Reminder: Things Could Always Be Worse

Everyone complains about the GOP, but here are three articles--all related in a general way--that remind us that things could be worse and that our votes and choices really do matter:

Paul Gottfried sees the threat clearly enough. Voters need to somehow get through to their representatives

The Emerging One-Party State

Republicans would do well to abstain from misleading talk about “bipartisanship” and refer to the Democrats as what they really are: a totalitarian threat to our constitutional system.

Amid Gottfried's warnings of the dangers we face and of the frustratingly myopic GOPe, there is this:

Despite all these obstacles, Republican victories in 2022 and beyond are still possible, providing the party pays attention to the guile and determination of its well-organized adversary. Republicans should not approach elections as ritualized contests in which sportsmanship is de rigueur. At stake will be the very possibility of meaningful opposition to the Left. Republicans would do well to abstain from misleading talk about “bipartisanship” and refer to the Democrats as what they really are: a totalitarian threat to our constitutional system.

Can this make a difference? In fact, yes.

A National Refounding?

The first article, linked by Frank, is actually better than good. It's one of Angelo Codevilla's more thoughtful pieces, and it provides substantive food for thought to everyone who wonders where the road ahead leads. The other two articles, in their own ways, address that concern as well.

Codevilla riffs off Machiavelli's distinction between founding and refounding a political order--in our case, a republic:

To Rescue a Nation

Restoring America requires dedicated citizens to re-found our Republic.

Codevilla sets the problem in a way that's difficult to dispute:

How The Left Gets A Foothold In Red America

Admittedly this is a sample of one, but you can imagine that variations on this pattern happen with some regularity throughout the land. The reporting comes from the Franklin County [PA] Journal:

County Government in Deep Red America Giving in to Marxist Indoctrination

You can read about the demographics of Franklin County before going on, but if I tell you that this Deep Red county in rural Pennsylvania is 95.33% "white", you'll get the picture.

Will A Woke Military Make War On Red America?

Within the past week I answered this question with a simple, No. Later, I elaborated a bit. Basically, my argument was and is that the demographics are all wrong for such an eventuality. The military is overwhelmingly--as in up to 70%--white and broadly conservative in orientation. The Left--as long as it retains control--may be able to destroy the disciplinary structure and effectiveness of the military, but it will do this by driving out irreplaceable human resources. But they will find few if any replacements--certainly not sufficient replacements. Snowflakes and street theater warriors are not interested in full time military duty. Period. In the meantime, if Lloyd Austin really tries to purge the military of "extremists", he will simply have returned large numbers of trained conservative warriors to civilian America. That's self defeating from a Leftist perspective.

Today Brandon Smith addresses this concern, shared by many. But he adds some data to fill the argument out. Below is an excerpt from the longer article:

Good News Today In Democrat Polling

I'm about to hit the road but I had to add this first: Do yourself a favor and read Monica Showalter today. Especially if you need a dose of optimism:

Democrats panic after internal poll shows Republicans sticking to Trump

The news is actually worse for Dems than the heading indicates. Showalter is largely quoting from a Washington Examiner article, so I'll add that quote. Dems had hoped that GOP infighting spurred by NeverTrumps would translate into voter apathy or lower turnout--but that's not happening:

Republican voters are united behind former President Donald Trump and enthusiastic about putting a check on President Joe Biden in 2022 as GOP infighting in Washington fails to translate outside the Beltway.

That is the conclusion of a fresh survey from veteran Democratic pollster Stan Greenberg, who measured Republican voters’ fidelity to Trump and their intensity as it relates to participation in next year’s midterm elections. Greenberg discovered that three-quarters of the Republican electorate takes its cues from Trump and GOP voters overall are, by 11 percentage points, more interested in 2022 than Democrats.

The data defy initial assumptions that Trump’s dominance over party affairs post-presidency, and headline-grabbing disagreements about this among prominent Republicans in Washington, would be a drag on GOP prospects in the next round of federal elections. Greenberg says the dynamic could sink Democrats running in key contests for the House, Senate, and governorship — in several states.

In a memorandum outlining the poll’s findings, Greenberg wrote that his team was “surprised by how much Donald Trump’s loyalist party is totally consolidated at this early point in its 2022 voting and how engaged it is.”

