Comments

Why is the left so ruthless and so determined to take power and keep it forever? — 77 Comments

1. Well-stated indeed! While some go along with the delusional programs (“social engineering”) of the power-mad leftists out of misguided idealism, others are hustlers eager to cash in on a lucrative racket, and still others have been mis-educated (“brainwashed”) into blindly following whatever is current or fashionable. It is never a simple matter to differentiate between those who crave power and control (“Leninists”) from those who are easily duped (the gullible “true believers”) from those who simply wish to be “‘in’ with the ‘in crowd'” or are primarily fearful of being ostracized for having the “wrong” opinions and regard acquiescence to established opinion as the best option.

2. Good analysis.

   Is there a third sub-group to #1? “Those who believe if Republicans take power they will cause world extinction because of Global Warming?” I see you write “. . . is evil and will destroy us,” but my group Republicans represent an existential threat. Perhaps a distinction without a difference?

   And still another: “Those who believe if Republicans come to power they will create such fraud in future elections that Democrats will never again win?”

3. F makes a good point.

   Many rank-and-file leftists are convinced the right is so vicious, dangerous and totalitarian that they have no choice but to fight as dirty as they must because the right is worse.

   There is much “The right made us do it” thinking on that side.

4. F:

   I included the sub-group in your first paragraph as part of the “the right is evil and will destroy us” group.

   I don’t think there are many Democrats who believe the premise in your second paragraph. There might be some. But they don’t think the Republicans will commit fraud, exactly. They think they will commit “voter suppression.”

5. Very well put, neo. We’re of the same mind.

   To expand, the Green economy has made many rich people at the top. The tax credits for solar and wind has created all sorts of new companies. That generates business. The professional class also benefits as new business is created. Accountants, attorneys, engineers and finance people all get a cut in every Green deal.

   My conservative brother-in-law works for a firm that builds wind projects. It used to build natgas power plants.

   There’s a law firm here in Omaha that has grossed millions on wind power deals. This same firm is now working on a 3,200-acre industrial solar facility south of Omaha. Too bad for them that me (DDB!) is going to take it down!

   Nebraska is the Cornhusker State; not the Chinese solar panel state!

6. I think it’s important to remember that the Founders were not of one mind regarding what the Federal government was there to do, consequently the government they designed was never intended to be the best way to freely govern ourselves and all we have to do is stick to it or go back to it when we deviate. A lot more is demanded of us than that.

   The 1789 Constitution was the result of compromise among men with substantial disagreements, and many cans were kicked down the road so to speak, the most obvious being slavery. But in addition, established churches existed at the state level until the 1830s, so obviously the First Amendment was not understood to “separate church and state”. There are other examples if you look for them.

   Most of what we hear about in our history classes is based on the views of a handful of those men, the ones who were articulate and whose views were congenial to later generations of academics. But the others were there too and the end result reflects their views as well, not just Madison and Hamilton and the ones we’ve heard of.

   If you ever get the chance to read the convention notes, which of course you can find online for free, I highly recommend them.

   I don’t disagree with neo on her characterization of the Left, but the same cast of characters is also found on the Right, and I’m not sure she goes along with me there. The proportions of each may be different, but they are there and if we fall into the trap of thinking leftists are just some different kind of human we have to defeat, then we’re going to keep getting the same outcomes under different names.

   The Constitution is not going to protect us from Leftists. Because the people who make Leftism such a threat are present in large numbers on the Right as well. The only way to stay free is to make freedom your primary value and act so as to maximize it. Easy to say, but even among the small community here there is intense disagreement on what kinds of freedom are okay to allow people to have. The desire to make other people behave “right” is very strong and widespread, as is the desire to take from some and give to others.

   In order to truly stay free, most of the electorate would have to give up their human desires to make other people behave right and to take away things from some and give them to others. The Founders could not fix that, because they themselves suffered from these desires. It’s not wrong to have these desires, it’s very human–but the desires if acted on are incompatible with staying free. The natural condition of humans is not freedom. Freedom takes constant work to maintain.

   The Left commands power within our institutions and so those who worship power are today on the Left. It will not always be so.

   “If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary.” There is no political party full of angels, nor does one have a monopoly on devils. I grant you today’s danger is primarily from the Left, but I hope that we want more than a change of masters.

7. Neo: I like the parsimony of your approach. Human nature doesn’t change and it has a few drivers –envy, anger, fear, pride (especially pride)– and when these drivers are mixed in different proportions –like the Medieval “humors”– you get a great variety of superficial characteristics and behaviors. But applying KISS you end up studying the same few Cardinal Sins.

   As for the need to Save the World: what could better appeal to one’s pride? One is infused with righteousness and whatever one does is automatically justified. And it’s extra exciting when you can hurt your chosen enemy AND make money along the way. Wrapping “Climate Change” in the trappings and unthinking fervor of a religion was, in hindsight, inevitable. I consider it to be the most dangerous piece of the ideology being pressed on us all.

8. I pray this continues to be true:

   “God has a special providence for fools, drunkards, and the United States of America.”

   –Otto von Bismarck

9. I’m going to disagree with you.

   There’s been a secular decline in the capacity of Democrats to conceive of themselves as participants in a competitive political order. As the Republican Party grew more competitive at all levels, they reacted with rage, as if something they owned was being taken away from them.

   You can see that in public discourse as well. Democrats fancy public discussion is their personal property as well, so the advent of talk radio, Fox News, and the blogosphere induced a similar rage which had two aspects: the demise of professional standards among the legacy media and efforts to suppress dissenter media (even though it was a modest share of total viewership).

   The personnel of institutions of culture were much more variegated in their social viewpoint ninety years ago than is the case today. An escalating share of the professoriate elected to define dissent from the modal viewpoint as professional incompetence.

