The New Right Won't Be Conservative
The rise of populist politics is a sign of things to come. Trump really shined a light on a giant mass of Americans who feel betrayed, but it is specifically how they are betrayed that matters: Their jobs. For fifty years, major bastions of American industry have been shipped to lower quality, cheaper foreign industry. Beyond anything, this is what matters to your typical conservative voter. The issues of societal degradation and degeneracy are far and away their least important motive to be angry. It all comes down to a sense of pride they no longer have, as they watched once industrious, hustle and bustle cities they had a sense of patriotism for, degrade gradually into cesspits of crime, litter, and decay.
With the great rallies under Trump, and the momentous victory he gained, a revelation was made - the real right wing isn’t evangelical at its core, nor is it particularly reactionary. It is protectionist. That is all that it comes down to - anti-Free Trade. This is why as the economy continues on its downslope, and the powers-that-be continue to use dastardly tactics to undermine the American industrialist and worker, the New Right will rear its ugly head not as theocrats, not as small government industrialists and entrepreneurs, but as moderately socialist nationalists.
Part I - The Unimportance of Economics
The Rightist and the Austrian economist/libertarian really have nothing in common, at the end of the day. It just so happens those who subscribe to the Austrian School are generally more conservative, and generally take more of a self-determinist attitude towards life, but at the end of the day, the Austrian embodies the Anarch, while the Rightist embodies the Collectivist.
The Anarch - As described by the man who coined the term, Ernst Junger:
The Anarch is the positive counterpart of the anarchist.
I am an anarch – not because I despise authority, but because I need it. Likewise, I am not a nonbeliever, but a man who demands something worth believing in.
Although I am an anarch, I am not anti-authoritarian. Quite the opposite: I need authority, although I do not believe in it. My critical faculties are sharpened by the absence of the credibility that I ask for. As a historian, I know what can be offered.
The Anarch is to the anarchist, what the monarch is to the monarchist.
When I try to explain the way the banking system works, the reason the economy is broken, the reason it all depends on faith, Triffin’s Dilemma, or the natural proclivity for rich nations to become overly-decadent, they shun such esotericism. It takes too much time to understand why the average person, when embodying the Anarch to some extent, can do anything he wants. That is where the Right very much separates itself from being self-determinist like an old school libertarian, because they are more focused on the ability for the collective to wholeheartedly agree on basically everything, and willingly subjugate themselves to a Monarch or Oligarchic minority.
The libertarian who subscribes to the idea that there will always be cutthroat pro-authoritarian powers searching for rule over him ultimately finds himself becoming an Anarch, but more importantly, what we describe as NRx. That is why, though the average libertarian, especially of the modal variety, would look to me as somewhat of a far-rightist in disguise, but I am really not. I am just a libertarian who has accepted there are powers, some good that happen to favor my own beliefs and biases, and some others who I would rather die than live under their rule. Ultimately, though, I shun the idea that I am subjugated to any sovereign other than God Himself.
What the modern Rightist, especially just the typical disenchanted former-Republican, union worker, or POC of the self-determinist entrepreneurial variety, they feel ever so separated from any representation, and ultimately, shun any finance or economic explanation of the troubles that ail society. They do not understand it, and view it as a perpetually esoteric, shady force of the uberrich to oppress them and steal from them their labor’s productive capacity and wealth. The Right will hate the Federal Reserve, but only insofar as they hate anyone who is in the finance world. They simply distrust it, because it is inexplicable in their eyes.
Part II - A Struggle For Vision
The new right, whom I would see truly rearing up in the next decade as a definitive force that overtakes the Republican Party, either through the outside or from within, will still use Evangelical talking points, albeit very sparsely and very broadly. The main crux of their rise will be the repetition they notice with our economy having never recovered from the Obama years. They will resent those who they see sold off America to foreigners, and seek, at every turn, to have direct control over trade. They will essentially be modern mercantilists.
The rhetoric will become more and more focused on taking control of what and who comes into and out of the country, as to try and bring back America to a trade surplus (or even worse, simply shutting out foreign trade, and moving towards nationalist construction of industry directly owned by the state or indirectly through a corporation). Assuming they do take control in some big way, in the current democratic-republican system, they will fail at ever making giant categorical moves to revolutionize (for the worse) how our financial system works. They will have to do it through morphing the system into something more monarchical or directly oligarchical where there is no checks and balances or accountability. Without the dollar world reserve system where dollars can easily leave the US to take care of foreign debts, and likely with other crosscurrents of global unrest, it is hard to see anyone garnering dollar funding, and other nations would have to print money in the absence of dollars. A nationalist America would be very detrimental for the rest of the world.
That is why either this would concurrently run with a massive fall in America’s dominion over the rest of the world, because as it stands, our trade deficit still benefits everyone to the point of remaining bovine.
However, that doesn’t change the fact that the rise of this form of “conservatism” is already burgeoning, and these types will grab the reins of rhetorical power, which will be evermore important in a time when the people whom I listed who are disenchanted with the system, will be seeking for power-related answers that bring back the wealth to their economically-depressed families and communities. That is why, regardless of the movement of the financial system and dollar-funding, the everpresent, unsolvable issue of horrid economic growth and opportunity will be the driving force behind the New Right’s rhetoric, and direct action, if they are ever afforded any.
