The GOP Should Become the 'Party of States' Rights'
A more consistent right-wing ideology to appeal to a larger minority of 'elite human capital'.
The Republican Party needs to stop being the ‘stupid party’.
As I’ve said on numerous occasions, echoing Nathan Cofnas and Scott Greer, whilst the Right is unlikely to ever persuade the MAJORITY of ‘elite human capital’ towards their worldview whilst the incentives remain towards Wokeism, it needs to persuade MORE to be able to staff institutions competently, and to stop the drift towards kooky conspiratorialism.
The persuadable elements of the ‘above average IQ’ need to be given convincing arguments and an exciting, comprehensive political vision. We need to have answers to problems and how we would solve them.
This article will explain the reasons for why I think States Rights should be THE core principle of the GOP, and what kind of a platform it should advocate on the state and federal levels.
Constitutional Ambiguities and Interpretation
Originalism is one of the most important principles of American conservatism; it is what makes conservatives the true champions of the ‘Rule of Law’.
But Originalism has not been consistently applied. Whilst conservatives may rightfully say that Roe vs Wade was an abuse of the power of judicial review and violation of the 10th Amendment, they focus less on the fact that the 10th Amendment renders the vast majority of the current federal government illegal, the latter of which most of them accept.
Richard Hanania, as an avid pro-choicer, therefore objects to the 10th Amendment argument for abortion because of the inconsistency and hypocrisy that most conservatives use with this line of reasoning. People like Ron Paul, who really do want to dismantle the federal managerial state, are the exception and not the rule.
However, there is very little justification for the ‘Living Constitution’ either. Even Elena Kagan said ‘we are all Originalists now’, recognising the blatant politicism of liberal jurisprudence is bad optics. Likewise, Ruth Bader Ginsburg realised that Roe vs Wade was built on extremely shaky ground, even if she agreed with the outcome of the decision.
Liberals know how difficult it is to justify the power of the Supreme Court to make up the law like the Warren Court did, so can only point to its ‘good effects’, i.e., outcomes they agree with.
Of course, the constitution is not a sacred document, and such a notion is quite silly. It was a ‘messy compromise’ between numerous different ideologies and interests; slave states and free states, Federalists and anti-Federalists. The contradictory clauses represent the fact that there was no ‘View of the Founding Fathers’, but that the Founding Fathers had many different views and needed to reach a compromise. The best thing about the American founders is that they realised they weren’t perfect, and so created the procedure of the constitutional amendment, the first of its kind in the world.
However, the American constitution was never ratified with the understanding that the federal government would become so large and with so much responsibility, though Alexander Hamilton might have wished it. The system of checks and balances is built towards gridlock when dealing with a vast continental Empire and administrative state, which renders it extremely vulnerable to capture by special interests, for instance, the ease by which pharmaceutical lobbies can bribe just a few Senators to obstruct the lowering of drug prices.
The federal constitution is a part of the American civic identity, so replacing it with a more efficient political system at the federal level is out of the question.
But one’s respect for the US constitution grows when you remember that the United States was founded as a ‘Union of States’, where the vast majority of matters were intended to be managed at the state-level, effectively a far more democratic and efficient version of the European Union.
The 10th Amendment is explicitly designed to stop the unaccountable transfer of power away from the states towards the federal government. The path to a more functional political system in the US is to decentralise as much to the state level as possible. Allow California to decide what’s best for California and Florida to decide what’s best for Florida.
State constitutions are also far less ‘sacred’, and far easier to amend, replace, and institute far-reaching policies through. The size of the federal government, its tax burden and regulation, reduces the possibility for policymaking on the state level in accordance with that state’s preferences.
A major flaw with the constitution, something Alexander Hamilton was in large part responsible for, was that it allowed an unchecked growth of the federal government through the expansive jurisdiction of Supreme Court. The worst offenders are those subscribing to the ‘Living Constitution’, like the court of Earl Warren, that relentlessly abused vague clauses in the constitution to expand federal government power and impose their own ideological preferences.
If liberal jurisprudence represents arbitrary judicial tyranny, conservative ‘Originalism’ allows the constitution’s guards on the growth of federal power to work as intended, though the constitution remains a highly imperfect document for allowing such corrupt judicial activism to happen in the first place through the design, appointment procedure, and operation of the Supreme Court.
Abortion and 10th Amendment
Roe vs Wade was an egregious abuse of judicial review, using vague wording in the constitution to completely make up new ‘rights’.
All of this is blatantly contradicted by one of the most clear and unambiguous parts of the constitution, the 10th Amendment, saying that: ‘The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.’
The court has usurped state authority in the name of ‘rights’, using the 9th and 14th Amendment’s ‘due process’ as justifications. Willmoore Kendall floated the idea of repealing the 14th Amendment (1), though he admitted it was extremely unlikely. However, this may not have done much good, as all the ‘substantive due process’ cases could just as easily be justified by the 9th.
The anti-abortion movement completely abandoned its States Rights principles after Dobbs. From championing States Rights, they immediately went to arguing for a federal abortion ban in Congress, something which made the movement deservedly lose public trust. A piece of congressional legislation is more legitimate than court imposition on the basis of made up ‘rights’, but still betrays the 10th Amendment.
Also, as Richard Hanania says, where was this concern about the 10th Amendment on numerous other intrusions on the power of the states? It immediately gives away the real motivation, an obsession with abortion, rather than any principled commitment to States Rights.
There is no base for pro-life politics in America today, particularly not amongst educated youth. But some of the few conservative states that do support abortion bans can only be protected if the GOP shifts to a principled position on States Rights.
To see what that would look like, look at the political positions of Ron Paul in regards to the federal government. He is a hardcore Originalist who famously didn’t vote for anything not explicitly authorised by the constitution.
A way that this argument could be made more appealing is if it is divorced from political views on the state level.
For instance, GOP conservatives should have no problem at all with Medicare for All on the state-level, if that is what the people in that state want and are willing to pay for. They should make the case that such a system would be far easier to achieve on the state level due to ballot initiatives and referendums and the ease of constitutional amendment.
It is the large size of the federal government, that erodes the fiscal autonomy of the states, that stops ‘the state-road to single payer’ from happening.
If economic leftists want to get people of a state to pay higher taxes in exchange for Medicare for All, it would be a lot easier to argue for it if federal taxes were substantially lower, and Medicare as a programme was entirely a state matter.
Court rulings and philosophies that do not respect an Originalist interpretation of the constitution from a ‘conservative’ angle should also be denounced. This would include Lochner vs New York, DC vs Heller, and the entirety of 'Common Good Constitutionalism’.
Rights-Fundamentalism
A major barrier to this view is the ‘rights-fundamentalism’ that defines American politics in the modern age, both on the left and right. Neither the American left or right recognise the fact that rights are determined by societal consensus, and always involve trade-offs, dependent also on obligation and duty.
