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Given the (pretty good, IMHO) case Michael Lind lays out in this Tablet piece about how demographic trends still strongly favor utter dominance by the Democratic Party, what can people on the right do, then? Note, I'm not asking what the Republican party does, which is move left to capture moderate voters so to remain electorally viable (per the median voter theorem and Duverger's law); I'm asking what voters who care about the policies that would thus be abandoned, as opposed to the "politics as sports" folks who are happy just so long as "their team" beats the other guy.
The only realistic move is to organize into a tight religious in-group, because: religion is the best way to train the young’s’ spiritual/mental immune system against political propaganda, religion is the best way to transmit cultural/philosophical concerns, and (most of all) America offers strong religious protections which would allow you to live sequestered away from normal life in America. Note that (while I think Western Christianity is the best) your religion need not be fantastical or even really theistic. Unitarian Universalism for instance is simply the progressive worldview codified into religious dogma and adorned in tax protections. There’s nothing stopping a conservative from establishing a religion that believes in Spinoza’s God, believes that the Western classics were divinely inspired, or even believes that certain developed populations are God’s chosen people. Now your community’s resources can be pooled together without taxes, you can establish schools with a religious and conduct requirement, etc
I see people say things like this. I seldom (never) see anyone do things like this. Tax exemptions are also not a panacea for creating a successful organization, the Satanic Temple and Universal Life Church are not exactly going gangbusters. I suppose you're thinking more along the lines of the Amish or Hassidic Jews and maybe a touch of Mormonism. But they were all well established without tax breaks.
American life (in general) continues on apace without much in the way of influence from these successful insular organizations, so I'm not sure how, even in success, this would help with @Capital_Room's question. I, however, given our previous interactions, am not surprised that your solution to almost any issue is more
dakkareligion.The “young” Right re-learned the importance of religion for survival only recently, I’d argue, around the time of the Benedict Plan in 2017. And public thinkers like Jordan Peterson only recently brought serious arguments for religion to the public, in a way that can satisfy the more “rational” conservative cohort who would otherwise be stuck on Nietzsche and new atheism. So it’s not surprising you haven’t seen this development immediately.
I don’t get your point about the Satanic Temple. Satanism is not a culture, it’s pretty much only an aesthetic, so it lacks the motive to utilize tax exemption for the purpose of maintaining a culture. If I were to bet, practicing “Satanists” are usually anti-natalists who think that their cultural heritage sucks. I similarly don’t get your point about the Amish; they were established at a time when no one policed how you established towns and schools… when there was no mass media… they just plopped themselves in Ohio and created, effectively, a micro-nation because they could… and there were few taxes then. So you’re comparing apples to orangutans here, in that there is genuinely no comparison to be made.
Approximately, yes. More accurately, it’s “hierarchical organized communities which use stories and rituals and social competition to guide human behavior, whose leaders are chosen by virtuous conduct and who are prevented from having any material bias of self-gain eg accumulating wealth or women.” This just so happens to be religious in nature due to quirks of
the fleshhuman nature. It’s hard to look at the demise of South Korea, the resilience of the Pashtuns, the birth rates of the Abrahamic Orthodox, the beauty of renaissance art, the economic waste of consumerist sexual competition, and the quasi-religious attitudes of political radicals and not come to the conclusion that what we need is Optimized Religion(s).Interesting premise. It is nice to have it all laid out for once! I'll have to think on a lot of this and get back to you. Well constructed.
Edit to say that JP is a weak moron. I can't stop myself, after being accosted in my social group by his fans when he first started. I always shat on his simplistic takes, weird reedy voice, lobster analogies since I'm from Maine and have actually caught lobsters, clean your room advice; his subsequent fall into madness and addiction was really very satisfying for me.
I'll never forget a Joe Rogan appearance where he was bragging about being able to lift a small box.
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