The Cons Are Alright

Townhall.com ^ | February 15, 2021 | Kurt Schlichter

[Kaslin]

BOTTOM LINE UP FRONT: We cons will be fine and we’ll win in the end, but it’ll take time and hard fighting (Am I allowed to say “fighting” in the political struggle context anymore, or will stupid people wet themselves? Let’s find out!). Sure, I may be in the minority among conservatives by saying that. There’s a lot of fear out there, a lot of pessimism, and a lot of muttering about how we’re all doomed.

We’re not.

We’ll be fine, and not cartoon dog drinking coffee in a blazing room meme fine either.

Now, all righteous and cool people acknowledge that the best Who song (I finally saw them live thanks to frequent “Unredacted” podcast guest Drew Matich and it was amazing) is “Baba O’Reilly,” but discerning people understand that the second best anthem by this remarkable band is “The Kids Are Alright.” The lyrics describe a guy who’s changing – the old ways don’t fit, what worked before doesn’t work now, and he’s got to grow and move on, and it’s melancholy (despite the power pop glory of the music). Gee, can you think of any American political faction going through that right now?

Hi, nice to meet you.

I used to subscribe to The Weekly Standard and National Review, and I still laugh at Cap’n Kristol running his creaky garbage scow into the iceberg that is Donald Trump. As for NR, it’s sad – you post-internet cons don’t dig it, but back in the day, Buckley’s baby was it. There was no other conservatism. When it came in the snail mail once every two weeks, you got your fix for another fortnight. Hell, in college, I once took a liberal chick to see WFB speak.  

Now, if not for a few inhabitants who I could count on the fingers of one Bulwark staffer’s chief erotic partner, I’d happily let NR burn. 

Does it matter if they left us or we left them? I tend to think that they were never truly with us. Have we really changed? On the surface, maybe. I used to be a hawk. I even went to a couple of the conflicts that all the smart people on our side said were super good ideas. And then I watched the utter failure of these same geniuses – a kid could nearly go from being a fetus to buying a Dos Equis in the time America’s been chasing jihadi banditos around the Hindu Kush to no avail.

I heard the lectures about free enterprise then realized that I wanted no part of being in the party that enabled mega-corporate pillaging of our middle class for the benefit of the Chinese communists. 

And I watched Conservative, Inc., manage decline while filling its cruises, and then I watched the guy I defended from all the “Chimpy McHalibu$Hitler” slurs turn around and cavort with the people calling me worse.

Oh, and there are the pedo enablers…

The hell with these people.

We’re done with them, but not with conservatism. We carry that torch now. The True Conservatives™ sure as hell aren’t even pretending anymore – we just had a whole year of “The Conservative Case For Biden.” They care only about their cheesy little fellowships in DC at the Conservativish Forum for Freedom and Eagles and Taking Dumb Businessmen’s Money and More Eagles, where they scribble unread pap on lame blogs. They eagerly collect the tech titan’s 30 pieces of Bitcoin to join in the cancel chorus of conservatives who actually believe in something besides securing these dorks’ sinecures.

But we know it now. We see it, and there’s no unseeing it.

As the Lincoln Project – if you accept that Abe’s project was trying to score with teen boys – collapses, and we giggle, there’s no hiding the corruption of Conservative, Inc. Well, now there’s a new conservatism, and it’s going to happen without the Fredocon caucus.

Remember George Will? Me neither.

To reprise a cliché of my own making, Donald Trump was the avatar of our dissatisfaction with the garbage Establishment and the refusal of the useless, sclerotic and cruise-oriented losers allegedly on our side to defend our interests. It didn’t help that these credential-fetishizers – if you had never done anything in your life but get handed a degree, you’d think a diploma was the most important measure of a man too – always despised us. Some were born snobs, and some embraced snobbery – there’s no snooty like “I got out of the trailer park and I gotta ensure no one ever makes that connection between me and my déclassé past again” snooty. But they all think we are stupid, borderline evil, and utterly unsuited to have a say in our own governance. In that, they express their class solidarity with the caste status neurotics of the left.