Each side thinks that their interpretation of ‘rights’ are ‘not up for debate’. This is demonstrated most notably on the left, but also on the right when it comes to topics like guns and abortion, and is a key contributing factor in American political polarisation.
Such a focus on ‘rights’ was not always so prominent, particularly on the right. The early conservative movement saw America as an outgrowth of a wider Anglo-Saxon civilisation, with Willmoore Kendall and Russell Kirk having a sophisticated understanding of history, culture, and the danger of abstract principles when writing in the 1940s and 1950s.
But these days, the entire conservative movement, not just RINO’s and Neocons but also MAGA and large segments of the ‘Third New Right’, is built around a Harry V. Jaffa view of American history, taking the ‘natural rights’ emphasis of Leo Strauss into a far more dogmatic and uncompromising view of the Declaration of Independence and ‘all men are created equal’. Indeed, the Claremont Institute, the ‘nerve centre’ of the Third New Right in America, was explicitly created by students of Jaffa.
As I mentioned in previous articles, the 1776 Commission, whilst judged as a ‘far-right’ project by the mainstream press, actually presents an essentially leftist view of American history. It completely takes out nuance and historical context to present this fanatical, teleological narrative of ‘natural rights’.
It should be clear that the abolitionists were the ancestors of the same smug Woke elites who believe ‘LGBT rights are not up for debate’. The whole doctrine of ‘no debate’ is based on this fundamentalist view of natural rights.
I would say, if I could choose one philosophical construct that has caused virtually all of the ills of our modern age, it is the doctrine of ‘natural rights’.
Whilst the Claremont Institute might be correct in terms of policy, their view of American history is deeply flawed and counterproductive, and therefore must be fundamentally rejected in terms of the construction of a new political order. And, going back to points that Nathan Cofnas and Walt Bismarck have made, those of above-average intelligence can overwhelmingly see through it, hence why they are more inclined towards Wokeism.
The Harry V. Jaffa triumphalism that the Claremont Institute and the ‘1776 Commission’ promotes is so nakedly and obviously just cheap propaganda to the vast majority of educated people. Critical Race Theory, whilst anti-White at its core, does appear on the surface to be interested in exploring historical context and power dynamics, and therefore presenting a vastly more sophisticated historical narrative, when compared to its alternative, the Straussian/Jaffa-ite self-congratulation of America that tolerates no nuance.
Getting the Right to abandon this focus on ‘natural rights’ will not be an easy task. It is so deeply embedded in its rhetoric that it seems unimaginable that there was once a time when right-wing Americans didn’t subscribe to it.
But in fact, it is a post-1960s construction, which really emerged in its current form with the rhetoric of Reagan.
Whilst the Postliberals will say that liberalism was plagued by the ‘Social Contract Theory’ from its inception, one must remember that the notion of social contract was revived in the 1970s by John Rawls, on the back of the Civil Rights Movement. All throughout the 19th century and in the first half of the 20th, liberals did not subscribe to it, instead subscribing to Utilitarianism, with Jeremy Bentham having a much more historic view about rights, stating correctly that they were entirely society-dependent and the concept of ‘natural rights’ was ‘nonsense on stilts’.
But, why was this abandoned? Why did the right feel inclined to go all in with their ‘natural rights fundamentalism’ to echo the left?
It’s time to address the elephant in the room.
State’s Rights and Race
The very term ‘States Rights’ is slandered as a dog whistle for racism, due to the fact that it was employed by southern segregationists. This has meant that court overreach can’t be criticised on its own terms, it has to be on a case by case basis, based on the issue, like specifically on the issue of Roe and abortion. Nobody in the Federalist Society today questions Brown vs Board (1954) or Loving vs Virginia (1967), even though they were the start of so many instances of judicial tyranny.
The mythologisation around the Civil Rights Movement is the core barrier to right-wing politics being intellectually coherent in a way that may attract those of above-average IQ. If you accept that movement was completely heroic, and take Martin Luther King’s words as gospel, the only logical conclusion is Wokeness.
Does this mean that we have to deny that the treatment of African-Americans in the Jim Crow South was appalling? No.
Goldwater’s Principled Stance
There is one figure, who interestingly neither the left or right want to talk about much, who had an entirely principled and consistent view on the issue of Civil Rights: Barry Goldwater.
Goldwater represented a conservatism that was intellectually robust, a far cry from most conservatives today. As he got older he became disillusioned with the character of the conservative movement being for the superstitious and the stupid.
He was somebody who passionately believed in free association. He was a personal anti-racist (when that actually meant something honourable), being involved in the NAACP and spearheading the desegregation of the Senate cafeteria.
Lyndon Johnson is remembered as a champion of African-Americans and Goldwater a vicious racist. But, in terms of the men’s private attitudes, it was the complete opposite; LBJ saw blacks as ‘useful idiots’ he could bribe with government handouts for electoral reward and frequently used the ‘n word’, whereas Goldwater saw Blacks as human beings for whom the law should be consistently applied.
This isn’t to say the ‘Democrats are the real racists’, in terms of granting government handouts to minorities. On that issue the Democrats are clearly the winners, and the GOP should not try to outdo them on that issue, nor should they demonise White identity.
Goldwater voted for the Civil Rights Act of 1957, 1960, and the 24th Amendment. But he did not vote for the 1964 Civil Rights Act, something that casts him as a villain in the historical narrative. But his position was extremely principled. He reluctantly voted against it because, whilst the measures ending legal segregation in the South he fully supported, he recognised how much power Title II and Title VII gave the federal government.
He said he regretted that decision. However, when placed in the context of the 2020s, with Christopher Caldwell’s (2) and Richard Hanania’s (3) analysis, the position Goldwater took at that time was entirely the correct one.
I separate the true stance of Goldwater to the ones he was increasingly forced to take post-1980s as the ‘Civil Rights Consensus’ became increasingly stifling. But the truly catastrophic effects of Civil Rights Law, and 1964 Goldwater’s ultimate vindication, would not be fully understood until the 2010s.
But how do we square this championing of States Rights with opposition to legal segregation?
States Rights and Democracy
First off, the states that implemented Jim Crow laws were not democratic, they used a variety of illicit means to deny African-Americans the right to vote, something that was expressly required in the 15th Amendment (yes, all the Reconstruction Amendments were imposed by the victors of a war, but that’s an entirely separate discussion).
This lack of state-level democracy enhanced the legitimacy of both federal government and the judicial activism of the Warren Court, as by allowing southern states to completely ignore the 15th Amendment in cases like Giles v. Harris (1903), the Supreme Court of the first half of the 20th century had proven itself to also be activist.
But this is why the GOP should champion major democratic reform, including direct democracy initiatives, on the state level.
As mentioned, the state-level gives one vastly more room for experimentation and innovation than on the federal level. There is also the power of citizens initiative in the majority of states, which gives the people true sovereignty over the laws that govern them.
