The working and middle class MAGA base expect material and cultural policies beneficial to their interests. This means a turn towards economic populism and less foreign military interventionism. It means restrictive immigration policies not ‘let em all come as long as they’re legal and ‘high I.Q.’
The geopolitics of the split appears simple enough. Silicon Valley want the US integrated into global markets while the MAGA base expect a carve-out for American labour. Debates about the USA as an economic zone are downstream from this.
If America wishes to claw back technical/industrial supremacy, it either creams off STEM talent on a global scale or it overturns the legacy of the Civil Rights act, including DEI and using education as an instr7ment if social/racial engineering. The latter is a vastly more ambitious project than anything that Trump has hinted at so far.
Long term the anti-H1B feeling may indicate the formation of a radically disaffected strata of college educated whites locked into permanent rivalry with South Asian peers. This dynamic may yet drive the longer term future of US politics. Trump is almost certainly going to sell-out on legal migration. Vance will be the one to watch.
How can someone who begs Germany to vote for AfD and "save the German people" in an official op-ed turn around and argue that Americans should import random people from all over the world as long as they pass some meritocratic test? I suppose if you really tried to thread this needle, if you really tried to find a lawyerly way out of this conundrum, you could say that in the case of Europe it's low-skilled migrants that he doesn't want, while in the case of the US it's high-skilled ones that he does want. But it doesn't pass the smell test. Whether it's Meloni in Italy, or the German AfD, he constantly flirts with white demographic nationalism, he really does give that impression, and then he suddenly changes colors and says the exact opposite and stabs the US MAGA in the back. One last point. People always betray Trump and turn on him -- very few people from his first term are still behind him. This pattern will likely continue and I wouldn't be surprised if these are some of the new bridges that get burned.
Its a class war in both parties. Working class republicans saw Trump as a "class traitor", and in some ways he still is but the H1B issue gave them a glimpse of him and Elon they werent expecting. MAGA is the working class, especially the majority of working class men in America. Democrats will need to run on doing away with H1B like what Bernie is currently doing if they ever want to win back the working class men required to win an election.
Yes I have a long note here recently on the left hopefully finally bailing on the disaster of woke, and regaining it's place as honorable gadflies who advocate for working people and the environment and against wars. Real leftists like this shouldn't be given power, as they aren't practical people, but they do provide a needed critique and a check on tech bros, neo-cons and other power and wealth hungry people with no scruples.
The American people will decide who will be given power. If republicans in America mess it up and create policies that dont benefit us, they will be removed.
I think the e/acc guys felt like they had their own powerful new brand - but only after semi-riding the coat tails of core MAGA in the first place.
To me this looks like the new brand of "philosopher king advocates" versus the e/acc faction of "rockets will solve eveything."
Rockets are exciting as a symbol of other real manufactured stuff to come - but won't solve anything themselves really. What America and the world needs is the exact kind of ordinary industrial manufacturing that Germany and Italy specialized in before the EU took away all their nuclear power. Obsessing over China, drone tech, etc is weird and won't lead any quality of life improvements anywhere.
Plus we need to end the Fed - everything changes when SV gets their cheap "customer acquisition" marketing money taken away. That and adverting is completely broken.
I lean more toward core MAGA. The nation State must survive.
Musk has grand inspiring ideas for his own business and his projection of his own image. He has no such vision for society.
In the Trump coalition he is a moderating force, he advocates on behalf of big tech to inject some ancapistan into the new America in hopes of keeping their heads above water in the coming economic bloodbath. He will fail
We need to get rid of assholes like the EHC and libertarian crowd as they are cultural and economic enemies. There is no middle ground with them. They are neoliberals in all but name except they are anti-woke and somewhat ‘race-realist.’ So what! Their economic and foreign policy views differ very little from our current ruling elites. They’re aspirational elitists who would continue similar policies while reducing woke lunacy somewhat. Poison is still poison regardless of the gloss and packaging.
In a former job I had to work with the India office quite a bit. While the Indian staff with whom I worked were not terrible, they weren't exactly the sharpest knives either. Let's just say that the existence of the India office was clearly motivated more by labor cost considerations than by any supposed intellectual superiority. Resident Indians in the US were a slightly different matter, but again I wouldn't say they were any smarter, as a group, than their white counterparts -- just about the same.
