It took decades for this to finally happen
I missed this year’s Scyldings event, but I know many who were able to make it. What they had to say was very encouraging. It didn’t seem to be lacking in quality of speakers and attendees. I wish I was there to see the conversations about finding a unity of purpose in this gestalt of a social/political movement, but that’s why I am writing today. To speculate on the preeminent dissident right organization.
Due to the high quality of men in this movement the usual ebbs and flows of culture have not ripped it apart. It has saved itself numerous times now from falling into irrelevance by growing into something better organized and lindy. However, that doesn’t stop it from having major coherency issues. The dedication and moral character of many of its organizers, key figures, and great thinkers have upheld it as something more than just a sequel to the alt right. The kneejerk survival instinct to start forcing ourselves into one coherent glob of people who are all for the same thing is understandable. People do not want to lose the connections they have made. They want to know their efforts are leading to something great. This is what has culminated into the Old Glory Club (OGC) — the manifestation of the American right as a proper, organized collective. Men of completely different strides in life, different religious backgrounds, different classes, different parts of the USA, different shades of huwyte all coming together for what is essentially a revivalism of American fraternal organizations that have long been dying. This one is based, too.
Now, there’s a lot that can go wrong with this, but I am not a pessimist when something makes sense. The OGC has a very clear purpose to its inception, and with a good bit of work ethic, imagination, but mostly balls on the part of its grinders, minders, and finders — it could become a preeminent think tank and fraternal organization revamping America into a quality nation, and perhaps a deserved hegemon.
What is the Old Glory Club? Well, I’m not sure they even know the answer to that question fully. I think, on paper and as a selling point, the OGC is an attempt at Americanist revival, fraternization between the WASPs, establishing connections that have been lost to atomization. They want to bring men of like minds together, provide support when we are screwed over by a system that feels assaulted by Christianity, confident white men, and funny jokes. Fund get-togethers, help one another out in doing good and wholesome things, learning perennial skills, holding workshops, etc (atchingway ymay opsecyay). This is great and all, but big dreams like this require a lot of work and big actions from those involved, which we will elaborate on, but we must hit on praise first.
The Good
After decades of Buckleyites, Goldwaterites, Reaganites, and Trumpists; the revolt against the heresies of American conservatism (liberalism but with the veneer of tradition) has commenced. For the most part, it seems like it started with a blank slate. Abandon all narratives, and just have zealous infatuation with white men of history, and America. Got it. Cool. We have finally figured out, as Alt-Hype put it back in the early racist days of the alt-right, that retard rallies are bad, voting for the lesser evil is retarded, the boomer American dream is not real, and we should give up hope on the vision for a grand liberal future because liberalism is anti-community and destructive to the soul. Sounds great! It’s just this never culminated into institution-building. The right-wing has spent decades spinning its wheels in the mud anytime there is a demand for people to actually work for something grander than their own ephemeral delights (freedoms). For people to have skin in the game is unreal. Might as well just give up. Finally, we are seeing the right-wing actually become the right-wing. If only, and I say this somewhat cynically, because there is finally a market for it now that the boomer containment narrative has officially died (at least outside of the mind-numbing controlled narratives of CNN, Fox News, and MSNBC).
The OGC fills a gap that hasn’t been filled since the average WASPy American man would frequent his local Freemason lodge, or whatever secret society or cool club he was acquainted to. Those apart of this organization, especially as it grows, will likely bring back the same desire for brotherhood, and big projects that require long-term devotion.
This could have a huge effect on many communities, if there is a firm dedication, and from what I know of the men involved, they can very much ignite the spark for something great that this country hasn’t seen in decades.
Imagine an OGC member reaching out to another across the country to try and work on a local infrastructure issue; a local resident needing a project completed on their house and being able to reach out through the club to find a good tradesman who can get the work done right; someone in need of education or consultation from somebody who isn’t a moron or pozzed. Obviously, the friendships and economic relationships have no limits. All it ever required was skin in the game, and people are finally making that sacrifice because they know they can’t keep being alone in this decaying world. After all, sacrifice can never be done for the self. Only the other.
