The Conscience of a Conservative

I remember reading a book by a Jesuit, a philosopher I think, who said, basically, there are higher and lower elements in both individuals and societies and the higher elements must run the show. Note this acknowledges the existence, as a given, of the lower elements. 

Even in a society. That’s defining some members of the society as lower elements. I’m fine with that. In that respect I’m probably conservative. BUT I THINK IT’S CIRCUMSTANTIAL. Not existential. As an ethical matter we all have the same rights. I think this for several reasons.

The critical one is that people are incomprehensible in isolation. We exist as a group, as a species and as an aggregation. Not intelligibly as individuals. Individualism is subjective, obviously. Experiential, and valid as that. But try reproducing individually. Without another person. 

Without cooperation. It’s just about possible these days.

Musk might try. But it’s not a recipe for anything human. Incidentally, I’d argue that Musk is not human. He’s fundamentally sick. But that’s another story. Liberals, or progressives, or whatever I am, believe that, as a matter of accountability and intelligibility, we are all equal. 

Conservatives believe they’re existentially superior, that they have rights you don't have. American conservatives are typically social darwinists or religious exclusionists. Both are fatalists. Social darwinists believe they are superior as determined by competition. They won. 

That they outcompeted everyone else so they’re better. Take that. Religious fundamentalists believe they were arbitrarily chosen by God by predestination, so take that and fuck you to hell to those that weren’t. Election is arbitrary in that it’s above our ability to understand it. 

I point out that this is against the express terms of our constitution, as it concerns one’s citizenship and legal rights and as a political matter. As it concerns us as a polis. Secondly this is expressly and definitely unchristian, for some people to say they’re saved and you’re not. 

Conservatives, the social darwinist faction, don’t have consciences. They have drives. Aristocratic drives define conservatives. Privilege. I don’t deny they might be superior in some respects, I deny that makes them the boss of me. And exempt from the laws of the commonwealth.

I don’t exist at their pleasure. This group of supremacists is of course a minority. But with the intent to rule and turn the rest of us into serfs. So they lie, at an industrial scale, and try to exert leverage. They try to turn the tables by claiming we need them, not that they need us.

It’s all a fucking lie. They can think whatever they want, but stop lying about it. And if you’re in a democracy or claim to be a Christian play by the rules. Instead, for example, of trying to overthrow our government and reduce our religious traditions to blasphemous bullshit. 

ED and FOP

Two career tracks are available in Trump's administration at this time, the Epstein Diversion track and the Friends of Pedophiles track. The latter is higher in prestige and might require a donation to the Donald Defense Fund to get on but yields greater access to Herr Donald and possible financial rewards. 

Remember the diversion part. For all the fantastic mess being created by Trump never forget it's all about Epstein. The ED track is loaded with lackeys and younger associates many just out of college, typically Patrick Henry or Hillsdale, and they are the foot soldiers. Cannon fodder, if it comes down to it. 

Trump Show, Season Two: More Murder and Mayhem!

The killing in season one was nearly passive, as Donnie got his footing in his important new job. He's president! But as a murder show it sucked. An epidemic didn't make good drama, though Donnie is estimated to have gotten over 400,000 people killed, a pretty good number, watching old farts with comorbidities die in a massive mess of hoses and tubes with a ventilator and shit, well, what a drag! 

The highlight was the idiot anti-vaxxers that passed, out of devotion to Donnie. Those morons believed they were actors like Donnie, I guess, and that they wouldn't really die. SAD! But that's the thing about the Trump Show, people really die. It's a snuff show. Season Two has been better. They're blowing shit up. Beating people in the streets of American towns and cities. Tormenting citizens in all kinds of ways. 

It's a much better show this time. Herr Hegseth, Trump's man of war, saw some poor souls clinging to a boat and said 'kill them!' What a man. Donald himself, it's said, loves nothing more than to see the films of the strikes. He started a war, he likes it so much. But they fought back! My God, the nerve. They messed up the plot. The whole thing is stalled now. But if there's one thing Donald's good at it's stirring shit up. 

So, stay tuned. That's the whole point, isn't it? 

Finding Out Is the Fun Part

At least if you're a Republican. Because they're the ones that fool around. We're the ones that find out. 

His Word Is His Bond Markets

I wonder if anyone is telling our compulsive idiot leader where he is heading. Maybe he thinks his will can shape anything, or that he can squirm out of any kind of massive failure and bankruptcy, where we know he has had practice, but he's also been the author of his own catastrophes before and gone into kiss-up mode. He seemed to be there with Xi and he took plutocrats with him to run interference. 

It all reeks of weakness. Donald has had to grovel before but he does it differently, looking down his nose at you while he's at it. I'm not a psychologist but I think I understand compensatory posturing, which rests on a kind of thermodynamics of the psyche, an inborn accountability that's in effect of you're not a psychopath and maybe even then. It suggests Donald knows he's a worthless piece of shit. 