Walt Bismarck’s Reparations Proposal
I also have become increasingly interested in
’s ‘The Pro-White Case for Reparations’ as a ‘final absolution’ to the problem.I opposed it when I first read it. But the more I think about it, the more I think Walt’s proposal is a work of genius; a way that completely dismantling the Civil Rights Regime (aka, legal Wokeness) can be made politically palatable.
As Walt says, by endorsing reparations, you ‘buy credibility points’ to be able to go far to the right on racial issues in other measures, supporting HBD and repealing all Civil Rights Law after 1965 (and Title II and Title VII of 1964).
A reparation’s programme should be based on the original mistake of not providing ‘40 Acres and a Mule’ to freed slaves, with the amount being what ‘40 Acres and a Mule’ would be worth in today’s money.
If post-Civil War, African-Americans had been armed and given land, there would not have needed to have been the federal imposition of Civil Rights, because there would have been no mass disenfranchisement and Jim Crow, and things would have evolved on the state level on their own.
Reparations should be combined with a total dismantling of the federal civil rights, with the exception of continuing to ban any return of Jim Crow (which would never happen anyway). All affirmative action, disparate impact, ability to launch discrimination lawsuits, and all federal collection of data about race should end. Title II and Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act should be repealed, though the rest, dealing with ending legal segregation in the South, should stay.
One may still think that they’ve already got extensive reparations through civil rights law, and I agree with that. However the fact it is not a monetary sum, but hidden laws and hiring practices, means that what Whites have done to uplift Blacks is less visible to Whites, and they are able to keep being manipulated by Black cries of racism.
Blacks also rely on the leverage they have over the fact that they never got formal reparations, to keep the civil rights regime going, a point Bernie Sanders made on why he opposed it: it would justify the right not caring about things like Disparate Impact.
Of course, we should also point out the reparations they ‘already got’ through affirmative action and disparate impact, to teach Whites that they shouldn’t feel guilty as they have more than compensated Black America for slavery and Jim Crow, by giving them 60 years of favourable treatment PLUS reparations.
I think the reparation payment should be a lump sum rather than monthly/yearly payments, dependent on signing the ‘Declaration of Absolution and Reconciliation’. Such signing should be essential to the receiving of the payment, but constant re-signing may resemble a humiliation ritual, so it is better to just be a lump-sum, and then we can see how Blacks spend it.
It should be funded by a one-off tax on all Whites, a tax which genuinely hurts them, which would effectively serve as an ‘accelerationist’ means to alienate White liberals, particularly women, from being sympathetic to cries of racism. Because it would also include Italians, Germans, Irish, etcetera, who had nothing to do with slavery, the unfairness of White guilt would become apparent.
We should fully embrace HBD, the idea that there are differences between racial groups and certain average-level attributes like intelligence, though qualify that this is only a group average and does not believe we should discriminate against individuals. Unlike Martin Luther King, who merely pretended to believe this, as CRT activists have helpfully reminded us, we really should believe ‘not by the color of their skin but by the content of their character’.
But, to remove any level of doubt that HBD is a sufficient explanation for unequal group outcomes, let’s give each descendent of slaves (all who are more than one quarter African-American qualify, with level of reparations one quarter of what it would be if they were fully African-American) what they were promised post-Civil War, and remove any reason they would have to think unequal group outcomes are due to ‘systemic racism’.
Maybe HBD can be proved wrong, and the average disparities could correct themselves. We should hypothetically welcome a world where Blacks do match the level of Whites in terms of achievement. But the results of the Civil Rights Regime and affirmative action makes this highly unlikely. Reparations would likely serve as the ‘final proof’ that Black underperformance isn’t due to ‘systemic racism’, but cultural and/or genetic differences.
Despite this, it wouldn’t be without utility for the Black community, even if it doesn’t bring the average Black up to the level of the average White. Many conservative-inclined Blacks may be able to vote for the GOP without being considered an ‘Uncle Tom’, which stops the majority from doing so.
I do think it’s highly unlikely that Black celebrities would agree to partake in the ‘ceremony of reconciliation’ like Walt imagines; if it’s under a conservative President,almost all would shun it. They’d cite ‘intersectionality’ or some other Woke concept as the reason, but the real reason would of course be knowing that this would reduce their leverage in politics, as they profit off White Guilt.
However, whilst perhaps initially resistant, ordinary Blacks would gradually sign the ‘Declaration of Absolution and Reconciliation’ when they’re short on cash, especially if other benefits are reduced. Soon, African-Americans that didn’t accept free cash handouts would be seen as foolish.
As a one-off payment, reparations will not create a bureaucracy around them like welfare progammes or Civil Rights law. This is why it should be a ‘lump sum’, minimal bureaucracy and can immediately be shut down, whilst giving the justification to abolish the far more permanent civil rights legislation and agencies.
With their reparations, Blacks could start their own businesses, making ‘free association’ something that is on equal terms. Blacks could exclude Whites, and Whites could exclude Blacks, having businesses serving their own communities. Both Blacks and Whites could choose to segregate themselves, or integrate if that’s what both of them want.
They seem to hate Whites so much, Critical Race Theory-inclined Blacks should love this.
We could also, correcting the mistakes of the Civil War, give every African-American a gun and funding for their own militia. If they think the police are inherently racist, why not just have their own autonomous defence, and White people have theirs?
Black communities policed by Black officers, accountable and elected by Blacks, would mean Black criminals who violate the rights of law-abiding Black citizens would not get to cry ‘racism’. I think the African-American population have had far less sympathy for George Floyd had the exact same thing happened but it had been a Black officer.
Crime may skyrocket as these weapons would also inevitably end up in the hands of criminals, but harsh police crackdowns wouldn’t be criticised by Whites, especially if it’s by autonomous Black police officers.
As said, reparations would not be primarily oriented towards changing unequal group outcomes, which 60 years of Civil Rights Law has proven fruitless, but more changing the minds of White liberals, particularly White liberal women. The press could report on how criminals used their reparations to create a drug empire endangering public safety, and how many Blacks are living a life of luxury whilst continuing to berate Whites.
A New Narrative
We should also embrace Malcom X, to reduce the stigma of us openly saying we dislike Martin Luther King (or implicitly saying it, like ‘I love the MYTHOLOGICAL VERSION of Martin Luther King), something Murray Rothbard did.
In fact, I do admire Malcom X for being far more honest about his hatred for White people, which was not irrational due to his father probably being murdered by the Black Legion. In a strange way, his hatred of Whites showed he actually respected them more.
Malcom X did not expect Whites to debase and humiliate themselves for absolution, something that unfortunately they’ve done far more than he expected. He allowed Whites the dignity to be able to have their racial pride, and championed self-help and self-improvement for Blacks. He was also clearer about what he wanted. Malcom X falls into a tradition of ‘Black Conservatism’ like Marcus Garvey, of Blacks that desired self-improvement on their own terms. And with reparations, Black Conservatives would stop feeling like racial traitors voting for the GOP.