It has been said on other substacks (John Carter and El Gato Malo to name a couple) that the real problem with legal immigration is culture: we cannot accommodate extremely large numbers of immigrants whose culture is fundamentally different from ours. To do so would radically change our own culture and thereby destroy the very thing that made the West successful, namely a high-trust culture that values innovation and individual freedom. Without these, America will just turn into another dysfunctional hell-hole driven by nepotism and predation.
I've come to the realization (in part due to others' recent writings) that Christianity is fundamentally the thing that has made the West different from other places. Whatever you have to say about the literal/factual truth of Christian mythology, it clearly resulted in a civilization that values the Golden Rule and attempts to live by it, however imperfectly. (No, I'm not saying that the West is now or ever was historically a blissful utopia of entirely noble and fair-dealing saints, merely that its cultural aspirations resulted in a civilization that was a little bit closer to that ideal than other cultures who lack even the aspirations. I'll also give a nod to Judaism as having somewhat helped set the stage.)
One needs to distinguish between modern Talmudic Judaism and the ancient form. Even the ancient form had its problems, but you can see the evolution from the Pentateuch to later parts of the Old Testament, leading away from the raw tribalism up to the ideas embodied by Christianity. Modern Judaism seems to represent a retreat to the more atavistic form (but I realize it's very complex and I'm no Theologian).
That's a good comment but I'd say there's more to it than Christianity, such as genetics. Maybe the West became high-trust because they, meaning minor players, were able to hold their elites accountable, unlike the rest of the world. Religion was irrelevant. They are just less docile by nature, say, like a breed of dog that is more self-reliant, more erect, more self-aware, than other breeds. Or, at least, a sizable proportion of people of European heritage are simply born with these qualities to a greater or lesser extent.
Let MAGA implode. You Robert have the right idea with enclaves, different cultural and political groups are never going to agree on anything, so let's have a wide range of communities where people can live amongst like minded people. Yes many likely will be along racial lines, so?
Articulately written and insightful! I would point out that the Jacksonian revolution, orchestrated through the then newly formed Democratic Party, provides a compelling historical counterexample to the common held wisdom that grassroots movements inevitably fail without elite support (unless one applies a more expansive definition of the word "elite"). Quite different than Trump’s rise, which mostly -- to be fair, not entirely -- just reshuffled the donor elite, Jackson’s and the Democrats revolution successfully dismantled entrenched financial power structures, including the Second Bank of the United States, through a genuinely diverse and decentralized coalition. This coalition included farmers, artisans, scientists, engineers, smaller merchants, and other ordinary citizens who shared a common opposition to monopolistic and centralized control. Their efforts were not reliant on elite sponsorship but on widespread participation across socioeconomic lines, demonstrating that sometimes with a shared vision, decentralized structures, and responsive leadership, grassroots populist movements can effectively challenge and defeat moneyed interests. And there are a great many other examples from various places within the USA during the so called -- they were given these titles long after their fact and most participating groups didnt call themselves this -- Populist and Progressives Eras
Trump needs to kick Vivek out of his cabinet, or at least demote him. Ideally replacing him with Bernie. And put Musk on warning (which it looks like he has already done, based on Musk backing down).
I would suggest that white (men) really don't have a sustainable culture anymore. At least Western European ones. In fact, it's suicidal. So, it's bound to do suicidal things, and this has been going on for a long time.
Whereas, blacks, Indians, Chinese, and feminists do have a strong culture (or identity) and are able to exploit the weakness of white men.
Whites, at least western white men, are so alienated from their culture that they have trouble determining what sex they are.
Maybe more pertinent in this case is job market competition. Indians, and others, will work for less wages than the prevailing western norm. A lot less considering that labor cost in the west is 10 to 15 times higher than other parts of the world. As higher level technical eduction grows in places like India and internet connection allows more west/east contact the competition has escalated over the past 20 years or so.