He creates desperate circumstances for himself because, confoundingly, it's stabilizing to him. He's such a wreck inside externalizing it gives him an opportunity to fight that battle. Laws and customs, down to the level of etiquette, are supposed to enable societies to function with such people because they are inevitable. You keep them in line and try to channel their shit or jail them if they're bad enough. 

Trump should probably have been jailed but with the right kind of pushback earlier who knows. Money can insulate someone from almost anything and it did with Trump. Why, this leads me to ask, would a society empower such a piece of garbage? Averages should apply and keep it from happening. There has to be a mass psychological injury. Like, let's say, a Civil War. Americans are figuring this out.

Too late. The damage has been done with more to come. Yes, they want to destroy the county. Look at the electoral results just in. Trump is still getting his way in places. I think we need to understand it to react appropriately for once if we have the chance to run things again. They're fighting a war. Against us. People are shocked at these deep-south states attacking voting rights. I'm not shocked. 

Talk about bond markets and interest rates is fine but it's in the realm of expertise and they're pulling us out of there. What does expertise mean if it applies to destruction? And we're heading there. Nobody cares about it when the real suffering begins and Americans have forgotten what that's like. So we're playing brinkmanship with seriously bad shit. Maybe biggest case of FOMO ever is in store. 

I say this out of respect for the bond markets. Not as sexy as stocks but I believe they're the thing you really don't want to screw up. And little Donnie's baggage could take us there.

Where Have All the Fuckheads Gone?

All Republicans now. Republicans have cornered the market on fuckheads. Or they're working on it. When will they ever learn?  

The Golf and Grovel

Air Force One has carried Trump to China like the huge baby he is, sucking his thumb and groveling before Xi. He's so depleted America he can't do anything. And Taiwan is on the table.

China wins as the USA and Russia destroy themselves. The smell of bankruptcy is in the air. This time little Donnie Trump has bankrupted the whole country. While enriching himself. For now. 

Escape from Trumpatraz

We're all Trump's prisoners. Even his supporters, because they're his dupes. How do we escape from Trumpatraz?

Future Proof

Republicans are ensuring our country has no future. We're future-proof. Also known as being fucked. They're redefining future-proofing like everything else. Like truth. Like freedom. Like justice. 

They rely on a fundamentalist, evangelical base to stay in power. Evangelicals want to see the end times so it works out. Together with 'disaster capitalism' and 'creative destruction' our future is assured.

We don't have one. 

Please, President Xi, a Little Favor?

Woke up this morning with the fantasy that Xi would arrest Trump on behalf of humanity or say he had a medical emergency and stick him in a room somewhere. Maybe then use him as leverage against Vance, the immediate acting president, and the Republicans in Congress, demanding we stop fucking around and follow our own laws or declare ourselves an officially authoritarian state and be done with it.

What would those Republicans do? 

Say please keep him for a bit and make sure he's okay he's been a bit off lately? Then what? Try to institute some kind of intelligible interim government? I don't think so. They would be jockeying for power, trying to get pardons from Vance, protecting their fortunes any way they could, and trying to guarantee their personal hegemony forever. At least the pretense, that we aren't already completely fucked, would be over.

That's how far gone we are. The world would be so relieved if Trump were somehow stopped. Like Democrats, but much more understandably, they've never been able to comprehend this block of fundamentalist religious sociopaths we have. But behold these scumbags in Alabama and other states capitalizing on our rogue, politicized Supreme Court's latest farcical voting rights ruling.

Just a thought experiment, of course, but it leads me to believe Democrats as a party are incapable of dealing with this. They can't mount a coherent, effective attack on an administration that's nothing but a rolling coup or even criticize it in a way that sticks. My conclusion? The only way we get out of this is charismatic leadership. Anybody. A fucking Martian would be fine. And I see absolutely no one.

Befits Charity

Conservatism is about privilege. Privilege is about getting something for nothing. Conservatives are making the case for charity, for them. Not because they need it but because they want it. They think they deserve it, no matter what they already have. Is it any wonder they lie all the time?

They've Lost the Plot

The plot was democracy. But, don't worry, they've found another one, authoritarianism, the version of it known as white supremacy. Everything old is new again, even Nazism.

Pesky Blighters

I have a dramatic series in mind documenting the Trump Crime Family's thefts, manipulations and nefarious activities modeled on Peaky Blinders, the excellent British show about an Irish gang that makes the sniveling cowards of Trump's version look like the pathetic lightweights they are, using the status and power afforded them by their government positions to bully and abuse people with no such leverage. 

They aren't even respectable villains. They stink at it, parading their insecurities around and lording it over the locals, trying to prove something, that quest for their elusive manhood or a hint of character. Real crooks don't allow such things to interfere with maximizing profits relative to risks. Now, Trump and his cronies are stealing incomprehensible sums, I'll give them that, but it looks bad on the risk front.

They're blowing up everything. A Valentine's Day Massacre a day, seems to be the reference quality, with allowances for their access to WMDs. Yes, those WMDs they were worried sick about. We knew THEY had them, of course, a privilege supposed to be earned by a capacity for restraint and reserve. Self-control -- not a known character trait of Donald Trump, a bawling infant if there ever was one.