   It’s also spread to professional associations, who are controlled by people who distort and disfigure the associations’ foundational mission and attempt to prevent dissenters from working.

   Now it’s all over corporate communications and corporate HR.

   And, lately, we see the flag ranks of the military populated with worthless office politicians and the police subject to escalating mistreatment by Democratic politicians (especially prosecutors and judges).

   This is a cultural phenomenon. What’s more, the younger the cohort, the more pronounced are these tendencies. Constitutional government is dependent for its survival on competition, respect for the rules governing competition, and respect for the referees. Since this is gone among the social sectors for which the Democratic Party is a vehicle, there isn’t much left but raw force.

   About 2% of the population of Spain died during the Civil War of 1936-39. And, when it was over, Gen. Franco and his confederates found a crude but effective means of ensuring social peace for the next several decades. The vanguard of the opposition – those who had not fled into exile – were taken out and shot during 1939-41. Spain’s parliamentary institutions – which had with interruptions existed since the Congress of Vienna and which were prefigured by medieval assemblies – were put on hiatus for the next 38 years. Not a pleasant prospect that.

10. Another precedent for what’s happening: Argentina during the period running from 1929 to 1983 (and, arguably, since). We have a predatory and wholly irresponsible political class. Look at the mess federal finances are in.

11. “Has the day of reckoning finally come, and has America’s luck on that score run out?”

    I don’t know for sure, but I’m inclined to say yes, as much as that answer truly hurts me. I do believe we’ve long passed the tipping point. Or we’re careening over the edge of the cliff.

    The real question, now, for me is this: How do we preserve the beautiful shards of broken glass for the future renovation project? The future hoped for renaissance? Rod Dreher has a lot to say about this from an explicitly religious point of view. I wonder if there is a way to do this from an explicitly Enlightenment framework a la the Founders.

    I spend a lot of time pondering these things. I have no warm fuzzies, that’s for sure.

12. but the same cast of characters is also found on the Right, a

    No it isn’t. The worst characters on the right are cat’s paws of business lobbies. These people are worthless, but they’re not dangerous.

    The Republican vote consists of a variety of social sectors dissatisfied the gleichschaltung which robs institutions and guilds of their foundational mission. These are individuals, largely unorganized, who want to be left in peace.

    There are no professional associations to speak of who are run by conservatives. Small business in general tends to favor the Republicans. In regard to big business, only extractive industries are aligned with the Republicans.

13. Art Deco:

    I’m not sure why you label your comment a case of disagreeing with me. I think “all of the above” can be true. I don’t see how what you wrote conflicts with what I wrote – it’s an addition and it can operate in sync. At least, that’s how I see it.

14. Don’t worry the moderate middle (the uninterested or undecided) will protect “us” from the evil Leftists and smelly Righties. Otay.

    Yes, read the documents from the ratification of that old imperfect, unscientific, and ammended document, aka the Constitution, and you will find that not all were towering minds? For some reason those folks don’t get cited? I wonder why?

15. God has a special providence for fools, drunkards, and the United States of America

    It was one of his more asinine remarks.

16. Frederick:

    I was originally going to put something in the post about how these things are not confined to the left. Some people on the right have the same characteristics. However, because of the right espousing less government rather than more, the tendencies are kept more in check. In addition, the right tends to believe that adhering to process is important and there are fewer people on the right who believe the ends justify any means. Such people exist on the right, however.

17. (b) The second subgroup within group (1) actually believes that, if the left comes to power, humankind (and the planet, maybe even in the opposite order) will be much better off. The right is evil and will destroy us. That’s where their impetus to power comes from: to do good. Beware.

    As a corollary, group 1 (b) likely doesn’t think of themselves as being wrong or immoral when they (or other members of their “team”) commit wrong or immoral acts if it is in service to their greater goals. Human nature being what it is, very few sane people think of themselves as evil. Conversely, group 1(a) may actually understand that they’re likely causing destruction, but they don’t care. One explanation may be because they’re generally high functioning sociapaths or even psycopaths.

18. I’ve noticed over the years there’s 2 aspects to being a real leader. Being in charge of other people and being responsible for them. Your group one is the worst kind of manager I’ve had in my career. The type that wants to be a “leader” because they want to be in charge of other people but have absolutely no responsibility for the people they boss around. They were always the ones that did the most damage to the team and when the shit hit the fan they never stuck around to take the consequences of what they did. As it is in management it’s the same in politics. (People like that should never get those position but they so often do.)

19. Lamont Cranston and beautiful Margo Lane know what evil lurks in the hearts of Man. I think that they underestimated just how much was out there.

    I personally believe that 1(a) it triumphant at the moment in the Left, ( they certainly run Academe and the Democrat hierarchy. ). They use 1(b) as their foot soldiers in the conquest of culture.

    1(a) owning Academe allows them to program the young to believe that anyone who disagrees with them is evil, and must be destroyed. This allows them to make true the old Chinese cure, which is apparently, in full, ” May you live in interesting times, and come to the attention if the authorities. “

20. From my reading of history, type 1a is the standard issue politician and has run 99.9% of all governments that have ever existed. The only culture that has supported anything else is the political culture of the English speaking people. Even there, the pandemic has exposed many of the high officials happy to grab as much power as possible without even pretending that they don’t want dictatorial powers. Premier Zoolander of the High Arctic is the latest to drop the mask and award himself the crown.

    Government by 1a types is the norm and we are starting the slide into it. Whether the Second Amendment is enough to halt or to reverse it is unclear from where we are.

21. From my reading of history, type 1a is the standard issue politician and has run 99.9% of all governments that have ever existed. The only culture that has supported anything else is the political culture of the English speaking people.

