College students generally get filed into either the communist or libertarian tribe, and tragically for myself, I got sorted into the libertarian tribe during the 2010-2012 political semester. I was a twenty-something year old college student with sympathies to the Tea Party Movement, and it really did feel like we were shifting the GOP to something less cringe than Bush era interventionism. Of course, if you read the wikipedia articles on that movement today, you will see a depressing “The Tea Party Movement was…”. It died. The GOP more or less surfed into power on them in 2010, did nothing, and then lost that power by 2012. In some ways, we can say the GOP’s mismanagement of those promises were the foundations of betrayal on which people like Trump and DeSantis are building upon today - not that either of those men are ideal. I suspect if the political operators of the time knew what foundation they were laying, they’d not have done as they did. But alas, here we are.
Moments like this microcosm of libertarian delusions have many names, but I call them False Dawns. A False Dawn is when momentum appears to be building towards something, but for one reason or another it fails to manifest with a sunrise. The Long Night of political stagnation returns - and endures - and the hope of real changes diminishes. Indeed, that era has a number of False Dawns: Occupy Wall Street, parts of the Arab Spring, and many forget the sudden shift to the right in Latin America:
But ultimately, it was by and large a False Dawn for everyone. The Tea Party Movement did not stop the growing debt of the United States. Occupy Wall Street did not meaningfully influence financial regulation for long, Latin America did not become based, and even where the Arab Spring did bring down regimes, the US’ operators were quick to give them an IV drip of funding and pull them into the fold. 2010-2012 was just one long False Dawn culminating with generational blue balls that still stalk the aspirations of early-thirty-somethings like myself today. Whenever something seems to be about to change, in comes the burned out 20 year old in my head whispering “Don’t get your hopes up”. 2022 is coming up now. And once again people are getting their hopes up. Indeed, it seems guaranteed Biden will suffer a massive blow and enter into lame duck status. But so what?
Imagine 2024, for a moment. Either Trump or DeSants is president. Both houses are Republican dominated. Nancy Pelosi is pulling out her hair while the Courts are all conservative … In comes my internal dialog with “What a nightmare.”
If you are reading this, you will agree with this statement if you are a progressive, or a reactionary. If you are a young conservative, you’re likely somewhat confused or about to call me a nihilist who will never be happy. But I hope my intro gives you at least a moment’s pause - at least some of your neurons considering it, even if it is just put on the back-burner for when you are burned out.
They will pass one, maybe two gesture laws, and then it’s off to gutting the last viable right wing movement for their personal estates before they pass away with the rest of the Boomers. One last vengeful harvest of generational wealth, hazard the fear their corpses may not have finer living conditions than their grandchildren. If there’s any good to this story, we will finally be rid of the spiteful generation, presuming 6-10 years of GOP dominance. But it is predictable that the reactionary right will dissolve into fringe groups without a center right to blame, and the progressive left will have occasional spouts of rioting but incapable of their wins in the 2010s owing to their gross overreaches of late. The nation will be inoculated against progressive thought, and sense a repugnant odor from dissident rightists. Malaise forever!
But do we want the Malaise Decade?
The overturning of Roe v Wade at a time when Josef is crashing in the polls seems to all but lock in a strong right wing win for November. As of writing this, he is approaching 60% disapproval. Other polls show things like 70% of Americans are unhappy with the direction of politics, as well as not wanting Biden to run again.
I suspect this is actually more-so angry progressives than a growing right wing base. In fact, if we look at polls on who considers themselves pro-life or pro-choice, we can actually see the pro-choice extremist movement (abortion up until birth) is rapidly gaining grounds.
There are, however, many alternative answers. For instance, a rise in pro-choice identity during the pandemic may indicate this was more having to do with vaccine mandates. Or, for instance, a shift in the centrist support for Biden. But, no matter how you cut it, it appears likely that November will be a late-term abortion of the Biden presidency at 24 months.
Whether those votes go to the GOP, DSP, or both, really doesn’t matter. I’m more-so wanting you, dear reader, to avoid the nightmare scenario - The Decade of Malaise. These quickly coming times provide a unique set of circumstances that, if flexed, could produce a rapid reversal of progress, avoid a GOP stasis, and nudge towards renewed political vitality. We’ve seen the left do this with incremental nudges to the democrats that led them to this very moment of despair. While it’s not guaranteed the GOP won’t end up in the same position with these rightward nudges, it would at least put the United States backwards from the global political aspirations of a declining and untrusted elite.
In the pandemic years, with the regime overstretching itself, we got some intel on tactics: The spiteful mutants that roll out onto the streets. mysterious brick deliveries, doxing, etc etc - often against the regime’s own center left! Such tactics are tailor made for the left wing. We need to bare in mind the right has its own tactics to influence the center-right GOP. We also saw some of those tactics exposed as well: telecommunication campaigns and social media, primarily.
