Posted on 10/08/2025 9:26:25 AM PDT by lightman
You might not like some of the language he uses, but Noah Smith’s lengthy take on the state of American politics is worth a read. It’s not drivel spewed on Salon or MSNBC. It’s a fair take on the MAGA movement and the structural and political disadvantages of the Left, which aren’t going away if they keep this destructive march on most of their action items. Smith concedes there are kernels of truth to the ‘great replacement theory,’ noting the changes in California’s politics. Again, you might not agree with the authoritarian observations he makes about the MAGA movement, but he also slaps down the notion that this is some fascistic plot.
It's a lengthy post, providing a 30,000-foot overview, the recent political violence, and a parsing of the changes among the conservative movement. Smith does what the legacy press refuses to do, which is find out why our side references “war” in our social media post, especially after the assassination of Charlie Kirk, though that’s not the most interesting part.
Smith noted that there is a push to make Trump wield more executive power that might be unprecedented, akin to Vladamir Putin, which will for sure rehash the Russiagate nonsense. He did note that MAGA is now the only game in town on the Right. We’re united, the last vestiges of the old guard have been wiped away or subordinated, with the new mission seemingly transfixed on defending Western civilization and its values. Again, some of the observations are up for debate, but it’s not The Atlantic. It is, if anything, a post where we can disagree agreeably. Smith’s take on the Left is damning, noting that, for now, they seem to be geared toward driving themselves into irrelevancy, made worse by their retreat into spaces where they dominate and refuse to debate (via NoahOpinion):
The right in America is pretty united at this point. The last vestiges of establishment conservatism, Reaganites, and libertarians have been swept away or subordinated, and the Christian right backs Trump fully despite the fact that he doesn’t share their values. MAGA is now the only game in town.
[…]
Ideologically, the right deeply believes in the story of a “Great Replacement”. They believe that “the left” wants to import as many nonwhite immigrants as possible, in order to A) vote the Republican party out of power, and B) disempower and subordinate white people in the U.S., the Anglosphere, and Europe. Once white people have been made a minority in these countries, the theory goes, they will be subordinated via various methods — anti-white discrimination (DEI), selective permissiveness toward crime by nonwhites (“anarcho-tyranny”), and so on.
This used to be a somewhat fringe theory in right-wing circles, expressed in books like The Camp of the Saints. It is no longer fringe. My assessment is that while not every GOP voter believes the Great Replacement story, it is now absolutely core to the MAGA belief system. I believe that J.D. Vance, Stephen Miller, Elon Musk, and every other important MAGA figure other than Trump himself believes in some version of this basic story. (Trump’s beliefs are more idiosyncratic and less coherent than those of his followers.)
Is the Great Replacement real? Rightists wildly exaggerate the idea, but there are certainly a few nuggets of truth there. Some Democrats, seeing how California was turned permanently blue by Mexican immigration, hoped that the same thing could be accomplished at the national level. And I have even seen a few progressives espouse Great Replacement-like goals.
[…]
They believe the wolf is at their throat, and this is their last chance to save their civilization. So they are trying to talk themselves into being as ruthless as possible — into doing whatever it takes to defeat their enemies.
[…]
Now, everyone is going to ask me: Is this fascism? Well, yes, I think that’s not an inaccurate description — it’s authoritarian right-wing ultranationalism. But there’s not much of the grassroots movement, utopian theory, grand territorial ambitions, or systematic party apparatus of the type that characterized Nazism. Instead, MAGA is a reactive, hastily-cobbled-together, fear-driven right-wing nationalism more akin to Francisco Franco’s.
I like Franco. So, it’s what it is. But his assessment of the Left is more of an epitaph:
The American progressive movement is not an organization at all — it is a broad, diffuse upwelling of sentiment.
During the 2010s that sentiment swelled to a crescendo, but in the 2020s it has begun to wane. The popular outpouring of “antiracist” sentiment that characterized the “Great Awokening” has petered out, and with it has gone the feeling of overwhelming progressive cultural domination. Bari Weiss, who got run out of the New York Times for being insufficiently progressive, just got hired to run CBS News. Cancel culture is canceled.
The protests of summer 2020 that scared the right into extremism were actually a black swan event. It’s probably now safe to admit — as some of my friends who participated even admitted to me at the time — that a whole lot of people joined the Floyd protests because of frustration with Covid lockdowns, rather than out of a sincere desire to overthrow America and remake it along “antiracist” lines.
Meanwhile, the activist energy that powered the smaller, initial version off BLM in the mid-2010s is gone now. That generation of activists has largely gotten exhausted and/or aged out. When the Supreme Court killed Roe v. Wade and banned affirmative action in college admissions, there was no major grassroots pushback. All the grassroots energy on the left now is invested in the Palestine cause, which is basically harmless to Republicans.
And the policy ideas that came out of the woke era mostly flopped. Black Americans did not like the country’s brief experiment with anarchy in 2020, and became much more pro-cop, which put an end to “defund the police”. The flood of illegal and quasi-legal immigrants that Biden allowed during his time in office ended up turning much of the country against immigration (at least temporarily). The trans movement is losing on key issues such as women’s sports teams.
