Tag Archives: MARs

The Authoritarian Power Base

As I’ve written, political power is, in essence, the capacity for violence and the will to use it. The power of a leader comes from his authority over, his ability to command, those with the capacity for violence because they believe he legitimately has authority to command them.

American politics, democratic politics, is a battle over who has authority and legitimacy to command violence of the democratic state and to what ends it may be commanded. These battles do not result in civil war because Americans accept that the democratic state, regardless of who holds the reins, is the legitimate authority over violence as long as the democratic process of transitioning this authority occurs in a mostly legitimate manner.

This legitimacy is crumbling.

Trust in American institutions is declining across the board. Trust in democracy is falling. The legitimacy of the process of authority transition is declining, with many thinking the process is rigged by, depending on the partisan side, illegal voting, foreign interference, gerrymandering, the electoral college itself, voter demographic changes, etc. A significant minority would theoretically support a military coup, while a significant minority currently support a legal coup by the deep state. (And this is only what people are willing to say, if a coup happened, far more would go along with it than would willingly say they’d theoretically support it).

The legitimacy of the democratic process is collapsing. If the legitimacy of the process collapses, so to does the legitimacy of the entire system who’s entire legitimacy and authority rests on the will of the people.

It is possible legitimacy could be earned back by the current system, but given the increasing diversity of America and the bifurcation of America between the Amerikaners and the urban cosmopolitans and their clients, it is unlikely, barring a Trumpian miracle.

Once legitimacy has faded, so to will authority. Power will be up for grabs.

With power struggles becoming viscerally real in a way democratic power papers over, legitimacy and authority will have to be reestablished.

The neoreactionary project is to establish legitimacy and authority in a peaceful way, to transfer legitimacy, authority, and power to an authoritarian autocrat with minimal bloodshed and without a descent into chaos.

Of course, the peaceful transfer of legitimacy, authority, and power itself requires a certain level of legitimacy, authority, and power.

Back to the beginning, power comes from the capacity and will for violence, it is essentially, ‘how many men with guns with how much morale and support equipment can I bring to bear should I call upon it?’

The capacity for violence doesn’t have to be used to exercise power but it has to exist and the will and authority to command it must be there.

This means that any person or group who wishes to reestablish legitimacy and authority after the terminal decay of current legitimacy and authority will require a base of power, a group of men willing to obey and, if necessary, commit violence on its behalf.

This includes the great man trying to establish the neoreactionary bargain or any other group trying to establish some form of right-wing authoritarianism.

The good news for for right-wing authoritarians is that there is a large, well-armed, pre-built power base waiting to be led: the middle-American radicals. As I wrote in my last post, the MARs are the largest single political group in the US but are also also one the politically least powerful.

The MARs are ineffective because they are leaderless. Trump is not of them and isn’t really leading them, but he’s sympathetic to them and appealling directly to them, which is the the most pro-MARS any political player has been since Buchanan last ran. The MARs propelled him to victory when his play to them was essentially: I don’t hate you, I think your concerns are legitimate, and I will work to address them. Given the vicious reaction from the current establishment that even this relatively minor level of play to the MARs base had, it is clear that in our current system the MARs are considered an illegitimate outgroup by the powers that be.

The MARs are effectively an occupied people ruled by an essentially foreign establishment. The Cathedral is run by people with different values who hate them, or at best condescend to them (“why don’t those rubes vote for their own best interests?”). Given the vicious reaction to Trump’s appeals to the MARs (and to the Tea Party and NRA), it is clear that the current American ruling structure will attempt to destroy any attempts by the MARs for democratic redress of their concerns. Their lot is to ground down for the system.

A large, alienated, armed, directionless, occupied group is sitting there waiting to be led. All that’s needed is to supply them with a leader, a will, a direction, and there will be a power base to reshape America.

The MARs are the obvious target group for any right-wing authoritarian action. They are patriotic and they are armed. They are increasingly desparate and not particularly ideological, meaning that someone willing and able to provide them the good governance they need will be able to create loyalty, legitimacy, and authority among them. Their attachment to democracy and the system that is destroying them, is not particularly strong and is weakening, leaving them open to more authoritarian froms of government.

Any populist right-wing movement, should be working to organize, radicalize, and mobilize the MARs, that’s where they will find fertile soil for any potential right-wing mass movement.

But, right-wing populism will likely not succeed. Every populist MARs uprising within the democratic framework, from McCarthy to Nixon’s silent majority to the Tea Party, has been either crushed or subverted. Hopefully, Trump will succeed, but the likelihood is he will at most buy a few more years until collapse, a few judges to protect MARs from leftist vengeance, and have prevented war with Syria, Iran, and Russia (which are certainly  valuable in themselves, but are not going to change the tide we currently ride).

It also seems questionable whether a populist MARs movement outside a democratic framework will spontaneously arise. Despite the rhetoric, the MARs have proven to be overly long-suffering and law-abiding for us to expect 2nd amendment solutions in time for them to be effective. The current South African situation suggests that this long-suffering may last well beyond the point of no return.

