Putting the Genie Back in the Bottle

There has been an interesting development over the past year. It appears as if the Establishment has been turning against antifa, BLM, and the crazed cat ladies. The Right has long noted just how easily many antifa members were getting off from criminal prosecution, especially when compared to Dissident Right activists, and it appeared that it was due to their wealthy backgrounds. However, recently there has been an uptick in antifa rioters not just being arrested, but also surprisingly convicted. It also came to light how much of a grifter both Shaun King and one of the founders of BLM, Patrisse Khan-Cullors, really are, seriously damaging their credibility. There has been a similar movement on the cat lady front. A year ago, I even heard left-of-center people mention just how rapidly the culture has radically changed, with people getting fired for saying things no one would have batted an eye at ten years earlier. Now, there is growing pushback against cancel culture. It actually does appear, at least to some degree, that after years of claiming that antifa was “just an idea,” or that my WWII veteran grandfather was antifa, or giving companies complete power to fire someone for WrongThink, that the Establishment really has had enough of their shock troops.

The question is – why the sudden change from the Establishment? I have come up with three possible scenarios as to why we have seen this push. I suspect that the truth is somewhat of a combination of each of these three.

Scenario 1: They Fear the Gulag

There is an old Jewish legend called The Golem of Prague, often referred to as just The Golem. In the story, a rabbi created a golem out of clay to protect Jews from mob violence, but eventually the monster goes on a murderous rampage. The moral of the story is clear – a Jewish fear that they will create something to punish the antisemites that will eventually turn on them. One reason why I appreciate the story so much is that it allows us to understand the Jewish hand in leftwing movements, while not portraying Jews as the puppet masters of everything we dislike. More to the point, it allows us to understand why, if Jews are behind communism and other leftwing ideologies, it is that these movements end up targeting Jews, too.

Stalin is a very good example of this phenomenon. Yes, it is true that as a communist he took on a Jewish ideology. But, he was also a Georgian peasant and, as such, was raised with stories of Jews getting his fellow peasants drunk and then tricking them to sign their life away in a usurious loan. In the mind of Stalin, the Jews were capitalist devils and, when in power, he acted accordingly

Such is the case also with the antifa and BLM movement. They are true believers. They look at Jews, who own a disproportional amount of wealth and are thus “privileged,” using the same metric that the Left applies to Whites. And, they largely consider capitalists as obstacles toward the liberation of the working-class (more specifically, the non-White working-class). BLM activists do one better than this, as not even poor Jews are exempt. They look at Jews and see “White” oppressors. The Establishment, heavily Jewish, observes this and realizes that they have to stop the Fringe Left before they gain any serious power. Their Jewishness will not save them, they will just be another “capitalist pig” in the eyes of the leftwing radicals. Their Jewishness will not save them, they will just be another Whitey.

Of course, they were willing to tolerate both antifa and BLM to get revenge on Middle America for electing Trump, but now they fear that is all about to blow up in their faces. Remember, to antifa, BLM, the cat ladies, all of them, Israel is an apartheid state on the level of evil (as they see it) as Nazi Germany, Apartheid South Africa, and the old Confederacy. As for the cat ladies that live to make people unemployable go? Well, they know that the Establishment all have said something in the past that would be, or soon will be, a career ender and they want to stop it now. They are no longer interested in getting revenge on Middle America, especially now that Trump is gone, they are out to save their own necks. 

Scenario 2: Heritage America is Broken

In this scenario, the reason why they are reigning in their troops is because they now think Heritage America is totally broken and antifa/BLM are no longer needed. This scenario is frightening because it means what happened in the summer of 2020 worked, Heritage America has no more will to defend itself. Interestingly, the last state flag to incorporate the Confederate Battle Flag was removed in 2020. And now we have reached the point where New York City can remove a statue of Thomas Jefferson and it hardly causes any outcry. The point of letting antifa and BLM run wild was to teach Heritage America a very valuable lesson – we run things and don’t challenge that rule, or we will unleash rioters to destroy your city, home, businesses, etc. And, if you do fight back, you will pay dearly. Not only will they be allowed to assault you, Mr. and Mrs. Middle America, it may actually be you that gets arrested and convicted.   