With how large the OGC could become, specifically through franchising and confederalization, it could function as a proper fraternal/political/social organization and think tank that has basic bylaws and tenets, missions, and a hierarchy, but split apart across the nation. This would obviously allow for it to not become slow and inefficient due to several different cultures, religions, and intentions within the organization itself having to vie for relevance. If the OGC wants to function in America, it has to treat itself like it is dealing with many different nations. It itself cannot be conquered by those who want power for the sake of power (which is why elite theory is fucking gay).
The OGC has the capacity to do this, but as I will explain in The Bad it has very obvious vulnerabilities that could lead to its own immediate destruction. Before that, though, one last thing that is both a good and a bad.
Optics. The OGC has a thin veil of sanity it wears to protect it from direct attacks from the Cathedral (yes, I am going to use that term, bite me). It is clearly a “far-right hate group,” “a bunch of radicals,” etc, etc. Any label the fat, resentful 35-year-old blue-haired girl in the HR department where you work would throw at you before firing your ass. However, this is not to the OGC’s detriment in my opinion. They ought to embrace this, because there is no way cuckservatism will survive beyond the generation X (who are already nowhere near as cucked as boomers). It’s just the softness of white conservatives is such a problem they have never built any useful institutions in the last forty years because they’re fraidy cats. The OGC has the opportunity to make itself the first openly pro-American organization that knows how to view history, has a desire to help those oppressed by liberalism, and wants America to rise up above individualism that has rotted families and souls. Cool, but let’s figure out if they even have the capability of doing that.
The Bad
First, let’s hit at the most immediate problem: what even is the OGC? What makes an OGC member? What is the combined vision?
Now obviously a unifying vision isn’t really necessitated for this organization to work. Unless, and this would be its ultimate failure, if it tried to be overtly political. If it does that then all bets are off. The minute they try to push into the public eye of politics, they will get turned into a joke. At least for a while. This is an organization that must function on the sidelines, but the members are encouraged to utilize their connections in order to… you know (get power to do good things). The optics are just not meant for anything other than something that isn’t bombastic and obvious.
That begs even more questions, though. Does the OGC want to be lindy and impactful? Then they have to have a basis for what they are beyond a broad pro-American, anti-liberal institution. If it falls into America pastiche worship, then I’m sorry but just through the amount of self-deceit one would have to go through in order to make that possible, the OGC would collapse like any other idolatry does. What I’m getting at is — the OGC has to have some basis for beliefs. It can’t just be, “Uhh, we’re just like white Americans who are mostly Christian but like pagans are fine too — as long as they love America!” Huh? Like what? What is your organization? Define yourselves better. I’m sure y’all will do that but for now, the combined vision isn’t there. Anybody being honest can’t base their entire organization on vague pro-heritage America and not face the issue of not having logos. That’s what brought America to decay in the first place — its liberalism defines it better than its Christianity. The defining tropes of America make that obvious: cowboys, frontiersmen, gun-toting rednecks. These are not archetypes of order and firm grounding in logos. They are men of fleeting sense accepting of change and vulnerable to hierarchy and humility.
This leads to yet another criticism — there are already other organizations with more cogency and better optics along with more experienced men in charge that will btfo OGC in every attempt at trying to become relevant. Exit Group and New Founding come to mind. In my opinion, I think the OGC has better capability at spreading and being more relevant, only because it has an overtness and more clear goal of revitalization that the other orgs do not. The unfortunate fact is those who are the forebearers of the OGC are not men of leadership experience. They’re mostly young men or family men with full time jobs. Even more so, romantic men, and not industrious men (at least not yet). As it stands, the OGC cannot have life breathed into it if other than to be a little hobby that helps keep some level of unity in the precariously-disunited American right (which is still much better than pretending we have anything to do with the Europeans of the DR).
That being the case, the OGC has an immediate problem they must solve if they’re going to keep the kinetic energy flowing. They are not fully realized as a proper organization, they lack leadership that is monomanically devoted, they have a lot of goals that have yet to be given a plan for realization, but worst of all — if they don’t play their cards right, their organization could become bunk or fade into irrelevance because they failed at fulfilling its purpose. Which only looks bad for all those involved.