    Disagree.

22. Let us not lose sight of the cultural/class dimension to the left’s single-minded ruthlessness and determination. They view us as literally* less evolved than they are, as literally less than fully human.

    * Unlike many folks, when M J R says “literally”, he literally intends for “literally” to be understood *literally*.

    Now, many of that frame of mind assuredly are not ruthless, but many are, and those who are, liBerally [ahem] harness the resulting haughty and elitist** mindset and allow it to reinforce their proclivity to ruthlessness.

    ** I do question whether lording it over creatures who are understood to be subhuman qualifies as “elitist”, but the description does apply as well to the go-along-to-get-along contingent found among the left. That mindset feeds into their apprehension of us subhuman deplorables, should they ever experience the misfortune of having to actually deal with us.

    It does strike me that that mindset certainly exacerbates their vicious loathing of us. (I’ve actually seen a couple of examples of those types *literally* [there I go again] physically foaming at the mouth, albeit slightly and not rabidly, when expressing their hatred for us and our worldview. Not terribly pretty.)

23. Excellent post. I’ll add two points to it.

    Group 1 (both a & b I think) understand the power value of having a hyper-radicalized base, though a & b come to it differently. The anarcho-syndicalists of mid 19th century France had hyper-radicalization as one of their primary tactics to gain power and today’s group oners have absorbed this. 1a has the clearest understanding of it, whereas 1b probably just sees it as a proper part of their religion.

    This is amplified by F & huxley’s good point:
    In today’s world when we see the left ranting about the right taking away birth control and creating a real Handmaid’s Tale society, eliminating voting rights, allowing people to have “weapons of war” and 9mm rounds that rip out lungs; this is the radicalization and the demonization of the right.

    As huxley points out, if the people on the right are demons, then there is nothing wrong with, let’s say, a widespread conspiracy to commit voting fraud.

    In other words, they get things they consider benefits from it, mostly economic (such as welfare and other monetary benefits) but sometimes other things (abortion, for example) to which they want access.

    It’s only a small amplification, but the group 3) stuff goes well beyond the above. j e makes the good point that being on the left is now very fashionable. Furthermore, there are whole social milieu where being conservative is not tolerated. Try getting tenured even as a closeted conservative. Forget about being vocal. While something like tenure is a big financial consideration, I am also referring to constant daily social aspect of that environment.

24. subgroup 1b and group 2 are, far as I can see, where the mush heads reside.
    You can’t be changing things for the better if you don’t think things are bad now or getting there.
    These are the people who believe in AGW, and that Covid is going to kill us all and that making people do stupid stuff will save us.
    And the same sorts of nonsense in any number of other issues, including how IMPORTANT, vitally important, is is to get rid of mean tweets.
    The other groups could not exist without substantial numbers of music heads.

25. My small amplification in the above was not point #2 which I forgot.

    This one is rather far out and presumes to see into hearts and minds, so I’ll concede it is only a conjecture. In group 1a and possibly some portion of 1b, there is perhaps what I’ll call a con-artist mentality.

    First recall that these group 1 people do not believe that the very rich and successful people “built that.” They lucked into their wealth and power. Or they used privilege and social connections to achieve power. Therefore, the upper middle class on down who work very hard to create good lives for themselves are chumps. The con-artist mentality sees success as always a type of swindle, so why not just accept this at the outset?

    So when a con-artist swindles someone out of their money and possibly inflicts great pain on them, this is fun. It may even be thrilling. Same thing with looting the public treasury or throwing public moneys at friends and family. It’s also a type of cosmic justice perhaps. Is it destructive? Who cares?

    Yes, it’s also probably a type of sociopathy.

26. I have to agree with Art Deco. Also to echo Richard a bit, I’ll just offer that all those friends I mention fall into 1b and 2. I think that cohort has grown tremendously in the last 20 years thanks mainly due to 1a taking over the entire education system from K to BA. Without that growth the left would be no where near where they are today.

27. Today’s gulags are more like Huxley’s Brave New World: mind-control enabled by technology, and ostracism and destroyed livelihood (and on occasion imprisonment) the punishment.

    One can hope that things won’t get worse than that. I’m not confident.

    After all, people on the right are just like the Nazi’s.
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=06_P0kGPgAg

28. Why is the left so ruthless?
    Another reason is that the right lets them get away with it.
    The pushback just isn’t there. Maybe because the left is that powerful and maybe because those on the right continue to think that lefties are like us, that if we just present better arguments, if we’re more willing to compromise – then we can come to a win-win solution.

29. Eva Marie:

    That used to be much more true, when the country-club Republicans vastly outnumbered the others. That hasn’t been the case for a while, and many on the right have fought quite hard, but it hasn’t been successful for the most part. I believe it’s because of the Gramscian March especially in education, in law and the courts, in the MSM, and in government agencies such as the DOJ and FBI.

30. We’ll have to agree to disagree. Conservatives assume lefties act rationally just like we do, whereas lefties have embraced irrationality.

31. Reading Richard Pipes Russian Revolution, we seem to be rhyming it.
    Neo’s definition is not much different than I’m reading.
    They have started filling jails with the Jan6 ralliers, might get more with other political prisoners. At the point they see they are feeding thousands without any return they will put them to work.
    It’s in their DNA

32. Orwell has o’brien mouth what stalin would admit its about power for their owm sake

33. “The left is ruthless, committed, and determined.” There is no denying this. But, why? I can’t wrap my head around why they want to so much power and control.” T-Rex

    Stalinists worship Power.

    The abandonment of religion requires a substitute for the idealistic to believe in. Something that explains the state of the world.

    Willful blindness is a panacea for those whose god is comfort.