"Initial assumptions"? By whom? By the same people who assumed Trump couldn't win in 2016? What's really driving this is that Americans know that Zhou didn't win, and Dems know Americans know that. That's behind how engaged voters are. Dems had counted on deflating what they thought had to be a Trump bubble. Turns out it wasn't a bubble--it was built on some basic conservative convictions that are antithetical to a Left agenda. These are "movement conservative" convictions. They're the convictions about what constitutes a good life for human thriving that Trump appealed to with so much success.

These polling conclusions, as we've been arguing, are what's behind the panicked moves by Dems. But panicked moves won't change the dynamics that are driving the voters. The voters are reacting to woke Leftism and authoritarianism, to the palpable hostility to and desire to stamp out normality in America.

ADDENDUM: In light of Greenfield's finding, how do you think the continued persecution of Trump is going to play out? Dems just can't help themselves.

Liberalism, Religion, Tyranny

Earlier today I was reading a couple of articles that fall, more or less, into the category of political philosophy. However, the implications of these articles go beyond the merely theoretical--they have a lot to say about our current crisis.

Both articles start from the phenomenon of what we could call the crackup of liberalism--the clear descent of liberalism into tyranny. Sohrab Ahmari, an editor for the NYPost, sets the terms of the discussion well in an article for the The Spectator US:

Tyranny is the inevitable consequence of liberalism

Ahmari begins with a simple question: "Are citizens of liberal societies permitted to question liberalism?" In theory the answer should be as simple as the question: Of course citizens can question liberalism--that's the whole point of liberalism! The open marketplace of ideas. And yet that's not the reality of America--not really. Much of the energy of liberal opinionating is expended in attempts to shut down all discussion that strays beyond whatever the current liberal orthodoxy happens to be. This is usually done by a process of demonizing all dissenters from the liberal orthodoxy--a tactic that has become familiar over many decades. As Ahmari observes:

Such tolerance is rarely in evidence in practice, however — a reality illustrated in hilarious fashion by a writer for a Washington magazine who recently decried ‘cancel culture’ even as he insisted that: ‘It’s absolutely necessary to de-platform public intellectuals who object to liberal democracy.’

As an historical matter, the liberal ideology arose as a supposed solution to the intolerance of religious quarrels, which had led Europe into seemingly endless wars. Separation of Church and State was supposed to lead to tolerance in society, a live and let live culture. 

Church and state have long been separated. The ideal is that a new liberal order ushers in a new, rational, tolerant and secular regime: cleaving apart day-to-day politics from religion and metaphysics. So instead of enshrining any one orthodoxy, a liberal neutral ground would be created, one that could be contested by rival accounts of the good life. The religious would be able to live happily beside the unbelievers, with all minorities protected. In this way, the advent of liberalism would — once and for all — put an end to the persecutions of the past.

Not only has this not turned out to be true now, but it arguably has never been true. Liberalism has everywhere shown its true colors, its true religious nature. Its claims to to establish a promised land of enlightened tolerance turn out to have been a ploy. The claim that any society could live and thrive without a philosophical narrative of the good life, of the common good, was always transparent bunk. Liberalism has never been neutral, and as it has gained the ascendancy its essential, inevitable, intolerance has become apparent to all:

Emerald Robinson Takes Down Kevin McCarthy

This tweet follows, of course, Tucker Carlson's brutal expose of Frank Luntz and Luntz's ties to ... Kevin McCarthy:

Basically @GOPLeader has done two really dumb things: elevate the unpopular neocon @Liz_Cheney to leadership AND empower the goofball pollster @FrankLuntz to advise House Republicans.

Both are disqualifying. McCarthy will be a lobbyist in two years.

— Emerald Robinson ✝️ (@EmeraldRobinson) May 1, 2021

The Tucker monologue--it woulda been an interview if Luntz had agreed to appear--was totally scorched earth, and McCarthy found himself in the path of the flame thrower:

As sundance observed at the time, something is obviously going on here. The question is: Why would the House leader of a major political party not be out in front on the issues that Robinson pinpoints? Two issues: Liz Cheney and Frank Luntz. How hard is that for the Republican leader to figure out in the Trump era? Serious internal warfare going on? Time to straighten all that out, and fast.

Briefly Noted: Education

From Montgomery County, MD. But this could be "education" in most any government schools throughout most of America:

2A discussion questions from my kid’s school today. Notice anything about the tone and tenor of the questions? pic.twitter.com/gV0juqYOJE

— Jack Murphy 🇺🇸 ⚔️ (@jackmurphylive) March 25, 2021

It's obviously propaganda rather than actual civic education.