Aside from concerns of feasibility, 2nd amendment solutions are something to be avoided if at all possible. Peaceful restoration is the goal, violent restoration, even if ultimately successful, is itself a partial failure, and there is a high probability of terminal failure should violent restoration be attempted.

Instead of populism, a better strategy is passivism. Build an elite class among the MARs, tap into existing MARs elites, and find allies with MARs-friendly elites, and build a network to create a leadership class the MARs will follow. Once this class has been built and has created the necessary legitimacy, a leader can be taken from it (or may arise spontaneously, as Trump did) and power can be peacefully transferred and restoration enacted.

Imagine what Trump could have done, could be doing, if, instead of having to rely on the deep state and eGOP to staff his administration and Twitter to spread his message, he had a ready built, legitimized set of loyal elites with a loyal power base to drop into any necessary role and have it spread their message. If, instead of having to spend most of his efforts on court politics and maintaining poll numbers, he could work at solving the US’ problems knowing his people were loyal to him and would support him.

He would be in a position to accept power and take upon himself the responsibility for restoration.

Given how much Trump has gained (or, perhaps more accurately, forestalled) with an isolated, hastily organized campaign filled with internal strife, working off little more than a single, fallible man’s charisma and ideas and a minor mobilization of MARs, think of how much could be accomplished if post-Trump, (2024, 2028, 2032), a true restorationist candidate ran an organized campaign centred around a well-led MARs power base fully organized and mobilized by a loyal, coordinated elite class with the purposeful intent of enacting restoration.

This would have a real chance of it being the true election that brings restoration. He would need to do little more than accept power.

Trump made the initial attempt at the Sailer strategy, he showed the way, now it needs to be fully adopted and implemented with the true election in mind.

The seed is there, among the MARs, who will grow it and pluck the fruit?

The Trump Realignment

You often see the lament from conservatives and the accusation from the left, of how the GOP has abandoned it principles by electing Trump. This is wrong, the Trump realignment is not a shift of principles, but a shift of power between groups with differing principles within the GOP.

The GOP is largely made up of 4 general groups.

The establishment (eGOP), also known as country-club Republicans or Chamber of Commerce conservatives is numerically one of the two smallest factions, primarily made up of the rich and upper-middle class. It’s the Buckleyian alliance of neocons and smallish-government “principled” conservatives who hold gate-keeping power over conservatism and the GOP. While numerically small, due to their riches, connections, and institutional power they hold tremendously outsized power within the GOP. Most major conservative institutions are controlled by them. eGOP principles are low taxes, somewhat limited government, business-friendliness, American Empire, playing by the rules (set by the Democrats), and being respectable. The eGOP is the right wing of the Washington uniparty and they set what “conservative principles” are.

The right-wing libertarians are the other small faction. Best exemplified by Ron Paul, they believe in small government, governmental non-interference, and are generally against foreign interventionism. They were numerically very small and had no real power in the GOP, but they controlled a few academic/think tank institutions, and their strict adherence to their ideology and their strong dedication to government policy solutions often had influence on GOP policies beyond what their lack of numbers and power would suggest.

The religious right (RR), also called the Moral Majority or evangelicals (although much broader than just evangelicals) were numerically a much larger faction. Made up of religious conservatives, it is where the bulk of solid Republican voters came from. This faction cares deeply about and votes on family values and anti-abortion. The RR has created a whole set of parallel institutions, none of which have much real impact on federal politics. Despite it’s numerical superiority and large institutional capacity, it wielded only moderate influence on GOP policies. Hated with a passion by the left and as basically single-issue voters, they were a reliable voting bloc for the GOP, needing only the occasional anti-abortion speech or small regulation here or there, to get keep them coming out to vote. Ultimately nothing concrete or lasting on the national level was ever implemented for the RR bloc, despite their loyalty and numbers.

The final and numerically largest faction, is the Middle-American Radicals (MARs). The MARs are not, strictly speaking, a GOP faction; they lean GOP, but are, as a group, not particularly partisan or ideological; they’ll vote for blue dog or union Democrats and probably think fondly of JFK. This group is by far the largest faction in US politics, comprising most all non-urban, working-class to middle-class, white Americans.

The MARs overlap the RR almost completely, the primary difference between the MARs and RR is that while the MARs may be sympathetic to the RRs on family values issues, they don’t particularly care and do not generally vote based on moral wedge issues. The RR are basically a subgroup of the MARs that attend church regularly and vote on their faith.

This difference though, is huge in political terms as it makes RR a reliable, loyal voting bloc for GOP as long as the GOP pay lip-service to family values and anti-abortion, but at the same time, the non-RR MARs are not particularly reliable. They’re not particularly partisan in voting and may not vote much at all. Unlike the other groups I’ve mentioned, who anybody can recognize, they are not a particularly well-defined or well-recognized faction.