34. I believe it’s because of the Gramscian March especially in education, in law and the courts, in the MSM, and in government agencies such as the DOJ and FBI.

    Sorry. Republican state governments have had ample opportunity to restructure state systems of higher education. They do nothing much. As for the Department of Justice, the Republicans had a majority in both houses of Congress and the presidency from 2003 to 2007. They also undertook a reorganization of federal law enforcement during that time. They accomplished just what in depoliticizing the FBI &c? Remember, Robert Mueller was a Bush the Younger appointee.

35. “I look at those people and can’t understand what is lurking within them to be so steadfast in their determination. For what end? Do they even know *or are they merely tools of other powers*?”

    Sometimes it can be useful to ask the question differently, then apply Ockham’s Razor. Consider in that light the possibility that Catholic/Christian doctrine might be correct that there exists an actual powerful Evil Opponent Of God who at times takes an active role in human affairs.

    And as long as I’m making trouble anyway, consider the hypothesis that such an EEOG might well have taken, say, 632 years or so to come up with an initial effective counter-move to God sending His Son into the game. (Say, didn’t Lenin admit at some point to cribbing revolutionary-organizational tricks from early Islam?)

    Yeah yeah, I know, very uncouth and incorrect. But Evil actually existing as an intelligent force in the world really is a *simpler* explanation than most I see attempted. Well, enough trouble stirred for one night…

36. As a corollary, group 1 (b) likely doesn’t think of themselves as being wrong or immoral when they (or other members of their “team”) commit wrong or immoral acts if it is in service to their greater goals. Human nature being what it is, very few sane people think of themselves as evil. Conversely, group 1(a) may actually understand that they’re likely causing destruction, but they don’t care. One explanation may be because they’re generally high functioning sociapaths or even psycopaths.

    neo:

    Works for me, though sorting the sheep from the goats on this score is an exercise left to the reader.

    The closest I got to New Left Inner Circle was when Robin Morgan’s group took over my college commune in 1971. However leftist my tendencies were in those days, that was an eye-opener.

    The women’s lib wing of Morgan’s group had played the standard “Take over the President’s Office and issue a catalog of non-negotiable demands” tactic.

    I was a trifle nervous about what this might do to my college and mentioned my doubts to Kenneth Pitchford, Morgan’s husband, apparently a bisexual poet who led the Gay Liberation prong of Morgan’s strategy. They passed out buttons: “How dare you think I’m straight!”

    Pitchford’s response (paraphrased): “Let it burn, if that’s what it takes.” Which even then I didn’t find especially satisfying.

    The college administration caved in the standard manner of implementing Studies Programs. The Robin Morgan circus moved back to NYC.

    Next term I joined another college commune. This time one committed to partying and heterosexuality with no radical politics.

37. It’s group 3 that has become an enormous group of somewhat unintentional rent seekers. It isn’t that they vote to get something- they’re voting to keep everything.

38. It must be understood that group 1(a) is the “Revolutionary Vanguard,” and the RV of socialists/communists of the last century-plus have been oriented on one thing and one thing only: to seize and keep power for their own self-aggrandizement. Their entire purpose is to make themselves wealthier and more privileged, no matter the expense or costs to others. That. Is. All. They. Want. Nothing else. Nothing. More here:
    https://senseofevents.blogspot.com/2017/07/marxists-and-headlines-you-cant-make-up.html

39. Eva Marie:

    Most conservatives are no longer that naive.

40. It must be understood that group 1(a) is the “Revolutionary Vanguard,” and the RV of socialists/communists of the last century-plus have been oriented on one thing and one thing only: to seize and keep power for their own self-aggrandizement. Their entire purpose is to make themselves wealthier and more privileged, no matter the expense or costs to others. That. Is. All. They. Want. Nothing else. Nothing. More here:

    Donald Sensing:

    Are you really that naive or close-minded? (Yes, I know who you are and I check in with your posts now and then.)

    I know it can work out that way, but to suppose people like Bill Ayers & His Weatherman Friends were busy planning for elite power when they went underground in 1970 strikes me as stupid.

    They knew the risks and they didn’t expect to get away as they did. They were sincere, however mistaken, in their vision.
    _______________________

    Free as a bird and guilty as hell.

    –Bill Ayers
    _______________________

    They were willing to be martyrs. Some were. You can’t take that away from them.

41. Neo, I respectfully disagree. Your analysis is not inaccurate about tiers of leftist activists and politicians, but it doesn’t touch the important reality of the current leftist base that has produced this awful political class. In democracies bases find leaders and the process doesn’t work the other way around until the totalitarians are firmly in charge. Since that hasn’t happened (yet) identifying the thinking of the Democrat base is an important activity.

    I’d suggest that the Democrat base consists first and most importantly of voters who are health and education sector employees; next in importance, other public sector civil employees; following that constituencies that serve the first two with votes (in exchange for services and largesse) and financing.

    Health and Education is an employment service sector category of the Bureau of Labor Statistics that is the largest employment classification in the nation, substantially greater in size than manufacturing, mining, agriculture and construction combined. It is majority female and it includes teaching, nursing and all the social “health” services. It is publicly financed or it derives its revenue from third party payer systems. These voters are all disconnected from direct contact with economic reality and they pride themselves on their humanitarianism. They are sanctimoniously privileged and conformist although they believe themselves to be revolutionary. They are more self righteous than any of the Victorian prigs they imagine they look down upon as a benighted 19th century bourgeoisie. Their outlooks are consistent with personal middle class paycheck interests that are untethered to the discipline of a market that can judge their product and become hysterical at the thought that the market might do that. Donald Trump represents those fears to them. They’re the medium that allows the crud you describe to float to the top. They encourage people who are the recipients of their services to hate others to justify the services rendered by the providers. We have to beat the base and identifying them and blaming them in response to the way they demonize us has become an existential necessity.