In contrast, whilst Martin Luther King dangled his beautiful ‘dream’ of colorblindness, he believed that could only be achieved by yet more anti-White discrimination, something his intellectual heirs have continued, with the utopia, like communism, always ‘not quite there’.
King’s approach to White people was manipulative and passive-aggressive, claiming a colorblind ideal but vindictively always moving the goalpost of ‘not being there yet’.
Whilst again, I’m not saying we should say ‘Democrats are the real racists’, I do think that ultimately, even though I hate White interests in mind, this would benefit Blacks too in the long run.
Maybe us Whites are inherently and subconsciously racist? That’s healthy and normal, and trying to not be is self-loathing. Another example of the ‘Woke being more correct than the mainstream’.
We can counter-signal other conservatives by accepting some Critical Race Theory ideas. However, crucially, it would reject White Guilt. We can say to the Critical Race Theorists: ‘yes, your historical narrative is absolutely right; We Don’t Care’.
The conservative practice of inventing a fictional version of Martin Luther King that portrays him as the legitimate ‘Uncle Tom’ (not the insult) from ‘Uncle Tom’s Cabin’, who died to cleanse the sins of White America in a Christ-like fashion, is one of the largest self-owns in existence. The ‘Magical Negro’ version of MLK was always extremely useful for the Civil Rights Regime, being the key driver of the ‘White Guilt’ that allowed them to keep their funding and endless expansions of their jurisdiction.
Video: How boomer conservatives implicitly imagine what Martin Luther King was like. Imagine Uncle Remus preaching love between God’s children, who only wanted his three little children to be judged by their character, only to be assassinated; it’s natural to feel guilty. It’s lucky that the CRT activists have reminded us he was nothing like this.
The Critical Race Theorists dismantling the myth, and reminding Whites who he actually was, an anti-White Marxist, have done us an enormous favour. It makes it far easier to get Whites to stand up for themselves.
CRT is powered by a White commitment to colorblindness and a desperate desire to try and do the right thing, seduced by the fictional ‘Uncle MLK’s’ ‘dream’, whereas minorities still advocate for their interests, something that is made explicit with the idea of ‘Strategic Essentialism’. Wokeness can be beaten when Whites wake up to the fact that colorblindness is an impossible fantasy, that even Martin Luther King didn’t really believe in, and start advocating for themselves like all other groups do.
Voting Rights
One might also be more politically palatable still by saying ‘things like the 1965 Voting Rights Act were necessary at the time, but are not necessary today’.
My view is that the 1965 Act, more controversial amongst the GOP after the Southern Strategy, was the more justifiable federal intervention compared to Title II and Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, since it was only an enforcement of the 15th Amendment that had been completely ignored for almost a century.
It’s true that GOP election officials try to reduce Black turnout, but that’s because they think Blacks will vote Democrats, not because they’re Black. People like Thomas Sowell and Clarence Thomas should dispel any notion that the GOP is a party rooted in genuine racial prejudice.
Consistent voting systems should be built which stop gerrymandering, and maintain security and high-turnout. Introducing ‘Civic Duty Voting’ (compulsory voting) and making election day a public holiday, could put to rest the idea that measures like compulsory voter ID, and limitation of ballot harvesting and mail-in voting, are motivated by a desire to reduce turnout.
We make the case for States Rights by saying it’s more achievable for left-wing policies, shunning the ‘natural rights fundamentalism’, and detaching the notion from Jim Crow.
States Rights and the Great Depression
The second most used argument against States Rights, is ‘what about the Great Depression’?
The established narrative is that the federal government had NO CHOICE but to usurp power from the states because of the economic calamity of the Great Depression. The Great Depression was as a result of laissez-fare economic policies and free market economics, and only the New Deal could bring America out of it.
Of course, this is nonsense. Even if we look at things from a purely Keynesian perspective, there is no proof that the New Deal helped. As Milton Friedman said (4), the New Deal was both too conservative in terms of raising aggregate demand, but expanded government unnecessarily, with money directed to the New Deal agencies having been far better utilised in tax breaks for businesses, allowing for increased private investment that would not have created economic distortions.
In terms of raising aggregate demand, only economic stimulus on the scale of World War 2 would have done the trick, and indeed that was part of the reason why America got out of the Depression post-WW2. But a ‘war’ was not necessary for that, only fiscal stimulus that allows private actors to use how they see fit. For all the inflation and the the facilitation of arbitrary government tyranny, the Covid recovery has been successful because of this.
The Great Depression happened because the Federal Reserve completely and utterly failed at the ONE task it was designed to do, inject emergency liquidy into the banking system, that J.P Morgan did in the ‘Panic of 1907’. However, the Federal Reserve was so useless, endorsing the doctrine of ‘liquidationism’, that it let the banks collapse by refusing to issue them emergency loans.
I don’t oppose the Federal Reserve in and of itself; America was in fact unusual in the early 20th century not having a national bank. However, Federal Reserve was, and continues to be, completely unconstitutional, and should have required a constitutional amendment.
Another related aspect in why the Great Depression was so catastrophic was that the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, part of the original plan for the Federal Reserve, was not implemented. The 1933 Banking Act, which created Glass-Steagall and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, was a very good piece of legislation, despite the Federal Reserve being unconstitutional. Glass-Steagall is mostly justified under the ‘Regulating Commerce’, if we ignore the issue of the Federal Reserve, it’s repeal in 1999 was part of the reason (the other being Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and the 1992 Community Reinvestment Act, also completely unconstitutional) for the Great Recession.
The Depression was also worsened by the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act which caused a trade-war. It was built on a commitment to a balanced budget, but ended up backfiring and reducing revenue. The allowing of deficits in times of economic downturn, though as small as possible and returning to budget balance as soon as possible, is an advantage the Chicago School has over the Austrian School.
So, the New Deal was not necessary. It did nothing to get America out of the Depression, as the economic stimulus was insufficient to revive the economy that had completely collapsed, and the economic stimulus that was provided was in the most inefficient way possible, creating market distortions and prolonging the Depression as opposed to if they had done the same amount of stimulus with tax cuts and/or stimulus cheques (helicopter money), allowing businesses and individuals to spend more in an organic fashion without government misallocation.
Jeffersonianism
Completing the party switch, the GOP should become the party of Jeffersonianism. It should support localism, subsidiarity, direct democracy, and opposition to managerialism.
The Democrats these days are Hamiltonian, as they support managerialism and state planning, and shun the idea of state’s rights and Originalism, wanting the Supreme Court to have unlimited power, like Hamilton explicitly wanted. The ambiguities and contradictions within the American constitution are a product of the compromises that needed to be made in order to get the constitution ratified, between the centralist and aristocratic Hamiltonians and the Anti-Federalists.