So, why my optimism?

Well, as we’ve seen, our opponents inside our tent are worthless. Moreover, our enemies outside on the left are buffoons. Ted Lieu? Adam Schiff? Toots Swalwell, the guy who actually thought the Chi-Com courtesan liked him because he was cool? These are singularly unimpressive people who project an aura of competence solely by appearing on camera. But they are stupid, and weak, and the idea that our enemies are these brilliant Lex Luthors crafting intricate conspiracies from their secret lairs is ridiculous. All this stuff happening now is not the result of some cunning strategy but of dumb luck, the inevitable cyclic nature of politics, and some mistakes by our own side (Did you ever notice how most of the things that went bad for Trump happened when he listened to Establishment Republicans?). These are not supermen – these sissies would probably cry because I just assumed their gender.

And what we are selling has been tweaked but our basic ideology has not changed. Sure, the Conservafakes huffed and puffed about the Founders, yet it wasn’t that the Founders were wrong. It was that these bow-tied virgin frauds didn’t believe any of it. But it’s all true. Every answer we seek is within the Constitution and the documents that went into creating it. What we sell is freedom, prosperity, and human dignity. What the other side sells is, at best, a soft corporate/political tyranny of the mediocre.

And the most important factor is that we are now conservawoke. Red pilled, if you will. We see the lies. And we see the liars. That ridiculous XX-Jeb! hack Nikki! Haley keeps trying to happen and we keep laughing at her. Again, to quote the Who…

YEAAHHHHHH! We won’t get fooled again. 

We’re done with GOP weather vanes who say whatever the Establishment tool in front of her wants to hear. Recently, Nikki! sat down with Tim Alberta of Politico and said… who cares? We had her pegged at “she sat down with Tim Alberta of Politico.” If you can’t tell who the enemy is, it’s you.

Please clap.

But but but…

The corrupt and broken election system…

Tech companies are silencing us….

The girl I liked on that kid’s show about space and ray-guns got fired…

Yeah, it’s bad. 

So? And? If freedom was easy, everyone would be doing it, and those of us who have read history from before 1619, and/or have resided outside this country can clarify for you that freedom as the natural state of man is mos def not the case.

No one is going to give us anything but serfdom – you can have as much of that as you want, and gratis. But freedom has to be taken, one GOP state reforming its election laws at a time, one new conservative-friendly social media venue at a time, one action-packed and conservative-oriented series at a time.

My guess is that Donald Trump has played his (crucial) role and will move on after humiliating the Democrats again by scoffing at their latest puny impeachment. He will be a kingmaker and an important asset in bringing forward the new blood we need to re-energize us. Populism had a tough four years. We’ll take a breather for a bit, then charge. Look at our bench! Ric Grenell, Kristi Noem, Ron DeSantis, Rick Scott, and many more. Look at our expanding network of media outlets, not least of which is Townhall. Look at the new voices we’re seeing, often from the world of podcasting, and often of people who became at least conservative-curious because they saw the failures of the left (Tim Pool, Michael Malice, Adam Carolla, Joe Rogan).

And look at the doddering, failing enemy, presiding over the collapsing Potemkin village that is the failed Establishment.

Yeah, the cons are alright.

[Ann Archy]

I have to disagree with Kurt on one thing....the Democrats are FIENDISHLY PLOTTING AT ALL TIMES and they MOVE FAST.....unlike our Slow-Witted, Slow-Footed Republicans that NDEVER see 2 feet in front of them until it’s 50 yards back!

[ScottinVA]

We’ll be better off with a party that actually represents conservative values. The GOP needs to be offed in short order.

[Leaning Right]

Will there be meaningful reform to address voter fraud?

If so, then there is a path forward.
If not, then there isn’t a path forward.

[nathanbedford]

Boom a locka, Boom a locka,sis boom bah!

That is a cheer right out of the 1920s of the last century. That cheer is just as meaningful as the crap this guy is handing out. He wants us to approve of his character so we will go to his new platform. We have been treated to an advert thinly disguised as optimistic conservatism.