I don't think it's true that White Men don't have a sustainable culture anymore. We've seen it with Urban Renewal, or with the Back to the Land movement, along with the revolt against the suburbs. Keep in mind that most of the Urbanist YouTubers are Straight White Men, albeit many of them Leftist/Left-adjacent.
Many non-black folks and women who are the loudest in doing so grew up in the burbs, not in the city. A lot of White Men are traitors themselves, Democrat, Republican, or otherwise.
I feel it's just as bad on The Right as it is on The Left, if not even more. You can thank Accelerationists for that. So many people on both sides spewing about that and advocating either "Do Nothing" or "Do Terrorism".
We should have never given the Third World any foreign aid nor even outsourced any manufacturing. To add on education, we absolutely do need to reform it, make schooling much shorter (which was the case til 100ish years ago) and/or have the State get more involved in raising children (for example, giving children the option to live at school). I can get more into policy solutions, but that's not the point for now.
Thanks for your thoughtful comment. I'm not sure what you mean about urban renewal or back to the land movement, or the Youtube Urbanist people. I hope they succeed as normal white men who are able to look out for their own interests but until the sex and race quotas and forced integration stop I don't know how.
I can't imagine how the state will specifically look out for the interests of white boys in any area, let alone education.
Of course! Urban renewal as in desprawling society and making America walkable again. The "Back to the Land" movement is obviously "in the woods" or living rurally/off-grid.
Heard of CityNerd or Not Just Bikes? They're great at encouraging Urbanism, and I know Josh Lekach advocates it too (from a Right-Wing View!).
Obviously, we do have to take control at the local and state level, and I think realistically we need to popularize secession/separatism. That way, we can eventually reconquer the lost lands.
Ancient Sparta did that, and I know Richard Henry Pratt tried to integrate the Indians. I am strongly against ceding any inch to the enemy, but sometimes, you have to compromise.
The working and middle class MAGA base expect material and cultural policies beneficial to their interests. This means a turn towards economic populism and less foreign military interventionism. It means restrictive immigration policies not ‘let em all come as long as they’re legal and ‘high I.Q.’
The geopolitics of the split appears simple enough. Silicon Valley want the US integrated into global markets while the MAGA base expect a carve-out for American labour. Debates about the USA as an economic zone are downstream from this.
If America wishes to claw back technical/industrial supremacy, it either creams off STEM talent on a global scale or it overturns the legacy of the Civil Rights act, including DEI and using education as an instr7ment if social/racial engineering. The latter is a vastly more ambitious project than anything that Trump has hinted at so far.
Long term the anti-H1B feeling may indicate the formation of a radically disaffected strata of college educated whites locked into permanent rivalry with South Asian peers. This dynamic may yet drive the longer term future of US politics. Trump is almost certainly going to sell-out on legal migration. Vance will be the one to watch.
How can someone who begs Germany to vote for AfD and "save the German people" in an official op-ed turn around and argue that Americans should import random people from all over the world as long as they pass some meritocratic test? I suppose if you really tried to thread this needle, if you really tried to find a lawyerly way out of this conundrum, you could say that in the case of Europe it's low-skilled migrants that he doesn't want, while in the case of the US it's high-skilled ones that he does want. But it doesn't pass the smell test. Whether it's Meloni in Italy, or the German AfD, he constantly flirts with white demographic nationalism, he really does give that impression, and then he suddenly changes colors and says the exact opposite and stabs the US MAGA in the back. One last point. People always betray Trump and turn on him -- very few people from his first term are still behind him. This pattern will likely continue and I wouldn't be surprised if these are some of the new bridges that get burned.
Its a class war in both parties. Working class republicans saw Trump as a "class traitor", and in some ways he still is but the H1B issue gave them a glimpse of him and Elon they werent expecting. MAGA is the working class, especially the majority of working class men in America. Democrats will need to run on doing away with H1B like what Bernie is currently doing if they ever want to win back the working class men required to win an election.
Yes I have a long note here recently on the left hopefully finally bailing on the disaster of woke, and regaining it's place as honorable gadflies who advocate for working people and the environment and against wars. Real leftists like this shouldn't be given power, as they aren't practical people, but they do provide a needed critique and a check on tech bros, neo-cons and other power and wealth hungry people with no scruples.