    Public sector employees follow a similar dynamic. Those who receive public benefits or subsidies don’t want to bite the hand that feeds them.

    Those are your Democrats, the 42% who think their demneted figurehead Biden is doing a great job. Understanding what the base is about is more important than analyzing the corrupt antics and ambitions of its leaders.

42. huxley:

    Some of the Hitler Youth and Waffen SS were “martyrs” for an equally vile and evil strain of despotic totalarianism. You can’t take that away from them.

    Bill Ayers and Dorn bombed and tried to murder. His stupidity got people killed (workplace accident before it became a thing in Israel). Son of wealth, he will end his days well off and still doing evil. Yeah, you can’t take that away from them.

    Che was a murdering political psychopath but met a more just end. You can’t take that away from him.

43. Eva Marie:

    However, my response was to Donald Sensing who apparently argued that *all* leftists were into nothing but power and self-aggrandizement.

    I say, from my tiny portal into that world, that there was something like a religious vision animating those leftists. They could all have ended up with life terms in prison but still they went ahead with what they did.

    Marge Piercy, ex-SDS, who didn’t re-up with Weatherman, but she did write a “path not taken” novel about a Bernardine Dohrn-like character who went underground. The ending of her book, after Dohrn’s friends have been captured by the Feds:
    ________________________________

    But she still had Natalie. Herself. Eva. Work. Her history, her political intent, her ability to cause trouble . . . She stopped abruptly and pulled the bag of bagels out of her rucksack and threw them in a trash can. She could not bear the smell; she could not bear the hope they leaked in fragrance . . . . One thing I know is that nothing remains the same. No great problems in society have been solved, no wounds healed, no promises kept except that the rich shall inherit . . . . Two steps forward and a half back. I will waste none of my life.

    –Marge Piercy, “Vida”
    ________________________________

    This isn’t a “One day I’ll rule the world and get what I personally want –mwah-ha-ha” plan.

44. Ends justify the means. Old news as to where that ends.

    Eggs and omelettes.

45. I start from a different place, but get to the same place.

    Curtis Yarvin: “There is no politics without an enemy.”

    This means that everyone in politics comes to think of themselves in an existential fight for survival: against the enemy. If they don’t think that they will get rolled over by people that do.

    Remember: armies reward their soldiers with loot and plunder. Politics rewards its supporters with pensions and jobs.

    The point of power, I think, is that you have to have power in order to defeat the enemy. So if you are in politics, then you think of the other guys as the enemy, and you know you have to get power in order to defeat them. But power is addictive…

46. Huxley, I don’t think you meant to reference me . . . unless this is more monkey business.

47. M. Guest:

    The people you describe are in both group (1a) and (3).

48. Neo,

    You replied to Eve regarding the pushback from the right, and the Gramscian March through the institutions.

    I might add this generalization:

    For the lefties, its a day job. Lefty Progs, fill the ranks of bureaucrats, non-profit administrators, media, or academic, and get paid to be officious busybodies. They can work everyday, making a career, as part of group 1(a) or (b). At the end of each workday, they can indulge whatever family needs, interests, hobbies or fetishes they desire.

    As a deplorable who leads a productive life in the private sector, I go home at the end of the shift to take care of family. Or, increasingly at my age, just rest and recharge for the next day.

    Volunteering, campaigning, and otherwise mounting the right wing pushback becomes more challenging under the circumstance of everyday life, and takes away from much needed family time. Not complaining, mind you, but pointing out a potential manpower limitation on the right.

    It brings out an appreciation for our founders, who really did pledge their lives, fortunes, and sacred honor, for our liberty.

    My first time to comment; appreciate your blog.

49. OlderbytheDay – that’s a very good point. I’ll just add – it’s not only their day job but their activism is also in service of protecting their day jobs. And that’s a mighty motivator.

50. Curtis Yarvin: “There is no politics without an enemy.” This means that everyone in politics comes to think of themselves in an existential fight for survival: against the enemy. If they don’t think that they will get rolled over by people that do.

    Which is blatant nonsense.

51. His stupidity got people killed (workplace accident before it became a thing in Israel).

    The two people working on bombs in the basement of that townhouse in Greenwich Village were Terry Robbins and Diana Oughton. One of the other four people living in that townhouse was killed in the explosion. Supposedly, Ayers and Dohrn weren’t living there at the time, though bombing was something they wanted to do. Robbins was the oddball among the Weathermen in that he did not come from a professional-managerial family or from money.

52. Neo gives the taxonomy of the Left but not the root issue. Here’s my stab at it:

    All authority is religious.

    It’s easy for people who aren’t religious themselves to miss that, but when you are religious, it’s the first thing you see about the Left. Politics is their religion. It’s a fake religion, but people are built to have faith and worship something, and — the popular culture having denuded Christian belief of its moral authority — we are stuck with fake faith.

    Romans 13:1 “Let every soul be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and the authorities that exist are appointed by God.”

    The ancient kings and emperors understood that, as humans, their voices carried little weight. So, they claimed to be gods.

    When we get close to true authority, we get that numinous feeling that we’re getting closer to God. Why do judges wear robes? Why are public officials surrounded by flags? Every little trapping is an attempt to validate themselves to you. An old Tangier Island expression: “…and that’s the word with the wool on it.” In every church, there was a Bible, front and center, and it was covered with purple felt.

    Christians, however, understand that worldly authority is of God, but is not God. Leftists don’t. They don’t need God; they have Marx. Marx’s philosophy provided everything a religion needs to instill that numinous feeling. Particularly their eschatology. It goes a step further than Biblical eschatology, in that in the Bible, God does everything. But in Marx, people must accomplish a great deal for the greater day to arrive. This gives a sense of purpose to the Left.