If he wants me reading his stuff, he better tighten up and serve up some reasons, not this vapid cheerleading.

There are real reasons for pessimism which should be discussed honestly on an adult level so they can be overcome.

Or we can go on mindlessly chanting:

Boom a locka,Boom a locka,sis boom bah!

[HighSierra5]

To vote or not to vote. That is the question.

[lucky american]

My mother used to say, if you have nothing nice to say, don’t say anything. It was good advice some days.

You don’t have to read his blog, watch his videos or even take his advice. I am resigned to the fact there are some of you happy in your own little bubble of misery.

You don’t have to like the guy but his message is spot on.

Don’t ruin it for the rest of us.

[billyboy15]

We get the government we deserve.

Always been that way, always will be that way.

[nathanbedford]

You don’t have to read his blog, watch his videos or even take his advice.

Maybe you should take your own advice.

[MarDav]

“..cool people acknowledge that the best Who song (I finally saw them live thanks to frequent “Unredacted” podcast guest Drew Matich and it was amazing) is “Baba O’Reilly,” but discerning people understand that the second best anthem by this remarkable band is “The Kids Are Alright.”

I’m sorry, but this Who fan is feeling more and more that my personal anthem is “The Real Me” (to be sung to all the politicos out there)...

“Can you see the real me, can ya? CAN YA?

I think only Donald Trump (and Ronald Reagan) has ever been able to honestly answer, “Yes, I see you.”

[central_va]

Your image is being blocked.

[TTFlyer]

Hey, Kurt. Re: Conservative, Inc.: “The Song Is Over.”

[Psalm 73]

"Will there be meaningful reform to address voter fraud?"

That's up to the individual Patriots in each state - are we going to do the sometimes dirty footwork in our own states?

And we DO NOT want the Feds anywhere near our elections - THAT would be the end of it all.

[nathanbedford]

Let me try this message:

Rather than indulge our Pollyanna feel-good instincts, perhaps we should soberly look at the landscape.

I understand that it is risky, always risky, to say this time it's different but there are two extraordinary factors which might indeed make this time very different:

1. A new ideology has swept the land that abandons reason, turns all logic on its head, refuses to deal with contrary facts, appears to be unstoppable in its cultural impact and is inimical everything a conservative stands for: critical theory a cultish philosophy that also extends its tentacles with the names, intersectionality, critical race theory, postmodernism and others.

This ideology now dominates virtually every American and Western institution from academia to the Defense Department to the deep state and virtually every means of communication and political discourse. This ideology is bidding fair to do away with the First Amendment right of free speech and impose a cancel culture, aided by the lights of perverted digital technology, that it's on its way to make it almost impossible for conservatism to make its ideology heard, much less prevail.

2. There is a black Swan out there somewhere, there always is. This time many of us think the threat is not so unknowable but quite obviously to be anticipated: a crash of the economy brought about by our profligate monetary and fiscal policies which have bankrupted the country, the states, and its people. When the crunch comes, if it comes at all, it is almost certain to lead to more government, likely more repressive government, almost certainly a more socialistic government and provide a ready excuse to do away with the rest of the Bill of Rights.

If these two imponderables combine, we hardly have a bright future but one of primitive struggle for survival.

These are some of the things those of us who treasure conservative government and our Bill of Rights ought to be concerned about rather than Boom a locka, Boom a locka,sis boom bah.

[central_va]

http://schetula.de/schule/ltg_informatik_forum/files/nathan_bedford_forrest.jpg

I can see the image in a new tab but FR is breaking the image.

[central_va]

There is a black Swan = Covid hoax.

[nathanbedford]

Thank you for noting there is a third threatthat can make everything different this time.

[nathanbedford]

Breaking the image after a decade and a half?

[Rummyfan]

Marking.

[central_va]

It may just be me. You could try this one.

https://ironbrigader.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/Gen.-Nathan-Bedford-Forest.jpg