When There’s Nothing Left to Say

It has been a while since I’ve approached the blank page. Not for a lack of things to say, a cautionary word, or a bit of rediscovered wisdom to pass along from a historical analog. Quite the opposite. 

In context of our shared concerns and the disorienting and perilous moment in history, there’s a great deal that can be said. The problem is, there really is nothing left to say. 

Like preparing for a storm that’s grinding toward landfall but still days away, once prepared, you simply wait for the impact. 

There’s little, if anything, that will meaningfully contribute to the edification of an already well-versed and hyper-informed group regarding the nature and the number of the problems facing us. The storm will either break on our heads and we’re prepared, or it will divert away, and we’ll be as we are at this very moment. 

Here’s the concern, and it’s a real one. 

I’m old enough to remember things and there are concerning signs within Southern Nationalism and dissident groups but also in the more mainstream Right-leaning activists and outlets in general. These signs increasingly and eerily resemble the tenor, fixation and near fetishization of the issues that were happening among the myriad of now defunct anti-communist groups and the ever-splintering and too narrowly defined special interest factions that existed into the 1990s. 

Most collapsed into obscurity or irrelevance once their opposition weakened, re-branded, or were defeated. For all their witty and penetrating critique and commentary, in the end, they were pointing toward nothing and had no answer for what to do (God forbid) they actually won. Rather than building toward a vision of permanence and doing the hard work of how to reconstruct the family, communities, and a people, they existed for the drama, the fleeting attention, and, in many cases, simply a paycheck. They wasted an opportunity. 

We cannot let this happen.

Mesmerized by the Abyss

Most of us, myself included, pride ourselves on being informed and plugged into the various dissident and alternative sources of domestic and global news. We aggregate, discuss, and even contribute to the great debate. It consumes a significant amount of our mental bandwidth and time. We convince ourselves that it is our duty and our contribution to the important work and resistance in service to The Cause. 

And what has become the driving occasion for dissident communities to even come together? To share and comment on the latest outrage, the newest twist in the plot, offer our two cents on whether the newest character introduced into the narrative is a villain or ally. It is addicting. 

It is easy for this to become entertainment and a self indulgent hobby at the expense of the hard work needing to be done we pretend to not see.  

If it weren’t for the perpetual crisis, I suspect a great many would slip into mourning, struggling with profound boredom now that the entertainment has ended. 

Others would have an identity crisis because they’ve existed for too long only as man-in-opposition-to-the-enemy, an enemy it turns out he desperately needs to exist so that he has purpose. 

The danger is analogous to the husband and wife who for decades excessively focus on the children but neglected each other. One morning after the last child has left the nest, they stare across the breakfast table in an empty and quiet house and realize they have little to say because they no longer know each other.  

I’m close to many in leadership in the pro-life movement and since the overturning of Roe, while their need has never been more critical, as individuals, you might be surprised how many are struggling with what to do with themselves. 

We tell ourselves we’re afraid that The Enemy will unleash their legions onto the streets and into our neighborhoods to confiscate our weapons and commandeer our chickens, maybe force the Mark of the Beast upon us! But I suspect it is closer to the truth to say that we fear it won’t happen. If it doesn’t, we have no reason to be going through all this effort, indulging in all the discussion, all the prepping, all the avoidance of other things (the real people in our lives) that need our attention.  

Yes, we live in a deranged age. But too much of our collective energy to chronicle and monitor the spectacle is, in fact, a great distraction, a very near and real occasion of sin. 

We know more about subtle and nuanced political movements, about the figures and the minutiae of events in distant lands and even events 80 years ago than we do about ourselves and the very people we supposedly love and are fighting for. 

Dear reader and fellow contributors, it is important to pay attention and offer insight, but if we are not also daily building the real structures, friendships, communities, networks and institutions that must be in place for our future, it is all for naught. There is little left to say, action alone will save us.

Vanity of vanities, says the Preacher, vanity of vanities! All is vanity.
What does man gain by all the toil at which he toils under the sun?
A generation goes, and a generation comes, but the earth remains forever…
What has been is what will be, and what has been done is what will be done;
and there is nothing new under the sun.