Trump seems to be taking a Hamiltonian path with his tariff policy, but I think this is misguided, even though it is in tune with Paleoconservatism.
It is funny how Paleoconservatives romanticise the culture of the South but support tariffs, and a large reason the Civil War was fought was over Southern opposition to tariffs.
It also is an attempt to revive manufacturing and blue collar industry, but that seems to be a project based around nostalgia, trying to revive an old mid-century ideal that isn’t coming back, due to the inevitability of change, and is playing to an older, aging base.
Who the GOP should appeal to is younger people who are more well-educated, without compromising on opposition to Wokeism. Or at the very least, whilst it should not go out of its way to alienate the blue collar worker and GOP base, it should strive to make inroads with more elite groups.
High tariffs and industrial policy aren’t going to win over the White working-class, what matters is commitment to winning the culture war. However, they will alienate more right-inclined young people who don’t want to have to pay for more expensive goods.
The big divide between Paleoconservatives and Paleolibertarians as to why they couldn’t work together was over the question of free trade, as I explained in my ‘Factions of the Rightosphere’ article discussing them. However, I think the GOP should revive the Ron Paul-adjacent approach, which really is the Jeffersonian one.
Jeffersonianism also is appealing because many of its ideas are ‘left-coded’, whilst in actuality promote a small state, anti-managerial worldview. One can appropriate this mantle towards a ‘States Rights Populism’ which sounds progressive, tricking them into going down the rabbit hole.
Sure, we do not believe in the ‘all men are created equal’, but an initial focus on Jefferson can get us to slowly introduce figures like John Randolph of Roanoke and John Taylor of Caroline, the culture of the Old South, and the values it promoted.
Whilst we should emphasise we don’t want to bring slavery or Jim Crow back, we can admire the more Legal Positivist and relaxed culture of the South, compared to the fanatical and puritan New Englanders, where there is a clear line going from abolitionism to Woke.
Right-Wing Politics for a Secular Age
A lot of social issues like abortion have moved more liberal over the past 30 years.
On some issues, like LGBT, that has been tied in with indoctrination. However on other issues it seems to be an inevitable consequence of the secularisation of America.
The views of the average secular liberal at during the 1980s and 1990s would have been fairly consistent on issues like contraception and abortion, though would have been different on LGBT ideology, as the latter was a manufactured consent and based on social shaming and control. To get an idea of the attitudes of ‘liberal America’ at the time, 80s teen films like Fast Times at Ridgemont High and John Hughes films like Ferris Buellers Day Off are a good guide, similar in lifestyle to the mainstream of today but not Woke and still correctly heteronormative,
In the 1980s, whether one was a social liberal or a social conservative was largely a product of religion. America simply was slightly slower to witness the decline of religion than Europe.
However, if it wants to be viable in a secular age it needs to change its approach. I am not advocating surrendering on opposing the LGBT agenda (like Michael Lind’s infamous article), but certain issues will have to be reframed and some abandoned. As Eric Kauffmann said, pro-life is a ‘religious right issue’ and not an ‘anti-Woke issue’, and so doesn’t interest a secular population.
I think the biggest example of a Christian worldview still predominating is the passionate belief in ‘natural rights’.
In America there is an association between atheism and liberalism, and open atheists are far and away the most liberal group. However, unless there is a ‘Great Awakening’, the number of atheists is only going to increase.
The reason why there is this association between atheism and liberalism is because the type of conservatism popular in America often appeals to religious precepts. But, in the debates between the New Atheists and Christians, the Christians were right that one could not have a Christian moral paradigm without Christianity; namely the idea of ‘natural rights’ and ‘human rights’. The atheists who are liberals, groups like the Unitarian Universalists, still hold onto Christian assumptions about the world.
Atheism and right-wing politics actually fit like a velvet glove; Thomas Hobbes was famously an atheist. Because if you are a true atheist, you reject Christian assumptions about the world, like ‘all men are created equal’ and ‘unalienable rights’. If you believe in these things, you are not a true atheist, and in a way your worldview makes even less sense than a conservative Christian.
In order to gain more elite human capital, American conservatives need to stop with their moral absolutism. They need to recognise that morality is context dependent and based on societal consensus. They might think abortion is murder, but what is and isn’t murder is entirely subjective and context dependent. Abortion is a convenient ‘moral loophole’ to be able to practice eugenics, which is a utilitarian benefit to society.
Well-educated people can see through the propagandistic appeals to ‘natural rights’ which conservatives engage in, particularly on the abortion issue.
This is a reason why abortion should be left to the states. It is a subjective issue, as are all ‘rights’, because ‘rights’ do not actually exist outside of social consensus. Yes, I am well aware I would be siding with Stephen Douglas over Abraham Lincoln, but Jaffa-ism has been a disaster and has ‘stupefied’ the American right-wing.
It is better to admit that slavery was part and parcel of the tradition of the United States, than accept wholeheartedly the Declaration of Independence’s ‘all men are created equal’ as a moral absolute.
One again, the ‘Woke are more correct than the mainstream’, hence why those of above average IQ are so Woke. But if Whites believe in a Jaffa-ite version of America, whereas other ethnic groups believe in the true version of events, Whites are setting themselves up to be constantly ensnared by appeals to White guilt.
William Simon U’Ren’s State-Level Progressivism
So how do we make the case to educated people who have been inoculated with a leftist worldview for their entire lives, that States Rights are the way forward, despite being associated with opposition to ideas and movements they have been taught to see as gospel?
Luckily, we have a figure who fits the bill of ‘Left-Wing States Rights’ perfectly. A champion of both Georgism and direct democracy, which I mentioned in my previous two articles. That person was William Simon U’Ren.
U’Ren was a key Progressive Era reformer who basically spearheaded the movement towards citizens initiatives, referendums, and recalls in the United States. His homestate of Oregon was the first to implement it. He also supported Georgism and proportional representation.
However, he was also worried about federal government overreach. Whilst he did support the 17th Amendment which arguably facilitated the increasing power of the federal government, he opposed FDR’s New Deal on the basis of the federal government violating the rights of the states.
He had many innovative and interesting ideas that he tried to implement, most of which were unsuccessful, but his bold desire for creative solutions to political reform was a shining moment in American history. Americans have not been as creative in terms of constitutional innovations as U’Ren, and his Progressive Era contemporaries, were in early 20th century, ever since.
If the GOP wants to make ‘States Rights’ attractive, they should have the task of completing Simon U’Ren’s vision of state-level direct democracy, which is vastly more achievable than reforms on the federal level, whilst reducing the size of the federal government. On the state-level they should support policies that benefit the majority, like Georgism, providing a convincing alternative to redistribution and statism.
A Realistic Program
I’ve mentioned before how I oppose universal suffrage, preferring a system where suffrage is dependent on military service or tax payment, depending on the legislative chamber. I like the franchise system of Connecticut from 1818 to 1935, which is the closest real world example to my proposed restrictions, with a requirement to either pay taxes or serve in the militia, though I think it should be all who meet the requirements, not just White men (so from 1920 to 1935).