Antifa, BLM, and the rest are hardcore ideologues. And while true believers have their place in a revolutionary movement, especially in its early days, they aren’t effective at running things. They are too idealistic and even the most radically revolutionary government needs to practice realpolitik once in power. There is a reason why Stalin’s “Socialism in One Country” won out over Trotsky’s immediate worldwide revolution, even as Trotsky was closer to orthodox Marxism. In the 1920s and 1930s, the Soviet Union was far too weak to launch an open war on the rest of the world in hopes of spurring a worldwide revolution. Doing so would have meant the end of the Soviet Union, and someone like Stalin knew that. But to Trotsky, his wishes were overridden by practical judgment. Something similar can be seen with the 2020 riots.

They are true believers and while that makes them good shock troops, it also means that they can’t be trusted to run anything. But they still want to, so they have to be eliminated to stop them from getting too full of themselves and turning their revolutionary rage on the new government. Hannah Arendt was right when she noted that the most radical revolutionary becomes a conservative the day after the revolution. Those in charge want to rule and don’t need any dogmatic militants to compete with, especially when their idealism makes them useless in management. What separates this scenario from the first one is that in the first scenario the Establishment fears what antifa and BLM might do. In this scenario, they are being eliminated more as a precaution to make ruling easier in post-Heritage America. 

Scenario 3: Heritage America is About to Rise

This scenario is the flipside to the first one. Rather than fearing what antifa and BLM may do, if they ever get real power, the Establishment now fears Heritage America and are suppressing their troops in hopes of appeasing Heritage America just enough for the elites to get some heat off themselves. From the late 1960s onward, there were people who were actively warning Heritage America about what was happening to them and the dangers that they faced. Occasionally, during especially turbulent times, some of these men would rise and achieve mainstream popularity. George Wallace fits here, as does Pat Buchanan and Ron Paul. And each time the Establishment was able to keep them out of power. But when Trump rose up, they were unable to do this, likely because they didn’t take Trump seriously until it was too late to stop him. In their frustration to stop Trump, they let the mask slip and Heritage America found out just how badly they were hated. They discovered that they were ruled by people who want them hooked on opioids, if not dead, and their children and grandchildren on hormone replacement therapy.

Ultimately, the Establishment got lucky with Trump because, for all what he did to wake normies up, he didn’t do much in terms of policy, thanks in no small part to his ignorance and vanity. Now with normies waking up, there is a chance that someone new can rise up, someone less vain and with a deeper knowledge of statecraft and with strong allies (relying on GOP hacks will be seen by future historians as Trump’s greatest downfall). Additionally, with Heritage America realizing what they are up against, there will be no closing ranks and pulling the wool over their eyes, as there was with Wallace, Buchanan, and Paul. In 1996, Pat Buchanan was far more popular with Evangelicals than most realize. Observing this, the Christian Coalition stabbed him in the back and went hard for Bob Dole. Buchanan suffered a defeat in South Carolina that would forever cripple his campaign. In 2016, the same stunt was tried, but this time the rank and file refused to budge. And South Carolina, the same state that ended Buchanan in 1996, gave Trump an iron grip on the nomination 20 years later.

The Establishment was able to successfully use Trump’s weaknesses against him. The next time, they know that normies won’t fall for a Dole, Bush, McCain, or Romney again and they might rally behind someone far more disciplined than Trump. Going after their own troops then becomes a last-ditch effort to put the normies back to sleep. They think they dodged a bullet with Trump, but they aren’t sure they can do so again.

As I stated before, I am unsure which of the three scenarios is closest to the truth. I suspect there are some elements of all three. No matter where the truth lies, we need to prepare. If Scenario 1 is true, then we face the very serious possibility that we will be up against a Spanish Republic level threat in the near future. If Scenario 2 is true, then we need to accept that the elites now think they can do whatever they want. If Scenario 3 is true, then it won’t be much longer before the gloves really come off when they realize that they aren’t sending the Right back to Bush Era complacency. And that is why I cannot see the recent reigning in of antifa and BLM as a complete victory. Even if they are going to, in the hopes of defusing the situation, it will not be too much longer until they realize that it did not work. If it is because antifa is about to take formal power or Heritage America is not fully broken forever, then we need to prepare to live, perhaps for several generations, with a target on our backs. If we are winning, then they are about to pull out all the stops to keep that from happening.

All of these scenarios mean troubled roads ahead.