    So, when you’re speaking to a Marxist true believer, you can’t argue him out of his belief system. Life without a purpose? Never. Accept Christ? Never. Usher in the greater day and imprison your recidivist and revisionist brothers? That’s more like it.

    (Cross-posted at Instapundit)

53. Reformed Trombonist, you emphasize a good point, that has been made before, that leftists use their politics as a substitute for religion. However, you seem to equate loss of religion to just the Judeo-Christian realm. I would go further and say they (leftists) reject the notion that there is more to life/universe/etc than just what they experience here in their brief time on earth. If one believes that THIS is all there is, then it’s easy to imagine that one is on par with a god (small “g”) and that one’s mission is to create heaven on earth. Hence, their drive for utopia.

54. What a brilliant analysis. I love this kind of writing, when someone has thought about something so well for so long that they can distill the answer to a difficult question into a clear, easy-to-read gem like this.

    I do think the day of reckoning has come. I don’t believe the country is lost, yet, but it sure seems like we’re now really in a fight to keep it.

55. Because they’re assholes.

56. Whoa! I just discovered this thread I sparked. Thanks, Neo, for your thoughtful commentary. I don’t have the time right now to contemplate the extensive responses and will do so later. And to answer the question at the end of my original post: The Shadow Knows!

57. physicsguy, I appreciate your comment. I simply think Christian belief is the most significant religion as a true believer myself, plus also more significant when assessing historical Western culture. The past is father of the present.

    Judaism, furthermore, played an important role in the various ancient empires, including Rome. And there would be no Christianity were it not for Judaism. I figure Judaism sees Christianity as heresy, whereas we see Judaism as incomplete.

    I agree about leftists as well, but I do note they save their worst rhetoric for Judaism and Christianity. I have a former colleague who is an atheist, and he says a lot of atheists claim to be Satanists for no better reason than it’s a jab at Christianity.

    It’s a comment that gets attributed to GK Chesterton, but whether GK said it or not, I think it sums up the situation, something to this effect: “When someone says he does not believe in God, he does not therefore believe in nothing, but rather he will believe in anything.” Probably more accurate to say his children and children’s children will believe in anything (the scriptures usually take the long view of things).

    But like I said, we are built to worship, and we will find something to worship, whether it’s honorable or not. I’m a Steeler fan, and I do think Steeler fandom approaches worship. It’s probably not the only sports team about which this is true. But others worship music (for a time in my life, I did), Others worship their own “team” in politics, and anyone who stands in their way is the devil. That might explain most of the over-the-top vitriol Trump received, and still does.

58. Excellent work Neo!…this kind of ‘market segmentation’ is very important, it is more likely to yield useful insights than is lumping all ‘liberals’ or ‘progressives’ together and assuming common motivation.

    One very important motivation, I think, is the search for meaning and affiliation. You touched on it in your posts about Circle Dancing. Sebastian Haffner, in his memoir of growing up in Germany between the wars, spoke of “A generation of young Germans (who) had become accustomed to having the entire content of their lives delivered gratis, so to speak, by the public sphere, all the raw material for their deeper emotions…They had never learned how to live from within themselves, how to make an ordinary private life great, beautiful and worth while, how to enjoy it and make it interesting.”

59. Does neo’s schema map to Dostoyevsky’s Grand Inquisitor portrait of the world? It’s been a longtime back since I read that, hence I no longer trust my recollections of the details.

    On another view, I post here a link to a lecture titled “Against Ideology” given at Villanova University by Prof. Mark Shiffman in Oct. 2020: https://youtu.be/fwJdD60AjIE

60. There is a fundamental difference between the left and right as constituted in the US, that extends beyond the categories laid out. Category 3, that which perceives a benefit from power, could be subdivided into those who will greedily vote for benefits, and those who will happily commit crimes for them.

    Put another way, the left has the advantage of knowing that while the right is full of those comfortable with power sharing if necessary, their own side has a substantial cadre of those who will commit crimes before sharing power. Knowing they can unleash criminal mayhem on their opponents gives the left an advantage undreamt of on the right.

61. sdferr…I excerpted the Grand Inquisitor passage here:

    https://chicagoboyz.net/archives/41494.html

62. In democracies bases find leaders and the process doesn’t work the other way around until the totalitarians are firmly in charge. Since that hasn’t happened (yet) … — M. Guest

    But this ignores the whole point of Gramsci’s work (Buttigieg’s father was an acolyte IIRC) as well as Obama guys like Cass Sunstein (Gramsci 2.0).
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cass_Sunstein#Career

    They change society so that social pressures “nudge” average people in the direction they want. We could argue the extent to which inevitable human progress or Gramscian influence has changed our society. But I’d argue it is more than a little of the latter.

    How certain are we that we can change our political institutions in the direction we wish through democratic elections? Art Deco makes a good point that the GOP has done precious little to institute genuine reform when they had the chance. Assuming that it was even possible, which maybe it wasn’t.

    I think even the old Soviet Union held elections (correct me if I’m wrong). Hope and the pretense of control must of held some influence.
    ______

    The point about the healthcare industry is interesting. It reminds me of the home nursing business and how that was unionized a decade or more ago. Even freelance home nurses or aids were forced to join unions. Unions means dues, and dues mean political contributions, and the Dems collect nearly all of that.
    ______

    On September 9, 2009, the Senate voted for cloture on Sunstein’s nomination as Administrator of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, Office of Management and Budget. The motion passed in a 63–35 vote. The Senate confirmed Sunstein on September 10, 2009, in a 57–40 vote.