Lest you think, however, that this only happens in Blue or RINO states (such as MD):

Nebraska education guidelines would begin LGBT indoctrination as early as kindergarten

Gov. Pete Ricketts opposes the age-inappropriate sex education material and urges concerned parents to speak up before it's too late.

Contrast Pete Ricketts with Kristi Noem--both "conservative" governors of "conservative" states. Do words mean anything at all? Kudos to Ricketts, of course, but this illustrates how difficult it has become for chief executives at virtually any level to control what's going on in America. Normals are vastly outgunned financially in the Culture War.

And the sheeple continue sending their children to be "educated" by Big Brother. Because money.

Proof GOPers Are Best Informed Sector Of Population

The proof was published, remarkably enough, in the NYT. Of course, the NYT had to try to disguise the truth, namely, that by a significant margin Dems are the lowest information group of three: Dems, GOPers, and Indies.

Here's how the NYT frames the story:

To many liberals, Covid has become another example of the modern Republican Party’s hostility to facts and evidence. And that charge certainly has some truth to it. Yet the particular story with Covid is also more complicated — because conservatives aren’t the only ones misinterpreting scientific evidence in systematic ways. Americans on the left half of the political spectrum are doing it, too.

That’s a central finding from a survey of 35,000 Americans by Gallup and Franklin Templeton. It finds that both liberals and conservatives suffer from misperceptions about the pandemic — in opposite directions. “Republicans consistently underestimate risks, while Democrats consistently overestimate them,” Jonathan Rothwell, Gallup’s principal economist, and Sonal Desai, a Franklin Templeton executive, write.

"Some truth." Of course, the question is really: How much truth in it? Here's the actual question that Gallup and Templeton posed to 35K people:

What are the chances that someone with Covid must be hospitalized?

Ask yourself this: What are the chances that any significant portion of the populace will know the correct answer to that question? And what are the chances that one demographic sector--identified by their politics--will be overwhelmingly more likely to hit upon the right answer? Here's the breakdown:

This Dem Has Been Reading Voting Data

I lifted this lengthy quote from a NYMag interview of David Shor from Steve Sailer. The title of the interview is David Shor on Why Trump Was Good for the GOP and How Dems Can Win in 2022. The part I've selected is focused mostly on Why Trump Was Good For The GOP. 

I was reading and thinking about this when Tom Verso commented at Have Dems Been Reading The Polls?:

The Democrats would be worried if they thought that the Republicans will use the issues in these polls to challenge them.

But, we have a de facto (de jure?) one party government, so we can expect the Republicans to run on cliché platitudes.

Consider the speech of the Govener of South Dakota at the CPAC convention. 

It was all about “Love of liberty” and the ‘Founding Fathers” and the “Declaration of Independence”. 

Not one of the poll items cited above was a part of her speech; unless she picked up on them after I stopped listening about 2/3 of the way through. 

That capsulized in a lot of ways exactly what Shor is talking about. It also suggested what I've been talking about, that the GOP needs to move beyond Classical Liberal ideology to a philosophy that empowers Trumpian populism. Trump himself did that by appealing to those who still have a lingering cultural Catholic sensibility--which appeals to religious voters of many stripes, as well as to generally cultural conservatives. And so I responded:

Good point, Tom. Those are "platitudes" that tend to appeal to ideological Libertarians--Classical Liberals. The appeal there is to so called "movement conservatives." Those are not, in fact, Trumpian talking points and those weren't the talking points that got Trump elected or got him that huge increase in votes-including from minority voters.

Read these excerpts from Shor with those observations in mind. My takeaway is that what will empower the GOP is not more Libertarian slop about liberty as the major talking points--although I hasten to add that personal freedom does play into the conservative mix. A not very well understood factor in the Trump phenomenon is his pointed attacks on Prog/PC ideology. Conservatives need to follow Trump down that road, while avoiding the ideological Scylla and Charybdis of overt Libertarianism (a turnoff to many women and minorities as well as thinking conservatives) and the inchoate squishiness of Compassionate Conservatism. They need something masculine that also appeals to women. I say the answer is a populism that frames for the masses the realistic philosophy of human nature that is the Western tradition. A perennial philosophy of human thriving and happiness.