I personally don’t think this will happen, but there’s a reason we talk about this stuff. So how is this problem solved? Well, as a friend of mine who went to the event told me about — there are men who are willing to open local chapters for the OGC. Men who have money and/or time. If the OGC can set aside the fact that its preeminent figures all lack the time or inclination to grow it, they must cede responsibility to the local chapters and better/more experienced men who have had positions of leadership. If they fail to do this, they will end up like any other organization or business that fails off its ass — it is always management and leadership’s fault. Always. If the OGC can meritoriously recognize young men with time and energy, and likewise older and wealthier men with money and time above the immediacy of the current leaders’ preferences, then they will succeed in flying colors.
Closing, Candid Thoughts
From my point of view, the OGC is not solving a large problem. They aren’t there to solve America’s issues, save souls, or bring any huge issues of America to a close. They are trying to solve the problems that Freemasons could never solve. The faults of the Freemasons could easily be committed by the OGC — the obscure rituals, the leaders hidden by their scholarly wisdom, the bizarre cultic syncretic monotheism, etc — they are not immune to heresy because they are so recklessly ecumenical. What they are focused on, and this is not to be played down, is a revival in the most American way possible. Unfortunately, hardcore American exceptionalism only goes so far until you reach an impasse between the deeper truths of the human experience. That is, (white) American nationalism is a comb-over for a broader problem of protestants not having any level of unity between one another.
American protestants cannot come together unanimously for something beyond their own absurd patriotic visions of unity. The inception of America was the manifestation of liberalism. The Founding Fathers were all unitarians, Episcopalians, some other rebellious form of burgeoning protestantism, or Voltairean deists. Modern day congregationalist Baptists are less cringe than that. But for Lutherans, Baptists, Catholics, Pentecostals, Orthos to all come together for some vain belief in American unity is beyond foolish. There is no deeper context in which this organization can become anything more than an attempt at reigniting more Americana nostalgia. The issue of a rational unifying logos will never be reached with this. It is doing the exact failure perpetually committed by whites — trying to bring back to life what is dead (Frankenstein’s Monster).
There’s nothing bad about this really. It’s just an elephant in the room that other secret societies already had figured out — normally by becoming directly anti-logos. Masons have weirdo rituals. There are lodges for different occupations. Hell, unions are an example of a fraternal organization. But what is an organization united around some undefined reactionary rehash of American exceptionalism if not just LARP? I’m not saying it is that, I am saying it will be that if it doesn’t shape up to something great, charitable, and productive. If anything, it has to unify its neo-Americanism with Christianity. The more it pretends it can live without making that extremely explicit the more it ironically will fall to the same failures of the American republic itself. It is aiming for something truly higher than any other current organization, fraternal, occupational, political, etc. It has to be meta-religious and reinvigorate a central white American consciousness.
For now, all we can do is wait and see if they can be up to snuff. Perhaps they will be more than a writers’ collective, or perhaps this will be an embarrassing footnote in the DR’s perpetual failure at trying to be coherent and relevant. I really don’t know, I just like to poke and prod and see if they actually get shit done. I think they will, if only because there is a demand for charity that has been lost to atomization. The OGC will find its point, and it is already doing that in making its main goal in trying to help others, trying to make the institutions of modernity completely irrelevant to the average dissident, but they will only succeed if they can properly organize their hierarchy, lend an olive branch to those with more experience, time, money, and/or energy, and not stay too centralized.
Only trying to be real here. There’s easily a lot that I do not know, and I hope that is the case. As the Catholic Church, and protestant American churches, lack any proper safeguard for those who have been unjustly inconvenienced or assaulted by the powers-that-be, the OGC will only be more relevant. The Church should be standing up for those oppressed. Perhaps in times like this, unlikely alliances are made, but they are never lindier than those formally united under logos as Christ; Universal Truth and the Word in the Flesh.
“We should be able to recognize true and perfect love by whether or not someone has great hope and confidence in God, for there is nothing that testifies more clearly to perfect love than trust.”
Meister Eckhart
We will know the reality of OGC success when we have our first softball league.