The American people will decide who will be given power. If republicans in America mess it up and create policies that dont benefit us, they will be removed.
I think the e/acc guys felt like they had their own powerful new brand - but only after semi-riding the coat tails of core MAGA in the first place.
To me this looks like the new brand of "philosopher king advocates" versus the e/acc faction of "rockets will solve eveything."
Rockets are exciting as a symbol of other real manufactured stuff to come - but won't solve anything themselves really. What America and the world needs is the exact kind of ordinary industrial manufacturing that Germany and Italy specialized in before the EU took away all their nuclear power. Obsessing over China, drone tech, etc is weird and won't lead any quality of life improvements anywhere.
Plus we need to end the Fed - everything changes when SV gets their cheap "customer acquisition" marketing money taken away. That and adverting is completely broken.
I lean more toward core MAGA. The nation State must survive.
Musk has grand inspiring ideas for his own business and his projection of his own image. He has no such vision for society.
In the Trump coalition he is a moderating force, he advocates on behalf of big tech to inject some ancapistan into the new America in hopes of keeping their heads above water in the coming economic bloodbath. He will fail
An-capistan, the only social configuration worse than woke race communism.
We need to get rid of assholes like the EHC and libertarian crowd as they are cultural and economic enemies. There is no middle ground with them. They are neoliberals in all but name except they are anti-woke and somewhat ‘race-realist.’ So what! Their economic and foreign policy views differ very little from our current ruling elites. They’re aspirational elitists who would continue similar policies while reducing woke lunacy somewhat. Poison is still poison regardless of the gloss and packaging.
Yes.
In a former job I had to work with the India office quite a bit. While the Indian staff with whom I worked were not terrible, they weren't exactly the sharpest knives either. Let's just say that the existence of the India office was clearly motivated more by labor cost considerations than by any supposed intellectual superiority. Resident Indians in the US were a slightly different matter, but again I wouldn't say they were any smarter, as a group, than their white counterparts -- just about the same.
It has been said on other substacks (John Carter and El Gato Malo to name a couple) that the real problem with legal immigration is culture: we cannot accommodate extremely large numbers of immigrants whose culture is fundamentally different from ours. To do so would radically change our own culture and thereby destroy the very thing that made the West successful, namely a high-trust culture that values innovation and individual freedom. Without these, America will just turn into another dysfunctional hell-hole driven by nepotism and predation.
I've come to the realization (in part due to others' recent writings) that Christianity is fundamentally the thing that has made the West different from other places. Whatever you have to say about the literal/factual truth of Christian mythology, it clearly resulted in a civilization that values the Golden Rule and attempts to live by it, however imperfectly. (No, I'm not saying that the West is now or ever was historically a blissful utopia of entirely noble and fair-dealing saints, merely that its cultural aspirations resulted in a civilization that was a little bit closer to that ideal than other cultures who lack even the aspirations. I'll also give a nod to Judaism as having somewhat helped set the stage.)
Agree except the last sentence. Jews have never been the friends of anyone but other Jews.
One needs to distinguish between modern Talmudic Judaism and the ancient form. Even the ancient form had its problems, but you can see the evolution from the Pentateuch to later parts of the Old Testament, leading away from the raw tribalism up to the ideas embodied by Christianity. Modern Judaism seems to represent a retreat to the more atavistic form (but I realize it's very complex and I'm no Theologian).
That's a good comment but I'd say there's more to it than Christianity, such as genetics. Maybe the West became high-trust because they, meaning minor players, were able to hold their elites accountable, unlike the rest of the world. Religion was irrelevant. They are just less docile by nature, say, like a breed of dog that is more self-reliant, more erect, more self-aware, than other breeds. Or, at least, a sizable proportion of people of European heritage are simply born with these qualities to a greater or lesser extent.
Let MAGA implode. You Robert have the right idea with enclaves, different cultural and political groups are never going to agree on anything, so let's have a wide range of communities where people can live amongst like minded people. Yes many likely will be along racial lines, so?