Part III - Leadership
In the absence of any real cohesive leadership among conservatives and the Republican Party, it’s open season on who really grabs the helm of leadership. It won’t be a Jefferson Davis type, nor will it be a journalist type. The Ben Shapiros and Anderson Coopers are simply unrelatable. The New Right will desire to have a Joe Blow as their leader, and that’s what they will get, as the Ron Desantises, Marco Rubios, and Greg Abbotts won’t be very effective at mobilizing a dedicated base like Trump did, and instead the desire for union leaders or small business owners or foremans will be all the more effective and interesting leaders, because they can not only garner a genuine, dedicated base, but also understand the struggles of the modern American life, and what it feels like to be made disappointed and hopeless time and time again.
That is where I see leadership coming from depressed communities, especially oil towns in Texas, Rust Belt cities and towns in the North, good ol’ boy southerners and midwesterners, self-determinist Latinos and Blacks. It won’t be a whitened-teethed doctor or lawyer, or your typical sociopathic narcissist. The New Right will want someone grittier, with more calluses on their hands. The air will be too smoke-consumed for a man walking around in an expensive suit, greased hair, and white teeth to be convincing to people who are covered in the rubble of a dead economy.
Part IV - Why They Will Be Dangerous
That’s why wanting to control a dying America is just a failed mission from the start. The Troubles in Ireland or Years of Lead in Italy didn’t amount to anything, and both nations, especially Italy, are still in dire straits. Wanting to take the helm of a clearly dying nation that’s losing its hegemony regardless of who takes control is going to be a loss for anyone who wins. The massive pile of crap that the USG’s history is built on, and the massive skeleton-filled closet only makes the issue unsolveable. The trust is lost, and can’t be restored, so to try and tame a thrashing, bleeding out beast is only a fool’s errand.
That is why I, personally, have absolutely no interest in joining any “battle for liberty” or they may even label it as a “battle for Christ and family” because those who will take control, inevitably just want to become Putins at best, and German Mustache Men at worst. They will bureacratize, cronyize, and revert America into simply the reverse of a leftist shithole, which is a pathocracy of paranoid, less-than-stellar Rightists who think they can create five year plans, stamp out all the “degenerates” and bring America into a fashy new tomorrow. These people simply want power for the sake of power, and maybe secondly, to utilize it as a means of creating a pie-in-the-sky utopia.
That’s ultimately why the new brand of rightism is only going to fail, because it sees itself as utopian. How specifically? It ignores pragmatism, economic issues, and that everything is built on faith, so when you don’t have faith - you don’t just restore it by electing some good ol’ boy roughneck or industrialist businessman who simply wants to break everything, while simultaneously rebuilding everything. Every time this happens, every single problem is exacerbated, and it’s because the issue of faith and high-trust are not allowed to organically grow back. A tree takes decades to become tough and mighty.
Part V - My Own Answer
This is why if you see the economic, the political, the communal as all intertwined issues, you will start to lose faith in America’s ability to restore itself, which might seem like a blackpill, but as I try to remind everyone - it is really the ultimate whitepill in disguise. Like I’ve said before, in the failing Leviathan, you are but a middle manager, but in a new successor state, you have the opportunity to be a brigadier general. The answer shouldn’t be political, but of community. We must build communities, in place of the ashes of civilization. Now obviously, there will be several failures, especially in the beginning, but if you play your cards right, and do what I explained in my blogpost, How To Start A Commune, you’ll be on your way to establishing a bright new future.
Because instead of literally watching your nation crumble and trying to catch every little piece and build it back up, the opportunity to start new nations, that are reasonably self-sustaining, and aren’t militant, but simple reactions to the fall of this empire, then something more healthy and sustainable can be created, rather than embodying the Leviathan in our downfall.
You might call this a cop out, but that comes from a mindset of denial and ignorance. If you do not see how we can’t fix everything, then I really have nothing to say to you. Good luck getting killed in the Years of Lead, I’d rather be out in the boonies with people I admire and enjoy attempting to create a sustaining community. As the Prudentialist talked about in a fantastic Reel Talk, the deracination many people experience, honestly not just the young people he mentions, but also just the older millenials and younger x-gen who really have no healthy spiritual community that they’re established themselves in (go to a modern-day Church and tell me it isn’t eerie), is all just an outcome of these very intertwined issues of a dying nation. So stop trying to keep a braindead vegetable on life support when it clearly wants to be allowed to go into that deep goodnight. Create your own communities, and stop foisting your responsibility to do such onto some grand, artificial, five-year plan neo-quasi-socialist, nationalist party.
If you want to do that, then again, be my guest, I have nothing against people who are hopelessly idealistic, ignorant, and want to see blood. That’s their cup of tea, and it isn’t my job, nor even my interest, to dissuade them from their dreams. I, however, look forward, potentially, to those who do not seek nonsense battle and bickering that will be all for one, peaceful life, albeit harder and more sweat-breaking, on the prairie.
“Today only the person who no longer believes in a happy ending, only he who has consciously renounced it, is able to live. A happy century does not exist; but there are moments of happiness, and there is freedom in the moment.”
Ernst Junger