Shor:

Briefly Noted: Professions In A Woke Society

Red State today picks up a story from the Daily Wire about an education major at SUNY. Here's the Red State link:

'A Man is a Man and a Woman is a Woman': Student Suspended for Violating Students' Dignity 'Til He Completes a 'Remediation Plan'

Here's the full statement that the young man made on Instagram:

“Hey, everybody. I’m gonna double down on this point right now. I wanna make myself very clear, so hear what I’m saying. A man is a man. A woman is a woman. A man is not a woman, and a woman is not a man. A man cannot become a woman, and a woman cannot become a man. If I’m a man and I think I’m a woman, I’m still a man. If I’m a woman who thinks I’m a man, I’m still a woman. Regardless of what you feel on the inside, [it’s] irrelevant to your biological status. It doesn’t change the biology. The biology is very clear. It’s very, very, very clear. And it’s binary and easy. You fall into either Man or Woman. And if you’re intersex, you either become a man or woman eventually. And that is such a small…group of people that it makes no sense to justify that as statistically significant and apply that to our definition of gender. It wouldn’t make any sense.”

According to the Daily Wire:

A Brief GOP Status Check

Shipwreckedcrew has some tweets and an article out that discuss what could be called "impeachment and beyond". In other words, what meaning can we draw from the breakdown of the impeachment vote and what can we reasonably predict about where the GOP is headed during the next four years.

For now I think we can take it as given the Trump is not going to go away. He isn't going to concede, he'll find some forum for communicating directly to America over the heads of the lilliputians in DC. As for the Imperial City, it will remain under military occupation and much of the country will be under effective hostile occupation in the form of lockdowns to one degree or another--heightening the differences between Red and Blue America. As for any legislative agenda on the part of the Zhou Baiden regime, I'll be very surprised if anything at all gets done. And then there will be the inevitable problems that will arise--foreign and domestic. The border crisis is already raising its head. Crime will remain endemic in Blue cities. I expect a mess--at best.

As for the impeachment vote, SWC is totally cynical. Here's his short version from his article:

The GOP Sorts Itself Out -- Putting Defense of Pres. Trump Behind Them Is Different Than Putting Pres. Trump Behind Them

Donald Trump is not in the [rear] view mirror of the Senate Republicans.  Forty-three of [them] recognized the silhouette of him on the highway up ahead, and acted accordingly.

In other words, surprise! They voted their political interests.

That should go without saying, in the general run of politics, but it may not be quite that simple. SWC runs through the seven RINO votes. Here's how I break them down:

On Free Speech Absolutism

I'd like to recommend to your attention an article by Josh Hammer that, in my view, addresses important issues regarding the common appeal by conservatives to what Hammer refers to as "free speech absolutism." A hint of what he's talking about can be seen from the picture that is at the top of the article. It features Marjorie Taylor Greene wearing a black mask with the red lettering: Free Speech. A lot has been written about MTG and this whole issue, but I find Hammer's article by far the most thoughtful, because it goes beyond the easy issue of liberal hypocrisy.

In particular I draw your attention to the distinction that Hammer makes between "procedure" and "substance", which is the same distinction that Cassander raised in a different context today. To be clear, Hammer believes the action taken against MTG by the Dem House was wrong. His argument is that even if we oppose those actions, we should be cautious of failing to distinguish "liberal procedure"--appeals to Free Speech as a constitutional right (in most instances)--from the "moral limitations of the ... underlying substance" of what is being said.

Here's the link:

The Limits of ‘Free Speech’

But the fact that Marjorie Taylor Greene can so effortlessly retreat to the comparatively safe terrain of "free speech" should concern conservatives.

And here are a few excerpts--but I urge you to read and consider the entire article:

Good Read On the Mitch - Trump Feud

I'm always cautious with Michael Snyder, but this is an interesting read on an important topic. My working assumption is that, whatever personal animus and political convictions Mitch may have brought to his feud with Trump, there were moneyed interests behind him pushing him. See what you think. One thing is for sure, by now Trump knows who his enemies are. This is a small part of a considerably longer article, so check it out:

Why Mitch McConnell Backed Away From Trying To Convict Trump

Mitch McConnell really wanted to convict Donald Trump and ban him from ever running for office again, but he was forced to back off.  In fact, he just voted for a motion that declared that convicting Trump at this point would be unconstitutional.  That represents a stunning reversal by McConnell, because earlier this month he was telling other Republicans that he wanted Trump gone.  Putting the pieces together, it appears that McConnell really did try to get to 67 votes so that Trump would be convicted, but political reality forced him to back down in a major way.  Now a weakened McConnell will try to move forward as the minority leader in the Senate, and the future of his political career is very much in doubt.

