Could it be better for freedom if things in America got even worse? More economic hardship, increased crime, further humiliations of America at the hands of seventh century savages – you know, business usual under President Gumby. Should we patriots try to save these idiots from themselves and give them an out, or let the natural consequences of their failures build into a critical mass that brings on a backlash that brings us the power we need to destroy all their Marxy dreams? Perhaps we should root for our garbage ruling class to hit bottom and start digging. Actually, digging deeper – these incompetent corruptocrats are already tossing shovelfuls of dirt out of the hole.
It's a cynical strategy, but this is a cynical time. There is a school of thought that says that the way to win the kind of macro-societal conflict we are in is to allow the enemy to crash and burn, to so thoroughly fail to perform adequately by any metric that they will discredit themselves for a generation – but only for a generation, since as long as there are stupid college students and stupider academics, there will be communists. This is like a conservative version of the Cloward-Piven strategy, where the left would burden the welfare state so heavily with deadbeats, bums, and shiftless losers that the only possible response would be a massive expansion of the welfare state ending, they hope, in full socialism. We win by letting them lose and lose and lose, despite the pain we’ll feel while they do it, until they are utterly spent. If it works, okay, but if it doesn’t, would we even have an America to save?
In today’s scenario, if it all worked out, we conservatives would let the Democrats screw up so badly that people would demand actual freedom and capitalism as the cure. And it’s not a totally wacky idea. We have had monumental backlashes before. In 1980, which I remember because I am old (but not President Crusty O’Kiddieshowers old), Jimmy Carter screwed up so deeply and comprehensively that even when the American people finally picked a Democrat again 12 years later in a three-way race with a Republican liar who asked them to read his lips and a populist spoiler-elf named Ross Perot, the Democrat talked about law and order and how the Era of Big Government was over. Of course, he did not mean it; his wife was not the only one in that relationship faking it.
Recommended
So, the idea is that, like a drunk waking up in a different state wearing someone else’s pants and a strange wedding ring and sporting a fresh tramp-stamp of Ernest Borgnine riding a surfboard while wearing a thong, the ruling class and enough people are going to come to, look around, and think, “Gee, time to get into a national twelve-step.” But the strategy of letting them wreck the country until the voters come crawling back to beg us to come back into power has several problems, and like many problems these derive from uncertain premises.
One such uncertain premise is that there is a bottom for the left. But why would you think that? To have a bottom – a state of despair so complete that there really is no alternative but to change direction – you have to have certain objectives. In the case of the ruling caste, the objective has to be, at some level, to provide security and prosperity for the citizens. But what evidence have you seen that this is the establishment’s objective? What makes you think that is a motivating factor at all? Our trash alleged betters are very interested in their own power and position, but not so much in your safety or prosperity. Take California – please. It’s 2022 and the pinko Dems running the place can’t even keep the power on, much less keep hobos from defecating on our lawns. If the Dems cared about us, they would look at the darkness and the squatting derelicts and think, “Well, this is not working. Time to try something that’s not stupid.” But they will never do that. They don’t care about us. We’re not the point. That’s why there is no bottom. It can get a million times worse and they will be happy as long as they are in charge.
It's the backlash that changes thing, that forces change on a sclerotic elite, not a course correction initiated by the same captains who steered us into the iceberg in the first place.
But another uncertain premise is that there will even be a backlash. Human nature would seem to dictate that people will only take so much guff for so long, but we Americans have taken a lot of guff – lockdowns, that senile idiot hectoring us, the stupid new Tolkien elf opera – and have still not gone full French Revolution on their asses. That’s does not build confidence. But then again, Virginians did vote red last year, terrifying mommy terrorists of terror did mob school boards, and Latinx Americans have said “Adios, pendejos Democraticos” in massive numbers. The November election looks good, but it’s all very genteel. So far, the backlash is more about going back than lashing, but if they keep up with nonsense like their pro-groomer agenda all bets are off.
Now, some on the left on social media, and bow-tied Conservative, Inc. sissies observing from their shame closets on pool cleaning day, will argue that this means we want things to get worse. What we want is not the issue. As of this moment, we have distinctly little ability to affect whether or not things get worse. But come November, we will have the chance.
Do Republicans, assuming they don’t screw up what should be a sure thing election – never doubt the GOP’s capacity to fail – bail Grandpa Badfinger and his party of perverts and deadbeats out by taking the political heat for stopping them? Because there will be heat – the Republicans will be tossing granny off a cliff and putting folks back in chains by cutting budgets and holding up the climate scam and stopping debt giveaways for people who got their degrees in Pronoun Studies and the like.
As tempting as it would be to just stand by and let the Dems ruin everything in the hopes that will help us save it, you don’t win by losing. We need to stop them where we can – California, you idiots, you made your waterbed and now you gotta lie in it – even though doing that is doing them a favor by saving them – and America – from themselves.
Conservatives Must Fight Back Against the Radical Left. Join Townhall VIP, Support Our Reporting, And Check Out Last Week's Stream of Kurtiousness, I Admire Queen Elizabeth II, and my podcast, Unredacted.
Get my just released non-fiction book We’ll Be Back: The Fall and Rise of America, but don’t forget my Kelly Turnbull series of conservative action novels set in America after a notional national divorce. The latest is The Split, but get all these action-packed bestsellers, including People's Republic, Indian Country, Wildfire, Collapse, and Crisis! Plus, keep up the fight by joining Townhall VIP, including an extra Wednesday column, my weekly Stream of Kurtiousness video, and the Unredacted podcast!
Join the conversation as a VIP Member