    The Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, OMB?? I didn’t even know that existed then.

63. oh yes it does, and his significant other is samantha powers, the mistress of famine, godmother of benghazi, axelrod is another lefty, back in a different era the conservatives, understood that the left are like the terminator, they cannot be reasoned with, they have weaponized the Courts, the media, the medical establishment, they seek to destroy or corrupt anything that stands in it’s way the Family, the Church, Law enforcement, even at the most local level, that fool arredondo, who gave money to a scorpion, like o’rourke, is symptomatic, a state like Texas that respects families, honors the Church, and law enforcement is just ground zero, once upon a time, California, was the home of the Gipper, now it’s a neurotic, drought ridden, electricity deficient hellscape, as the hydra heads of gascon and boudin, have made it this way, like a contagion, I don’t know who I despise more, gascon one of my people, a former army and deputy chief, or boudin, the son of Marxist terrorists like the late Cathy Boudin, tyoical of recent events, their reparations panel, has banned reporting on school shooting threats, why you might ask because the majority come from blacks and latinos, so equity even if the price is the blood of innocents, well specially that

    they want a million chicagos, to paraphrase che, and they are so close to doing this, erasing our history, our culture, and electing another, paraphrasing bertold Brecht, was it a coincidence that CIA chief brennan, started political life, voting for the communists, although now he is a catspaw for the Islamists, like much of our political establishment, he profited by the disgrace of Petraeus, whose foolishness has not abated, just in different ways

64. Hi Neo- I guess what I was trying to get to (June 3, 10:16 pm) about leftist ruthlessness is that most voters who make up the Democrat middle class service economy “base” (civil servants, teachers, unionized nurses, social workers, etc.) make livings based on services that are mandated and compensated according to politically and administratively formulated Rules, not sales. Rules are an expression of social authority while “sales” (which leftists despise) involve value for value reciprocity on a two way street. Politicians produced by the Democrat base naturally think in terms of Rules and ruthlessness is natural in the ensuing race to the bottom. Politics follows from culture. Without going into individual personality types maybe social psychology on a group level explains the phenomenon of leftist ruthlessness. Maybe it’s not that people individually fall into categories 1(a)(b), 2 or 3, but that in a group ruthlessness is a consequence of value and status being premised on rules and the meaning of reciprocity is conformity.

65. the truth is, as orwell has o’brien say to winston smith, ‘power is an end in itself’ when the latter asks him why he is being tortured, it’s what stalin would have admitted if he was frank, hence he took out the Social Democrats, because he thought the Nazis would be a lesser foe, used an abwehr report, that Soviet officers were plotting against him, to purge the military, regardless of the final const, the pact with Ribbentrop that allowed him to dismember Poland, his agents in the west like richard sorge and harry dexter white, pushed the us to confrontation with Imperial Japan,their long time rival going back 40 years, subsequently he didn’t accept the rote kapelle and other spyrings, warning that the Germans were going to invade, because that was part of the bigger picture,

66. so lindsey graham. who goes along with any number of injuries to the body politic, that the left demands, like signing on to biden’s bill of horribles, ‘what is he good for’ to paraphrase another lyric, approving a secretary of defense, who wages war on his own soldiers, a procurator who does much the same,

67. you can swap romney, collins murkowski for graham, it doesn’t matter, honestly they are fracking worthless, in any real sense, because personnel is policy, hence we have afghan debacle, the supply chain collapse, the extinction of much aviation in this country, soon almost all transport of food and other supplies,

68. david foster:

    Yes, for many people that’s part of being allied with the Good and is a potent motivator.

69. sports fanaticism, as with many other flavors, could properly be called idolatry, which could be a violation of that commandment, politics becomes similarly oriented, as one strives to bring about ‘heaven on earth’ so whats wrong with tolerance, clean energy, any of the other empty catch phrases, nothing except what other parties employ the phrase for. so the traditional family, is imperfect by the standards of the new orthodoxy, it must be destroyed or replaced, everything that has worked for 5,000 years is at fault and we must create a new man/woman, etc etc. no matter what the cost,

70. Reformed trombonist:

    There are plenty of people who subscribe to conventional religions and are also on the left, some of them even members of the clergy.

    Also, there are plenty of people who vote for leftists but are not themselves true believers – some are merely pragmatic and believe it will benefit them.

71. Wow. This post has exploded. I went through a lot of the comments (not all, however) and have a few thoughts.
    Neo: Your definition of gulag is good one as many on the right are already being exiled from “polite society.” I tend to use the term rather broadly. But some will get so out of line that more drastic measures are required. January 6 is a good example of this: we have ample experience with leftist rioters and lawbreakers being addressed very differently.
    Frederick: “I don’t disagree with neo on her characterization of the Left, but the same cast of characters is also found on the Right.” True. But I do not see evidence that there are sufficient numbers of either leaders or followers to effect a right-wing authoritarian takeover of our political institutions. It might be a risk, but a small one. Once the threat from the Left is eliminated, I believe the vast majority right-leaning folks would be happy to go back to their trades, family and property. Note: I agree with Neos response to your comment, as well.
    Owen: “As for the need to Save the World: what could better appeal to one’s pride?” A little bit of humility would be nice, and a willingness to consider opposing opinions. This does not seem to exist among normal folks who vote for Democrats. One of my good friends – a very successful business man with a wonderful family – simply would not engage in any polite political discussion with me because “I Hate Donald Trump!”
    Art Deco: “There’s been a secular decline in the capacity of Democrats to conceive of themselves as participants in a competitive political order. As the Republican Party grew more competitive at all levels, they reacted with rage, as if something they owned was being taken away from them.” I agree with your first sentence, but not the second. I see the Republican Party leadership as timid, maybe even scared. They explain their positions within the context established by the Left. Yes, there are many on the Right who are angry, but I see those reacting with rage to be a fairly small subset. As I replied to Frederick, once our constitutional liberty is restored, the majority will go back to living their lives.
    Michael Towns: I fear you are right. If so, there will be no future renovation project. But I do hold out some hope.
    BigD: I have been there! It was truly awful.
    SCOTTtheBadger: “Lamont Cranston and beautiful Margo Lane know what evil lurks in the hearts of Man. I think that they underestimated just how much was out there.” Thanks for the answer!
    Eva Marie: I think there is a lot of truth in what you say. They are neither pushing back hard enough, nor explaining things as clearly as necessary.