But in response to all of these losses, progressives have failed to moderate their views
[…]
…progressives have retreated to safe spaces where they still maintain the absolute cultural dominance that so intoxicated them in the 2010s — universities, NGOs, a few companies, and the small social network Bluesky. There, they can wield some facsimile of the cancel-power they once enjoyed
[…]
Meanwhile, quietly and behind the scenes, progressives are still quietly pushing Democrats to support policies that no one outside the progressive bubble really likes.
This kind of thing renders progressives extraordinarily ineffective against Trump’s anti-democratic blitzkrieg. It’s also probably a big part of what makes the Democratic party so incredibly unpopular
[…]
In other words, even as MAGA slowly works up the courage to attack the core institutions of American democracy and liberty, Trump’s potential opposition has done everything it can to render itself irrelevant to the broader conversation.
Again, I don’t agree with some of the descriptors, especially after the Obama and Biden administrations have been exposed as weaponizing the Justice Department to go after their political rivals. They also politicized the intelligence community: Obama being QB1 on the Russiagate antics, starting the train of breadcrumbs, whereas Biden ordered the CIA to bury a report that humiliated his foreign policy prowess regarding Ukraine matters when he was vice president.
Smith did make a note that nothing is permanent in American politics. It goes through conservative and liberal cycles. When political violence did get out of hand, like in the 1960s when JFK, MLK, and RFK were assassinated, both sides opted to tone things down. That is true, but the things have changed regarding the Left, which is much more accepting of committing acts of political violence against their rivals. He also admits that if things do break down, and civil war erupts, it’s the Right that’s going to win, albeit in an America we wouldn’t want to live in. Maybe, but let’s not dwell on hypotheticals.
One area he does note where Democrats went haywire is immigration, which they don’t seem keen on moderating, whereas conservatives should be reminded that losing an election doesn’t mean the end of the world. Trump lost in 2020 but got his job back four years later. Even in his conclusions, Smith has more of a to-do list for left-wingers, specifically noting that they need to simmer down and start to compromise on core issues, because their agenda right now isn’t it.
Trust that USA-Americans will be USA-Americans
Nothing on global warming and driving energy prices through the roof?
IT's hardly a theory (or story) when it's happening right before your very eyes.
The Great Replacement Theory was concocted and touted on the LEFT, not the Right. Leftists openly crowed about it. They gleefully noted their policy of importing ever more brown people was going to eventually supplant the White majority. They eagerly looked forward to flipping multiple red states and enjoying perpetual political power assuming they owned all NonWhite people and would own them and their votes forever. There is no point even trying to deny this. There is too much evidence of too many of them saying it ie "demographics is destiny", etc.
Wanting to defend your culture....thinking your country belongs to its people and not to foreigners....wanting to halt the flood of foreigners pouring into your country and changing it forever as they bring their own cultures and ideas with them is not "fascist". Anybody who says it is "fascist" has no idea what Fascism is about or what Fascists believe. Were all those natives in European colonial empires fascists because they wanted the Europeans to leave...because they wanted to preserve their own countries and cultures...or because they thought their countries should act in THEIR best interests rather than in the interests of foreigners? Its the same with Europeans and Americans objecting to being colonized now. Leftist Globalists just don't want to admit that its the same.
He wants to allege its MAGA that's more authoritarian? Who leaned on tech companies to censor and ban their political opponents? Who had government employees on government time scanning social media and flagging the Tech companies to censor or ban posts they disapproved of? Who spied on people who attended Latin Catholic Mass? Who put parents who objected to Trannies being in the their kids' bathrooms on terror watch lists? Who abused safe skies by having their political opponents put on the list? It goes on and on and on. Its DEMOCRATS who were more authoritarian.
I do agree about a couple things. If the Left pushes it too far and it comes to civil war, the Left is going to lose. The Right has far more guns and ammo and far more of the military comes from red areas - and make no mistake they will back their friends and family before they back the government if it comes to an actual civil war. That has happened in numerous countries and happened in the US last time.
Franco did a lot of good for Spain. El Caudillo was the savior of Spain. Though his reprisals against the Commies were indeed harsh, payback's a bitch. The Commies did it first and earned the payback they got. Franco left Spain in a much stronger position than he found it. The same is true of Pinochet in Chile - and he had a really cool helicopter program too.
Oh Noah. Fascism...tired old trope. By all means keep calling people who love America, and want to see a restoration to our Republican ideals, fascists. Keep digging that hole.
The Dems and Left have used all the "core institutions of American democracy" to arrest, incarcerate and silence conservatives since Obama was elected in 2008. So to what "core institutions of American democracy" is he referring?
Trump won despite all the attempts to incarcerate him and other MAGA leading lights and the propaganda of the Dem media, which would put Der Sturmer to shame. We haven't had "free press" in decades and a "free republic" since Obama was elected.