However, I acknowledge that this is just a thought experiment, and has very little chance of being implemented.
In my article on the subject, I mentioned how direct democracy was preferable to representative democracy, supporting a synthesis between authoritarianism and direct democracy.
made some insightful contributions in the comments about how direct democracy poses a threat to the Woke, and is far easier to openly advocate for than authoritarianism. He argued that going ‘straight to direct democracy’ and ‘winning hearts and minds’ was a better strategy than having ‘authoritarianism first, then direct democracy to entrench it’.
If I had the opportunity to implement an authoritarian government that would gradually move towards my system, I would still support that. I do believe that direct democracy doesn’t start on an equal playing field, and that years of Woke indoctrination will have an impact on it.
However, I realise that America’s task is to gain popular and elite support for an anti-Woke agenda, and direct democracy can be far more easily defended than authoritarian rule. Yes, it will mean we will need to constantly be on guard from the Woke left, who will still continue to advocate their poisonous ideas, but under this system would be ‘less inclined towards militant minorities’ than a pure representative democracy.
Taking my ideals into consideration, here would be a ‘realistic’ program for the GOP to gain elite capital support whilst still being philosophically consistent and effectively anti-Woke.
State-Level Reforms
Political Reform
Reduce the threshold of citizens initiatives of constitutional amendments to 1% of all who voted in the previous election, and hold votes on issues quarterly, with Swiss-style public information campaigns giving arguments for and against each initiative.
Allow recall petitions for all elected officials.
Institute multi-member districts based on historic boundaries, and of variable number of representatives depending on population, to remove need for redistricting and ending the potential for gerrymandering.
Change from First Past the Post to the Single Transferable Vote (STV), a ranked-choice version of proportional representation with small multi-member districts, used in Ireland.
Ensure that all elections are conducted using paper ballots and counted by hand.
Require that the results of first preference votes are counted on the same day as polling day, to avoid the tension of the 2020 election. Allocating seats should take no longer than 3 days.
End mail-in voting, that poses too many risks of fraud or violations of ballot secrecy.
Make all election days public holidays.
Ban ballot harvesting, chain balloting, and ‘get out the vote’ campaigns.
Require ID at all polling stations, and an electronic system of keeping tabs on who has voted to ensure they only vote once.
Create publicly funded ‘election guides’ for each candidate, allowing each candidate to express their positions and their various endorsements, to reduce the need for mass spending in political campaigns, without a complicated set of restrictions and rules.
Restrict voting only to US citizens, who have not voted in the election of any other country where they may have a different citizenship, for at least 10 years.
Require a literacy test to ensure all voters can read and write in English, something still constitutional.
Make voting a ‘civic duty’, to prevent universal suffrage from being seen as only a ‘right’ from which other ‘natural rights’ can be found. Like Singapore, if one does not vote in an election, they are struck off the register, and fined if they want to return to it.
Abolish state upper chambers, that have been made redundant since Reynolds vs Sims (1964) ended ‘mini-federalism’. Alternatively, make upper chambers reflect a different type of representation, and overturn Reynolds to allow ‘mini-federalism’, though unequal representation should be in one chamber only. Nevada’s model from 1919 to 1965 would be a good example of ‘mini-federalism’. In a mini-federal state, have referendums need to be ratified by a majority of the counties, like in Switzerland.
Amend constitutions to remove as much ambiguities and open-ended ‘rights’ as possible, and enshrine Originalism as the only legitimate form of judicial interpretation.
Term-limit Supreme Court justices on a rotating basis, with the Governor nominating them subject to confirmation to the state legislature by an at least simple majority, ensuring that each Governor gets an equal amount of judicial picks (if the court was completely packed with Originalists, I would have a judicial council and supermajority confirmation requirement system, to prevent Woke governors from appointing justices that would subvert the law, as I explain here. But this is the next best thing.)
Make all justices swear an oath to only interpret the constitution by its original meaning.
End the ability of state Supreme Courts to set ‘precedents’, being limited to judgement in one specific case (meaning liberal court rulings are not eternally binding and ‘precedent’.)
Make it clear that Supreme Courts cannot ‘invent new rights’ and force governments to include provisions in the law, but may only strike it down.
Laws passed by the state legislature may only be overturned by unanimous verdict by the Supreme Court, of which judgement can be easily overturned through a constitutional referendum.
Give the Governor an absolute veto over all legislation coming from the state legislature.
Allow the Governor power to institute binding referendums without the consent of the state legislature.
‘Formalise’ the impeachment process, by making removal of the Governor not dependent on conviction of a crime, but only 2/3 majority removal, accepting it’s inevitable politicisation. Governor can hold a referendum to stay in office and complete their term, making the public the final judge of their guilt.
Expand the ability, present in some states already, for citizens to vote for a constitutional convention and drafting of a new constitution every 10 to 20 years.
Economics
Replace all state-level taxes with a Land Value Tax, as the sole form of state taxation, levied on the state-level, and with the funding of schools a state-level matter.
Creation of a citizens dividend, a variable amount depending on land value receipts (I know I said I opposed a UBI in my last article, but after doing more reading, chiefly the New School of Economics by the New Physiocratic League, I realise that the ‘citizens dividend’ is intended to do exactly what the ‘land shares’ are supposed to do, and isn’t the same as a UBI, more akin to ‘Alaska’s Permanent Fund’ that gives a sense of citizenship and stake. I also think the kind of people who are ‘persuadable’ are those who were involved in Andrew Yang’s campaign and initial ‘Forward Party’. )
Create a ‘Sovereign Wealth Fund’ like that of Singapore and Norway, to fund the citizens dividend whilst minimising the tax burden.
Create ‘Commonwealth Communities’ on
’s model. These wouldn’t be whole cities but more like neighbourhoods and districts, like what I proposed trying in Britain in established cities like London and Birmingham.Make housing targets a state-level, rather than a district-level, matter.
Dramatically liberalise planning permission requirements and environmental impact assessments, so long as architecture is in a style from which the local area approves.
Have the state force local authorities to meet minimum housing targets.
Prohibit local authorities from instituting new taxes that have not been authorised by the state legislature, to create a streamlined tax system and business environment. The United States is a federation, the states individually are unitary (unless mini-federal).
Tax people individually instead of as married couples (in order to ‘privatise marriage’, aka crypto-repeal gay marriage).
Abolish the minimum wage, and replace it with voluntary sectoral bargaining, the Ghent System, and ‘flexicurity’ like in Denmark.
Invest in Small Modular Reactors (SMRs) and renewable energy, and have a net-zero policy (climate denial is toxic to the High IQ and should be abandoned.)
Ban sales of future fossil fuel powered vehicles past a certain date, and promote EVs.
