“Republicans, no longer pretending to be the opposition party, just helped get the FBI a $600 million budget increase after the censorship bombshells conclusively demonstrated extensive bureau meddling in election-related speech. Every member of Congress now serving has won at least one election in the present era of FBI election manipulation. Some are probably beneficiaries. Should we be surprised that there are so few voices calling for it to end?”
2 Likes
Do you think it is reasonable to expect a new party for 2024?
2 Likes
What new party? Who is forming it? What will it be called? What will it claim to stand for?
Have there been indications that a new party is being formed?
Or will it be the GOP reformed?
3 Likes
I just asked if you might think it was a reasonable expectation…
You asked good questions, too.
1 Like
I don’t think there is any possibility of such a thing as a new party, Jeanne. Not in the foreseeable future.
2 Likes
Well…phooey!
Anybody else thinking more positively? Honestly, I don’t see how the Republicans that actually want to represent Americans…oops, US Citizens,…would not be brave…oops, nix that word…resilient enough (maybe that works) to organize more thoroughly against the stupid…oops, (what to use here)…stoopid unionized and Democrat-approved RHINOs.
It is hard to keep up with the preferred wordspeak.
Happy Yuletide.
3 Likes
Yes, as I heard a commentator on the radio say today - “I guess I should call up the FBI and ask them if my opinions are “approved” before I post anything online now”.
As far as a new party - I don’t really think we need a new party. If it weren’t for the fraud, most of the Rinos would have been voted out by now and replaced with MAGA candidates, and we’d have essentially a “new” party.
It’s not the party, its the fraud!! But now we’re caught in the Catch 22 - you can’t vote your way out of a rigged system, which traitors now control.
3 Likes
Yup, Liz, I see your point. “It’s not the party, it’s the fraud!”
Should be a bumper sticker or a rallying cry.
2 Likes
The only plausible strategy is to take better control of the existing Republican party with grassroots activism, like that being promoted by Steve Bannon on War Room. A ‘new party’ would split the anti-communist vote and make it even less effective.
1 Like
Your first sentence: No.
Your second sentence: Yes.
1 Like
I agree. Jillian you should give Bannon a chance.
Nobody’s perfect, but he’s staunchly pro-Trump, and is doing a great job at motivating the pro-Trump grass roots movement.
2 Likes
Okay, Liz. I’ll see what he can do.
2 Likes
I don’t trust Bannon’s reasons for doing what he is doing or saying, although I have not kept up with him lately. This is solely based upon his fascination with Aleksandr Dugin and Dugin’s Traditionalism (with a capital T) and Olavo de Carvalho in Brazil, also a Traditionalist. Was Bannon attempting a Trumpian Traditionalism in the US, and is he still?
2 Likes
A Trumpian Traditionalism? Not sure what that would entail. He’s a traditionalist in the sense of adhering to the Constitution and traditional morals. As far as I can tell, Dugan may be a minor part of his thinking, but its not the major part.
He’s very well read in American history, finance, and geopolitics, and that’s his focus.
3 Likes
Jeanne, I’ve followed Bannon fairly closely, although there are a couple of things about him that trouble me, like his (seeming) religiosity (which I wonder about). Your comment is the first thing I’ve ever heard about his admiration of Dugin. He seems more committed to Miles Guo and the New Federal State of China which Guo founded – a sort of nationalist mainland Chinese government in exile created around seventy years after the communist takeover in 1949. Can you supply some info about Bannon’s admiration of Dugin? (But the traditionalism connection would make some sense.) I’ve always suspected stories about Russian right-wing movements (and Ukrainian ones) like the Dugin thing (which seems at least as left as right wing – the Stalinists hedging their bets?). The Russians play games with how their internal affairs are perceived by outsiders. Dugin may be a false flag or Potemkin “conservative”. Your input is welcome and interesting, as always.