Articulately written and insightful! I would point out that the Jacksonian revolution, orchestrated through the then newly formed Democratic Party, provides a compelling historical counterexample to the common held wisdom that grassroots movements inevitably fail without elite support (unless one applies a more expansive definition of the word "elite"). Quite different than Trump’s rise, which mostly -- to be fair, not entirely -- just reshuffled the donor elite, Jackson’s and the Democrats revolution successfully dismantled entrenched financial power structures, including the Second Bank of the United States, through a genuinely diverse and decentralized coalition. This coalition included farmers, artisans, scientists, engineers, smaller merchants, and other ordinary citizens who shared a common opposition to monopolistic and centralized control. Their efforts were not reliant on elite sponsorship but on widespread participation across socioeconomic lines, demonstrating that sometimes with a shared vision, decentralized structures, and responsive leadership, grassroots populist movements can effectively challenge and defeat moneyed interests. And there are a great many other examples from various places within the USA during the so called -- they were given these titles long after their fact and most participating groups didnt call themselves this -- Populist and Progressives Eras
This is not anything like an even split in MAGA. It’s the 99% against the 1%, the core base against the bandwagon-jumpers.
Of course the 1% always have money on their side.
Trump needs to kick Vivek out of his cabinet, or at least demote him. Ideally replacing him with Bernie. And put Musk on warning (which it looks like he has already done, based on Musk backing down).
Tip: Never appoint anyone who has ever had citizenship in another country, no exception.
Hey Robert what is your thoughts on darkmatters ideal society video? I think it could harmonize with pan enclavism
https://youtu.be/zMYRRpDHEOc?si=ANqrdA79dpEfCv26
I would suggest that white (men) really don't have a sustainable culture anymore. At least Western European ones. In fact, it's suicidal. So, it's bound to do suicidal things, and this has been going on for a long time.
Whereas, blacks, Indians, Chinese, and feminists do have a strong culture (or identity) and are able to exploit the weakness of white men.
Whites, at least western white men, are so alienated from their culture that they have trouble determining what sex they are.
Maybe more pertinent in this case is job market competition. Indians, and others, will work for less wages than the prevailing western norm. A lot less considering that labor cost in the west is 10 to 15 times higher than other parts of the world. As higher level technical eduction grows in places like India and internet connection allows more west/east contact the competition has escalated over the past 20 years or so.
I don't think it's true that White Men don't have a sustainable culture anymore. We've seen it with Urban Renewal, or with the Back to the Land movement, along with the revolt against the suburbs. Keep in mind that most of the Urbanist YouTubers are Straight White Men, albeit many of them Leftist/Left-adjacent.
Many non-black folks and women who are the loudest in doing so grew up in the burbs, not in the city. A lot of White Men are traitors themselves, Democrat, Republican, or otherwise.
I feel it's just as bad on The Right as it is on The Left, if not even more. You can thank Accelerationists for that. So many people on both sides spewing about that and advocating either "Do Nothing" or "Do Terrorism".
We should have never given the Third World any foreign aid nor even outsourced any manufacturing. To add on education, we absolutely do need to reform it, make schooling much shorter (which was the case til 100ish years ago) and/or have the State get more involved in raising children (for example, giving children the option to live at school). I can get more into policy solutions, but that's not the point for now.
Thanks for your thoughtful comment. I'm not sure what you mean about urban renewal or back to the land movement, or the Youtube Urbanist people. I hope they succeed as normal white men who are able to look out for their own interests but until the sex and race quotas and forced integration stop I don't know how.
I can't imagine how the state will specifically look out for the interests of white boys in any area, let alone education.
Of course! Urban renewal as in desprawling society and making America walkable again. The "Back to the Land" movement is obviously "in the woods" or living rurally/off-grid.
Heard of CityNerd or Not Just Bikes? They're great at encouraging Urbanism, and I know Josh Lekach advocates it too (from a Right-Wing View!).
Obviously, we do have to take control at the local and state level, and I think realistically we need to popularize secession/separatism. That way, we can eventually reconquer the lost lands.
Ancient Sparta did that, and I know Richard Henry Pratt tried to integrate the Indians. I am strongly against ceding any inch to the enemy, but sometimes, you have to compromise.