“So you were after power, Mr. Wynand…
…and you thought you
were a practical man.
You left to impractical intellectuals like me
the whole field of ideas…
…to corrupt as we please
while you were busy making money.
You thought money was power.
Is it, Mr. Wynand?
You poor amateur.
You’ve never been enough of a scoundrel
for your own ambition.
That’s why I’ll be back on this job…
…and when I am, I’ll run this paper.
From “The Fountainhead” script by Ayn Rand.
Fenster662: I attended a screening of the FOUNTAINHEAD movie a few years back, with an audience of largely “sophisticated” members of the Hive, who had been programmed to mock and hate the movie by a local would-be Toohey writing for a cultural-affairs-and-politics paper. It was interesting how, as the movie progressed, and the Toohey character became more and more prominent, so that his socialism came more and more to the fore, the jeering laughter subsided.
It isn’t new but no one listened to the warnings and instead made fun of those doing the warning and thought themselves safe. See STEM, Russia, and China for further examples. You can also throw in Red state people who think it can never happen to them.
How did woke come to power? Mass immigration. None of this “march through the institutions” crappola really matters, it’s the rock-solid racial votes of the majority of immigrants that hands power to the left. If it weren’t for this fact California would still be in play. Droning on about the “march” is just a way for conservatives to, once again, avoid any real discussion about race in American politics. Mass immigration has been a disaster for conservatism and if you believe that the tenets of conservatism are best for the country, and the opposition is destroying the country, then it has been a disaster for the nation as well. But opposing immigration is seen as racism and racism is the chief sin of the civic religion that has replaced Christianity in this country, so no conservative dare do so. It’s called an incentive trap.
Obvious counterpoint-Democrats are rapidly losing ground amongst Hispanics. It seems wokeness isn’t that popular amongst some immigrants.
“Rapidly losing ground” isn’t the same as winning, I’ve been hearing this refrain from Republicans for at least 30 years. They’re just about to win the Hispanic vote any day now. I suspect that when the dust clears after this election the Republicans will have gained a small increase in Hispanic support which they will tout as coming within a couple of points of winning but a cold-blooded examination after the fact will show that they lost that vote by 5-10 points or more, i.e., by a landslide. Remember the black shift to the Republicans in 2020? Vaporware.
It may be that the economic disaster of the COVID/Biden administration will temporarily drive some of the immigrant vote into the Republican/stay home column, but that’s just a temporary anomaly that will disappear as soon as the inflation situation returns to “normal.” (It wasn’t a real problem under Obama and he was just as woke, or more so, as Joe.) They don’t care about “wokeness.” They’re here to make money, and that means disempowering/exploiting the white population by voting group interests. They’re not “naturally conservative”, to use a conservatism, inc. propaganda line, “wokeness” is a cultural-political weapon aimed mostly at whites and non-whites understand this at a gut level and are willing to put up with its inanities as long as the main anti-white program of the left chugs along because they profit from that program in many different ways. “Naturally conservative” is a fairy tale from the con artists who run conservatism and the Republican party at the top. They’ve been paid to keep the borders open and they intend to do just that (look how they sabotaged Trump) but they need a plausibly deniable excuse on why they’re screwing their constituents.
Beyond any argument decades of nearly open borders, under both Democrats and Republicans, have been a disaster for conservatism, and as I said if you believe that conservatism is best for the country, a disaster for the nation as well. But the first impulse of conservatives is to twist and turn and do everything in your power to avoid acknowledging that indisputable reality, as you have. It’s a battle of values – you can value diversity and immigration but doing so is clearly at the expense of other values like tradition, traditional laws, history, cultural coherence, and freedom. It’s a testament to how powerful the brainwashing and oppression laid on by the system is when conservatives can’t bring themselves to seriously question policies that are literally suicidal to their party and movement.
I don’t support unlimited immigration and don’t like illegal immigration. But to argue demographic shifts are the driver of wokeness ignores the data. It’s true Black’s shifting to republican didn’t help Trump win, but the statistics did show that he gained ground among almost every group except whites. And of course we have to assume vote counts in swing states were 100% legit (lol). I suspect Trump would have one had it not been for the fact that he lost amongst college educated whites while gaining among others. Plus, election shenanigans. In truth, I think the “demographics is destiny” conservatives believe it because the left believed it and talked about it 15 years ago. So they figured the left was super smart and gonna get them. What actually happened is the current left seems to have decided rather than caring about “kitchen table” type issues like inflation, it’s decided to become the party of infinite genders and Karen’s. Which is turning off a lot of people of different races. The question is, can we overcome election shenanigans and the entrenchment of wokeness in high places.
In the infamous interview about the Southern Strategy, Lee Atwood said the Republican message on economics, patriotism, national defense, crime, ECT would appeal to black folk as they entered the middle class and that over time, they would be receptive to Republicans.
IMO, the same is true for all ethnicities.
The roadblock is identity politics as practiced by Democrats that teaches people who arent white that Republicans are racists. This has been successful because most black people don’t live next to Republicans and immigrant Hispanics don’t speak English. But the communication barriers are coming down.