Build incinerators to reduce landfill that cannot be recycles.
Support GMO foods and artificial meat, and resist the ‘stupid right’s’ banning attempts.
Like Floyd B. Olsen proposed in Minnesota in the 1930s, take private utilities into public or co-operative ownership. Olsen is another example of how, if the American left had leaned into state’s rights, many northern states could have had something akin to Social Democracy.
Education
State-wide school voucher system.
Arm teachers to protect against school shootings.
Have shooting lessons be part of the school curriculum, connecting firearm ownership with being a ‘citizen of a free republic’.
Only 10% of young people going to a state-funded, non-vocational college.
All who don’t go to a state-funded, non-vocational college getting a lump sump payment to spend on further training.
Private liberal arts colleges get no tax breaks for endowments.
Vocational colleges are completely private and have no government funding. They are liable for student bankruptcy, and are taxed for student unemployment.
All public sector and state contractors are prohibited from having non-vocational degree requirements for employment, unless they can prove in a court of law that the skills taught in a degree are necessary for the job.
End degree requirements for the vast majority of occupational licences.
Deregulate occupational licencing.
State-funded liberal arts colleges banned from offering left-wing indoctrination courses like ‘gender studies’. For humanities and social sciences, academics hired must conform to ‘viewpoint diversity’ standards.
Ban any and all DEI considerations in admissions.
Have a ‘zero-tolerance’ policy for disruptive student protests and attempts to ‘no-platform’ certain speakers. Any student that engages in this should be immediately expelled.
Require student unions to avoid taking stances on political issues unrelated to the student experience at the university.
Heavily promote and revive the ‘National Guard’, so that all the State National Guard’s combined have more manpower than the US military.
Civil Liberties
Restore ‘free association’ as it existed in the northern states of America prior to 1964.
‘Privatise’ marriage. Take the government out entirely, and make it purely a contract between individuals and an intermediate agency, such as a religious institution.
Legalise all drugs.
Lower the drinking age to 18.
Legalise all sex work, but restrict porn for kids using an anonymous means of age verification.
Legalise euthanasia.
Introduce open carry and ‘stand your ground’ laws for firearms.
Have criminal punishments be determined by popular vote. Without belief in a higher being, the majority is always right when it comes to which criminals can be rehabilitated, and those that are guilty of crimes deemed ‘unforgivable’. Retain the death penalty for murder and sexual crimes against children.
Ban child transgender mutilation and send all who practice it to prison.
Restrict ‘sexualisation of minors’ (craft so that Hooters is permitted but ‘Drag Queen Story Hour’ and stuff like it is cracked down on.)
Create a compensation scheme for detransitioners.
Do not recognise any other gender other than male or female and sex at birth.
Ban all state government workers or contractors from recognising any other gender other than male or female and sex at birth.
Harshly restrict the right of public protest.
Impose rehabilitation for drug users who are causing a public disturbance.
Push homeless encampments out of cities.
Fund the police, and restore the anti-crime policies of the 1990s that did so much to reduce crime. Mass incarceration is preferable to criminals roaming the streets.
Healthcare
Establish a state-level public option, and require all hospitals to accept payment from it. This also serves as Medicaid for the very poorest.
Aesthetic
Support the construction of traditional, Americana aesthetics popular in the first half of the 20th century.
Carry on the trend (Mississippi, Utah, Minnesota), of ending ‘seal on bedsheet’ flags, and creating more aesthetic designs, to enhance one’s identification with their state.
Move towards the metric system. Well-educated Americans tend to be more European in their aesthetics, so this is a ‘left-coded’ view to have. It’s also just far more logical and efficient. At least use both like Britain and Canada.
Federal Level
Constitutional Reform:
Have a ‘Convention of States’, that would institute an amendment/amendments modifying the constitution, subject to the standard ratification method. It would still be the same constitution and not a ‘runaway constitution’, being ratified the same way.
Try to compromise with the Democrats by agreeing to abolish the Electoral College, and replace it with a national popular vote using ranked choice voting/two-round system, if the other amendments limiting the powers of the federal government and protecting States Rights are ratified. (Whilst you wouldn’t persuade the hard-line politicians, some of the moderate base might be inclined to accept this, especially if they are given a convincing case as to why their political preferences (Medicare for All) would be better achieved on the state-level.)
Abolish the ‘Necessary and Proper Clause’, as it is too vague and McCulloch vs Maryland was a destructive ruling that allowed a vast expansion in the size of the federal government.
Specify that the 9th Amendment only applies to ‘rights determined through social consensus and democratic vote, not judicial imposition’.
Modify the 14th Amendment to end abusive use of ‘substantive due process’, clarifying that it’s proper application is only intended to ban legal racial segregation and racial equality before the law.’
Make the terms of the justices limited in duration, staggered so a President gets an equal number of Supreme Court picks. 18-year terms, one every two-years, whilst fixing the constitutional number at 9 to prevent the threat of court packing, might be a good number. If a justice retires or dies before their term is up, another justice is appointed for the remainder of their term (similar in structure, and my personal justification, to the state-level courts, and in fact the state courts are modelled on my ‘next best option’ for SCOTUS.)
Require unanimity for the Supreme Court to strike down state-level laws.
End the notion of ‘court precedent’, and make court rulings only on that one specific case.
Ban the Supreme Court forcing the government to include provisions in the law, but may only strike down law.
Reduce the Senate from 2 senators to 1, and have the Senators appointed by the state governor and confirmed by the state legislature, recallable at any point (this makes the Senate even more accountable to the states than the original pre-17th Amendment design.
Give the states the power to nullify all legislation from federal bureaucracies. The only things they cannot nullify is Congressional legislation with a 3/5 Senate majority (formalise the filibuster, as without it there would be no constraints on the power of the federal government.)
Require all expansions of the ‘Commerce Clause’ to be a Congressional Act, and needing a 3/5 Senate majority.
Require congressional legislation to be limited to a single subject (no omnibus bills).
Change the means of amending the constitution to being at least 3 state legislatures proposing an amendment, and then needing to be ratified by 3/4 of the state legislatures, with no role for the federal government (similar to the Confederate constitution). Maintain the constitutional convention function, but specify it is only for the proposal of amendments to be ratified in the constitutional way, though allowing for an amendment to the amendment procedure.
Formalise the National Parks Service as something which is legitimate for the federal government to exercise.
Formalise federal jurisdiction over environmental policy, though still needing the congressional legislation and 3/5 Senate majority.
Formalise the existence of the Federal Reserve, but only as a ‘lender of last resort’ and a Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation.
Formalise the Presidential ‘State of Exception’, allowing the President to suspend the constitution and overturn a Supreme Court ruling, even if unanimous, with a minimum 2/3 majority in both chambers.
Give the President an absolute and line-item veto on all Congressional legislation.
