By the time that the truth has had a chance to put its boots on, the lie has been halfway around the world. Or, by the time that the peasants wisen up to the latest scheme, it is too late to do anything because the damage has been done. Supposing that there was anything that could have been done in the first place, that is.
Maybe there isn’t and there wasn’t and there never has been.
Maybe we simply suffer what we must, as we always have.
Anyways, what I am saying here is that it simply takes too damn long to get the truth across to anybody. Too much energy and too much sweat to explain even the simplest concept to them. And not enough time. Never enough time.
Example: For months after Trump had sold his own supporters down the river and bailed out to Florida, there were still diehard plan trusters. Even while the orange man was still in office, a debate had already arisen within the larger Populist Right. Did the man build The Wall or didn’t he? It should have been an easy question to answer: either there was a structure there along the border or there wasn’t. And yet, it proved simply impossible to prove to Trump supporters that the wall wasn’t there.
Naturally, those who said that the Wall wasn’t built were accused of being DNC shills sent in to disrupt MAGA unity. Then, those who proposed flying a drone were ridiculed because it was a secure zone and a threat to national security. So no drones allowed. As for driving down there, well, I stopped paying attention to the “debate” long before they hashed that one out.
It was only after Biden was in office that it became acceptable to complain about the open border again on the Right. All of a sudden the wall was nowhere to be found. Promises made, promises kept. But no Wall after all.
Perhaps if the peasants were able to figure out that no Wall had been built, perhaps it might have been. Or perhaps not. Me, personally, I have moved beyond any misplaced hope in representative political systems. There is no utopia society at the end of the rainbow in my mind where the elites enact the will of the people after a well-reasoned and democratic debate or whatever. The best we can hope for is that we, the peasants, get left alone.
But if you believe in peasant power, then an impartial and high-quality media is necessary to give the people the facts that they need to make informed decisions. People need to know if there is a Wall or not to be able to do something to either get it built or get it torn down.
Such a thing, however, if it ever existed, does not exist now.
As a result, we only have media that supports one faction of the oligarchy over another and which often crosses the aisle in a touching display of bipartisan unity. In other words, all we have are agendas being pushed on the people. Sadly, the peasants have demonstrated time and again that they do not possess any discernment skills whatsoever. They can, however, cheer for “their” team, and that is what discourse has come to resemble now: two sides of the bleachers heckling each other in between plays and penalties.
The peasants got fooled about the Wall, about the China Virus, and then about the Great Jeet-Kun-Do Winter Offensive, most recently. Worse, they then went and got mad at the people who did their best to lift the wool being pulled over their eyes. This is because truth doesn’t really matter to most people, only team spirit.
With every single little talking point though, a new division is created amongst the peasantry. Trump, or, rather, the Liberal media’s hysterical coverage of the Orange Man literally broke families apart. The same occurred with the COVID hysteria. The endless slew of hoaxes surrounding Ukraine have driven families apart in the Slavlands as well. Everywhere you look, global warming, veganism, tattoos on women - all social agendas designed to drive wedges between people by getting them to pick sides and set themselves against others.
In our society, you can pick skins or shirts, but you cannot point out that the emperor has no clothes.
I see a vaxxed up, meat-hating, doodle-covered Millennial and I already know that this person will do their best to destroy my life, or at least be rude to me at the coffeeshop, and so I keep my guard up or I just stay the hell away. The people who go along with the various hoaxes are indeed victims because they have fallen for the propaganda of the enemy, often at a cost to their own well-being. I pity them somewhat, but that doesn’t mean that I’m going to turn the other cheek any time soon. No, unfortunately, they are the enemy too now. It may be that the elites engineering everything from behind the scenes are to blame, but it is their foot-soldiers that we have to contend with in our daily lives.
Sure, maybe the African-Americans got tricked by the system into beating up defenseless and sick old White people at nursing homes. But the fact is that they’re out there now, beating up grannies, robbing people, making that annoying teeth-sucking sound and engaging in other anti-social behavior. The only option is to deal with the threat that they pose, or to get the hell away.
But that’s not politics, really.
That’s just the peasants doing their best to make it through the day. The politics that interest me is the kind that actively works to combat the various hoax agendas and dismantle the power structures of the elites that promulgate them.
But, alas, there is no anti-hoax party anywhere to speak of.
It is the same with Ukraine, actually. I do somewhat pity those who were fooled into doing Washington’s dirty work willingly. Many more will die and lose family and their health and generally become poorer as a result of this poor decision before the dust settles. That being said, I have more compassion for the people who didn’t fall for the hoax and who didn’t want war with Russia, but who got taken along for the ride because of nefarious elites and their retarded neighbors going along with the agenda. Perhaps you feel the same about pro and anti-vaxxers. I know I do.
I guess the final point that I’m driving at here is that, again, the peasants ought to be left alone. It is cruel to keep enlisting them in various agendas as foot-soldiers because everyone suffers as a result. Them, their neighbors, and whoever the agenda is targeting. And, because the peasants simply cannot discern for themselves who is lying and why, and too dumb to think for themselves, they really have no business being involved in politics whatsoever. Most, if they are honest, don’t really even take an interest in it anyways. But they do take an interest in morality soap operas. That is why political debate has become one big melodrama. Everything is framed in terms of morality and then the peasants dutifully take sides, pick teams, rally behind their mascots and so on. It is their moral duty to do so after all. They’re not bad people, are they? Only bad people don’t care about the plight of … whoever/whatever.
I will have quite a bit more to say on morality soon, by the way.
But, basically, the ideal political system is one that doesn’t constantly try to hoax the peasants into doing something stupid all the time. There will still be politics and struggle, sure, but the peasants won’t don jerseys and fight each other on the street after the game.
Mass political participation in politics has been tried out and it has been found out to be an atrocity. And while I’m not preaching the kingdom of heaven come, I would be remiss to not point out that most kings, historically, pursued a policy of leaving the peasants more or less alone. And that is literally the best kind of politics that any of us can hope for.
But the cat is out of the bag, I suppose. The war of all against all is upon us whether we like it or not. The enemy has its foot-soldiers and they have to be fought and resisted.
Some do figure the larger con out, eventually.
But by then it is too late. Always too late.
I also shared your frustration when talking to the Trump cultists. I was a huge fan in 2016, donated, bet on him, max supported and was as fervent a fan as possible. I was even hugely forgiving in the first couple years until the grift and his (((advisors))) became so utterly ridiculous i couldn't hide it anymore. Yet it was impossible to even slightly convince my Trump friends this was a con.
The only consolation is that on a personal level, even to this day, Trump fans are still vastly preferable people to hang out with vice liberals.
There is no winning over ardent partisan normies but I find I can nudge people towards sanity and I think that is useful.
This only works on people who basically get that the government and media are liars and see through more than one hoax.
There are plenty of middle of the road normies who allow themselves to get that one narrative is a hoax. This allows them to proudly think they are an independent thinker but it is just a cope. They are ardent believers in all the other hoaxes and do not want to be seen as a bad person by the establishment left.
A much smaller number see through two hoaxes. They default to first believing in the new thing but can be made to see it as just another hoax. Over time they are able to see more clearly what is going on. Some will even grapple with the Torah Question but cannot comfortably embrace it.