3 Likes
Damon, my insight comes from “The War For Eternity” by Benjamin Teitelbaum. My insight confuses me somewhat, as does this article of a conversation between Teitelbaum and a “The American Conservative” journalist. But my overall feeling is one of distrust in the big-T leaders/players. There is a discernable difference between Traditionalism and traditionalism, which is discussed within the article.
And, btw, Damon, the word I used was “fascination” not admiration.
1 Like
Liz, truthfully, I am not sure, either, but here is Teitelbaum discussing it:
RD: Does Traditionalism have a political future? Trump has been useless in actually advancing its goals. In my view, it has been nothing but performative kitsch for him. What will happen to the Trads if Trump wins a second term? If he loses?
BT: I think Traditionalist narratives of Trump could take a number of shapes depending on what happens. Trump’s potential value to these actors rests in his ability to upend the status quo; if he wins and comes to represent a new status quo, then he could soon appear as an avatar of the modernist decadence they loath. Traditionalists’ conundrum resembles that of the standard anti-establishment populist in this sense. But if he loses in November, Traditionalists might retrospectively view his rise as nothing other than a momentary (and prophesied) pause in the cycle of decline, just as Mussolini appeared to Julius Evola after WWII.
But as you can tell, this is mostly about narratives rather than policy. One of the challenges I’ve faced in writing the book is to distinguish when Traditionalism functions as a program for action and when it functions as a lens for interpretation.
Its fatalism—its belief that history is following a schedule and that we find ourselves living toward the end of a dark age and near the dawn of a collapse and rebirth—need not spur much action beyond adopting a celebratory or indifferent attitude in the face of destruction and apparent chaos. That’s not to say that these thinkers can’t identify particular policies that embody their values more than others: the fortification of borders and the shrinking of political spheres is an example of such a cause, and its prospects in a battle against all the forces of globalization seem poor.
But Traditionalists also find encouragement in places we wouldn’t expect. Bannon was quite excited by the short candidacy of Marianne Williamson—a spiritualist Democratic candidate for president who spoke of the need to confront “dark psychic forces.” She seemed to represent a politics of the immaterial, and were she to have faced off against Trump, I’m not sure Bannon would have cared about the outcome, for he might see a larger victory in the entire political spectrum having moved away from materialism.
But your question was not just about Traditionalists, but also Traditionalism.The real impetus to my writing the book was my bewilderment at the fact that a way of thinking so radical and so obscure surfaced suddenly in different positions of power throughout the world. And I still wonder what that says about our present and future. I’m not entertaining the notion that cosmic time cycles and such are actually at play, but rather that the rise of Bannon, Dugin, and Olavo testifies to a broader societal drive to depart from the sociopolitical status quo. For entirely worldly reasons, communities seem to be seeking to dramatic change, and that may keep Traditionalism alive as one of multiple alternatives.
Jillian, if I am remembering correctly, it was Teitelbaum of whom you were writing when I was writing of Beck in reference to Aleksandr Dugin.
It was from an interview on Beck’s radio show that first heard Teitelbaum, when they were speaking about his book, “The War For Eternity.” But, Beck has been warning of Dugin and his influence upon Putin and Putin’s goal for restoring Mother Russia to her former empire for many years. I did not remember Teitelbaum’s name during the time of that forum thread.
1 Like
Jeanne, the article with its interview with Teitelbaum is not worth reading. I am amazed that any atheist can read beyond its first paragraph or two. “Religious” or “spiritual” “truths”?
If Bannon is this sort of mystic - or any sort of mystic - then he is not worth our attention.
Your feeling of distrust is a good guide.
2 Likes
I do not remember citing Teitelbaum, but It is perfectly possible that I did if he provided some information that was useful then and there.
My opinion of him now is that he is ignorable.
2 Likes
I remembered incorrectly. This is your info:
here is a good article about Dugin by a *Hoover Institution senior fellow, John Dunlop
And…worthy of our attention or not, is there danger among this loosely knit group of Big-T Traditionalists?
1 Like