State that all government workers not approved by Congress, or working for the legislative or judicial branches, are hirable and firable by the President.
No agency can make binding law, and the states may nullify any agency regulation or directive that is not expressly authorised in federal Congressional legislation, requiring a 3/5 Senate majority.
Explicitly emphasise that abortion is not a federal matter.
Clarify the Second Amendment, permitting states to do some gun control but still maintaining the ‘right to bear arms’. However, the right to bear arms is the foundation of a free republic so there must be some federal protection.
Mandate a balanced budget unless a minimum 2/3 majority of both the House and Senate agree to issue government bonds.
Ordinary Legislation
Move to state-wide multi-member districts for the House of Representatives to end gerrymandering, using STV, allowing the 1965 Voting Rights Act to be abolished.
Institute ‘Civic Responsibility Voting’ for House and Presidential elections.
Abolish Title II and Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act and all subsequent expansions of Civil Rights Law, in exchange for a one-off reparations payment for the descendants of slaves by a one-off tax on all Whites, dependent on signing the ‘Declaration of Absolution and Reconciliation’.
After this one-off payment, end all federal collection of race data.
Dismantle every non-military government agency or welfare programme created past 1933, and return these matters to the states.
Abolish the CIA and FBI.
Abolish all federal taxes except the federal income tax, that is to be a marginal flat rate with deductions for individual and group savings investment and a personal allowance, and no other form of deduction or loophole. It is a ‘legal persons tax’, applying equally to corporations and governments, and is similar to Hall-Rabushka tax.
Abolish the Food and Drug Administration, with labelling a private and state-level matter.
Harshly restrict the prolonging of medical patents through evergreening and patent thickening.
Thoroughly reform patent and copyright law to be as weak as politically possible.
Peg the US dollar to bitcoin.
Make clear that cash must be accepted as legal tender by all businesses.
Abolish the federal minimum wage.
Achieving This
Of course, the majority of the GOP is too anti-intellectual to be able to contemplate something like this. However, the ‘high-brow’ factions around various think-tanks could be interested in some of these ideas, in the same way Postliberalism and American Compass were elevated despite their unlikely appeal to mega-donors. Trump is now basically parroting the problem of American Compass.
But actually having a platform that is appealing, and is somewhat realistic, is a virtue in and of itself whether or not it happens or not. Our goal is to attract elite human capital to the Right, I believe that this sort of worldview is what we should promote on college campuses. We should present ourselves as different kind of right-wingers, having some left-coded opinions, having more intellectual consistency, but also using the credibility you ‘buy’ with various left-coded positions to emphasise what you will ‘not’ compromise on.
A platform like this could connect with well-educated urban professionals that are at the forefront of the YIMBY movement and Georgism, who are an elite-human capital group. We should have a ‘Popularist’ approach specifically geared towards these types, meeting them where they are to a point and emphasising issues that matter to them, whilst also staying firm on a few principles.
In some ways, the MAGA movement is helpful to something like this because it has expanded the Overton Window. This can therefore be presented as something against ‘polarisation’, counter-signalling Trump and MAGA when still presenting a right-wing worldview. This is why the Woke left are so terrified of ‘reactionary centrism’, because it’s true that anti-Woke ideas can be packaged in way that seems ‘moderate’, especially when compared to somebody like Trump and MTG.
Chris Rufo is good at this, and serves an essential purpose at being the ‘presentable face’ of culture war. However, whilst indispensable in that role, he still very much is within that conservative space, which is good but still not attractive to most elite capital. Also, as Scott Greer has said, he is a pretty hard-line Catholic on a lot of issues which pushes people away.
His role is as a culture warrior, and it’s great what he does. But what might help expand our reach is if Rufo’s ideas were taken, packaged in a way that counter-signalled Trump and lured people in with the economic policies, and then when they actually understand our worldview, and realise that we aren’t ‘nutters’, ‘some’ (still not most as most will want to parrot out whatever will help their careers, aka be Woke) could join us.
DeSantis was almost doing this, I liked him before I liked Trump, though after 2022 he played to his base a bit too much and became a lot more conspiratorial, and wasted political capital on abortion. His anti-environmental policies, including now banning synthetic meat, and engaging in entirely corrupt redistricting, also alienates well-educated people. He also didn’t have a vision that would ‘excite’ well-educated people. Glenn Youngkin might be a better case study, though he doesn’t have the thrashing majority that DeSantis has, and is still lacking on the vision front.
Conclusion
I know I’m not American so people might say ‘why are you telling me how to run our country?’. However, us in Britain are very affected by American politics, and what goes on there inevitably also affects us. I would say that, because of mass media, we are as affected by what goes on in the United States as we are our own domestic politics.
I feel like some sort of NGO should be made advocating this policy platform. As I said, just the platform existing will entice people more towards our worldview. It’s about building a political vision, and if we can get elite-human capital to have an empirically grounded, anti-Woke worldview. If we can mobilise them, they might be more inclined to support the Right if we can justify their alignment with our programme.
Thanks for reading, and if you enjoyed this article, consider subscribing.
Bibliography
Merriam, J. (2019). ‘A Sheep in Wolf's Clothing: The Story of Why Conservatives Began To Look Beyond Originalism.’ Faulkner L. Rev., 11, 63.
Caldwell, Christopher (2021). ‘The Age of Entitlement: America Since the Sixties.’ Simon & Schuster.
Hanania, R. (2023). ‘The Origins of Woke: Civil Rights Law, Corporate America, and the Triumph of Identity Politics.’
Friedman, M. (1962). Capitalism and Freedom. (p.77).
Substack said this was a 48min read. I read it in one sitting. As a proud American it made me considerably more clear that I am on the right. I will be profiling this on my substack, returning to it as a reference.
The one thing I disagreed with fundamentally was the fake meat bit. Ecologically, animals are fundamental to soil health and vegetable yields, and a key whole food. If you believe in a return to the local and the Jeffersonian view, you should believe in re-localized agriculture. Whole foods are essential to human health, and should be key to the health of local ecosystems. Greater local health would make for a healthier polity. Fake meat is for Hamiltonians to keep the rabble weak. People don't want it anyway.
I would encourage you to read John C. Calhoun's 'Disquisition on Government'. It's the most well-reasoned description of how to fix the nightmare that is the Federal Leviathan. The Short Version: There should be no *continental-scale* 'mass democracy'. It makes no sense and ends up being a 'national spoils system' where the leadership of the nation spends all it's time trying to figure out how to bribe enough people with other people's money in order to stay in power. The franchise for state and local offices is solely the function of state law. Most 'democracy' takes place within 'civic' and 'professional' organizations. The organizations can mobilize to support or compete with each other. Strikes, boycotts, etc are all legitimate means of these organizations expressing their 'democratic interests'. 'Nullification' is not something the federal authority grants to the states. It's a function of power. The power to withhold compliance is the primary power to curb the power of the federal Leviathan.