very confused why you think 2A rights of all things is a good example against winning within the system when we’ve had like 20+ years of mostly victories on that front. And, if you’re a conservative, avoiding a bad change is a victory itself.
I agree fiscal responsibility is one hell of a problem because trying to fix it is a political dead end and so it seems both parties have agreed to drive off the cliff and then the crisis will take the blame off of anyone in particular. I’m just also sad the GOP has largely given up even pretending to care.
I also generally agree with your description of the social and institutional decay we’ve seen and that the large part of it is Blue Tribe Elites overplaying their hand and violating important norms. I just think gun rights are a pretty good counter example. See also: drinking/brewing.
Of course, I would have blamed the progressive left a lot more for their share of the overall problem pre-Trump, when he played right into their narrative and flagrantly ignores norms and laws (for no actual victory, mind you), and now that so many constitutional conservatives dropped the first word (along with fiscal).
If the culture war situation was, on average, where it is specifically on gun rights then I’d be a goddamned optimist, because when push comes to shove Blue loses on that issue and things have trended in the direction I prefer during my lifetime.
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Yeah, when the choice presented is between losing quickly and losing slowly, the answer is to flip the table.
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