Populism is America’s own indigenous radical tradition.
It always surges back when elites get too cozy with themselves and too far out over their skis and disconnected from ordinary people. That’s exactly what is happening today and it sounds very much like it did in the Jackson era in the early 19th century or the Bryan era in the early 20th century. There are few things more American than our storied tradition of conspiracy theories and suspicion of elites.
The American Revolution was fueled by conspiracy theories about King George III and the Papacy and the Anglican Church. The 1824 election was said to be a Corrupt Bargain. The War Between the States was stoked by conspiracy theories. The John Brown raid confirmed the existence of the abolitionist conspiracy in the minds of Southerners while Northerners believed in the vast Slave Power conspiracy. The Left just as ardently believes in its own cherished conspiracy theories like the Russia Hoax or now systematic racism. The Right has QAnon. The Left has Rachel Maddow.
New Deal liberalism combined populism with progressivism. Modern conservatism emerged as its opposition in the wake of the Great Depression. As the Democratic Party has attracted more and more highly educated, upper middle class PMCs with modernist and cosmopolitan values, progressives have alienated and driven out the populists who have been drifting over to the Republican Party.
The Democratic Party and Republican Party have been swapping out their bases. The process has been going on for several decades with the South becoming steadily more Republican and now the Midwest while the East and West Coast have become more Democratic, but it has greatly accelerated since the 2012 election. The PMC ratio was roughly equal in 2012 and this class of people controlled both political parties until Trump, but it has greatly slipped and continued to fall on the Republican side.
The hatred and loathing of Trump which is far in excess of anything he was actually doing is because he upset the delicate demographic balance which allowed this class to control both parties and have its way. It mirrors the reaction of haughty coastal elites to the rise of Jackson and Bryan.
“Is the Nazbol Vortex Coming?”
Most likely no. Reactionary resentment is unconscious backlash against social issues (and even this is superficial. See Trans Republican Jenner being lapped up).
The arguments are grift. Rhetoric. I’ll believe it when I see it. (actual substantial change). By “see it” I mean actual policy changes that are real, incredibly substantial, and consistent. Until then, it’s larping and superficially playing around with ideas one doesn’t really understand, at best.
If people are counting on the Republican Party to come around to their way of thinking they are going to be gravely disappointed, again. The Republican Party’s purpose is to dissipate anger from the Right so the corporate, globohomo project can proceed apace. There is no salvation in the republican Party, ever. They need to go the way of all flesh.
“The Republican Party’s purpose is to dissipate anger from the Right so the corporate, globohomo project can proceed apace.”
Pretty much. It’s a release valve for reactionary resentment. That’s all it is basically.
Some random thoughts.
1.) I’m guessing that the rise in usage of the term nazbol has a lot to do with people being afraid to associate with national socialism. It’s the safer, more politically correct option, so to speak.
2.) I wonder how many have actually looked into what national bolshevism advocates for in terms of economic policy. If we look at Paetel’s “National Bolshevist Manifesto”, here is a short summary of their demands.
Nationalization of land and soil. Distribution of the large estates. All land-ownership in the future will be the mandate of the nation.
Transfer of all large-scale and medium-scale enterprises of industry, banking, department stores, mineral resources, mining, and transportation into the hands of the Volk.
State-planned economy with a monopoly of foreign trade.
Weapons in the hands of the whole: establishment of a Peoples’ Militia
[Volksheeres].
3.) Some of those things I agree with, but I’m still not convinced that this level of central planning is necessary to ensure economic justice among the nation or to prevent Capital/plutocrats from asserting control over the state. To me, what is more important is the existence of a state that is sufficiently powerful enough (i.e. not a democratic, limited government), a wealth cap, a basic income, universal healthcare, the abolition of usury, etc, those sorts of things. I’m fine with state control over banking, natural resources, transportation, and even certain important industries, but the Eastern Bloc was notorious for the inferiority and lack of choice when it came to their consumer goods. I still think consumer goods should generally be left to a regulated market, and if anything is deemed to be contrary to the interests of the nation, or whatever, the state can step in.