The MARs do not have a particularly coherent ideology and their general political sentiments are “politicians are corrupt liars in the pockets of corporations stealing from little guy, except maybe this one guy from my hometown/state I like.” This is why there was a seemingly odd fluidity between Trump and Bernie, both tapped into this general sentiment.

They are strongly patriotic, pro-America, and pro-military and while not particularly in favour of international intervention, can be easily led to support war against America’s enemies if they are convinced there’s a threat. They are generally socially conservative-libertarianish (“I don’t like homos, but it’s not business”). They are wary of free trade as it tends to result in the factories they work for shutting down. On economic issues, they are generally for “fairness” for the average Joe. They hate socialism, big government, high taxes, handouts, and freeloaders, but they’ll also support government intervention they see as looking out for the little guy, supporting Medicare, Social Security, and such things. They’ll hate regulations that interfere with their farm or plumbing small business, but think somebody should rein in those corporate fat cats and bankers.

The MARs political beliefs are defined not by a coherent ideology, but by a general sentiment that government should work to make sure the working man gets his fair share and can live well without giving their hard-earned money to freeloaders. The Tea Party was the quintessential MARs political movement.

Illegal immigration is the one major issue the MARs stake out a clear policy stance: opposition. Illegal immigration hits every MARs button: it’s unfair that some get to jump the line, it’s wrong that criminal freeloading illegals get to take advantage of American tax dollars, they take jobs, and they lower wages.

The interesting thing about the MARs, is that despite being by far the largest constitutency in the US, they have minimal political power. They vote inconsistently, have no coherent ideology, and have no real political organizing (before the Tea Party) which makes it difficult for them to influence policy. MARs control only one notable institution, the NRA. This is why the NRA is so outsizedly powerful, because they are the only real interaction node between the MARs, the largest bloc of votes in the US, and the federal government.

****

Following the Bush administration’s many failures, the right was in chaos.

The libertarian faction had generally worked well together with the eGOP and the MARs. The non-ideological love of freedom of the MARs and lower taxes and less regulations of the eGOP gave the libertarians a home on the edges of the GOP.

But right-wing libertarianism is dead. It had it’s high water mark in 2008/2012 Ron Paul campaigns. With Ron Paul’s retirement, the “pot and sex” and bleeding heart libertarians took over libertarianism, while most right-wing libertarians moved on as they began to realize that mass immigration and libertarianism were incompatible and many began to think as Peter Thiel said, “I no longer believe that freedom and democracy are compatible”.

The religious right reached the high point of their power electing “compassionate conservative” George W. Bush. After 8 years, nothing was done about abortion or family values, meanwhile demographics shifted strongly against the religious right and its power has since faded. It is now a marginalized GOP voting bloc, rather than a major GOP power player; just a enough power to get a token VP, but not much more. They RR was betrayed and has permanently lost, and they know it.

The eGOP spent a lot of political capital on the Iraq War and other foreign interventions which turned out poorly. The 2007-2008 financial crisis and great recession was a powerful hit to their legitimacy on economic issues. After 8 years of Bush, the eGOP had burned through most of their legitimacy.

At the same time, libertarianism and the religious right were dying, and the eGOP was delegitimized, the Tea Party took off. The Tea Party was a MARs movement: lots of flags, lots of patriotism, libertarianish, less taxes, and less government, except where it helps the little guy. The Tea Party organized and began to throw out politicians of the other factions. It was then somewhat coopted by the eGOP during the Obama years.

This is where Trump’s realignment kicked in.

Trump decided to bypass the eGOP and in fact played on the anti-eGOP sentiment that had always been part the MARs and RR. Trump became the political avatar of the MARs. He attacked eGOP principles which had dominated the party for so long. He pushed a non-ideological Americanism for the little guy. He hit on illegal immigration. He brought the RR into the MARs: he’s not going to try to enforce family values, but he will at least try to be anti-abortion and will protect the defeated religious right from the left’s vengeance, while appealing to the RR’s sympathy to the more broadly-appealing MARs issues they support.

The Trump realignment is not an abandonment of conservative principles by conservatives, it is a fundamental realignment of ownership of the GOP from conservatives (the eGOP) to the middle-American radicals, who have fundamentally different values.

The RR’s embrace of Trump is not an abandonment of their religious values, but a recognition that they lost, that they will no longer hold even the moderate influence it once did in the GOP, and that they have to ally with the MARs to not be entirely crushed by the left.

****

Finally, beyond Trump: any authoritarian right-wing regime in America will have to make the MARs the base of their power. The MARs like (small-r) republicanism, because it is American, but they are also not particularly ideologically opposed toauthoritarianism. An American anti-democratic authoritarianism would be embraced by the MARs if it was American and patriotic enough.

While neoreaction is strongly in favour of converting elites, elites’ power comes from authority over and legitimacy from people. Any reactionary elite who pulls restoration off will have to have a power base to do so, and the natural reactionary power base is found in the MARs.