Average life expectancy in the United States is 78. Most boomers are 72, +-4. Ergo, this coming decade will see the average boomer pass away. This provides yet another opportunity: the GOP will no longer have the voter security they once had. The tried and tested true boomercon will be confined to the grave. Thus, we have here yet another celestial alignment for a new thing: The GOP will have to rebrand itself. You see this already, with the GOP is scrambling for new bases among the Latines, for instance. There will still needs be an appeasement to the younger whites too, no doubt.
With this in mind, here are a few ideas I’ve cooked up to avoid a decade of Malaise, the goal here being to gauge this scrambling with ever so subtle nudges of fear. The GOP is afraid. You can offer them a solution to that fear, if they but prove their loyalty to you. This is the kind of thinking you need to hold. With that, these are a number of strategies I’ve worked out to get us from The Malaise Decade to The Based Decade
1 - The Shelf
2 - Operation Whale Oil
3 - Blind Clarence
The Shelf
My sister has a concept known as “The Shelf”. Whenever she meets someone new, she assigns a standard “expiration date” of a month, give or take. If that person doesn’t do anything to increase their expiration date, she disposes of the person from her life, and considers them “expired”. In her mind, she imagines they smell or are rotting, and there’s really no way back onto the shelf once one expires. When people do little things to maintain the relationship, she reciprocates, and adds time to the expiration date. She doesn’t expect to be purely receptive, she also tries to add to it too. But ultimately, expired food has no place on the shelf - her carefully curated circle of contacts.
Today, politics is built on loyalty. You’re expected to vote for your tribe, in exchange for 1, maybe 2 promises - often not even kept. The solution to this shit-tier relationship with our elected representatives, is The Shelf: A rolling expiration date for any politician. The Shelf could be an app, or a public database, so long as it’s easily accessible to the public. And people who eat from expired food have to be shamed as filthy, or dumb, or both. Creating the psychology of The Shelf becomes a very useful tool for keeping politicians on their toes. The expiration date is entirely public, they know when they will expire, and they know they are out if they do.
This isn’t at all hard to produce. The left and right both have small-scale versions of The Shelf. The NRA has rankings they give politicians, and people dedicated to that issue keep tallies. Planned Parenthood keeps a similar list for their interests, with many rightwingers taking the inverse for who to vote for. Shelves already exist for single-issue voters. Why note a shelf for political spectrums?
Would keep people in-line if nothing else.
Blind Clarence
This is the easiest path to pursue. There’s not much to write about it. Now that we know that the Supreme Court is eager to receive judgements that can be used to overthrow Progress inc., the challenge is simply picking the right states to test cases on. This path really doesn’t need much explanation, as it’s what the Pro-Life movement did as a form of minority rule tactics. In this age, you need to start using the apparatus of what’s left of the American Republic to protect a minority view - and if the aforementioned polling is true, it is a minority view. Don’t feel bad about using the system for what it was designed for. We’re not a formal democracy at the end of the day. You can bypass mob rule through the courts. You must therefore organize your courts to ensure your success.
Operation Whale Oil
The GOP operates through victimhood farming just as much as the Democrats do. The problem is, the GOP’s voter base don’t view themselves as perpetual victims, but as consequential ones. Consequently, they are very loyal when they are not in power, and very lazy when they are. This can be hijacked.
You’ve heard of gaslighting, right champ? You usually apply it to your enemies. You’ve likely never, or rarely, done it to your friends - and if your friends have done this, you’ve likely lowered your respect for them thereafter. It’s basically reverse psychology, minus the sarcasm.
I’ve had to do this to my friends. Mostly when they were doing something really dumb. I never like doing it, and it always feels like I’m being a manipulative asshat. The key to gaslighting is to be totally deadpan in your emotions. You cannot gaslight with anger. Imagine anger as the opposite of gaslighting. You have to be calm, collected, and direct. And if you do that to your elected representatives, it can have some hilarious results.
Don’t react to them when they propose normie nonsense like overthrowing Obamacare or prayer in schools. All that is Supreme Court stuff anyway. Lie on polls if you’re asked. Make it an unimportant issue. Make the GOP worried and start scrounging for more rightward topics to stir your interest. Don’t you dare donate to them either.
Basically, operation whale oil is to ignore their carrot stick and not move until they put some icing on it. The reality is, the GOP needs to be gaslit to cetacean proportions. That’s Operation Whale Oil. A constant, unending gaslighting of the GOP.
That’s all I got for now.
Here’s hoping we prevent the Decade of Malaise.