4.) Keith makes an important point in the video about how the CIA is really just a front for international financial interests. Some people hype up the CIA like it’s some sort of rogue agency out there spreading liberalism and democracy for their own sake or for the personal enrichment of those in the agency. But the director of the CIA is appointed by the president, and the position changes hands relatively often. So unless there are permanent bureaucrats in the CIA that are the real people in charge, I think it’s safe to say it doesn’t operate independently. They get their orders from the plutocrats behind the scenes just like everyone else.
5.) It’s popular right now in the dissident right to be “against liberalism.” But one might argue that it’s a liberal position to be against slavery. How many would advocate for the return of slavery? It makes me wonder if every single aspect of liberalism really needs to be undone. The whole argument reminds me of people when they say they’re against capitalism, but in reality, probably don’t actually want every good and service to be produced/provided by a state monopoly.
2) I’m actually in favor of a semi-command economy. So I’m much more favor of central planning. I would nationalize a lot of things. I do like some of what Corporatism has to say.
My nationalized healthcare that would deviate a lot from socialists egalitarian system of simply providing healthcare (which is reactionary) but instead radical revolutionary hierarchical idealism of creating a healthier society. To turn our healthcare system into something like our immune system. Our entire society would have to radically change (form what we eat to the products we buy etc) to attain this goal. Different topics (like health, education, migration etc). Everything is organic, holistic, and integrated. “Healthcare is not a right but a duty.”
A lot of things that we buy are destructive and unhealthy. I don’t believe in allowing it and having education. There is no reason why medium brushes or higher should be sold. It wear down gums and increase cost for gum grafting. There is no reason for the food we eat. We are so obese as a society. Yet people simply don’t care- the combination of short term pleasure and nihilism is repulsive. I watch former childhood friends become overweight due to this sickness and decay found deep in society, and it makes me angry that this is the society we live in to create this.
I would nationalize airline industry to control migration to prevent things like pandemics when needed by ending travel to prevent spread of virus if outbreaks occur. Healthcare is what I focus on more than other things.
And a lot more. I find capitalism has leads to decline, obesity, and nihilism, degeneration (along with democracy). Our society simply is about pencil pushing cubicle office work. Where porn, individualism, atomization, has lead to despair, where opioids is killing us and we fill ourselves with empty crap products then actually a higher stronger purpose to direct us and orient us to some higher order. Liberalism has failed, because it provided us exactly what it was meant to. I’m not bounded by a specific economic ideology worldview. I see the economy as a tool to unlock our potential. It is meant to serve us. We should not serve it. We should not serve the GDP- wasting our lives in a 9-5 meaningless job that doesn’t produce anything substantial.
That’s my take anyway.
4) I haven’t really found any evidence of what Keith says. He has some interesting points from time to time, but I’ve moved on from positions like Keith has. I tend to veer away from conspiracies without evidence.
5) Probably not. You got a point.
Stay away from people who love to hear themselves talk, as I think this kid does.
He lost me when he said that the ‘red scare’ or talking about marxism is meaningless. What is going on right now, in 2021, is history repeating. It’s going to boil down again to national socialists vs marxists.
All you have to do is read Trostky’s writings in which he says the only way marxism can win is first by installing globalism. Now take his writings and what he envisioned, and look at what is happening today and what politicians across the world are pushing for. What is going on right now, today, in our world, is the work of avowed marxists and anarcho-tyrannists. Their only concern is with their accumulation and enslavement of the masses to serve their political and personal desires. The opposite of that are populists/nationalists/nationalist socialists, or whatever else you want to call them, that care and love their homeland, don’t want to see it destroyed, and want their OWN people and countrymen taken care of first before any worthless dirtbag or illegal. These same kind of people also despise vulture capitalists and people like Zuckerberg and Romney, who all happen to be marxist and globalist.
So yeah, this kid on the video saying talking about the ‘red scare’ is pointless needs to open his eyes a little more and stop being so esoteric and in love with his own voice.
Nazbol is, presumably, for most of the people promoting it or seeming to promote it, a cope. Why not just be a national socialist or a social nationalist? There are plenty of examples of how “socialism with (x national) characteristics” could look. South Korea, Peru, Syria, Libya, North Korea, China, Belarus, etc. It could be argued that Russia is moving in this direction in the later Putin era. You don’t have to 88 to 14, kids. Similiarly, we can have our more or less free exchange of goods and services, freedom of speech, elected government and so on. What we can’t have anymore is liberalism, that is: eskimo schemes from the top and blaygack street terror from the bottom.