The fact of the matter is that the Left, broadly conceived, cannot be allowed to regain national control, not now, not ever. Otherwise the dark night of fascism in blackface will finally descend on America.
Bkmk
Irony is every white dim/lib in the party will be first ones lined up against the wall at the end of the great reset... They are so stupid.
I remember Rush years ago talking about the purpose of open borders was to transform America by importing waves of third world types and transplanting them into conservative areas and quickly making them citizens who would reliably vote Democrat. California is a prime example of this strategy. Trump will go down in history as restoring our Republic.
Who arrested a man for the crime of surfing? Who arrested families for the crime of celebrating in their homes? Who arrested Christians for the crime of gathering? Who insisted that the hospitalized die alone, then forbade their families from holding funerals?
There is precedent for that throughout history.
:: the Left, broadly conceived, cannot be allowed to regain national control, not now, not ever ::
I think we speak the same thoughts, only from a different angle.
Live American
I've always tried to understand the logic and motivations of my political opponents, and this sentiment (I wouldn't call it logic) is asserted regularly on the left now, and no one on the left seems to feel the need to explain in concrete terms just exactly what they mean by "the core institutions of American democracy".
What they seem most exercised over is that the executive is asserting its authority over the New Deal "Independent" agencies, and seeking to reduce or eliminate both their autonomy and, when possible, open the door to their dissolution. This, of course, threatens the gravy train of grants, funding, jobs, no-show or limited effort sinecures and non-profit board seats etc., while at the same time diminishing the power of the Party of Government. A lot of people on the right, myself included, had not fully appreciated the extent to which funds were flowing through the state, to the constituents of the left, but that alone fully explains why Trump and MAGA are anathema to them.
But that doesn't really affect the masses, and the left has to focus on "the optics". At the present time, their best efforts are directed at generating images of Federal agents in riot gear arresting the most sympathetic of the illegal alien invaders, the occasional woman, or a cleaned-up "Maryland Man" Abrego Garcia. The narrative they're trying to spin is somewhat parallel to the objections on the right over Waco, Ruby Ridge, and the Bundy Ranch standoff, but there's a critcal difference that doesn't work in the left's favor. The right was objecting to aggressive expansions of state power, with the flimisiest of legal figleafs, while the current immigration enforcement efforts reside at the core of long-standing, even foundational exercise of legitimate state authority, all of which were specifically endorsed by the electorate less than a year ago at the polls. And which remain overwhelmingly popular with a majority of the electorate.
It's a hard sell beyond the dedicaded blue-haired Karens at the core of the Democrat electorate, even with the unending support of the legacy media and all of the other cultural institutions.
“MAGA is now the only game in town on the Right..... we can disagree agreeably.”
Some do not understand the above. MAGA is a coalition. We disagree with each other on some issues. Mostly it is the common enemy that unites us. RFK and Tulsi are in our coalition. Yet they have not changed their position on much since leaving the Democrat party. I wish Navarro were not in our coalition. Yet he is and that is what makes MAGA a coalition.
FR thread:
Data Doesn’t Lie: Political Violence Is An Overwhelmingly Left-Wing Problem
Full-length original article from The Federalist::
Data Doesn’t Lie: Political Violence Is An Overwhelmingly Left-Wing Problem
What they seem most exercised over is that the executive is asserting its authority over the New Deal “Independent” agencies, and seeking to reduce or eliminate both their autonomy and, when possible, open the door to their dissolution. This, of course, threatens the gravy train of grants, funding, jobs, no-show or limited effort sinecures and non-profit board seats etc., while at the same time diminishing the power of the Party of Government. A lot of people on the right, myself included, had not fully appreciated the extent to which funds were flowing through the state, to the constituents of the left, but that alone fully explains why Trump and MAGA are anathema to them.
That term, roughly translated, means - the institutions by which the Left have undermined the Constitution and exerted control over the American population.
Tell that drivel to Iryna Zarutska and the cabal that wants more of that. They aren’t dead or going peacefully into the night.
This was the kind of wall that the Democrats met in 1860 which caused them to start the Civil War. Now we will see if they start the Islamic War here in the USA to try and take power.
Ignore the fact that biden let 40 million criminal illegal aliens in to the country and would have happily let them subvert our democracy by voting.....
No mater how much makeup you put on that pig it's still a pig....
The left is also very exercised by the loss of direct government funds due to the fact that so many of their usual methods of getting funding have been drying up. The left has their fingers in a lot of pies, but people have been noticing and not sending funding their way. One of the big things Trump and his appointees have done is slow the flow of funds to groups whose names sound good, but have little positive to show for the funding they receive. Think about how much the Feds and other sent to refugee resettlement charities, and then what the money was actually used for.
Remember a large chunk of modestly left wing consider working for a for profit company to be wrong, so they will only work for either a non-profit or the government. Then once they have ensconced themselves in a charity or other nonprofit they will direct funding to another more extreme group and claim it is part of their “good works”. The increasing availability of records to the average donor has shrunken this stream of funds.
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