Codevilla's Deeply Dishonest Anti-Trump Screed

Angelo Codevilla has written a long--too long--and frustrating critique of where We The People stand at this moment in American history:

Clarity in Trump’s Wake

The United States of America is now a classic oligarchy. The clarity that it has brought to our situation by recognizing this fact is its only virtue.

That Codevilla must have been foaming at the mouth as he typed seems clear from the second sentence of the sub-title: Could someone please tell me what the antecedent for the pronouns "it" and "its" is? I can only conclude that the antecedent must be "Trump's Wake", poorly as that fits. The idea seems to be something like this: 

The clarity that [the Trump presidency] has brought to our situation by [revealing that the United States of America is now a classic oligarchy] is [the Trump presidency's] only virtue.

Having plowed through the overlong article, it seems that Codevilla's basic beef--beyond his repeatedly expressed disdain for Trump as a person--is that Trump didn't single handedly reverse the downward trajectory of the American republic into a squalid, kleptocratic and amoral oligarchy. Every disappointment, every failure to achieve a total transformation life, is attributed by Codevilla to Trump and to Trump alone.

Two examples will have to suffice.

Politics And The Family

Yesterday I came across a review of a book that critiques--at least partially--the ideology that lies behind most of what's wrong in American life. You'll quickly recognize that the ideology as described is the same ideology that is described by political philosophers like Patrick Deneen. This is the ideology that grew out of the late medieval nominalism that maintained that there is no such thing as common natures, such as human nature--instead, only atomistic individuals exist. This has in the ensuing centuries become the default ideology of the modern world, and underlies the politics and policies of both Right and Left--whether most persons living under the sway of the this ideology recognize it or not. 

This fact explains the phenomenon that we call the "Uniparty" and the result that the difference between liberal and "conservative" administrations is largely a matter of how quickly we descend the slippery slope. The solution, of course, is to escape from that slippery slope by adopting a true philosophy and rejecting this anti-human ideology. The difficulty in this is that, in the course of centuries, it has become almost impossible for us in the West to think outside the box of this ideology. Even the institutions, such as the Church, that should be most strongly resisting it have largely succumbed--gradually but, at this point, virtually completely.

The book in question is by Scott Yenor, a professor of political science at Boise State University. Yennor's focus is on the harm this ideology has done and continues to do to the family as the key societal institution. His contention is that this harm is in no way coincidental. For our purposes, the difference between Right and Left in this regard is largely in the intent. "Conservatives" adopt the harmful policies mostly without the intent to harm the family as such--they do it because they cannot conceive of a different way of understanding human reality and so are putty in the hands of ideologues. Their goal is simply to continue "moderately", gradually. Not so with the Left.

Sobering Thoughts On A Friday Morning. Plus ...

Christopher Roach has an overall insightful article today at American Greatness. It won't astound you with brand new ideas, but it's put together well and reinforces the perceptions that many commenters have been offering. Certainly there's a close kinship to the ideas that Tucker Carlson, for example, has been offering for some time now:

A MAGA Bay of Pigs

After the lockdowns and election issues of 2020, the MAGA movement is now a full-on “anti-regime” movement rather than a Trump-focused one. 

I recommend it all, but here are some excerpts that were, for me, highlights. First, Roach sets the stage:

The domestic spying, impeachment, and election irregularities of the Trump presidency matter because of what they tell us about the managerial system. All the public talk of democracy is for show; the whole point of the bureaucracy and the party system is to prevent any popular, democratic movement that would threaten the ruling class’ privileges. 

As President Trump put it, “They don’t hate you because they hate me. They hate me because they hate you.” 

 

I'll skip over Roach's analysis of January 6. Here, in what follows and following on from his intro, he gets to the heart of where conservatives are at this point in history vis a vis the ruling class:

Brilliant: The Road Ahead

Smart people are unfazed by the events of yesterday. After all, as I ... 

mark wauck January 7, 2021 at 8:11 AM

74M voted for Trump, and I doubt they'll repent of their vote. Trump has done the great service to the nation of pulling the masks down off establishment figures. I suspect that those who are now revealing themselves as fair weather conservatives will experience a very large drop in their credibility and influence, analogous to what has happened to Fox on a larger scale and what has also happened to the WSJ over the Trump years.

and commenter Cassander ...