72. Neo:

    > There are plenty of people who subscribe to conventional religions and are also on the left, some of them even members of the clergy.

    I am aware of that, certainly. But don’t think for a second that the Church survived the Left’s march through the institutions unscathed. It has been a long time since even seminaries and theologians began to question the inerrancy of scripture.

    If you’re going to represent God here on Earth and you question the scriptures, what’s the point?

    O’Sullivan’s Law: “All organizations that are not actually right-wing will over time become left-wing.” I read an article in National Review about thirty years ago, plus or minus, in which the author was writing about having attended an Episcopal seminary. He was getting into a lot of arguments with the professors. Finally, one of the other students took him aside and told him, “I can tell you what the problem is. The problem is, you’re the only one here who believes the Bible.”

    There are many churches that are explicitly left-wing, politically and theologically, but they treat the actual message of Jesus Christ as a worldly thing. It is not, or at least not just that.

    Religion is upstream from philosophy, which is upstream from culture, which is upstream from politics. When the Church doubts its own mission, it takes a while, but eventually everyone else begins to doubt it, too.

    Your point about not all Leftists are true believers but think it will benefit them, I have no quarrel with — that seems pretty rock solid to me. But that’s pretty much philosophically and theologically beside the point. Every movement has fellow travelers who are just in it for themselves.

73. Luck? G-d not luck.

74. There are plenty of people who subscribe to conventional religions and are also on the left, some of them even members of the clergy.

    That was true 60 years ago. That’s no longer true today.

    You do have confused people who vote Democratic for a variety of reasons who are also conventional Christians. These people are on the very periphery of the Democratic electorate and mind space.

    A congregation will consist of some conventional Christians and a great many people who are formal heretics who subscribe to a mass of fuzzy notions. Other people do not subscribe to froth but have some serious problems with the orthodox conception which they keep to themselves. The degree and type of pathology will depend on the denomination.

    Conventional Christians with some baseline of civic understanding do not vote Democratic for supralocal offices, because they recognize the Democratic Party is now an enemy of the moral teachings of the Christian congregations.

    Note, the Church and the protestant congregations are deeply diseased in our time. AFAICT, the least troubled are the Eastern churches and the rigorist oldline bodies like LCMS. Most clergymen are clowns.

75. I guess I’m harsher in my assessment. I think much of the Left truly despises the US and Judeo-Christian belief and they enjoy this deep disdain. It drives their compulsion to shatter all norms. And a large swathe of our population shares it. Mainly the higher educated. Perhaps it derives from disdain for the poor and uneducated.

    I grew up in a family who held these beliefs. They still do.

    They do not love our country. I do not think they realize this.

76. T-Rex: I think you completely misunderstood Art Deco’s comment about rage.

    He wasn’t saying the Right reacted with rage, he’s saying when the Right gained a bit the *left* reacted with rage (as if governing were their right.)

77. Art Deco: I appreciate the assist, thanks. You were clearer than I was, I think.

    There are still a fair number of church goers. But since the ’60s, we have witnessed a massive migration away from the traditional denominations. In some case, a splinter group left a main group — e.g., both Orthodox Presbyterian and Presbyterian Church in America broke off from the mainstream Presbyterian Church USA. To sum up their differences and without specifying, they simply thought the mainstream church had gotten too liberal to be serious about their theology.

    (As an aside, as a member of a Presbyterian Church in America, our theology is now under attack by younger pastors in the denomination over, you guessed it, Critical Race Theory. We are all supposed to apologize abjectly for injustices like slavery that were abolished a hundred years before we were born, and practices we never took part in. By being crucified, Jesus was able to propitiate the sins of many, but our sins weren’t His, they belong to us. There is no biblical principle requiring me to atone for sins I didn’t commit. Liberalism, like rust, never sleeps.)

    Others left the mainstream denominations for trendy, soft-rock churches. Some fled to churches with a harder theology, like Baptist or Seventh Day Adventists. And some arrived at the doors of churches that most denominations see as heretical. (What is heresy, you ask? Heretical churches deny the Trinity in some fashion. The Mormons are the most interesting of these, and their theology is indeed quite hard in places. But, simply, they deny the Trinity. They protest when we call them heretical, but the funny thing about that is they consider Trinitarian churches to be heretical. The distance between A and B is the same as the distance between B and A. They’re allowed to notice; we are not.)

    The Left is out to destroy every institution, yes, even the Lord’s church. It always starts by softly, gently, robbing the scriptures of their inerrancy and authenticity.

    But I don’t expect non-Christians to understand the importance of this. He told His disciples that He spoke in parables so that not everybody would understand. Paul said that the “Greeks” (philosophers) would see Christian belief as foolishness and the “Jews” (Pharisees, Sadducees, and priests) would see it as heresy.

    All we would ask of the Left is to leave us alone to worship as we see fit. But the Left won’t leave anyone alone. The Left is a jealous god. You will be assimilated.

HTML tags allowed in your comment: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <s> <strike> <strong>