Our derivative culture has coughed up a raft of derivative rogues, a derivative resistance that can't stop them, and is suffering a derivative decline almost certain to culminate in a derivative collapse. We can't even fuck things up properly or with a little plot and style. We suck infinitely. But let it be said we suck with impressive collateral damage and mess. Imperial and colonial collateral damage and mess. 

We were never supposed have those aspirations, the imperial and colonial type, so maybe we're getting what we deserve even if we backed into it.

Society for Destructive Anachronism

Donald Trump is going medieval on the world. 

Fires, Floods, Plagues, and Famines

Fundamentalist Christians want to see some Biblical shit happen. Fires, floods, plagues and famines appeal to them. So 30% or so of Americans still support a madman. They see it. They like it. There are no internal checks on it at all. They're out of their fucking minds. 

America, a City on a Hill

And a blight unto men.

America is becoming a Calvinist dream state, a city on a hill. A light shining forth, the beams of the bonfires of witches and heretics, and of the self-immolation of fundamentalists striving for perfection. Looking up, they assume guidance from heaven. They don't notice there's nowhere to go but down. 

Threat Brain

Threat Brain (TB), a Republican affliction of imagined danger, also known as WMD Delusion or Invented Antagonism, varies inversely with the Actual Threat (AT) according to rational risk assessment. It might not be a linear function but run quickly to infinity in the reasonable near absence of threats though this is hypothetical since there's always something to be afraid of. 

The only known remedy is death. Once someone is dead there's nothing left to fear but no one has been able to report back on this. Mystics maintain fear can survive death if the spirit is still shackled to its corporeality by guilt. Republicans thrive best in the presence of real, immediate existential threats. This is thought to be an evolutionary anachronism, and a potent one. 

Possibly the most potent evolutionary artifact, with natural selection favoring suspicion and paranoia over millennia, the survival of the craziest and most naturally belligerent. Republicans are believed to start wars because of this. All the origins of the wars of the past must be approached with skepticism for this reason, more so because the mechanisms are unconscious. 

Republicans are always sowing the seeds of discord in subtle ways. Recognizing that Republicans are a rogue branch of traditional European conservatism, Threat Brain still seems to be a conservative project, it's supposed because of privilege and entitlement. Privilege and the resulting assertion of arbitrary superiority and station mean conservatives think themselves targets. 

Field studies indicate a projection of their own jealous, arrogant, entitled, presumptuous, acquisitive, reactionary, and persecutory predispositions. They expect others to be like them, prone to unprovoked attack. Threat Brain can't be eliminated it must be contained. By its nature the assumptions of privilege apply to a minority. Be on the lookout for leverage and alliances. 

By these means they attempt to take over, achieve total control and unlimited power. When that happens we are fucked because the same suspicious mechanisms aren't assuaged they intensify. In their minds they have more to lose, further to fall and they're more vulnerable than ever. They will never see they bring that all on themselves, a case of self-fulfilling expectations

The Story in Their Lies

There's a story there. We know it, that Republican lies are revelatory. Not to say endless and sick. They're especially harmful lies because they're designed to hurt people at every level. I don't mean every economic or social level because they go after the most vulnerable. I mean they have a whole system of lies. 

Those lies attack the same people, from rather trivial deprivations to getting them killed. Overwhelming force appeals to monsters. Bond villains fantasize about it. Unlimited power over everything. Everybody. Intensity and scope. They're going for it all. And there's no rhyme or reason. They're just sick. 

Do the Myth

I understand 'do the math'. I support it. But it's a tool. People don't live math. Math helps them live. People live stories. Do the myth. 

The Giant Sucking Noise That Is Texas

The extraction capital of the world. That's Texas. They think they're strong and independent. Texas men, anyway. If they were they wouldn't be so touchy, reactive and sensitive about being told they're not all strong and independent. That they're anything but real men who hunt and fish and rule their women, benign or brutal, it doesn't matter. 

Build a Better Basket

Elon Musk is a basket case. Maybe a basket savant, I don't know. Let's put him in an institution, a prison or asylum, and see what he can come do. That would be fine with me. His murderous, destructive stint at DOGE has earned him that. And give his money to the poor. Fucking all of it. 

The Rat Revolution

Rats. The rats are running everything. Cannibal rats. They eat their own kind. They spread misery and disease. They're always nibbling. Infiltrating and nibbling.   

The rats haven't fled a sinking ship. They mutinied. They gnawed holes in the ship and sabotaged it until it was could be commandeered by them, innately inferior elements. 

Republicans are the rats. They'd rather rule in a shithole than exist in a nice place because for them nice isn't an option. Nice is unnatural. Life is shit. Creation is shit. 

So let it all be shit. Republicans want everything to be shit. With them in charge. When they're in charge everything is shit, because they're destructive, so it all works out. 

Self-fulfilling expectations.