Cassander January 7, 2021 at 8:47 AM

If you count unregistered children and friends and neighbors of Trump voters, maybe he's got 100 million supporters. Maybe more. That's a big number, which would appear unlikely to just apologize for having a different point of view and slink away so that Chuckie Schumer can "Change America".

noted this morning, there is still a future. Mitch McConnell's GOP--based, it seems, on attempting to foist unelectable females of a certain type (McSally, Loeffler, Ayotte ... no Blackburns need apply to Mitch) on an unwilling electorate --is not the model for the future that awaits us, or any successful political party, down the road.

The future happens a lot faster than most people can imagine, so it's best to be ready for it. John Daniel Davidson writes about that this morning:

Good New, Bad News

Good News? "Republicans" should do well in 2022.

Bad News?

What a moron. https://t.co/LbzlCwJFDP

— Sean Davis (@seanmdav) November 23, 2020

Yep. He counts as a Republican, too.

Woke Conservatism--Is Its Time Now?

Sohrab Ahmari is best known for his May, 2019, article Against David French-ism. Here is how Wikipedia characterizes the argument Ahmari presented in that article:

The dispute centered around their differing opinions on how conservatives should approach cultural and political debate, with Ahmari deriding what he calls "David French-ism", a political persuasion he defines as believing "that the institutions of a technocratic market society are neutral zones that should, in theory, accommodate both traditional Christianity and the libertine ways and paganized ideology of the other side". He argues that this belief leads to an ineffective conservative movement, and contends that the best way for culturally conservative values to prevail in society is a strategy of "discrediting ... opponents and weakening or destroying their institutions", which he maintains is a tactic already utilized by progressives, leaving conservatives who adhere to the David French-style of politics impotent in what he views as a waging culture war in the United States. He argues that the political realm should be viewed as one of "war and enmity", and that the power of the government should be directly utilized to impose culturally conservative values on society.

Ahmari has a new article, following up on Against David French-ism. Below I present enough excerpts to outline his argument. I thought this approach is especially relevant in view of what Lee Smith refers to as The Permanent Coup, the "resistance" against not only President Trump but against--in essence--all things American. It's a war, and Ahmari calls on conservatives to recognize that reality.

As you read you'll probably be frustrated at a lack of specific proposals, beyond Ahmari's skepticism that the libertarian "marketplace of ideas" will magically lead to an agreeable solution and his clear view that that "marketplace of ideas" has been jiggered by "private tyrants" in collaboration with entrenched liberal government. Also lacking, or so it seems to me, is any attempt or appeal to ground this critique in what I would call the humane civilizational principles that lay behind our constitutional order. That is particularly unfortunate because those principles are now under increasingly open and explicit attack.

Nevertheless, there is food for thought. A GOPe is part of our current crisis because its accommodationism plays into the progressive usurpation of constitutional institutions for distinctly unconstitutional ends. Ultimately, Ahmari is calling for conservative to wake to the true nature of the threat that our country is facing, to wake--as we face a crucial election--to the fact that this is a war, and wake to what tactics are necessary to preserve our civilization.

In a sense, one could argue that Ahmari is calling on conservatives to wake to the fact that de Toqueville's misgivings, as expressed in Democracy in America, regarding the way democracy would play out are, in fact, coming true:

Tocqueville speculates on the future of democracy in the United States, discussing possible threats to democracy and possible dangers of democracy. These include his belief that democracy has a tendency to degenerate into "soft despotism" as well as the risk of developing a tyranny of the majority. ... 

Tocqueville also outlines the possible excesses of passion for equality among men, foreshadowing the totalitarian states of the twentieth century.

... 

Tocqueville observed that social mechanisms have paradoxes, as in what later became known as the Tocqueville effect: "social frustration increases as social conditions improve". He wrote that this growing hatred of social privilege, as social conditions improve, leads to the state concentrating more power to itself.

De Toqueville's misgivings have turned out to be prophetic warnings. Conservatives must come to grips with that reality if they are to have any chance of winning this civilizational war.