“So you were after power, Mr. Wynand…
…and you thought you
were a practical man.
You left to impractical intellectuals like me
the whole field of ideas…
…to corrupt as we please
while you were busy making money.
You thought money was power.
Is it, Mr. Wynand?
You poor amateur.
You’ve never been enough of a scoundrel
for your own ambition.
That’s why I’ll be back on this job…
…and when I am, I’ll run this paper.
From “The Fountainhead” script by Ayn Rand.
Fenster662: I attended a screening of the FOUNTAINHEAD movie a few years back, with an audience of largely “sophisticated” members of the Hive, who had been programmed to mock and hate the movie by a local would-be Toohey writing for a cultural-affairs-and-politics paper. It was interesting how, as the movie progressed, and the Toohey character became more and more prominent, so that his socialism came more and more to the fore, the jeering laughter subsided.
It isn’t new but no one listened to the warnings and instead made fun of those doing the warning and thought themselves safe. See STEM, Russia, and China for further examples. You can also throw in Red state people who think it can never happen to them.
How did woke come to power? Mass immigration. None of this “march through the institutions” crappola really matters, it’s the rock-solid racial votes of the majority of immigrants that hands power to the left. If it weren’t for this fact California would still be in play. Droning on about the “march” is just a way for conservatives to, once again, avoid any real discussion about race in American politics. Mass immigration has been a disaster for conservatism and if you believe that the tenets of conservatism are best for the country, and the opposition is destroying the country, then it has been a disaster for the nation as well. But opposing immigration is seen as racism and racism is the chief sin of the civic religion that has replaced Christianity in this country, so no conservative dare do so. It’s called an incentive trap.
Obvious counterpoint-Democrats are rapidly losing ground amongst Hispanics. It seems wokeness isn’t that popular amongst some immigrants.
“Rapidly losing ground” isn’t the same as winning, I’ve been hearing this refrain from Republicans for at least 30 years. They’re just about to win the Hispanic vote any day now. I suspect that when the dust clears after this election the Republicans will have gained a small increase in Hispanic support which they will tout as coming within a couple of points of winning but a cold-blooded examination after the fact will show that they lost that vote by 5-10 points or more, i.e., by a landslide. Remember the black shift to the Republicans in 2020? Vaporware.
It may be that the economic disaster of the COVID/Biden administration will temporarily drive some of the immigrant vote into the Republican/stay home column, but that’s just a temporary anomaly that will disappear as soon as the inflation situation returns to “normal.” (It wasn’t a real problem under Obama and he was just as woke, or more so, as Joe.) They don’t care about “wokeness.” They’re here to make money, and that means disempowering/exploiting the white population by voting group interests. They’re not “naturally conservative”, to use a conservatism, inc. propaganda line, “wokeness” is a cultural-political weapon aimed mostly at whites and non-whites understand this at a gut level and are willing to put up with its inanities as long as the main anti-white program of the left chugs along because they profit from that program in many different ways. “Naturally conservative” is a fairy tale from the con artists who run conservatism and the Republican party at the top. They’ve been paid to keep the borders open and they intend to do just that (look how they sabotaged Trump) but they need a plausibly deniable excuse on why they’re screwing their constituents.
Beyond any argument decades of nearly open borders, under both Democrats and Republicans, have been a disaster for conservatism, and as I said if you believe that conservatism is best for the country, a disaster for the nation as well. But the first impulse of conservatives is to twist and turn and do everything in your power to avoid acknowledging that indisputable reality, as you have. It’s a battle of values – you can value diversity and immigration but doing so is clearly at the expense of other values like tradition, traditional laws, history, cultural coherence, and freedom. It’s a testament to how powerful the brainwashing and oppression laid on by the system is when conservatives can’t bring themselves to seriously question policies that are literally suicidal to their party and movement.
I don’t support unlimited immigration and don’t like illegal immigration. But to argue demographic shifts are the driver of wokeness ignores the data. It’s true Black’s shifting to republican didn’t help Trump win, but the statistics did show that he gained ground among almost every group except whites. And of course we have to assume vote counts in swing states were 100% legit (lol). I suspect Trump would have one had it not been for the fact that he lost amongst college educated whites while gaining among others. Plus, election shenanigans. In truth, I think the “demographics is destiny” conservatives believe it because the left believed it and talked about it 15 years ago. So they figured the left was super smart and gonna get them. What actually happened is the current left seems to have decided rather than caring about “kitchen table” type issues like inflation, it’s decided to become the party of infinite genders and Karen’s. Which is turning off a lot of people of different races. The question is, can we overcome election shenanigans and the entrenchment of wokeness in high places.
In the infamous interview about the Southern Strategy, Lee Atwood said the Republican message on economics, patriotism, national defense, crime, ECT would appeal to black folk as they entered the middle class and that over time, they would be receptive to Republicans.
IMO, the same is true for all ethnicities.
The roadblock is identity politics as practiced by Democrats that teaches people who arent white that Republicans are racists. This has been successful because most black people don’t live next to Republicans and immigrant Hispanics don’t speak English. But the communication barriers are coming down.